A Dragon's Diet p2

It had been two nights since Jenny began her studies on the properties and origins of the amulet and things were getting just a little bit strange. It wasn’t out of the ordinary for the mouse to order out, and order large meals - after all who doesn’t like leftovers? But in the two days since she’d began wearing the curious little amulet she found herself possessed by a hunger that was new to her. Tens of chicken nuggets, meals of burgers and fries, none of it quite seemed to scratch the same itch it used to. She found herself starting to order doubles of the meals that she used to. It was all a little suspicious but the big thing was - the amulet itself had next to no magical power.

She the amulet up, magnifying glass in front of her, burger wrappers occupying the rest of the dump her workspace had become. Her stomach bulged against her desk as she leaned forward, reading the inscription along the side of the amulet’s gold edges for the fifteenth time. It was written in the language of dragons - a language of which she knew very little, and seemed to imply that the amulet held the essence of a mighty dragon. That anybody who should wear the amulet would find themselves empowered by it to the degree that, were this another age, bards would write ballads about their heroic feats and abilities. Unless downing two slices of pizza at once was a heroic feat, Jenny doubted very much that the amulet was working.

Wiping grease from her mouth with one hand and stifling a belch, Jenny pushed the magnifying glass away and pulled across another - through this one she could easier see the amulet’s magical aura. As she suspected, and as she had seen before, the aura was weak and fluttering. It had likely once been as strong as the inscription would have her believe but the magical bonding was weak and must have faded over time. Wearing it now would probably give all the strength of a strong cup of tea. Which of course begged the question, why was she so hungry?

- - -

It was some hours and a call to a nearby fried chicken place later that Jenny found herself sunken into her couch, nursing a stomach that pushed its way out of her robe like a small beanbag, spilling down her legs past her knees. It gurgled and churned, angrily processing a triple order of fried chicken while yet more sat beside her, its aroma daring her to take another piece. The tv flashed some show or another, but Jenny had long since lost track of what she was doing aside from eating. Something was obviously wrong, she had been cursed in some way or another since leaving that antique’s store and needed to find out how. But on the other hand, she was finally starting to feel full, too. It was a feeling of satisfaction that crept across her distended stomach, one she very much wanted to chase. She did not notice, at the time, the red scales gently crawling up her legs.