CONTAINS: Female Weight Gain & Expansion.
Astrid's Halloween celebrations had hit an early bump in the road.
It wasn't quite the 31st - that would fall on a Wednesday - but this was the preceding Saturday, and it felt close enough to the real deal. It had the full moon, the pitch-black sky... and the cold.
The biting, bone-chilling cold.
If Astrid were being honest with herself, it probably hadn't been the wisest idea to wear a cow-print crop top and skirt on a dark October night. But, in her defense, she hadn't anticipated to be waiting outside for this long.
The bitter temperature, paired with her friend Jayne's lateness, had created one rocky start to her evening.
She brought her phone down from her ear, shoulders slumping, as she heard her call go to voicemail for the third time.
"The f-fuck is she..?" Astrid mumbled to herself, a persistent shiver having taken over her body some time ago.
She stood just outside the entrance of the fairground, amidst haphazardly-strewn pumpkins and bayles of hay. The decor, to the organiser's credit, was more tasteful than tacky, and it seemed that no expense had been spared to earn the "Halloween Spooktacular" title displayed on a large orange banner above the entrance gates.
The fresh stream of arrivals pouring past her had similarly gone all-out with their costumes, as Astrid noted some impressively made-up vampires and zombies - a woman had even fashioned an elaborate "Greek Goddess" costume out of towels, and she had the incredible curves to match. Still, though, the flickering embers of hope within her were steadily extinguished as she failed to see her friend's face among the crowds.
She wasn't going to let this night go to waste - hell, she'd paid enough for her ticket - but the prospect of wandering around the fairground alone for hours wasn't a cheering one.
She shivered again, and nearly lost her grip on her phone, flinching to grab it before it plummeted to the ground.
Upon reconsideration, the thought of getting inside a nice, warm tent was incredibly tempting.
It didn't take much convincing for Astrid to join the crowd trickling through the gates, her heels clicking against the paved ground beneath her.
"I'm sure she'll be just as happy to find me inside." She thought to herself as she scanned the barcode of her ticket and made her way into the fairground proper.
The event was open-air, save for a number of large tents adorned with various signs and plaques advertising their services.
Orange-tinted fairy lights were strewn from stall to stall, the stilt-balancing performers having to duck occasionally mid-stride to avoid an unfortunate decapitation. Astrid mused that this seemed like a pretty major oversight in the planning process, but whatever.
Number one on her priority list was to find somewhere warm - the closest tent seemed like the best bet. Fight the cold, escape the chattering crowd, and hopefully drown out the obnoxious Halloween music looping from the tinny-sounding overhead speakers.
There - that would do; one of the nearest tents to the entrance was a large, purple-hued teepee, the warm glow of candlelight flickering from within its yawning maw. Handily, she noted, there wasn't much of a queue in comparison to everywhere else.
"Fortune Telling and Costume Fitting" was eloquently written on the chalkboard outside. Astrid wasn't sure that the two services were remotely similar, though she was given very little time to deliberate the matter as an older woman's voice called her through the entrance.
