A Sweet Occasion

It was the beginning of spring. Wind whistled through the trees while sunlight beamed down through their branches, hitting the back of a group of wombles who were walking to their community's public dining area. It was mid-morning, and it was breakfast time, and everyone had brought a different food or drink that they could all enjoy together, in happiness and revelry.

They were the Derby Wombles, a small community of wombles who had existed for hundreds of years in peace and harmony. They were all very happy together, as was typical for wombles, and not to mention rather great friends; they were all preparing to breakfast together in today's great weather.

The lead womble, the one at the head of the group, was a quite tall yellow-furred male named George, who was about five and a half feet tall; he could be seen looking back at the one behind him and laughing loudly while carrying two sizable pitchers of fruit juice which he had brought with him to share them with his companions. He was the village carpenter, and it was his job to repair the things that broke down, rebuild what couldn't be repaired, and make sure the village's structures could be hidden from the humans' view.

Behind him was a robin's egg blue womble named Poppy, who was his best friend; she was four and a half feet tall – quite typical height for a womble – and carrying a large, steaming plate of mushrooms. She was their mushroom farmer, and it was her job to plant and harvest mushrooms for village consumption. She could be seen laughing, too, and would have slapped George – lightly – on the shoulder in amused consternation if her hands hadn't been full.

Behind her was a bright green-furred womble named Ethan, who was dragging behind him a wheelbarrow filled with different pastries that he had baked, since he was the womble who ran the village bakery. He was about five feet tall, and rather obese, but still very good-natured, even for a womble. His belly wobbled and jiggled greatly under his jacket whenever he laughed; sometimes he laughed so hard his entire body would jiggle and ripple, his clothing straining against his many pounds of pudginess.

Behind him was another female womble, a pink-furred one named Amelia, who was carrying a quite large pumpkin pie that she had baked herself the night before. She was five feet tall along with Ethan, because they were twins, though her job was somewhat different from his – she was the village's adjudicator, the one who arbitrated disputes between the Derby Wombles, as well as the village doctor. Her judgment was trusted amongst all of the village wombles, and she was who you went to if there was a disagreement or if you had a medical problem or emergency. She was one of the more serious wombles, but still, she could be seen looking ahead at Ethan and laughing, slapping him on his back and watching as it rippled with green fur and fat.

Behind her was David, a rather short four foot tall womble of around average size and with red fur, who was carrying a sizable – and heavy! – basket of toast and butter and jam. He was a womble of many talents, as he was the Derby Womble's official glassblower and tailor, and managed their printing press and the gathering of its' supplies. He was quite a serious womble, and he could be seen hunched forward with his brow furrowed, as if he was quite concerned with something at the present moment (which, he was: he wasn't sure how he was going to get all of the supplies together to repair Amelia's broken window).

Behind him was a five foot tall female womble named Violet, which was rather appropriate considering that her fur was a deep purple color. She was carrying yet another large, heavy plate of mushrooms – though this time they weren't steaming – and since most wombles adored mushrooms, nobody could find it within themselves to complain. She could be seen offering one of her mushrooms to David, the red womble in front of her, and was a little bit occupied with telling him not to be so serious.

Behind her was the last womble in their group, another five foot tall male womble named Henry, who was covered in orange fur and carrying quite a large – community-sized – jug of milk, which he had farmed himself from his cows; he was a farmer and one of their primary providers of food, and everyone was very glad that the quite average-sized womble was a part of their little group.

Together, in a single-file line, they finally entered their community dining area, setting their food (and themselves) down across from one another and quite happily beginning yet another joyful breakfast together as part of their womble family.

As the Derby Wombles gathered together to eat and laugh and cheer, another group of wombles – the Honey Wombles – was gathering together to do something slightly more nefarious: they were preparing to feed George and Poppy and all their friends the mystical honey from their caves, and turn them all round and fat and yellow.

The Honey Wombles were, of course, quite happy about all of this, and thought of it as an improvement, but they also weren't preparing to ask any of the Derby Wombles's permission, which made it quite a lot worse by any ethical standard.

Kent was a womble who was fairly new to the Honey Wombles, but who was nevertheless spearheading this effort in evangelism, leading the group of wombles who had adopted him as their own into a nearby forest where they were all rather sure another group of wombles, one much like their own (though without all the honey) must reside.

“Come on, folks!” He said with a wide smile, waddling his way through the trees as the sun lit upon his golden, yellow fur. “We've got wombles to find! It's time to make everyone see the wonders of the Honnee Caves, and how great it is to be a Honey Womble!”

All of his fellow Honey Wombles responded in cheers, waddling on in like fashion through the forest.

The Derby Wombles sat at their community dining table, joking and laughing and eating and drinking. George threw one of his mushrooms at Violet and stuck out his tongue at her, who responded by throwing one of her own at her companion, and then wagging one of her fingers at him in a teasing gesture that was particularly rude.

This scene – full of laughter and teasing and mayhem – was the one that Kent and his fellow Honey Wombles had tried to waddle into together. However, they found that they could not fit in the dining hall's set of double doors in pairs, and thus they had to enter in single file, one by one, led by Kent Womble.

Kent, covered in bright yellow fur and copious flab that jiggled in all the right places, wasted no time in charging through the doors at top speed (which, given his status as a Honey Womble, was not very fast.). “Everyone!” He said in a slight huff, “I am Kent Womble, of the Honey Wombles, and it is time for you to join us in our magnificent Honnee Caves!”

Amelia, the adjudicator and the de facto leader of the Derby Wombles, stared up at him from her place at the table, slack-jawed. “What, exactly, are you talking about, Mr. Kent Womble?”

Kent took a step forward, and the room quickly filled with the expansive, pudgy bodies of the Honey Wombles, their furry bellies and plump frames filling the room and bumping into each other, their fat bodies rippling and quivering where they met and bumped into each other.

The Derby Wombles had gotten up out of their seats and backed as far away from the door as they could get, feeling rather threatened by this unexpected intrusion from the Honey Wombles, whom they hadn't even known had existed before.

“Why,” He said, spreading his arms out wide as if he were a winged womble, “We have come to show you the wonder of the Honnee Caves!”

“Yes,” Amelia said seriously, “You've said that already. But what makes these caves so wonderful?”
“Because they're filled with honey, of course!” Kent Womble said with a wide grin. “And they'll make you wide and fat and happy, like all of us of the Honey Wombles are!”

The pink female womble looked around at her friends and companions. “Well?” She asked. “What do you all think we should do?” All of the Derby Wombles stared at each other with thoughtful expressions on their faces.

“Maybe we shouldn't,” Ethan suggested with a frown on his face, “I mean, we don't know anything about these people, so maybe we should be a little bit cautious-”
“Phooey!” He was interrupted by George, the much taller, brighter yellow womble who had a smile on his face. “These Honey Wombles all look fat and happy to me! Maybe there's something we could be learning from them.”
“I think that we should follow them, but be careful to keep our options open,” Amelia said seriously, “After all, we don't know these Honey Wombles, but they're still wombles, and they're still probably good people.”

Everyone else among the Derby Wombles grinned and cheered – and just like that, they had decided to join these strange Honey Wombles, at least on a provisional basis.

When the Honey Wombles waddled out through the Derby Wombles's dining area doorway, the Derby Wombles were right behind them, happy and filled with cheer.

The two groups of wombles soon became very good friends, getting to know one another rather well on the short trek to the Honnee Caves. Amelia, the pink-furred womble, was able to discuss her interest in gardening; Ethan, the green-furred one, was immediately quite popular as soon as he made it known that he was the Derby Womble's baker. George found himself near the center of attention as well, as soon they became aware that he was the Derby Womble's carpenter, which made him quite important as – with their hefty weight – the Honey Wombles were constantly breaking furniture.

George was immediately drowned in requests to fix chairs and tables and other such things, and Ethan similarly found himself surrounded by people who wanted him to bake pastries and such with the honey from the Honnee Caves. Amelia was personally shocked that nobody wanted her to make her famous mushroom dishes, for the only thing that wombles loved more than mushrooms was, apparently, the honey from these caves.

As they entered the caves, the Derby Wombles were astounded by the glowing, golden light that seemed to surround them, lighting up nearly every surface. Soon after entering the caves, they began to smell an almost sickeningly sweet scent throughout the caves – the scent of honey – which had filled the air, too strong and powerful for any of them to possibly ignore.

“What is that?!” Amelia demanded, fire in her eyes. Then, more seriously: “I need it. No – we need it.” She announced, pointing at herself and her companions.

“I told you!” Kent said, laughing and grinning. “I knew you'd like our honey as much as we did. And,” He said more seriously – and temptingly. “I can take you to a place where you can sample it.”

And oh, they were tempted, all right. Every single one of the Derby Wombles stepped forward to follow their new, golden-furred best friend down the golden-lit cave path which he guided them. The fat on his skin rippled and jiggled with every step he took, and the group following behind him couldn't help but stare at his wide, quivering rump, which was arguably bigger than some of the shorter Derby Wombles just by itself.

The Derby Wombles had no idea what Kent was leading them to as they followed him down the Honnee Cave's tunnels, but they followed their golden-furred leader with bated breath nonetheless.

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On their way down through the tunnels, the Derby Wombles became tempted by the things they saw. First, it was George who was seduced into separation from his friends – the tall, yellow-furred womble left the group when they passed by a room full of carpentry materials (many different kinds of wood, and different tools, and even completed carpentry projects such as furniture and barrels and cabinets!).

He gasped aloud as he ran his fingers along the fine grain of the wood, material which had been inlaid with gold and silver and other precious metals (and even, in some cases, metals such as stainless steel, for wombles commonly felt that “waste not, want not” was a saying that should be taken quite literally.). The cabinets and chairs and things shone, even in the relative darkness of the Honey Womble's cave, and it was all thanks to the shiny metals that had been set into the Honey Wombles's superb carpentry supplies which George had now gotten to lay his eyes on.

He soon discovered that one of the barrels had been filled with a mysterious, golden-colored, sticky substance that he was pretty sure was honey, and it didn't take the womble long before he began to eat it straight out of the barrel.

The next one of the Derby Wombles to disappear from the group was Ethan, who had been greatly (and successfully) tempted when the wombles trailing behind Kent passed by a bakery, filled with products made with bread and with copious sugar and honey. He was distracted by piles of pastries and bread products, bagels and donuts and brownies and cakes, with everything covered and baked in the wonderful, delectable honey that could be found within the Honnee Caves. Even the frosting on the cake was sweetened with honey instead of regular sugar; and Ethan, the green baker from the Derby Wombles, soon found that he wouldn't have had it any other way as he took himself a slice of the very cake he was staring at with a somewhat quizzical gaze.

The very next of the Derby Wombles to get caught in one of the cave's mysteriously appropriate rooms was Poppy, the one with robin's-egg blue colored fur who was a mushroom farmer. One minute she was walking along, and the next she mysteriously smelled mushrooms; she walked into the next room, opening a door that was somewhat in her way, and found a room that was filled to the brim with – just as she had thought – mushrooms! All kinds of wonderful, delicious, irresistible (and, most importantly, edible) fungi, that were somehow being grown from even more of the cave's mysterious honey.

Poppy frowned to herself: she had never heard of anyone growing mushrooms with honey before! But the whole floor of this room was covered in just about an inch or two of honey, and when she picked up one of the mushrooms and took a bite out of the bulb, it was like an explosion of honey in her mouth with just a hint of the taste of a mushroom. She almost passed out from sheer joy, it tasted so good, but instead she grabbed another handful of mushrooms and shoved them into her mouth.

It was time for her to eat.

The fourth of the group of foreign Wombles to succumb to the mysteries of the Honnee Caves was David, the glassblower, who was caught astray by yet another one of the suspiciously appropriately packed rooms within the cave system. It was, as you'd expect, a room full of glass items – immaculately crafted glassware, from windows to wineglasses to plates, all made with just enough of the cave's honey to color them gold while making sure they remained transparent.

The red-furred womble gingerly stuck out his tongue and licked one of the panes of glass that had been leaned up against the wall by whoever it was that blew the glass around here. It tasted just like honey… and it was addictive! Looking around, David quickly found an unattended barrel of honey that had been left there by one of the Honey Womble's glassblowers, and quickly took the cap off and stuck his head right inside.

His mouth, his mind, and then his gut quickly began to fill with the sweet, golden liquid.

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It was a while before Amelia and Henry, the adjudicator and the dairy farmer, noticed that anything was wrong; they were too busy following Kent down the sweet-smelling hallway, and trying not to stare or giggle at his ridiculous – and enormous – jiggling, golden-furred butt cheeks. (It wasn't working; every few minutes one of them would let out with a mild gasp or a giggle or a laugh, and he would look back and glare at them with as much consternation as his womble face could muster, which wasn't honestly very much.).

When Amelia did notice that something was amiss, though, she was quick to mention it. “Hey, Kent!” She asked, with yet another Womble-y look of distress, “Where the heck are all of our friends?!”

Kent looked back yet again and stopped in his tracks, somewhat nervous this time; he didn't know exactly how to respond to these two strangers and their awkward questions, especially since he was sure that they wouldn't quite like a completely honest answer.

He thought for a second, with a furrowed brow, before responding.
“Well,” He said, “If you'll just come with me, I'll show you – they're right down the hall!”

Being rather polite, although a little bit doubtful of his claims, Amelia and Henry looked at each other with wary expressions on their faces and finally nodded at Kent, agreeing to follow him down the strange hallway that they had absolutely no intention of getting trapped within.

Privately, Amelia thought to herself: “What's happened to our friends – George, Poppy, Ethan and the rest? I hope nobody's hurt them...”

Henry was more concerned about his own future, thinking, “This Kent fellow had better not be trying to make me disappear just like the others have, or he's going to regret it!”

Amelia and Henry ended up following Kent into a playroom. The orange-furred male womble, normally a very serious farmer, walked into the room and burst out laughing from sheer surprise, as he laid his eyes upon all of the room's playground equipment – a swing-set, a slide, a trampoline, a see-saw, and several other things that made him giggle with delight, ranging from a set of monkey bars to a merry-go-round. He began excitedly hopping up and down and clapping his hands, laughing energetically to himself all the while.

Amelia, unsurprisingly, responded more seriously, glaring at Kent with a very serious stare, crossing her arms and expectantly tapping one of her feet: “So, Kent: where are all of our friends?”

Henry ran straight to the swing-set and started swinging; it was almost as if he'd stopped paying any attention to what was going on at all. But Amelia, she just stood there, staring at the golden-colored womble, practically drilling holes into him with her eyes.

“Well, um,” Kent said, starting to fidget nervously with his hands and backing up towards the far wall, “I can explain!”

“Okay, Kent. Where's our explanation?” Amelia asked.

He reached the far wall and pulled a big red lever; as soon as he did, the floor fell away from the Derby Wombles, and they tumbled down into a steaming lake of honey located below the Honnee Caves.

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As soon as the floor disappeared out from under her, Amelia began to scream; thanks to physics, she didn't waste any time before beginning to fall, either, and as soon as she started falling the volume of her screaming only increased. She was terrified, tumbling down towards a steaming lake of mysterious golden liquid that she didn't recognize or understand.

Henry's eyes widened in alarm as soon as he started to drop, but he was more stoic than his pink friend: he didn't scream, he just… fell. Hard and fast.

Almost before either of them knew it, the two wombles slammed into the giant, golden pool of honey; the warm liquid flew in all directions as Henry and Amelia started to slowly sink into the thick, viscous fluid, thankfully uninjured.

They were both surprised to find out that it was very warm (although it wasn't hot enough to burn); Amelia's mouth was open due to her screaming, and as soon as she fell into the honey pool it started to fill with the sweet liquid. She didn't even bother swimming to the surface, really; she just gulped down the honey as though it were air. She would've been laughing, but it is somewhat difficult to laugh when immersed in honey, so she did not.

Henry, for his part, did bother to swim to the honey's surface; but he still started to drink it as soon as he reached the top, and it didn't take him very long to start sucking it down as if it were air, either.

The pink womble started to fill out with pudge first, probably because she had started swallowing honey before Henry did; her belly began to get big first, while her fur started to turn a deep gold color. Soon, the rest of her started to get extremely fat, and her fur went from pink with a slightly gold tinge to it to just being completely gold-colored. She became a very heavy womble, loaded with fat and at least 600 pounds, and she would have been able to blend in with the Honnee Cave's honey if she and the pool hadn't reflected light completely differently.

Henry, meanwhile, took a little bit longer to get fat and happy (and golden), since he wasn't immersed from head to toe in honey and had to actively stick his head under the surface to start drinking it. As Amelia finished drinking and started to swim her way out of the lake of honey, Henry's fur had started to turn from orange to gold, and he had begun to inflate with extreme levels of fat. He didn't start with his belly, though – his ass started to get fat first, his butt cheeks filling out with copious flab, every other part of his body quickly starting to fill up with similar levels of golden-colored, fur-covered fat.

With some difficulty, the 650 pound male womble started to swim to shore, too, hoping that he would find his friends.

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As Amelia and Henry attempted to swim to shore, David, the formerly red-colored womble, started to heat up molten glass that had been mixed with honey in an oven, the Honey Womble's signature method of glassblowing which colored the glass the same golden tone as his fur.

The molten 'honey glass' shone like it was made of gold as it came out of the oven, which made David giggle with joy as if he were blowing glass for the first time when he started to gather it with a blowpipe.

Then he carried it to a steel table, and began to shape it. The newly transitioned, very fat honey womble marveled at how easy the glass was to shape – there was clearly some property about the honey that made the molten glass simpler to shape than any glass he'd ever worked with in his years of glassblowing.

As he continued to work with the glass, he grinned and giggled the whole way; after a few hours, he finished, having made a wonderful, gold-toned pendant for Violet, which he was sure she'd like.

He waddled off to find her, sniggering all the way.

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Meanwhile, George, the formerly yellow-furred Derby Womble, had seen his fur turned gold from the literal barrel-full of honey which he had ingested (and, once or twice, almost fallen into.). Finding himself in a room full of carpentry materials, he had elected to make yet another barrel, something to hold more of this wonderful, magical honey with.

It was like he was working in super-speed; this was faster than he'd ever managed to make a barrel. He found himself doing in several minutes what typically took him several days, his hands working speedier than he'd ever seen them.

Finally, after only about two hours, he glazed over the finished barrel with even more honey, and watched as the viscous fluid dried over the cask and started to glow with a golden sheen.

He waddled off to find his friends and tell them about his marvelous achievement,, just like David had, his fat rear end and belly swaying from side to side as he walked.

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Poppy, the womble who used to have robin's-egg blue fur, stood in a room full of bizarre, gold-colored mushrooms that tasted wonderful and – somehow – had made her egregiously fat.

She wasn't sure what to do – she couldn't begin the process of mushroom farming again, not here, without any supplies! And she didn't know where to get more of this marvelous, sweet golden stuff on the floor from, either.

Bereft of solutions, she went off to find the other Derby Wombles, figuring that they would help her figure out what to do next.

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Next was Ethan, the green-furred baker who had been delighted to find himself in a room full of honey-infused baked goods. After eating a bunch of golden pastries that tasted like honey, he, like his compatriots, started to turn rather obese and gold-colored; he idly wondered to himself whether, if somebody were to eat him, if he would taste like honey.

Being a rather no-nonsense sort of womble – at least as far as wombles go – Ethan quickly pushed this thought aside and started baking. This time, he'd decided to bake some bagels, because he thought that honey-flavored bagels would taste wonderful, while privately hoping that honey-flavored wombles would be something nobody would ever try. (“No-nonsense for a womble” turned out to be not actually very no-nonsense.).

Much like George, his hands moved in a blur, and he started to experience life in slow motion; unlike his formerly yellow friend, however, you can't really speed up the process of baking the wonderful honey-infused bagels he was making; he had to wait two hours for the dough to rise, although it didn't take him very long to shape the bagels when the dough came out of the oven, and it only took another ten minutes for them to bake to perfection in his baker's oven.

When they came out of the oven, he cut them in half and slathered butter on them; then, with a plate full of sliced bagels in hand, he walked off to find his friends, his whole body wobbling with fat whenever he stepped forward.

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Last of all, Violet had accidentally wandered into the honey lake, but had not – unlike everybody else – fallen in or managed to succumb to the miraculous fluid. There was nothing that could tempt her, really, as the thing that interested her the most was her friends, who had all disappeared; and unlike Amelia, she wasn't very curious about the honey lake lying in front of her, either.

However, it didn't take long for her formerly pink-furred companion to sneak up behind her and shove her right into the giant lake of honey anyway; and with a gasp and a shout, Violet fell right in, honey splashing in all directions.

Just like with Amelia, honey began to pour straight in to her open mouth; the purple-colored womble quickly became incredibly fat, with her round cheeks (on her face) filling out with fat first, while everything else was more slow to grow and expand. The purple-furred womble quickly became heavy with blubber, while her fur began to turn gold until eventually there was not even a hint of purple left in the now ironically named Violet's fur.

She began to sluggishly swim out of the body of honey due to her great weight, eventually reaching the beach of the honey-lake and pulling herself out, her entire body jiggling excessively from her effort. Directly in front of her was her friend Amelia, morbidly obese and golden-colored, tapping her foot and waiting expectantly for her friend. “Violet!” She said excitedly, if a bit petulantly, “It sure took you long enough to join the Honey Wombles!”

“The what Wombles?” Violet responded, her brow furrowing in confusion from her friend's strange words and even stranger attitude. “But Amelia, we're the Derby Wombles: we don't belong here – wherever here is, exactly!”

“Sure you do!” Kent said, walking out of the corridor behind Amelia with a friendly smile, his whole body quivering whenever he took strode forward because it was so covered in bulk. “Everyone belongs with the Honey Wombles! Our honey is a gift from the gods, and it is our mission to share it with every womble, everywhere.”

“I'm sure you can see that, Violet,” Amelia said rather calmly, “I mean, you've tasted the honey now! And besides – I'm the adjudicator, remember? It's my job to judge things. And I judge that we should join these lovely wombles!”

Violet's brow remained furrowed as she thought about these two strange wombles and the proposition they had made. “I still don't know...”

At that very moment, all of the rest of her friends from the Derby Wombles showed up, all of them covered in golden fur and wobbling with fat from head to toe. David stepped out from among them and offered her a gift; “Violet, this honey is amazing – look what I can make from it!” He held out a pendant that was shaped like a butterfly and shone like gold, yet was clearly made of glass, as it was translucent.

“Yeah, look what I made with this stuff –” Ethan said, holding out his plate full of golden-colored, sweet-smelling bagels. “They're really amazing!”

“I made a barrel! A real barrel, in just an hour or two!” George said, his grin widening.
“And me –“ Poppy added, “You should see the mushrooms you can grow in here, you guys!”
“Alright, alright,” Violet said, “I give in! How could I not, with all of you right here trying to convince me? Besides: these bagels should convince me by themselves!”

Kent, standing off to the side with a wide grin, added to their conversation: “Come with me, then, all of you, and I'll introduce you to the rest of the Honey Wombles and show you how things work around here! We'll be glad to have you.”

Amelia, stepping forward as the Derby Wombles's leader, despite all her wobbling pudge, was the one who spoke for the group. “We would be glad to, Kent! Come on, everybody.”

Together, they all waddled their way down the corridor, on a mission to find the rest of the wombles and finally join the Honey Wombles's community.

Just before following everyone else down the hallway, Violet heard some ominous words from Kent, speaking softly to Amelia: “And we'll need all of your help to get more wombles to join us in our cause!”

The formerly purple womble smiled to herself in anticipation: she knew there were going to be exciting times ahead, and she wouldn't miss it for the world!

Violet waddled forward, ready to join her friends and the Honey Wombles in their new mission.