FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

Mipa polished off the small menagrie she'd single-handedly decimated. Her stomach felt bloated and stuffed to the brim, but the only reason she'd stopped eating was because there was simply no more food. "For tonight she thought wryly and picked her teeth with a skinny forarm bone; be it from primate or pheasant, she couldn't exactly remember. As always, this night's glut was mostly a blur, she had no idea how many small animals she'd consumed exactly, but she was aware of the fact that Kovu had surrendered a couple of his own even after they'd divvied up the catch. She released an immense and ungraceful belch and patted her belly in comfort without shame. Kovu seemed to appreciate any added evidence of her great appetite.

And he was there. He was always there, especially after she'd finished eating; sometimes so much that she needed a belly rub to ease the pain. The black maned lion settled down next to her putting his paws on her wide flank and rubbing her wet-slick hide. She could smell his desire on his breath. It was frightening, but oh so tantalizing. Mipa felt like a moth drawn to a flame. Kovu was exquisitely male and had the same power and ability to destroy that a male had, and yet the prospect of him hurting her seemed remote. He was so gentle with her...

"Mipa..." he breathed in her ear. "Have I told you how amazing you are?"

Mipa grinned and reached up with a paw to bat at the lion's face. "Not today, though you do tend to go on about it."

"Only because it's true..." Kovu said and then, purring, stood, forcing his forepaws into Mipa's flab at her ribs and her belly. "You are getting soooft" drawled the lion as he kneaded Mipa's distended bulk like a kitten.

Mipa growled lazily and rolled, though the lion followed her easily, walking with his hindlegs behind her. "Oh stoppit, you numbskull!" cried Mipa, laughing. "That tickles!"

"Nuh-uh." replied the lion, sticking his tongue out. "This is too much fun!"

He wasn't laughing when Mipa suddenly grabbed him when she was on her back and dragged him over her wide flowing gut. Kovu flopped head over heels and landed with a splash in a puddle on his back. He lay there, coughing weakly between giggles. Mipa got up and stood over him, her belly hanging ponderously low and actually touching Kovu at his hips. She licked his cheek. "You have to be the silliest lion I've ever met."

Kovu got a wild glint in his eye and reached up to grab her with his paws. She fell on top of him and he wheezed slightly with all of her weight on him. But he seemed to enjoy the sensation for he said, "...And you are the... sexiest lioness I've ever met."

Mipa tried to push up a little with her elbows, but he prevented her with a sweep of his paw. His strong forearms reaching up into the fatty hollows behind her forelegs, he pulled her sagging weight fully down on him and she pressed against him along the entire length of his comparatively lean body, from her brisket which flowed into the hollow of his neck to her tummy which flooded his crotch. She could feel his robust excitement. Mipa still felt slightly embarrassed that her girth slumped onto the ground on one side past Kovu, so obese she was. Kovu sighed under her bulk, or perhaps she was just pressing the air out of him...

Mipa suddenly didn't feel so comfortable. She rose despite Kovu's gentle, unspoken insistence past the reach of his paws. As she moved, her low slung belly dragged over her body. The lion let out a small gasp as a certain patch of belly pulled over a certain patch of him. However this only intensified the lioness's distress. She waddled a short distance away as Kovu lifted his head to look at her in confusion. The chocolate furred lioness grimaced and plopped her fatty rear on the ground. She felt a belly ache coming on.

Kovu followed only after a few minutes and Mipa shivered as he brushed against her. "I'm going hunting for a while. I'll be back before dawn."

"Alright, Kovu. I'll be here." said Mipa distantly and Kovu disappeared into the still steadily pouring rain. When he had, the very round, very heavy lioness staggered to her paws and moved under the cover of some trees at the edge of her glade. She spent some time grooming herself with her tongue, but the areas she could reach had decreased drastically. This fact only increased her uneasy feeling. Mipa blew, lifting her chops and looked down. She saw a curving grey furred tummy, could actually see it despite the fact that she was sitting normally; or at least as normally as she could with her weight. She ran her paws around her vastness. She was so wide that her gut was spilling past her knees in both directions, a hideous distortion of a lioness's proper shape. Her nipples were tender and so was her crotch as her time neared.

She let out a soft sob. Kovu had been looking at her more for a while now, before he was even aware of the change, though Mipa was not unaware. He had that hungry look in his eyes, same as the males out on the plains... Mipa felt a sharp stab of pain in her gut and bent over, hugging her overfull tummy. She knew she was giving herself a bellyache, but couldn't help herself. There were things that she simply did not understand. "How can he love me?" Mipa quietly asked the storm. Thunder rumbled an incoherent reply.

Water continued to drip onto Mipa's wide back despite the best cover that she could find; she didn't mind it so much as her own thoughts. The fear welled up in the back of her throat as the time approached when she would be at her most vulnerable once again. It was a female curse which Mipa honestly wished she could do without, or at least she had... She held her head in her paws and shook it to and fro. "Kovu is different!" she cried at herself, but there was still the looks he gave her, the way he eyed her, the firm feel of him against her. She wanted to run away, to just be away from him and from anyone else. But she remembered and couldn't forget. She'd known love once before... She might know it again and maybe for longer than an embrace, so brief. She had the chance to become whole again, she couldn't throw it away, no matter how afraid she was.

Mipa stood, getting heavily to her paws and bracing herself against the trunk of the near tree. However, feeling the uncomfortable weight on her paws, she decided to sit again just a short distance away. She could feel her gut against the backs of her forelegs. The pragmatic side of her said that she was getting dangerously obese. Mipa lifted a paw again and stroked the side of her sagging abdomen which filled completely the space between the ground and her undercarriage and caused her to slouch forward. She'd put on more weight in the last several months than she had in the past three years. And she showed no signs of slowing down any time soon. The worst part of it was that she didn't even know how to feel about it.

She'd never relied on athleticism to catch her dinner, so most of the pragmatic arguments were out. For the longest time, Mipa had felt ugly and undesirable because of her weight, but she didn't feel that way anymore, not around Kovu, who made very plain his attraction for her size and stature. She retained some of the old discomfort looking at herself, but Kovu had shaken her old proclivities to the core. Sometimes she did - almost - feel attractive around him. But then there were all the little aches and pains, the difficulty in rising and in walking long distances, the way her thighs rubbed together, the way she spent too much time sitting around these days. Kovu went out of his way to minimize inconveniance, but as much time as he spent around her, he couldn't fix everything. Mipa sighed and patted the side of her tummy, sending waves rolling across her wide torso. She just didn't know how to feel, the old disgust wouldn't come but neither did Kovu's unnatural attraction to her size and plushness.

Nevertheless, her appetite seemed to dictate that she continue to grow. And that seemed the darndest thing of all. She'd never been this hungry before. But since meeting Kovu, if there was food around, she ate it without thinking. However much there was, she ate it. It was a compulsion, pure and simple and it scared Mipa as well. She felt out of control when there were carcasses near with fresh meat on them. The hunger and the impulse stirred at the mere sight of food. And the eating felt so... good. Every swallow was bliss, but she couldn't get enough, even when she had past hunger, she wanted that feeling of flesh sliding down her gullet. She still wanted it...

Mipa belched again, less loud then before and settled onto her wide tummy. It was so big, it felt like a cushion under her, even preventing her from touching her knees to the ground unless she tilted to one side or other. Did her weakness around food make her a bad lion? Growing up, she's spent time alternately starving and in plenty, but that was common enough on the savannah. You didn't see any of the other lionesses acting this way around meals nor bloating to her current size. Mipa threw her head down onto her crossed paws. Slowly water dripped from her chin from where the mist continued to land on her face and the rest of her. She didn't fee cold, though, she had a lot of insulation. "What's wrong with me?" she asked plaintively of the Ancestors in the sky. She wept when they didn't answer, though her tears mixed with the water falling slowly on her face. She stared a long time into the gloom of the glade before eventually, she settled into a light, uneasy doze.

* * *

Kovu said that he was going out to hunt, but he was actully stepping out to think. Also he wanted to give Mipa some space. She did this sometimes. One moment she would be really receptive to him, the next the door would slam shut. It was hard not to get angry at her. He'd thought he'd been making progress...

"but I knew she was damaged goods when I signed up for this." sighed Kovu fondly. "I'll show her. I'll find a way to get through to her..."

Kovu tramped through the enlarged oasis. There was plenty of room now to roam and even the desert beyond was fairly hospitable with fresh new grass and flowers as far as the eye could see; during the day at least. He still wasn't sure what he was going to do. Instinct and what he'd learned from his mother told him that a female might be impressed by a show of strength or dominance. Kovu shook his head as he plowed through the abundant undergrowth. That didn't seem right for Mipa. It would probably only frighten her. She had a thing with male lions... "but what can I do?" Kovu asked, lifting his face and black mane to the stormy sky. He'd given her time, months of time, and so far things had been well enough to please him. However if she was going to be his Queen, he needed more.

Thunder exploded overhead, so loud it shook the trees around the lion and knocked loose what felt like a small pond's worth of water down on his head. He rose, gasping and shook his long shaggy mane, the world was silent save for a loud ringing in his ears. He recovered quickly and Kovu grinned. He had his answer. "Yes!" he shouted up at the monsoon. "I must act as well. Thank you!" Kovu bounded into the woods, wondering and puzzling over what form his action might take...

***

Kovu returned just before dawn, like he said he would and bedded down with Mipa in the driest nook they could find in the trees around her glade. Her woven mattress of grass had been blown apart and it would take a long time to remake it. Kovu did his best to keep her warm an dry in the scant shelter they had between the boughs of the trees. The day was long, hot and humid and Mipa slept heavily with a full belly. It still struck Kovu as odd for a lion to eat each and every single night; especially coming from a wasteland where a meal once a week, interspersed with whatever insects could be scrounged from the dust - seemed like the norm and enough to survive on at least. He smiled down on her vast sleeping form. He liked that his mate didn't have to know what that was like. And judging by his own frame, he was adapting in his own way to the new dietary regime.

The black-maned lion extricated himself early in the afternoon from Mipa's heavy, flabby rolls and excused himself to a sleepy, only semi-concious lioness. He paced down into the jungle and unfortunately was not able to return until just before dusk.

He was slightly alarmed when he saw her gone from the glade. Dark clouds drifted by the stars and the bright moon above as he looked about for her in a quick circle. He caught her scent leading down the opposite path and realized she must have gone to check the traps by herself. He hoped she wouldn't be too mad at him...

"Kovu! Where have you been?" cried Mipa as she turned roundly to face the tardy lion; her sides wobbled slightly as she executed the tight turn.

Kovu had stumbled upon the obese lioness as she had been struggling to reset a sprung, though empty snare; that happened quite often, as many as a third of all the traps had to be reset every night because of the simple triggers Mipa was able to employ with stakes, string and bits of wood. She'd turned when she caught his distinctive scent. Her glare and the obvious effort she'd been through to reform the snare sent a pang of guilt down Kovu's spine. It was true he had been gone much longer than he'd anticipated. "Mipa," He pleaded, striding out from around a stout tree, "I'm sorry that I was gone."

The very obese cat sat down on the damp turf in front of Kovu, easing the weight off of her hindlegs and spreading her tummy over the ground under her. She breathed a little heavily as she spoke. "You're supposed to help me with this. Do you realize how long it... took me to fix this thing by myself?"

While her belly and wide frame heaved in a delightful way as she spoke, Kovu felt terrible that she'd been put in her current situation, worse that seemed to be brushing up against her limitations for the first time. And it was a very intuitive guess that while Mipa was taking out her anger on him, its origins were closer to home. "I know, Mipa and I already said that I was sorry, but I-"

"But what?" intrupted Mipa, jutting her pigeon breast forward and raising a paw to jab Kovu in the chest. "What was so important that it couldn't wait until we'd finished collecting our food?" Mipa said emphasizing the word. While Kovu recognized that the ongoing quest for food was a vital part of their existence, he also realized that it was not as though either of them were in any danger of starving. Again, it was Mipa's odd fixation on food cropping up again.

Kovu took a deep breath and let it out. After this, there was no going back. "I'd like to show you... if you'll let me Mipa." he said, lifting his face to meet hers.

Mipa was slouching, her belly sagging across the ground and her cheeks full round and sagging a little as well. However her blue eyes seemed younger as they widened in surprise. She turned away, embarrassed at her own wrath. Then she threw Kovu a line. "Alright. Let's see what you've been up to these last few hours..."

***

Kovu led Mipa back up to the high point of the oasis, where the streams were above the waterfall and then higher still. Mipa complained about going uphill. "Kovu..." she puffed as she waddled, her belly swinging side to side and her knees pressing into the fatty flesh with every step. "Why're you bringing me... up here?"

The black-maned lion glanced back at his much slower companion. Mipa lacked much of a lion's basic grace as she plodded through the grass about as enthusiastically as a mule. Felines tended to move both paws on the same side of the body at the same time as a general rule. Not Mipa. Not since she'd managed to grow her tummy from an overlarge bulge to something which dominated her frame. Now she moved one paw at a time, and her feet were widely spaced, making for an inefficient and taxing gait. To Kovu, it was beauty in motion. "It's not much farther now. I wanted to put it higher up, but I would have had to drag everything father from the oasis."

"What're you talking..." grumbled Mipa, but then subsided into subvocalized mutterings at a plaintive look from Kovu. She took a few more gulps of air and continued dragging her fat ass up the hill to where the oasis finally ended.

For the last stretch of the journey, Kovu dropped back and asked the laboring lioness to close her eyes. She rolled her eyes at him, but obliged him without too much fuss. She'd come all this way after all and from the sound of her heart, she really was excited to a degree. When Kovu let her open her eyes, she let out a small gasp at what the lion had constructed.

Simply put it was a small windmill. Fortune had provided the intrepid lion with a dead tree whose trunk supported the slowly rotating blades. It was simple in construction, even simplier in Kovu's head, but in practice it'd taken him four tries to set up. As much as he'd learned from Mipa from the time living with and assisting her, he simply lacked the finesse in his paws for subtle manipulations. The assembly creaked as it slowly turned in the breeze. Kovu had made the blades from twigs and leaves mostly. It were also festooned with flowers woven into the blades as well as many small bones from the remains of Mipa's meals. The latter clicked and clacked in an appealing music as the wheel turned slowly.

Mipa was rendered speechless, so Kovu said. "I built this wheel so that you'd know that how I feel for you will never go away, Mipa. Just like the arms keep turning, so will my feelings for you continue, forever." He brushed against her, rubbing his whiskers against her ear, "I will always be here for you Mipa."

Mipa choked up, looking at the thing that Kovu had built, built for her. A range of emotions played on her face: surprise, elation, disconcertion, humility and... well, love. "Kovu... I... I don't know what to say."

"You don't have to say anything." said Kovu, brushing up against her soft seated form. Mipa smiled and looked up at the colorful clacking blades. The differently shaped bones created an eerily intense sound and the way the fans moved about unsteadily in the breeze was almost mesmerizing. The two large cats sat there and looked at it as the sun set behind them. It kept spinning and it would continue to creak about slowly through the night and the nights to come.