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Rise to Power


Batman76

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A one shot from me, based off an idea of a historical mention made by >_<, 0_0 in their Thin College story.

 

...

I had first met Theodora...well, that is hard to say.

I do not remember the date and I am old now, but I will never forget the first sight of her legs or where I saw them.

I could not have been older than eighteen or nineteen, my first trip within the great marble pillars and domes of the grand capital Constantinople and she must have been close to that age, if not younger. After a few battles leading levee troops against barbarians on the border I had just received an officers commission within the Imperial Body Guard Cavalry, for a Thracian hick that made me a big man but here amid the splendor of the greatest city in the world it made me feel rather rustic and overwhelmed. Especially as despite my cleverness and sword craft I was a shy young man, from a small town where the sight of a girl's ankle as she knelt at church was something to think of for months.

So the sight of Theodora on a stage, gyrating on a pole only by the strength of her magnificent thighs was almost too much for me. Her skin was like warm honey, an amber softness that begged to be licked. Those thighs went on for ever, stronger than the best blade and her calves were a type of perfection I didn't know existed. The tiniest skirt of copper wire and golden coins covered her sex, leaving the lower half of her backside hanging free and perfect in the air. Her waist seemed tiny enough to put my hands around, studded with muscles like the statues of old and above them were the most perfect breasts I had ever seen, small and firm and begging to be touched. Her dance was passionate and wild and free, the gyrations and spins so perfect that for a moment I thought her a fae or a spirit, perahps one of the old Maenaeds of ancient myth that roamed the hills engaging in orgies of dance and carnality.

Her face was just as glorious: small and heart shaped beneath thick, crimson curls. Dark, knowing eyes gazed across the room, freezing me in my cavalry boots at a glance. In front of her were a crowd of men, and no few women, baying and panting for her like dogs after a bitch in heat. She looked onto them with passion and with disdain, knowing that she held their souls in the very palm of her hand, judging everyone in the room and finding them wanting.

If Priests had a gaze like that then no one would ever go to Hell and if our Generals had eyes like that then Rome would still rule from the frigid seas of Britain to the very border of Serica I would wager.

"Come on Bel," Justinian had told me, dragging me by a shoulder, "we haven't got all day. The head of the Blues won't meet themselves."

Justinian was a friend, a "good" friend. Although I hesitate to say why that was. He was handsome, vain, intelligent and cultured for all that he'd been born a pig farmer's son and was second in command of the Imperial body guard despite being twenty five and having never drawn his sword, whether in anger or even in practice. Mostly because his Uncle, Analthus an actual talented soldier, commanded the body guard. But he was intensely ambitious and had a talent for drawing people into his orbit, people who would one day prove useful.

We were there to launch a coup.

Not a real coup, the way Justinian explained it to me. But the Emperor Theodore was dying and his nephew wasn't suited for the throne, so wouldn't it be better if Justinian's Uncle Analthus, a man also getting up there in years, was Emperor instead? Politics has always been beyond me, time proved I could read a war like no other but the complexities of political wrangling were always beyond me. I think I was there as muscle, 15 stone of Thracian hayseed to be the steel fist inside Justinian's velvet glove.

Justinian got the attention of a contact and we were led into a little back room to speak to the head of the Blues, away from the goddess dancing on stage. Christ save me but I swear she was a goddess, she never put a foot wrong in all that dance and if she'd asked me to worship her then my baptism would mean not. I cast a long, last look at her perfection, she was hanging on that pole by one leg, and joined my friend, who spoke quickly and forcibly to a big, heavy set ex-chariot racer about mobs and payments and protests.

The Blues, you see, were a faction of chariot racing fans, who opposed the Greens, another faction. Between them they controlled perhaps forty thousand 'armed' men, enough to make Constantinople ungovernable by even God almighty if they rioted. To me it was ridiculous, but the capitol's crowds loved racing more than they loved God, money or wine and if Justinian could get the support of the blues, keeping the dying Emperor's nephew out of the city until Justinian's uncle could be crowned. Things were growing well and I was sent for wine at the bar, pushing through the crowd using my bulk. I was disappointed that another, inferior dancer was on the stage and had just turned to go back when the voice of an angel stopped me.

"Is your friend trust worthy?" she asked, stopping my heart.

I lie. Her voice wasn't that of an angel. It was husky, slightly gravelly. But coming from her lips? Oh, it was divine.

"I...I'm sorry?" I asked, realizing it was her.

On stage she'd been a Goddess. In the crowd, her exquisite derrier, parked on a stool, she was merely the most beautiful woman I'd ever seen by ten or twelve measures. She was shorter than me by a foot and very slight, she had no fat on her at all. She'd taken off those long red curls, revealing close cropped brown hair and had thrown a cheap dress over her curves, covering herself to her hips in lose linen.

"You friend, Justinian. The ambitious little shit with the shifty eyes," she said slowly, "do you even speak Greek?"

"He keeps his word," I told her grumpily, in Thracian.

I needed to ask her to marry me. Then and there, falling to a knee and putting out poetry worthy of the Saints. Even though she was far too good for a lout like me, I couldn't live life not knowing I'd tried. But my big dumb Thracian tongue was in knots.

"Oh so he brings a barbarian to be his muscle," she responded, in Thracian so purely accented my mother would have wept to hear it, "but Thracians are at least too foolish to lie. Tell me then, how does he treat his horse?"

"...well I think, he rarely leaves the palace," I said.

"And his dick? Limp or hard? So big it hurts or so soft you can't feel it?" she asked, stealing one of the cups from my tray and drinking the entire thing in one go.

"That is...not a matter of discussion," I fumed, embarrassed.

"Well, at least he's probably straight," she said, burping like a street thug and putting the cup back on, "I'll speak to you later."

Perplexed, I returned to the little room where the head of the blues and Justinian were arguing. My friend was annoyed but the Blue's leader was insistent: to get his army of street toughs, he'd have to marry the daughter of the thug there in that very club, that very night. Justinian was quite annoyed, plans about a rich noble girl with a dowry five times her waist measurement were probably kicking through his head, but he'd never get that if he didn't get his mob. I pointed that out to him and he fixed me a horrible glare before finally acquiescing. The Blue's leader clapped his hands and a rather drunk priest was led into the room, as well as a veiled girl in white.

He glared the whole time at her, sure it would be a hideously ugly idiot of the street, but when the priest ended and the thick veil was raised, Theodora's perfect face looked back at him, quite smugly.

.....

The coup went well the next day.

Justinian was commander of the palace guard and Theodora one of the great ladies at court. I went from commanding a company to commanding an entire regiment of cavalry and saw them both frequently. Justinian was making plans and plans within them, while Theodora was...well, she was weaving a much more subtle web. For a woman who had gyrated naked on a pole she acted meek, shy and modest, eyes low whenever a man spoke and dressed in expensive but modest gowns that hid her figure.

I did notice that she ate very well, often every time I saw her. And after some time the hard, predatory planes of her face grew softer and the tone muscle of her arms took on the soft fullness that most noble women had. Not to say she was fat or even plump, but her amazing muscle tone was growing lax without use, making her merely a slim girl. I doubted she could do half the things she'd done the first night I saw her, but somehow her appeal didn't change to me.

Not at all. She'd traded her strength and flexibility for political power, power she was even then weaving into something greater. She was making friends, with the women of court to know everything about everyone. With the Church, casting herself as the redeemed woman who filled coffers with donatives and prayed two hours a day in public. With the trade guilds and veterans associations and indeed, even the Blues, making sure that their petitions to the Emperor went quickly if they approached her first.

People who plotted against her husband's ascent tended to go on long trips over seas that invariably ran into storm. Officials who tried to skim the public coffers tended to donate the entirety of their estates to the Throne and join a monastery. Snooty wives who questioned Theodora or Justinian's low birth were put aside.

The memory of a party stays with me. Theodora's plate was full of roast pork and spiced pheasant, her dress unwisely snug against a body soft as any lazy noble girl. But her eyes had the same knowing, powerful stare as she'd had on our first meeting, knowing that she held everyone in front of her within the palm of her hand.

....

There was a sort of not a war in Armenia that winter, between us and the Persians and I was sent to lead reinforcements. I did well, very well, and returned home to find that happy state of affairs was changing.

The new Emperor had grown very ill and Justinian involved himself with more and more of the affairs of state, all but ruling in his name. He was not well liked, seen even at his best as power hungry, but Theodora was by then beloved. Every day she left the court, walking to one of the city's many churches escorted only by a single guard. One day, Justinian, out of the blue assigned me to it. I had no idea why, if it was mistrustful paranoia of his wife or some sort of reward for me I know not.

The day was warm for spring and Theodora held a fan in her hand, its motion never ceasing and blowing curls from the side of her face. Guarding her was difficult, I kept having to tear my gaze away from her to scan the crowd only to see I was watching her. Not that any would touch her.

Urchins ran up to tug on her pale green dress, asking for pennies. Street vendors called her by name and she sampled all of their food, asking about their wives and children in languages from Syriac to Latin. All said flawlessly as she munched a drumstick or licked honey from her fingers after eating a little cake. She bought a great many things, clothes and jewels and trinkets and shoes and even weapons and armor, spreading patronage wide and talking always. Soon my arms were so loaded with packages that I wouldn't have been able to draw my sword even if the devil himself had set upon us.

"A carriage might be more suitable for this," I said, grunting under the load as we left yet another shop.

"A carriage keeps me from my people. They must be able to see me, to touch me to see me as theirs," Theodora returned, in Thrakian for privacy, "besides, I need the exercise. Even with my walks I grow fat."

Theodora was exaggerating but not lying, near three stone separating her from the lithe dancer I had first seen. Her face had grown soft enough to have an adorable dimple on her left cheek when she smiled. The small, firm handfuls of her bust had added another layer over themselves, rippling with softness on each of her steps. Lean hips had a roundness to them, a sway like a ship, and the cheeks of her buttocks bounced where before they'd been firm. Her belly was just large enough it had begun to press noticeably against her snug dress, a full roundness like she'd eaten a bit too large a meal just before.

"Surely it is merely with child," I said, having been surprised after the first month of her marriage hadn't seen her expecting.

After nearly a year, Justinian would be mad not to get her with child.

She snorted, "I should be so lucky. No, this is all from my visits across the city. Justinian's attention is on work rather than pleasure, I had to prod him to consummate the wedding. I believe I've had less sex in the year after my marriage than in a month before it."

"I have trouble believing that," I managed, thinking the heir to the Imperial throne mad to not give this vision all the love she deserved, whenever she wanted it.

"You should. Its making me eat more from stress," Theodora's soft hands patted her stomach, making her fingers sink into its softness and making her sigh with regret, "I've seen a tummy like this on no few noble girl's at court. One day their stomach is flat and then a few tarts latter this pops into being and will never go away. Its a warning sign, once they've grown this, perhaps a year remains until they're so corpulent they cannot see their toes. They best get themselves a husband quickly when they see it. I must hope I can get with child and not be put aside for a younger, more beautiful woman."

"I doubt that," I should have told her, "for none are more beautiful than you."

"Perhaps eat less," I said instead, Thracian idiot that I am.

She giggled, the sound cathedral bells, "Firstly, the food vendors of the city are Constantinople's soul and they report directly to me before any other. I am god mother to half their children, have gotten jobs for half their sons and paid dowries for half their daughters. Every time I speak to them I learn of new plots to squash and opportunities to take. Secondly, I have always eaten so. It is how I learned so many languages, each province sends its flotsam here and most open a restaurant. When I was a child I went with my father from stand to stand as he 'negotiated' with them and I was fat as a piglet. Only when I became a woman and began to dance did I grow slim and beautiful. I shall miss my beauty as it fades."

"Your beauty, fade?" I asked, finally saying the right thing, "God would not allow that to happen."

Again she giggled, her body rippling beneath the dress, "The priests would take issue with your theology, but already I grow ugly. If I look down my chin doubles, my tummy begins to fill my lap and when I walk my thighs brush. Why just the other day I ripped a dress from hip to breast as I prepared to go to Church. If I hadn't been in the women's chambers the scandal would have been spoken of by everyone for years."

I almost fell over then and there at the thought of her naked flesh escaping its confines.

"Already I am quite plain, a faded flower of my youth, but within a year I shall be truly hideous. Fat as a pig, the sow empress they will call me I expect," she sighed, "who would watch me dance now?"

"Plain? No, never," I insisted, "every day your beauty grows stronger and purer. I look at you and think you a muse of femininity, a veritable Goddess come to Earth. Your merest step is a dance so enchanting that all upon this street watch your every movement, the entire city is your stage and each of time you speak to a child or a vendor the movement is a thing of perfect grace and all the swings of your hips as you look at a trinket is enticing as all the jewels of the east."

I swallowed, sure I had gone too far. Justinian was a friend, but no man wants another to compliment his wife's hips.

"Ha, I did not think you capable of so long a string of flattery," she smiled, that beautiful dimple showing clear as the sun, "I may order you to be my guard every day, Sir Belisarius, to let my ears hear such enchanting lies. Now, open the door to that dress shop for me. I must see if I've grown too fat already for the gown I ordered but a week ago."

I waited in the little parlor of the shop, as the Empress was taken behind a curtain. The thought of her naked body separated from me by thin slats of wood and canvas made me sweat, the outline of her body more erotic than seeing her dance nude upon a stage. I could see the bulge of her waist, almost going out as far as her breasts, clearer than day. I heard giggles and soft words, a suggestion that she suck in her stomach and a reply that she was already, before she said she would wait until its seams were let out. When at last she emerged, clad in pale blue velvet that hugged her upper body like a glove, the gentle curve of hip to waist, the little puff of her belly and the heavy swells of her breast outlined by the light layer of sweat on her skin.

"By good fortune I am not too fat for it, although a few meals will see me plump enough to split the seams" Theodora smiled, "tell me, am I hideous yet?"

"You look very much like the Queen of Heaven," I managed, "if she was far more ...seductive."

"Why, your Thrakian tongue is elegant indeed. I just had to grow to the proportions of a cow to see it," she teased.

....

There was another outbreak of war but two weeks later, right as the Emperor began to die in earnest. A big one in the east, the Persians moving on Syria en mass. Cities were falling and all the East was under threat.

Justinian sent me with the main Imperial army and went back to his plans to rebuild the city in his own image, like the defeat of our oldest enemy was some tiny detail. Theodora showed more concern, inviting me for an appointment where she was chaperoned by three of her ladies, young noble women who two years ago would have been ranked miles higher than her but now doted on her every word. She was stretched out on her side, like a cat perhaps, on a divan couch and wore a soft wine colored gown, the layers quite thin and the whole thing unwisely snug.

"I hear that you are given command of our main army," Theodora told me, waving a fan against the summer heat even though it was just morning, "it being gone leaves us quite naked if the Goths or Huns make a move. Or if there is civil strife, which there may be given the price of bread. It is but April and hot as mid summer, this year there will be a drought. I tell my husband to increase the bread dole but he wants the money for an attempt to reclaim the lost Western provinces while we are threatened in the east. And makes unwise plots over what the nature of God is to placate barbarian prelates in the manner, angering half of our own subjects."

One of the girls held a plate of sweet cookies, made with real Egyptian sugar and honey. She handed one to Theodora, who ate it without breaking her speech or mumbling one word. Another one handed her a glass of fresh squeezed orange juice, which disappeared in a flash. A third, a small and thin girl with a waist you could get one hand around, opened a small book and wrote "1X Egyptian honey cake, 1 X glass of orange juice" on an almost full page with the day's date at the top.

"I understand," I told her, "I will endeavor to defeat a kingdom that has held Rome's legions at bay for six hundred years."

"I'm sure you will," she said, drolly, "anyway, I am being rude. These are to be my ladies in waiting. Eastoria's job is to make sure I always have treats, Eudicia's job is to make sure I have something to wash those down with. Eurydice's first task is to make me feel bad about myself by being so skinny and her second job is to write down everything I eat and drink in a day that I may be shocked by my own gluttony upon seeing the list each night and attempt to redeem myself. So far this has not worked and my weight grows heavy as all the sins of mankind. Say hello girls, this is General Belisarius."

The three ladies were probably her own age, but slimmer at the waist. Compared to them she was indeed plump and I had to reassess her as not a lithe girl but an abundant woman, there were heavier women at court but most were older and had had several children. I found it changed my thoughts of her not one wit, the fold of her stomach might be starting to spread across her couch but she was the most beautiful woman I'd ever seen bar none.  The other three, slim beauties with high born families smiling at me, perhaps in the hopes of catching themselves a general with ties to the soon to be Imperial family, were gaunt scare crows in comparison.

"They seem rather far too bony. Are they eating enough?" I asked, each piece of flattery making Theodora giggle, a ripple going across her body hard enough a seam across her hip popped, letting me see six inches of golden colored skin mushroom through, "in the light of your grace's beauty they seem but sickly girls who hope to one day grow to a quarter of your loveliness."

Ah, you've made me come undone," she smiled, genuinely, "which brings me to another matter. I have gifts for you, the first are several Syrians who know the frontier terrain like the back of their hand. The oldest sons of food vendors and blacksmiths from here in the city. They wait in the outer court, but the second is here. I've had a banner made for you, my dear Thracian hayseed. To inspire you to great deeds on the field of battle. Think of me please."

One of her girls brought out the banner, a lovely blue. I recognized the fabric, the dress that had fit her so snugly the a few weeks ago. The one that she had stood naked to be fitted for, separated from me by just the screen of canvas.

"I will my lady, every spare moment. On my oath as a Roman," I promised.

"I pray it so," she smiled, that lovely dimple showing and from the look of her dark eyes I knew I was in the palm of her hand, "Belisarius, I do pray you return quickly. You are a man who cannot only be trusted but enjoyed and those are in short supply."

....

The war took an entire year.

I lost no battles because I scouted thoroughly with the scouts Theodora had so graciously found for me. I won several because, Thracian farmers son that I am, I ensured my army dug deep trenches and set tall palisades every night. The Persians are tough men, brave and clever but I outmaneouvered them when I could and out fought them when I couldn't, fighting the war on their territory and destroying the very army of their Shan'en'Shah before the gates of their capital. They sued for peace, buying it with three cities, ten fortresses and a fortune in gold and then fell into disastrous civil war.

Justinian's Uncle died mid way through and my friend surprised no one by being raised to the throne as his heir. Theodora wrote me frequently, letters that said nothing but somehow said very much. She complained about the cost of food to feed her court, that her servants had to fight their way to get her favorite treats, letting me know of crowds hungry for bread. She said that she prayed frequently but arguments between Constantinople's Priests and those visiting from the collapsed west irritated her meditations, letting me know of religious strife. She said that the blues were losing badly to the greens at the racetrack, letting me know her faction of street thugs were being outmaneuvered.

Justinian himself sent only missives to quickly return to the capital with my cavalry, that he was throwing me a great triumph and then would send me to reconquer the West. I thought it mad, mad as sticking one hand into a hornet's nest while your other was just removed from a bear trap. He made no mention of unrest at home.

I rode as quickly as I could from Mesopotamia to the coast, finding there the grain fleet from Egypt sheltering from a storm, along with an Imperial frigate bearing a message from Theodora. She talked of rioting in the street, the decimated Blues and out matched Imperial body guard unable to quell the violence of the Green faction, swelled by the hungry and the desperate, old noble families trying to name themselves Emperor and usurp the throne. Of the Palace itself besieged. The Emperor had been badly injured in a riot at the great race track and Justinian held onto life by his finger nails. She bid me hurry as quickly as I could and then, a miracle fell upon me, perhaps from God himself.

The storm ended and a strong wind blew the fleet and my cavalry north to Constantinople at record speed.

We arrived to find the city in flames, only the palace itself standing firm.

We landed the fleet against the sea walls. I organized fire brigades with one hand, fed the hungry with the other and somehow found a third to massacre the most dangerous of the rioters and the armed retainers of the rebelling nobles. More Romans died to our swords than Persians ever had and it filled me with shame to do it, but there was no choice. Exhausted I rode to the palace, finding a skeleton guard on the walls, a great down pour beginning, the first rain in more than a year bringing wetness back to the dusty fields.

Theodora waited for me under an awning, demure and stoic in the purple robes of an Empress. She was attended by her terrified ladies and looked absolutely fearless. Her dark eyes shown, just as they had years earlier, absolutely in control.

She'd grown thin to my surprise. Gaunt even, all of her soft fat having evaporated and leaving her with a tiny waist, narrow hips and small, near flat breasts. It did not suit her like her plush plumpness had, she looked drawn and tired. A lionness starving, instead of a house cat grown plump.

General Belisarius, you bring the Imperial throne great joy upon your return. Come with me please to the side of the Emperor," she said, a tiny smile on the left side of her face, where her dimple should be.

I was led to the Imperial bed chamber, realizing I was alone with her. She walked slower than she had, slower than she had even at her plumpest, tiredness pulsing from her and for a moment she leaned against the inner doors in total exhaustion.

"Strange to think, how what we want is not always what we think. When all I had was my slim body I wished to be a powerful woman. Upon becoming one all I wanted back was my slim body," she said tiredly, "now after a year of famine and two months of siege I am thinner than ever. The times when I was gaining half a stone a month seem quite idyllic in comparison."

I hesitated slightly, more than I ever had against the Persians, and put a hand on her shoulders. She was bony to the very touch.

"Theodora, what has happened?" I asked, terrified at the closeness of her.

"My husband. My ambitious genius husband decided to make a declaration about the true nature of God in an attempt to earn the loyalty of Churchmen in now barbarian Italy. I warned him that the city would hate it, from the beggar in the street to the highest churchman in the cathedrals. Civil strife and a mostly destroyed Constantinople were the result of his not listening to me," she sighed, "and his death the result of not listening to my warning not to go to the race track and address the crowds."

"...Death?" I asked, "The Emperor is dead?"

"Dead for two weeks, locked in the crypts with sweet incense. Packed with sawdust and mountain ice," she said, "only my personal servants know. All of them Blues and they shall say nothing at all, when tomorrow I announce he died of his wounds. Naming you guardian of his heir."

"I...must confess that you do not look very pregnant," I said at last, "are you eating enough?"

She laughed, a tired laugh indeed, "Not yet, but now that you have brought the grain fleet I will have to rectify that. I have missed you greatly Belisarius. Come lay with me for a time."

We made love on the purple Imperial bed. Slowly and tenderly. I was tired and she was quite weak, she hadn't eaten in two days but the deed was done and we lay together afterwards for a short while.

Things went much as she had said. Justinian was buried, I was proclaimed Guardian and Emperor in all but name. I made a ruing council to help me rebuild the city and on it were wise Priests and skilled merchants and brave soldiers and honest laborers who were all Blue criminals and clever philosophers and making more sense than anyone else was Theodora, who looked lean and demure in black, even though her spies and saboteurs were hunting and killing usurpers and rebels across the Empire. At least at the start.

She announced her pregnancy, claiming that it was the Emperor's, three weeks after his funeral. By then the famine was over, free grain from Egypt paid for with my great war chest having ended the hunger. The dowager Empress responded to the reopening of her favorite food stalls with glee, spending hours each day taking long slow walks across her favorites. It was not long before the mourning gowns grew tight on a figure that was no longer so lean. At council I noticed her face was not nearly so drawn and she looked like a young woman again, color touching her cheeks with peachy good health even before she announced the pregnancy.

The days of her gowns always being dangerously tight returned swiftly. Theodora was soon soft as any noble girl again. At three months, when many women start to show, she was a little bit heavier than her ladies in waiting, especially across her hips and chest. At four she was as plump as I had ever seen her, her whole body soft and cuddly, with large breasts above a round stomach, large enough already to cover her feet from view. She touched it frequently, rubbing the slope and would often make eye contact with me across the council table and smile, showing her returned dimple.

At seven months, Theodora had grown fat. Perhaps twice the woman she'd been when she'd quickened. The fine cheekbones were gone beneath round apple cheeks, although only one was dimpled and her fine chin had a soft, drooping double that bobbed when she ate or spoke. Her breasts had grown large and heavy, having to be wrapped with cloth due to leaking with milk, and they rested atop the vast dome of her belly. Hips four feet around  filled her chairs to the very limit and her thighs were so thick she waddled, her pace slow and sedate. Even the idea of her dancing now seemed absurd, Theodora had never regained her muscle and found the hundred weight of fat hard to move around. Even too long standing made her go red in the face and her ankles swell up, the food stalls were moved by decree closer to the palace that she might access them without exerting herself too much.

One night, as I tiredly tried to sleep in the impromptu quarters I'd seized from an official who'd tried to desert to the usurpers, I heard a rumbling sound. A heavy book case swung on hinges, revealing a sweating, puffing Theodora carrying a candle and wearing a thin night gown that showed every bulge and roll and ripple. She waddled slowly from the very hidden, very narrow passage way behind her, plopping heavily onto my bed which groaned.

I was not surprised, this happened twice a week although she was getting slower and slower by the day.

"I'd have these secret passages widened,, almost I was stuck a few times," she said, brushing dust off of her hips, "but then they wouldn't be secretive anymore, would they?"

"You could eat less," I told her, kissing her soft forehead.

"Shut up, you Thracian hayseed," she huffed, leaning into me, "the Imperial midwife should be replaced. She's putting me on a diet, saying if I get any fatter it will imperil the children in me."

"...She might be right," I teased her, rubbing her pillowy shoulders and moving down her back to little coos of pleasure, "Every time I see you you are eating."

"I'm eating for at least three. I need to keep up my strength," she denied, slowly crossing her heavy thighs, "speaking of, I would like some bread and honey after wards. I am famished."

"You got stuck in your chair at the last council meeting," I said to her, forefingers and thumb massaging a roll of back fat over her hips, "your ladies had to help you out."

"I have child birthing hips," she said weakly, smiling as I moved my hands across her broad hips to the under slope of her tender belly, "or at least that is what people say to me."

"Will you marry me after you give birth?" I said, gently rubbing the sensitive flesh.

"I suppose I must," she sighed, breath catching as I went lower, beginning to moan with joy, "after all, I am the size of a milk cow anymore, aren't I? Who would have me but a Thracian hay seed?"

I kissed her, gently pressing against her soft, swollen front until she was laying on the bed. Her thick, wobbling, buttery thighs wrapped around me, trembling at the exertion and guided me to rest on my knees and plant my face between her legs. Her own tiredness had excited her and she came quickly, the orgasm being wild and passionate and free. When her weak thighs released me, looking at what I could see over the swell over her belly and heaving breasts, I could see her brilliant dark eyes glittering in the candle light. That she was the iron bodied girl who'd slid and flipped and danced years earlier was indisputable, no one else could have eyes like Theodora.

 

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You’re a history major too!? There’s details in here that are so specific that I wonder how you wrote so well in so short a time! The love in this story was so wholesome too. The way Theodora lost weight in an unexpected famine just made her pregnancy gain so much sweeter, like, she has to gain — she’s starving and she’s supposed to eat for twins! 
 

Plan to drop a certain story tomorrow. Your stuff is inspiring, especially when Powergirl is still missing!

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1 hour ago, >_< 0_0 said:

You’re a history major too!? There’s details in here that are so specific that I wonder how you wrote so well in so short a time! The love in this story was so wholesome too. The way Theodora lost weight in an unexpected famine just made her pregnancy gain so much sweeter, like, she has to gain — she’s starving and she’s supposed to eat for twins! 
 

Plan to drop a certain story tomorrow. Your stuff is inspiring, especially when Powergirl is still missing!

It's a period I know pretty well, but thanks. 

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Batman, it is no exaggeration to say this is one of the best stories in this genre that I have ever read. I really appreciate when a WG author goes to the trouble of writing characters with fully-fleshed personalities in addition to fully-fleshed physiques. And the rich period detail helps to sell the narrative beautifully. Belisarius is a very interesting narrator, his stoicism exactly right for the time, and his personality plays well off of the more decadent Theodora, who is a truly memorable heroine. Your depiction of her ambivalence — how she vacillates between taking herself to task for getting soft, even ordering a servant list her sins of gluttony, and heedlessly succumbing to the pampered life — adds something very sexy and nuanced to the portrait, as does Belisarius' recognition of the steeliness that still shows in her eyes, if nowhere else.

Whether you intended it or not, this story finishes in such a way that allows more tales involving these two characters to be told. In later chapters, they would presumably be ruling side by side, acting against court intrigues as well as external threats to the realm, and Theodora's personality could grow as much as her waistline as she settles into becoming a spoiled queen whose every whim is granted. Will she show despotic tendencies? Will he continue to love her? Reading more about Theodora and Belisarius coming weeks would be a great comfort during the ongoing quarantine. Do you think you have more chapters in you? 

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5 hours ago, harrylime said:

Will she show despotic tendencies? Will he continue to love her? Reading more about Theodora and Belisarius coming weeks would be a great comfort during the ongoing quarantine. Do you think you have more chapters in you? 

As a history major, I can attest that things turn out okay, at least compared to other Byzantine rulers.

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I did change stuff compared to history (besides fat)

IRL, Justinian survived the nike riots and then under Justinian's order Belisarius embarked on a shoe string major invasion of North Africa and Italy, making initial gains but ultimately not giving the general enough support to fully reconquer Italy, getting bogged down in a see saw war against the Goths right as the Persians launched another invasion of Syria. The Empire was massively overstretched in a two front war when Justinian ordered Belisarius removed from command out of paranoid fear he'd be over thrown. Then a strange climatic event caused by massive volcanic eruptions caused a horrific mini ice age due to blocking out the sun with ash, according to chroniclers the sun was only visible four hours a day in summer. Due to weakened immune systems from famine/plague infected rats near the source of the nile being able to move into grain exporting egypt due to the cool temperature/soldiers moving all over the Empire due to the wars, there was a gigantic plague that killed something like one out of 3 people (with so many corpses generated in Constantinople alone that the corpses had to be thrown into the sea...which just spread the infection to other cities when the bodies washed up) and left the Empire critically weakened for the initial muslim expansion out of Arabia a generation later.

So an alt history where Justinian died and his widow became pleasantly obese and happily married to Belisarius instead.

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On 4/16/2020 at 1:57 PM, harrylime said:

Batman, it is no exaggeration to say this is one of the best stories in this genre that I have ever read. I really appreciate when a WG author goes to the trouble of writing characters with fully-fleshed personalities in addition to fully-fleshed physiques. And the rich period detail helps to sell the narrative beautifully. Belisarius is a very interesting narrator, his stoicism exactly right for the time, and his personality plays well off of the more decadent Theodora, who is a truly memorable heroine. Your depiction of her ambivalence — how she vacillates between taking herself to task for getting soft, even ordering a servant list her sins of gluttony, and heedlessly succumbing to the pampered life — adds something very sexy and nuanced to the portrait, as does Belisarius' recognition of the steeliness that still shows in her eyes, if nowhere else.

Whether you intended it or not, this story finishes in such a way that allows more tales involving these two characters to be told. In later chapters, they would presumably be ruling side by side, acting against court intrigues as well as external threats to the realm, and Theodora's personality could grow as much as her waistline as she settles into becoming a spoiled queen whose every whim is granted. Will she show despotic tendencies? Will he continue to love her? Reading more about Theodora and Belisarius coming weeks would be a great comfort during the ongoing quarantine. Do you think you have more chapters in you? 

I can do a bit more...

.....

There are days I question why I write this journal.

This can never be published for a variety of reasons. A woman, even an Empress, writing a book would be anathematized by the Church. Especially given the rather sordid nature of everything I write.

But it helps me order my thoughts and quite my mind and anymore I am a creature purely of the mind, God knows my body is no longer up to much.

Perhaps I exaggerate. I am not an invalid, indeed my health is rudely good and I have never been sick. But the days when I could put one ankle behind my ahead and spin on a greased metal pole are gone to never come again. I waddle when I walk, I sprawl when I sit and am quite the fattest woman in the Imperial court by a good fifty pounds.

This thought repeats constantly in my head. Every woman I see is smaller than me. Their hips don't get stuck in their chairs, their chins don't wobble when they speak, their stomachs don't fill their lap. Good Lord, there are currently pregnant women in Court with bellies smaller than mine.

I bought earrings the other day, beautiful opals to suit my eyes, and the woman in the little mirror had a third chin. I went to court without rings on my fingers for they'd grown too plump for my old jewelry. As an Empress it is my right to wear red shoes, the sole woman in the whole world who can, but I could have been wearing green slippers for all I know, five months after conception the swell of my breasts and the curve of my belly went over my toes and I haven't seen them since.

I have no one to blame but myself of course. I eat like a pig at every meal, stuffing myself with fish cakes and candied fruit and roast boar and spiced wine and fried bread until the seams of my dress begin to sing a tortured chorus, until I hiccup and groan, until little whispers from dignitaries who've never seen my gluttony first hand reach my ears and until I feel another bite will burst me. After every meal I feel ashamed, disgusting and sick, swearing that this will be the last one, that from here on nothing but salads and water will pass my lips.

Each time I know the oath is in vain, that my gluttony is master of my body. That within an hour the pain in my stomach will cease and two hours after that it will begin to rumble with hunger. God knows I am a sinner, I've confessed my hunger a thousand times and begged God to strip it from me, to make me slim once again.

He even did so. The famine was horrible of course, people actually died but at the end of it I'd have weighed a hundred pounds with a bucket of water poured onto my head. I could count my ribs, feel my hip bones and pass a whole hand between my thighs. Being so thin repulsed me, I felt sickly and weak, a starvling scarecrow of a woman. And as soon as I could, I ate and ate and ate. As my body grew a healthy layer of fat I said I had to keep eating for my baby's sake. As my body grew plump again I said I'd start holding back at the dining table the next meal. As stretch marks sprouted along my thighs and my swollen, leaking breasts grew to the size of my head and I stopped recognizing the sow in the mirror as myself I realized there was no going back.

Perhaps I complain too much.

I am, after all, Empress of Rome, and unlike other previous holders of that title who were but brood mares I have real power. Armies march or do not march at my command, cities are built at my word, Patriarchs and Bishops bow to kiss my shoe. Me, the daughter of a crap charioteer turned criminal and an Egyptian whore who was little better than a whore herself five years ago. When I was eighteen I slept on a straw mattress in a whore house with twenty other girls, now I live in a palace that is the closest place on Earth to Heaven. I want for nothing, not clothes nor jewels nor love nor as my corpulent figure shows, food. I have two beautiful b**s who're fat as piglets and healthy as bears on my over abundant milk. I have a loving husband who swears eternal fealty to me morning, noon and night. Despite being a three chinned sow, I am young and fertile still, this time next year my children will be weaned and I've no doubt that the moment my milk dries up I'll be again with child.

Still, I also weigh twenty stone.

When I was nineteen, I was so strong I could walk on my hands. I could count my belly muscles they were so defined. I could raise my leg straight above my head. When I walked through a room, every eye turned onto me with lust and jealousy.

At twenty five, I need help getting out of my chair after meals. My gut is so big it folds over on itself into a double belly. Yesterday I tried standing on one leg and fell over after half a minute, fortunately onto my big padded cow ass so nothing was hurt but my all too swollen pride.

I do remind myself, that that lust was of me as an object, an attractive farm animal to used. Now when I am gazed upon they may think me a hog, but I hold all the power on this Earth. People beg my mercy, petition me for justice and plead with me for positions. I saw a noble man the other day begging me for mercy after he tried to cheat the throne on taxes and wondered if he remembered the day seven years ago when he cheated me and a dozen other dancers on our fees after a wild party. I went to bed hungry that night and was not in a very merciful mood.

I won't pretend to be the purest woman in the world. When I was young there were a few times I had to sell myself for coin to eat. Now, gluttony is the least of my sins. People have died at my order, by assassination and war. But I try and be just, I've helped the common citizen greatly, punished the guilty and kept the peace. Through both cruelty and kindness I can safely make my daily exercise, a morning circuit of the Great Forum where I gorge at every food cart while asking the working poor of their needs, paying largesse and giving their children jobs while I eat fried chicken and flat bread and hummus and spun sugar. The common people love me for this, they and their extended families are my spy network that have let me crush a dozen coups. Without their help I'd have been over thrown long ago. Without their food I'd only be pleasantly plump instead of a byword for obesity.

Absent of another famine I will never be slim. I've eaten two plates of sweet meats since starting to write this passage. Perhaps I can be strong though or at least healthy. Already too much walking hurts my joints, I find myself growing slothful and lazy and I am terrified of developing gout.

I've ordered that no sweets or fried meat be served to me in the palace and I've tried to exercise every day. The first is a torture straight from Satan, my stomach rumbles and gurgles like a mutinous army save for after my daily feast walk and I am so grouchy none dare petition me. But I only cheat on it once or twice a week.

The exercise is worse. I've always been a heavy eater, when I was young and muscular it just burned off, so I have no experience in being able to control myself around food. But I remember like yesterday what being fit was like, to be out of breath and pained after a mile is humiliating for me, once I was supremely graceful, I never put a foot wrong but now I have no sense of where I begin and end, my hips and buttocks the terror of side tables, cups and chairs. When I could tumble and sommersalt and roll and dance and spin for hours just practicing my routine.  Now when I walk laps around the palace walls  my feet scream, my knees complain and my inner thighs burn from rubbing, absolutely everything jiggles. I sweat so much I ruin even the gowns that don't break, my ladies carry a shawl to cover me when I inevitably burst free. Everything jiggles and wobbles so much it throws me off balance, I have a very clever contraption of straps and silk to keep bosom from putting my back out and the army's engineers are designing a related device for my waist.

For the sake of my blistered feet and aching knees I've taken up swimming. You could float a warship in my heated marble pool and there, in the deep warm water I can float and swim and dance without my great weight pressing down on me. I am still stiff and inflexible but for a few hours every day I can forget what it feels like to have my belly slap onto my thighs. I enjoy it more than food and only moderately less than sex even though I gasp and heave when I haul my blubber from the pool.

I'd ordered a great scale be set up in my baths and its steadfastly shown that I've only gained a pound in three months. Empress Theodora may never be slim again but perhaps she won't be too fat to ride a horse for a few years yet.

A further joy, a sin of my vanity and envy, is seeing my ladies in waiting naked. The fattest woman in the court I may be but slim women are growing thin on the ground.

Eastoria is the oldest of the three, a general's ravenhaired daughter who was tall and statuesque and snooty, looking down her nose at my tummy. She's recently married to one of my darling Belisarius' generals, her finger plump enough her engagement ring couldn't be removed at the wedding. When I hired her she played at swords and was nothing but hard sinews, now like me she's fat and lazy, a two chinned glutton with a drooping who finds any excuse to duck out of a walk and find a snack. When I began swimming she said she'd join me after stretching. Now as I get out of the pool I see her eating a sticky bun, crumbs falling onto her completely dry belly rolls.

Eudicia was the middle one, a giggling, silly blonde who's breasts were full and bouncy when her waist was flat. They're still full and bouncy but so is everything else, two years ago her flat waist popped into that little lazy belly noble girls get as a warning to watch their sweet tooth. Eudicia did not, now her whole body has grown chubby and cuddly. Her dresses are practically painted onto her body now, in real danger of ripping whenever she laughs which is often. Every ripped seam doubles her list of suitors, her soft golden skin alluring as real gold to the every growing list of noble officers competing for her increasingly soft hand. If she sucks in her stomach, its still smaller than her breasts.

That they're soft and flabby is...satisfying to me. I don't deny my gluttony is a sin but that the ladies of court are almost all plump makes me feel a little less bad about myself. Many giggled as my perfect body went to seed, so ensuring that platters of snacks and piles of treats are everywhere and letting nature take its course was quite appealing to me.

I'm not alone in this. Fat isn't quite the fashion yet but after a few years of me being the ruler of half the world no one's going to criticize a woman for being heavy. Being soft and curvaceous and voluptuous and well, plump is seen as appealing.

Eurydice is the youngest and smallest, the palace chamberlain's daughter. A freckled red head who's green eyes trace over her fellow lady's ever more ample curves, making sure they have plenty of treats and don't get up much. Unabashedly she's my favorite, the fact that she tempts me to cheat my diet with food she brought up "just in case I was hungry". At least once a week we stay up late eating and giggling while reading lists of what all the ladies at court claiming to be on diets are really eating.

I wonder when she will notice that her tiny, tiny waist has gone from concave to a little bit more than flatish, just enough to push out the front of her dress. When she leans forwards to feed Eudicia, there is the smallest roll at her middle, which just seems delicious to me.

 

 

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1 hour ago, >_< 0_0 said:

I know of other empresses that grew fat over time, but I’m worried I’ll distract you from writing ! 😬

Haha. Go ahead, right now I'm just working on my DC story.

I've got an idea on a bunch of historical fat vignettes i'll get around to at some point. I've already done this byzantine one and the WW2 one, but was thinking of stuff like a Napoleonic war era story where an English Duchess and a refuge French countess gain weight in an attempt to become the mistress of the chubby chasing prince regent, a lovecraft ripoff where a 1920s female PI has to spend a summer in a strangely obese seaside town to investigate a missing person,  a 1950s CIA agent keeping America ahead in the Cheese Cake Race by dosing his bombshell wife with a curve enhancement formula that goes wildly out of control,  one set in the 1500s where Queen Isabella of Spain's slender figure is exposed to the new discovery of chocolate.

But there's a lot of other stuff to finish off first.

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Well, there is also Catherine the Great, Tsar if Russia, who specialized in allying with the neighbors of her neighbors so they could attack from both sides. She was extraordinarily aggressive in person as well. She loved wearing military uniforms and was infamous for sleeping with whoever she wanted. Her eventual weight gain is well-documented. There’s probably a statue of her in Biltmore College

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