An Enormous Priestess

The priestess knelt on the hard stone floor, and a prayer spilled quickly from her lips.
“Magnificent Shavali, Queen of all that lives, hear my prayer,” she muttered hastily, hands clasped in front of her in prayer, “You the most benevolent and kindly of goddesses, you that bring the light in the morning to end the night…”
She was already feeling out of breath, hastening the mumbled words of the prayer between hungry gulps of air. She’d barely said thirty words and the familiar hunger for oxygen already burned in her chest, a nagging voice telling her to just give up. At her size, simply breathing was tricky; the bloated swell of her body weighed down on her crushingly, forcing the air from her lungs unless she actively fought against it. Interrupting her strained breathing to pray, even just for a few moment, left her out of breath and wheezing loudly.

She’d been getting fatter ever since entering the order. There was simply too much good food, too much sitting sedentary in reflective prayer. The heavy evening meals, the morning harvest-devotion, the constant grazing on offerings given unto the sisterhood by the common people. Over the years, the pounds had flocked to her body in their multitudes, rounding out her thighs, her hips, her belly, her breasts… she’d hardly considered it an issue, though, on those rare occasions she even bothered considering it; most of the priestesses in the order were on the heavier side, and she was simply no different. However, as time went on and she continued to eat, continued to grow plumper and heavier with every passing month, it became obvious that she wasn’t going to plateau like her holy sisters, and soon, her increasingly immense weight began to make even the limited responsibilities of her station a strain. She began to find herself increasingly short of breath near the end of the longer prayers, and the daily walks to and from the prayer room were growing increasingly challenging for her sagging, food-swollen frame. Her belly seemed to grow heavier by the day, drooping further towards her thick, bulging thighs with every excessive meal, her entire body drowning inside its own morbid bulk. Her face grew continually flushed with the exertion of living, her throat melting into a double chin, and still she ate, and ate, and ate, disregarding her troubles as passing trifles. Her belly swelled fatter still, growing into a swollen, unwieldy orb of drooping flab hanging uncomfortably from her midsection, folding over itself at her navel, melting into bulging hips at her sides and sagging towards her fat thighs. Her thighs themselves thickened ever further, matching her backside as it ballooned into new hugeness beneath her increasingly-tight robes, her buttocks jostling against each other beneath the thin fabric. Any modesty the robes were supposed to afford was inevitably lost as her overindulged body strained them to their limits, the tight material clinging so close that the every fold, roll and bulging pillow of flab of her form was clearly visible through the struggling fabric. Even the bloated swell of her chest, grown flabby and full with ten-thousand petty indulgences, was clearly shown off by the supposedly modest robes, the sensible design rendered vulgar by her gluttony.

And these days… these days she wasn’t even sure if she could finish the shortest, most basic ode in the prayer-book.
“By your light, by your holy magnificence… grant me dignity, grant me… grant me the strength,” she soldiered on with difficulty, struggling against the constraints of her body, “to revere you, to worship you… grant me the… grant me…” she was forced to trail off, gasping and panting loudly as she struggled unsuccessfully to suck down enough oxygen to let her finish the simple prayer. It was an ever-more-difficult challenge; her clasped hands in front of her put pressure on her overgrown chest, squeezing her massive bust between her bulging, flabby upper arms, and just keeping her body upright as she knelt was sapping her energy - but she screwed up all her strength and carried on with the short prayer.

“Grant me the… privilege… to spread… your… your word… to…”
She swallowed heavily, wobbling woozily on her knees as she strained to continue the prayer. She wouldn’t fail; this was test from Shavali, and she wouldn’t – she couldn’t fail it.
“To spread your word… to show… to dem… demonstrate… your…”
Without fanfare, darkness crept in around the edges of her vision, spreading inky fingers slipping into her sight as her abused body began to fail under the stress of the short phrases, and finally, miserably, the priestess gave in. She collapsed, her belly and breasts flattening and spreading beneath her as she toppled forwards onto the cold stone floor, mouth lolling open as she gulped urgently for the oxygen to stave off unconsciousness. The weight of her own bulk was far too much though, her enormously overfed body compressing her lungs, her chest burning as …

A glowing figure stepped into view.
“My daughter…” a luminescent voice spoke, and the priestess stared with urgent wonder, “You are a blessed soul.”
The priestess tried to speak, but she couldn’t so much as move. She could only gaze upon the shining figure and listen mutely, rapt with attention.
“What you think of as a challenge, a test of faith… is actually a potent boon from me to you. Do not fight it. Embrace it. Embrace me…”
The figure began to fade, and with the last of her strength, the priestess reached desperately for her, trying to gasp the impossible goddess with one plump hand. Before her eyes though the figure melted away into shimmering sunlight, and suddenly the priestess was conscious again, lungs aching as she swallowed down invigorating mouthfuls of air, the fog fading from around her eyes. There were half a dozen other priestesses arranged around her, concern on every face.

“Sister! You passed out,” one of them exclaimed, her face lined with visible worry, “You couldn’t breathe… we had to heave you over to the statue of Shavali to prop you up. Are you alright?”
Still too exhausted and short of breath to answer, the priestess could only nod, her eyes alight with a fiery new purpose.
“You really need to be careful, Sister,” one of the other priestesses fretted, “You’re just too heavy, you need to cut back.”
“N-no!” the priestess gasped, making the assembled crowd jump with her sudden exclamation, “No.” She recalled her vision, the luminous figure, and the words it had spoken - and after another few deep breaths, managed to speak slowly again. “I think- I think I have a mission. I need to get bigger. Much… much bigger.”