Elsie Grows Up: A DA Extended Universe Story

Elsie Grows Up: A DeviantArt Extended Universe Story

[The following takes place four years before Sir Robert MacDiarmid/Colonel Knight Rider and Elsie's first conversation.]

Was Elsah Paige Morgan, handmaid turned princess by the benevolent Princess Emerald’s decree, ever skinny?  Not exactly.  Was she obese?  I disagree since she’d spent the last two and a half years studying the martial art Tororu Gyakusatsu to prepare for invasions from Eschaton’s armies.  Moreover, her sensei, an average-sized fellow, had an entire program for plus-sized ladies (his philosophy was, “I see no correlation between height, width, or depth and ability to defend oneself!”).  The fact was that Elsie had some extra padding spread relatively evenly throughout all sections of her frame.  This was mostly due to the nobles in the Royal Court of DA-Land, most of whom ate such bountiful portions of rich food that Elsie’s parents, also royal servants who grew up among immigrants from the dwarf planet Saxonangle living on Drodon's ice caps, used to bring home the excess and share it with each other and their darling daughter.

Although I’m not allowed to disclose her weight, I, Colonel Knight Rider, will say that Elsie stands 5 feet, 7 inches (or 1.7 meters) tall, wears a dress size 18 (Drodonian measurements, same as Earth’s U.S. measurements), and is shaped nearly the same as the lovely size 18 Earth model Denise Bidot as seen in the following list.
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In my defense, she has taken me to the plus-sized sections of some of our majestic planet Drodon’s most popular fashion outlets, where learning what she wears is inevitable because of the aisles’ labelling by size.

Now, where was I?  Right.  *Ahem,* Sorry.  I went off on another tangent.  It’s just my condition.  As I was saying, poor Elsie’s slightly pudgy frame made her an immense subject of ridicule in the eyes of more shallow handmaids determined to promote themselves as objects of desire.  She tried ignoring them throughout childhood and adolescence but, feeling outnumbered, never found the courage to speak her mind.  Then came the evening before her 18th birthday, the day she would be lawfully recognized as an adult.  She did the unthinkable.

She went to bed without touching her supper.

In her parents’ absence, Elsie fed her dinner to the servant class’s hunting dogs in their canine quarters, creating the illusion that she had eaten.  When her parents asked why they heard an audible stomach growl from her as they were going to wish her a good night, she pleaded that her tummy only wanted that special number 18-shaped pair of birthday doughnuts on which she had feasted her eyes in a bakery window.  They told her not to think too far ahead and wished her a peaceful slumber.

The young handmaid tiptoed out of her bed roughly ten minutes after her bedroom door closed, and she crept over to her washroom mirror.  She was haunted by thoughts of what she had seen over the past few months: other young handmaids who, on their 18th birthdays, all quickly found suitors (most of them butlers, but a few soldiers and guildsmen in the mix) because of their slender physiques.  It didn’t help that her warmer season pajamas, dark lavender on top and light lavender on the bottom, emphasized her build and exposed more skin, including her arms from the shoulders to the fingertips and the lower halves of her legs.

She inspected her upper body and frowned to see the extra flesh accrued in her arms and chest.

She lifted her shirt’s midsection, rubbed her soft belly, and trembled at the thought of repelling those who gazed upon it.

She pinched her hips to form “love handles,” and sneered in revulsion.

She studied her posterior and quickly turned back before nervously moving on to the thighs.

She rolled up her pant legs, traced her finger along her faint thigh “dimples,” and forced herself to stop crying.

At that moment, her stomach roared five times louder than earlier, itself crying to be filled, but Elsie refused to submit to its desperate lamentations, retiring once again to her bed.

******************

As Elsie lay in bed silently, oddly familiar images appeared within her closed eyelids.  She saw the old courtyard where Princess Emerald herself used to entertain children before Eschaton became too powerful to ignore even for a day.  But the princess wasn’t there, nor were any other adults.  Instead, Elsie saw a flock of school-aged children, whether from servant parents or not, all running about to obscure the centerpoint.  They laughed and waved their fingers tauntingly at the centerpoint, all shouting insults Elsie had heard in multifarious forms since childhood.

“I’ve heard that, if you eat too much, you get really UGLY!”

“Yeah?  Well, I’ve heard that, if you eat too much, you get SICK and die!”

“Totally!  Have you ever met a strong person who was fat?”

“No way!  Fat people are supposed to be WEAK!  I’ve never seen one fight in wars!”

“And STUPID, too!  That’s why they’re always the dumb characters in plays and comic scrolls!”

[Story break: “comic scrolls” are the DAEU equivalent of Earth’s comic books.]

“Don’t forget that they’re GROSS and IMPOLITE!  They have no table manners or hygiene!  They can’t even keep a clean room!  They might as well be WALKING TRASH CANS!”

“If you’re a handmaid, you should be ashamed if you’re FAT!”

One chorus of chortles later, the children ran off together to eat their supper and revealed what was sitting at the centerpoint of their idle but brash frolick: another child.

About six or seven years old, she wore her curly ginger red hair up in a ponytail, held in place by a red ribbon, and a junior handmaid’s uniform.  She had small amounts of pudge spread evenly from neck to calves, though these were partially hidden by the steel bands clamped around her arms and torso.  Each band had attached to it a chain leading to a prisoner’s ball with a different insult inscribed on the front.  They were all insults the children had used, among them “Ugly,” “Sick,” “Weak,” “Stupid,” “Gross,” “Impolite,” “Walking Trash Can,” and, worst of all, “Fat.”  Day faded into night the moment Elsie saw a tear trickle down the child’s face.  She watched the child from a distance, not sure what to make of the tear she could see even from about 20 feet away.

And then, it clicked.

In that moment, Elsie knew that she did not need to lose any physical weight to find happiness in life.  She needed to lose the weight of assumptions, stereotyping, degradation, and condescension that her peers had aimed at her over the years.  Likewise, all she needed to gain were extra pounds of love for herself.  She knew that the less voice she gave to hatred, the less power it would have until it finally disappeared.  She understood rightly not to rise in resistance to preposterous presumptions but simply to go about her life peacefully with her curves.

She ran as rapidly as her legs could carry her—which is fairly fast, so don’t judge her—scooped up her younger self with all her strength against the sheer mass of the balls and chains, and squeezed her as tightly as humanly possible.  The nearly-grown handmaid’s smile dazzled from beneath two parallel gushes of tears as she cradled the little servant child, flushing out all self-loathing and feelings of inadequacy with every drop.

At once, everything that was pulling down the child dissipated into nothingness like mist when it meets the first rays of dawn…which is exactly what Elsie saw the second she awoke, realizing she was hugging her favorite plush sheep toy instead of the child.

******************

Recounting her entire dream, Elsie crept over to the same mirror as before.  She restarted her figure examination, and, this time, a paradigm shift overwhelmed her.

She inspected her upper body to see the extra flesh accrued in her arms and chest.  Though nervous at first, she took a deep breath and cracked a small smile when she bounced lightly each arm with one hand and her chest with both hands.

She raised her shirt’s midsection, rubbed her soft belly, and exhaled in contentment at its warmth and gentle texture.

She pinched her hips to form  “love handles,” and crinkled her nose in delight.

She studied her posterior and, after pausing for a bit, spiritedly wiggled it at the mirror for no one else’s enjoyment but her own, making a few intentionally goofy faces despite this being her first day of adulthood.

She rolled up her pant legs, traced her finger along her faint thigh “dimples,” and forced herself to stop laughing, especially when she visualized one thigh complimenting in a man’s voice the other’s cute dimples, making the other blush and thank the first thigh in a lady’s voice.

This pudge no longer mattered to Elsie!  Beaming and hugging herself, she was free to embrace who she was: an aspiring brave heroine of Drodon who believed in standing up for all things true, right, and good.  No negative judgment could make her act otherwise.

But what did matter was another stomach growl.

Before she knew it, Elsie was in the family kitchen, devouring the richest, most buttery, most syrupy waffles (made using a recipe from the Belgium-like dwarf planet Flem Walloon) she had eaten in eternity, specially topped with whipped cream, melon slices, and strawberries.  To wash down everything, she drank the freshest guild-made orange juice and a soothing cup of hot chocolate with marshmallows.  Her doting parents sang a traditional rite of passage hymn in a guttural proto-Drodonian language to their nourished angel as they cleaned up the mess they made preparing the breakfast.

With her hair styled to perfection, her body soaped head to toe, her teeth thoroughly scrubbed, and her favorite floral spring dress and Hellenican (that is, this universe’s version of Greek) sandals selected, Elsie hugged and kissed each of her parents and boldly exited her housing complex to make her 18th birthday spectacular.  Naturally, her father Charles gasped like all the other royal butlers who were regular patrons at Tavern Sophisticated, amazed by his daughter’s newfound enthusiasm.

[Story break: Elsie and her family lived in this complex before moving to the Orb because Princess Emerald had ordered some nobles and their butlers and handmaids to stay on mainland Drodon so the princess could fool Eschaton into thinking she had never left.]

******************

At the gates of the local Contemporary Pleasure Faire (which we would call a Renaissance Pleasure Faire in our world), Elsie saw her three closest friends: Courtney, the detached, black-clad daughter of a goat herder; Shamone, the smart, glamorous, sassy daughter of a shipwright; and Tessrock, the jovial, brutish, snub-nosed, cockney-accented daughter of the equally jovial, brutish, snub-nosed, cockney-accented blacksmith Oggrock.  The young women were surprised to see Elsie stride confidently towards them (even if Courtney didn’t show it).

“Oi!  What’s gotten into Elsie?” said Tessrock.

“I don’t know,” replied Shamone.  “But she’s walkin’ like she OWNS those curves!”

“I met a cute jester named Bomby,” said a deadpan Courtney.  “Not that either of you cares.”

When Elsie was in safe running distance of Shamone, she exuberantly squealed and sped towards her friend, who squealed as well upon tightly embracing the handmaid and bouncing around in circles.  From what Tessrock and Courtney could interpret from the storm of squealing dialogue, Shamone and Elsie must have been talking about how exciting it was that the latter had become a lawful adult and could now participate in royal court staff meetings as well as be the lady in charge of her own home (once she could afford it, of course).

“Seriously, girl: there’s somethin’ different about you today,” said Shamone.

“Different how?” Elsie asked.

“I mean, nobody’s ever seen you walk that tall or that fast.  You’re usually all hunched over, lookin’ left an’ right, like you hope nobody notices your body,” said Shamone.

“Um…I guess that’s been true before, but I gave it some thought, and I decided that these curves don’t reflect who I am on the inside, so I can’t really be ashamed of what doesn’t tell people the truth about me,” Elsie concluded.

“I like that attitude!” commented Tessrock.  “Everybody calls me the spittin’ image of me pop, but I’m not me pop.  I’m me.”

“Funny you should say that.  Everybody says I take after my mom and look nothing like dad,” said Elsie.  The girls shared a laugh, one musical and one raucous.

Over the day, the ladies tried on all sorts of clothing, jewelry, and accessories at the faire’s gift shops; ogled charismatic knights jousting in the monthly Tournament of Champions; and played carnival games.  Tessrock excelled at every strength test, but martial arts disciple Elsie dominated in coordination challenges.  They also rode on the first “rolling and coasting train of horseless carriages,” invented by Dr. Walton Mustang, who happened to be at the attraction’s grand opening that day despite no time for autographs, and powered by steam and gravity.  While Elsie, Shamone, and Tessrock were thrilled, Courtney was disappointed that “We didn’t get stuck or go off the rails at all, which is, like, totally boring.”

For lunch, Elsie savored every bite of a magnificent sandwich made with turkey, Kallodrome smoked bacon, Gemworld salami, polar lettuce, tomatoes, Shaleport cheese, onions, mustard, and mayonnaise, all between two slices of Batav Crunch bread (from the Netherlands-like dwarf planet Batav).  She balanced this with a blended chocolate and vanilla shake and a glazed doughnut big enough to split in half and share with Tessrock.  “Carnivals have the best portions, eh?” said the Herculean blacksmith’s daughter, her mouth packed with doughnut bits.

The highlight of Elsie’s day was peeking past a fence with her friends somewhere outside the faire and seeing two Knights of Marius in training talking to one another.  She had heard of their order and could barely make out what the men were saying, but she smiled when one of them—a tall, lanky, fair-skinned young man with pale blue eyes and curly brown hair—confess to the other his respect for and attraction to curvy women, especially when comfortable in their own skin.  The other man consoled him, probably telling the first man that everyone has different tastes, then fled at the sound of clomping sabatons, signaling the approach of a superior officer.  The superior let out a string of anti-Caledonian and fatphobic swears at the lean man loud enough for Elsie to hear, so she chose not to involve herself with such a hateful attitude but remained optimistic that there were and always would be men in this universe who would take a woman with curves in a heartbeat if, of course, she were comfortable with and confident in them.

******************

Evening fell, and an elaborate dinner was held at Sparkling Tides, the finest restaurant of the Coastal Province.  Elsie, her parents, and her three friends were served an elaborate six course meal with the finest cultivated ingredients, including but not limited to sirloin steak, leg of lamb, smoked salmon, roasted potatoes, mushroom soup, chicken salad from the China-like planet Zhongguo, and pampasfruit juice.  Once satisfied, they took a taxi carriage to the bakery where Elsie had seen those irresistible doughnuts shaped like the number 18.  They were still in the window, so she ran in and gleefully requested that the baker at the counter give her those exact doughnuts.  She briefly imagined the immature brats from her dream, now with devilish horns and tails, taunting her on her shoulder before flicking them into the bakery’s oven and taking her first chomp into the almighty sugar rush that was the doughnuts with a confident smile that said, “Forget what hateful people think!  I like doughnuts, I have a little tummy, and I don’t care because I know I can fight well, too!”

******************

At the end of a fulfilling (and filling) day, Elsie was back in her pajamas, sitting up in bed while reading a new book she bought on the extensive histories of plus-sized heroines in Drodon’s past.  Her sweet tummy purred gently in a volume only she could hear as it broke down everything she’d eaten into reserved energy for tomorrow.  She patted it lovingly and whispered to it, “How’s my happy little food baby?”  Her belly responded with an upbeat-sounding gurgle, making her giggle as she turned the page.

Finishing her book’s first few chapters, Elsie blew out her bedside candle, put the book aside, cradled her sheep toy, and drifted off into wonderful dreams about her magical 18th birthday and courageously standing up for the future of Drodon. She now understood that the key to happiness in life was simply not to pay any mind to hatred rather than to respond to it with social justice warrior levels of rage or protest.   She knew who she was on the inside and would never change that because of something hateful someone may have said, so she had chosen not to alter the outside either.

She had grown up.