Humble Hero

Rovest never expected what had become of him. He had expected the fame, he had expected the praise, and he had expected just about everything that had come his way throughout his journey and upon his return back to his hometown. What he hadn’t expected, though, the thing that he had planned for the least and yet was the most prominent thing about the harehound, was his new girth. A feast or two in his honor, sure, those were things that the now-massive hybrid had expected. This much though was beyond him, and a lot more than he had thought that he was going to get in terms of respect when he had made it back home. Just to think that he had been a svelte adventurer a few years prior was almost laughable, and of course, he knew that as he sat there. Spreading out like a melting pudding, with about as much strength as one, the once-lithe hero was a shadow of his former self, or rather several shadows. Just how had it come to this, and where was it going? The harehound couldn’t imagine it going many more places than further down the rabbithole of obesity, but as he thought on it, he knew just where all of this weight had come from.

Of course, as with all things when it came to weight gain, the first few pounds had been subtle. Rovest had come back from his adventure a lean, trim harehound laden down with more powers than he knew what to do with. Over his quest to save the kingdom from an unspeakable evil, he had gathered up a collection of powerful items and magical spells that took care of the greatest of foes with ease. Now that he had no foes to use these powers on, the harehound had little idea what to do with all of his newfound power. Showing it off was something he had never really planned on doing, and yet he was being asked to show what he could do so often that it had taken less than a week for him to go from hoarding and yet respecting his power to just using it as a trick to please the townsfolk who now flocked to him. Rescue a trapped cat from a tree? Oh, he could just float that feline right on down without a problem. A leak in the local dam? A spell that conjured up stones and then flung them at his enemies made quick work of that problem. The spotlight had gone from being on Rovest’s deeds of saving the kingdom to Rovest himself thanks to that, and that was where the pounds had started coming from.

The first feast in his honor had been opulent, to say the least, spanning nearly an entire day and leaving the hero so full that he was dizzy and panting after just a few courses. He had to eat everything placed in front of him, though, lest he disappoint the townsfolk who had worked so hard to welcome back their hero with a proper meal. Rovest couldn’t bring himself to eat another bite, though… Not without using his new power of course. He loathed the day that he had done that, as it has been the beginning of the end. If he had just had the willpower to say no, to turn down the meal that was far too extravagant for his tastes, then he may not have wound up the mass of harehound blubber that he currently was. Instead, he had chosen back then to use the spell which allowed his bag to hold nearly unlimited items on his own stomach, giving himself a newfound ability to pack away food no matter how full he was. This, of course, made him eat through the whole feast in spite of feeling full the entire time, but it appeased the townsfolk, and that was enough for the harehound. He figured that one feast would be enough for him and that he would be able to get away with using that little trick just once.

It wasn’t enough, though, with a second feast popping up just a few days after the first, and then another to honor his local deeds that were becoming a thing of legend. Rovest was quickly going from being just a hero to the furs to more of a demigod in their eyes, and coming from a village that was surrounded by farms and known throughout the land for their penchant for food, it was only obvious that they had one way to celebrate their heroes; feasting. Of course, that meant Rovest had a lot more eating to do, and he was doing it all just to keep his fellow anthros happy. He hadn’t seen so many smiles and happy folk around his hometown in all his days and the harehound had no intention of interrupting that. Instead, he just did his best to keep everyone happy, and if that meant that he needed to keep eating, then he was going to do just that. He could always work off the extra pounds that he was gaining… At some point, one the feasting and festivities stopped of course. He was either too full or too busy keeping up with the others around him to get back to his workout routine, and it was showing after just a couple weeks home.

Rovest first noticed this little gain of pudge on a fateful day when he went to put on his usual tunic, finding it just a little snug around his midsection. His pants had been snug for a few days now, but Rovest knew just why that was; he just was stunned to see that even his tunic was becoming too snug on him as well after just a couple weeks back in his village. He had been eating enough to feed a horse and then some at the feasts in his honor, but surely that couldn’t have meant that many pounds for his frame… Could it? Sighing with concern, the harehound removed his shirt again and took a look at himself in the full-length mirror hung on one of the walls in his home. Running a paw over the side of his frame, all that Rovest could see was a harehound looking back at him. Though, this harehound looked different from the one who had returned to the king and told him that at long last, his lands were safe. Instead of the lines of ribs showing beneath the light tan fur of his chest, there was flesh there. Instead of a concave stomach that looked like it needed a meal, a flat one had taken its place. That stomach even bulged out slightly when Rovest took in a deep breath, much to the harehound’s shock. His arms no longer looked quite as bony, instead just looking like they had at least a small amount of mass on them. His legs were no different, looking less like twigs and more like the legs of a sturdy worker. The harehound was stunned by this, his eyes running up and down his nude, brown frame with light shock in them. Even the green star on his stomach had stretched slightly, going from a little mark on him to more of a pronounced part of his frame. The hybrid just stared at his changes, trying to drink them in as he pinched and stroked over himself. Stunned, to say the least, Rovest vowed to not let the pounds get the better of him. He was back to a healthy weight now, at least… Though it had happened faster than he wanted. If he just kept the food from flowing as freely as it had been, this wouldn’t become a problem, and he could keep his heroic build for the future.

Unfortunately for Rovest, the food kept coming. While the feasts stopped, the townsfolk still were quite intent on feeding Rovest as much as they could. The offerings of food were nearly ceaseless, resulting in Rovest never needing to cook a meal for himself, or even shop for food on his own; he was always stuffed to the gills by the end of the day, and often would just pass out into a food coma from all of the offerings he got around town. “Have a free loaf hero!” or “Breakfast? Why of course a hero needs that” became common phrases in the harehound’s life, and between that and using his powers to solve problems, the hybrid was using less of his body and more of his mind. Rovest knew that and yet he was still too afraid to say no; he wasn’t one to turn down his fellow furs, and he wasn’t about to start. Even as his shirts became too small, he just was gifted new ones by the tailor. His pants splitting down the seams? Oh, they had just shrunk… Why not get new ones from the seamstress who looked more than happy to help out Rovest? Those justifications and the influx of food into the harehound saw him go straight from thin to thick in just a matter of a few short months.

Thick was becoming woefully inadequate to describe Rovest by the next time he took a look in the mirror. He had been home for nearly eight months at that point, still using his spells and items to help around the town wherever he could and being fed into a stupor as thanks for his help. No matter how much he ate, the others in town always seemed to find more for him, and as such, the harehound’s stomach just grew and grew in capacity. Rovest had sworn to never use the stomach swelling spell he had during his first few feasts, but as his offerings and help had grown, so had the need to use that spell. So much in fact, that the harehound just etched an incantation of it on the inside of all of his shirts so that he didn’t need to recite it at the start of every single one of his days; he could just be ready to be stuffed like a prized hog from the moment he set foot outside his house until the end of the day. However, combine that eating with the fact that the trinkets and spells that the harehound knew and used on a daily basis never involved more than moving his muzzle and possibly an arm, and that had left the harehound’s physical state extremely lacking. He barely needed to use more than his legs to propel him around, and even that was becoming less and less of an occurrence; problems seemed to find him rather than the other way around. All of that mixed together, and Rovest knew that he was getting fat… In fact, he could tell before he even took a look in his dusty mirror that fateful fall morning.

What Rovest hadn’t expected was just how fat he had gotten. He had packed on a lot more than a little weight… In fact, it was fair to say that he had packed on a lot of weight over the spring and summer months. Gaping as he just stared at the reflection of himself, the harehound actually needed to take a small step back just to fit all of his frame in the mirror. Rovest was aghast at how he looked, his eyes struggling to drink in all that they saw. Standing nude before the mirror, his eyes just traced up and down his body in a vain attempt to spot a single area that hadn’t rounded out and softened up beneath his thick coating of brown fur. Not a single ounce of the harehound had been spared from his gains, though, and as Rovest’s paws gravitated towards his belly, he could practically feel the fat of his stomach spilling out from between his digits. Newfound lovehandles lined the sides of his stomach, jutting out like the little folds of adipose that they were and sagging over his hips. Oh his hips, easily the widest part of his frame, and the softest too. They sagged and wobbled with even the slightest motion of the harehound, the thighs attached to them rubbing together whenever Rovest walked. His belly obscured part of their contact, though, as well as the entirety of the hybrid’s groin, making telling his sex nigh impossible from the front without looking at his chest. A quick glance at his chest wouldn’t have helped, though, as a pair of freshly-sprouted breasts sat there and sagged down onto his stomach, forming another roll of fat atop that large table muscle of the harehound. Their light tan covering did little to help them look any smaller, instead just making the harehound almost fat enough to be slightly feminine. His arms and legs hadn’t been spared an ounce of weight gain in their own way either, each appendage jiggling with use and bulging out from the sides of the harehound’s torso. Rovest’s face was even fatter, a second chin on prominent display beneath his short snout, that snout lined with a pair of swollen, bloated cheeks that bunched up just enough around his muzzle to give him a very cherubic face. His brown eyes almost looked ever so slightly squinted by the fat of his cheeks, a fact that the messy crop of hair and thick ears atop his head further accentuated with their placement on him.

Rovest was fat, there was no denying that.

The hero decided then and there that all of his eating and feastings would need to stop, that he would dig his heels in and tell the folks of the town that enough was enough and that he would need to get back into shape. There was no way that he could keep on eating as he had been, there was just no way. He was a hero, and yet he had changed from the physique of a hero to one that was more akin to a baker, or royalty. He was neither, and he wanted his body back. He wanted his appetite back too, for he had grown so accustomed to being full nearly every waking moment of the day that even as he stood there and just stared at what he had become, the harehound could feel that lingering hunger in his stomach beginning to make itself known. He was ashamed, disgusted, and shocked by just how far he had let his stomach take over his life. He was going to take himself back, though, and the first part of that would be making sure that everyone around town knew that they were not to feed him anymore. Not another bite. Not one more treat, one more snack, no more…

Of course, Rovest made it all the way to his front door before that resolve was broken. Telling himself he could start his new diet tomorrow, or maybe the day after, he wanted to let the townsfolk down easily. Maybe taper off his eating. He gave himself all kinds of justifications and reasoning, setting deadlines for him to start on a new diet and exercise. It was all there for him to do, all the harehound needed to do was to take the first step. A first step towards getting himself back in shape, and towards being the thin hero he had once been. Whenever he thought of that, though, another cake was offered up to him, or another special was had at the baker’s that he just had to try. It was a vicious cycle for him, and one that left him eating even more than before as he always thought that he would be eating his last before having to turn down the free meals in favor of getting himself back into shape. Never doing that, though, the harehound just succeeded in upping his consumption even more, and thus further forcing himself out of shape. The pounds kept coming, and coming, and coming, and while Rovest knew they were coming, he just couldn’t bring himself to stop them. Whether it was that he had secretly accepted that he was going to be fat, loved the adoration of his fellow anthros, or just was really content to eat, he never fully decided. However, he kept on eating regardless, and that had driven him past fat, past obese, and past even morbidly obese. What he was now, well… He was past massive.

Struggling to push an arm past his sagging, gravid breast, the harehound panted lightly as he forced a massive chicken leg into his muzzle. He was winded now from just eating, and from a single look at his new frame, there was little reason to guess why. Gone was the harehound that had been able to fit into a mirror, and in his place sat, or rather spread, one that would need several mirrors to see all of himself. His whole frame was lined with rolls and folds of fat and supported thick feet that somehow kept him barely mobile, though waddling at all nowadays was an affair that took two other furs and about half an hour to even go a full block. Rovest knew he would need his levitating spell before too much longer to keep him moving around town, and the townsfolk seemed fine with that. He had stopped going out to help them in the fields, instead of selling off a few of his trinkets to help with their most common problems to get himself a larger, and more specifically wider, house to live in. From that house, he would sometimes adventure into town, where he was greeted nearly every time with a small feast in his honor. He always did his best to eat everything offered up to him, though even with the spell of holding that was permanently cast on his stomach, he was beginning to have trouble holding all of the food that he was asked to eat. It seemed every single anthro in town wanted to feed him something or other, from the young with their sweets to the old with their entire pots filled with stew. It wasn’t uncommon for Rovest to be absolutely beached in place by the time he was done stuffing himself stupid on the offerings of the townsfolk, and this was one such time. It was the pre-feasting feast in his honor, as the day that he had saved the kingdom had been named a national holiday in his honor.

Knowing just what this feast would entail from the year prior, Rovest almost dread the consequences to his waistline at the thought of the feast. The year prior, when he had been far more mobile and actually just obese instead of the wobbling blob of harehound he was now, the feast had been just three days. Now, though, there was talk of the feast being a full week of festivities and feeding the harehound. He knew it was meant to honor him, and that he was supposed to eat every scrap that was given to him… But how could he? He could barely get around as it was, and with his immobility looming in the face of a feast that had put nearly twenty-five pounds on his frame the previous year… Rovest was worried. He was a hero and now look at him. He had eaten away any vestiges of the hero he once was, and in its place was just a wobbling, jiggling sac of blubber that could eat and do a few magic tricks. He made the townsfolk happy, though, extremely so at that. Every time he ventured out he saw nothing but smiles, and furs would often give his belly a rub for luck, or compliment him on how healthy he looked. Of course, Rovest knew he was anything but healthy… He was winded from just eating after all. The folks around him were content because of him, though, and above all safe thanks to his actions… And if they wanted to honor him for that, he was okay with that fact.

He just wished it was with a little less food.

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