"I swear you and the food market or restaurant people must have some kind of deal going. They provide their irresistable food and you get to make bank off of armor adjustments," the white dragon grunted as he lifted himself up from the stool he had unfortunately crushed to its doom. Said stool was simple but had been designed to support a dragon's weight and shouldn't have cracked so easily. But that was assuming it was supporting a normal dragon's weight, and Azar was far from a normal dragon's weight at this time.

The armorer that Azar was speaking to sighed as he viewed the issue in front of him. He specialized in creating armor for dragons, which was its own kind of blacksmithing given dragons had very different needs and requirements for their armor compared to humanoids. The purpose was the same, to protect them, but certain design aspects had to change in order to keep the dragon protected but also allow them their full range of movement, yet also be light enough to allow them to fly. And over his many years of crafting dragon armor, he liked to think he was a master of his craft. However, there wasn't really an easy armor solution when the dragon the armor was meant to protect became too fat for it. So fat, in fact, that several of the pieces has snapped right off once they managed to squeeze Azar into it, leaving only a few brave pieces still standing, pressed tightly into the heavy padding of scales and flab that now covered Azar from snout to tail tip. What few straps remained on him were digging into his hide, almost completely hidden by this point as the excess pudge overlapped them.

"Azar, how did you even get like this?! You weren't anything like this when I made that armor for you several months ago. You weren't even like this when I saw you a few weeks ago!" Came the inevitable, exhasperated question from the armorer.

Azar, for his part, was doing his best to keep himself together just like the armor and straps that clung to him. He'd left in the early hours of the morning, before even the sun had risen, to waddle his way to the armorer with all the pieces of the armor set he could carry. No easy feat considering his belly pressed firmly against the ground and made it difficult to find purchase with all four paws. Even now he could only keep his hind legs just barely touching while When he arrived he had hidden in an alleyway beside the blacksmiths building, nearly wedging himself stuck in there by accident. But Azar didn't want anyone, or at least as few people as possible, to see him in his current state. After all he had a public image of the city's grand draconic inventor to keep up, and being seen with so much extra weight would certainly draw a curious crowd to see such a heavy dragon! It had taken all his effort just to present himself to the armorer.

"I just sort of... lost track of what was happening! I've been working so much in my workshop that I've been having food brought to me. Enough for me to simply have meals while I work. And when some of the nearby restaurants heard that I was having food from the market delivered, they offered to deliver fully-cooked meals kept fresh through a bit of light magic to me for a simple fee. It sounded fair and I went with it, and they made it all so delicious!" Azar tried to explain, involuntarily licking his maw as he thought of some of the dishes he'd had before he realized what he was doing and stopped.
"From there even more restaurants heard about the deal I'd made with the nearby ones and offered the same. Eventually there was some larger deal made and soon I was getting four times the meals delivered than normal. And they kept it so fresh, and so delicious! They really are masters of their craft!" Azar was trying his best to justify what had happened. But he knew, deep down, he had simply ignored the signs of the issue until it was too late. The feeling of his belly dragging against the ground and the fact that several rows of storage racks had been knocked over from his wide gut bumping into them was the final sign that he'd been so lost in enjoying all the food that he'd ballooned a few tons heavier than a dragon should be.

The realization of his weight also woke him up to the fact that he could be called to help the city on any number of things at any moment. He hoped he could simply stick inside his warehouse and work the weight off naturally, but he needed a backup plan in case he was called upon for something truly important. And if he was needed for battle, he needed to have armor to protect him. Although the chances of him being called to battle if he were seen now would rapidly approach zero. But even so, Azar had some small hope that the armorer could adjust his current armor to fit his current form, maybe even to help hide it in some way. But with the look he saw on the armorer's face, the chances of that were also rapidly approaching zero.

"Azar, there's no other way for me to put this: you're just too fat for armor. I've made armor for a lot of dragons, but the armor has to be able to fit you, and I'd be using metal pieces far to wide to work with as well as immense lengths of leather strap," he said as he stepped forward. He could see the dejection on the dragon's face, but unfortunately there was little he could do. At least for now. "Honestly, there's really only one kind of armor that's going to work for you right now."
"There is?! Where is it? Who can make it?!" Azar asked, his frills perking up with some more hope.
"You already made it," came the armorer's reply as he poked a finger into one of the stretched scutes of Azar's belly. "I don't think there's a sword in existence that could cut through all this blubber. Nor can any spear be thrown hard enough or arrow shot with enough force to penetrate your hide right now. In an odd way, you've almost made your own natural armor even more superior," he said as he started to consider that maybe there was some practical application for a type of armor that was more padded yet flexible, based on dragon scales. It was something he'd have to play around with later.
"Oh..." Azar said, his frills drooping down again with the realization he wasn't getting out of here with a nice set of armor to keep all his extra weight hidden.
"I'll make you a deal though, since I know you're in a tough spot: if you can lose all this excess weight, I"ll make a new set of armor for you. I'll even try to make it more adjustable than the usual stuff just in case you have another... incident," the armorer suggested. Although, if some of the whispered rumors about Azar had any truth to them, the white dragon may have quite the record for "incidents". "It won't be able to stretch and expand indefinitely, and certainly not to this size! So don't go overboard again!" he warned.

That bit of news made Azar feel a bit more hopeful. "Of course! And maybe if you send the designs my way, I can see what I could do to help with the armor plate design to make it adjust more naturally," he said as his inventor mind started to get whirring again.
"That's the spirit. I'll get to it once you've lost some weight but for now there's nothing more I can do. You're welcome to stay in the back here until it's dark if you'd like to get back home discreetly. I've got other projects to work on anyways," the armorer said as he gave Azar's belly a few pats. Though that may have been a mistake as he heard the snapping of another few straps as the plump dragon's body wobbled from the mere pat.

"Of course, and thank you!" Azar called out as the armorer left to get to work. Almost as if on cue, the last of the straps gave way and the breastplate, neck plates, and leather under-armor fell to the ground, leaving Azar bare but finally feeling less constricted. As he started gather all the remaining pieces together for the return trip home later, the smell of a nearby bakery managed to drift its way past the smoke and iron of the forge and reach Azar's snout. His stomach growled in hunger, reminding him he hadn't eaten all morning and there would likely be a stack of prepped meals for him when he got back to his workshop.

If all this extra weight was the only kind of "armor" he'd have for a while, maybe he'd just add a bit more protection to it.

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Art by the always amazing of Azar having a rough time trying to keep armor sets that fit properly while still struggling with his own gluttonous urges!