The lovely Princess Fiona of the
Ignoring questions of logic – logic being one luxury she
could not afford just then – Fiona felt a surge of real hope. Could this be him? Her rescuer? Finally, after all these years of being locked in the highest room
of the tallest tower of this dragon-beset castle? His startling entrance was
certainly…unorthodox, but he had come far further than any of the many other
would-be Prince Charmings ever had. As the knight took a moment to recollect
himself, his back to her, Fiona also took a moment to hold her hand up to her
face – a human hand, thank God – and test her breath. Good enough.
But now…she had to set up the
moment! She lay back down and made sure
her gold-trimmed green felt dress was straightened against her petite
waist. Perfect. She began to close her eyes and thought of a
final touch. Stealing a glimpse to make
sure the knight had not yet turned around, she grabbed
the flowers from a vase beside the bed and clutched them against her
bosom. She couldn’t resist taking one more quick glance at her visitor while he was still looking
away – he really did appear tall and muscular if somewhat overweight – and then
she lay her head back, closed her eyes, and pretended she was asleep. Just like in the storybooks she had read over
and over and over again: the princess awaiting the kiss that would awaken her
and break her curse. It was what Fiona
had been waiting for oh, so many long, lonely years. Finally, it was real! She tried to keep her breath slow and even,
despite the pounding of her heart, as she heard the heavy footsteps of her
rescuer slowly approaching. Then she
sensed him, hovering above, no doubt gazing down upon her red-haired beauty,
her gold tiara glinting in the torchlight.
Any moment now: the kiss. The kiss that would end the curse. The kiss that would begin
her happily ever after. But why
did he hesitate? Was he that overcome by her comeliness?
Then she sensed him drawing closer.
Nearer.
She could barely contain herself.
Her heart raced even faster. She
fought to keep her eyes closed, but her lipped puckered in anticipation. And then—
Fiona opened her eyes and sat up in
her bed with a gasp. She looked around
at her still, dark tower room cell. She
was alone! She looked up at the
still-intact stone ceiling. Then she
shook her head in bewilderment. God, was
it just a dream? It had felt so
real! Never had Fiona had a dream that felt so real! But…obviously it was not. So close!
So very close! The sweet victory that she had tasted on her
tongue now turned to chalk. She buried
her face in her hands and wept. The
despair that she fought so hard to keep at bay now threatened to overwhelm her. The dream had seemed so very real. Too real. Too real
because…it wasn’t a dream! It was a vision!
Yes, that was it, Fiona told herself.
She had been granted a vision because…because her rescue was
imminent! Yes, of course! The fates were preparing her for the final
rescue, the rescue that would drop in like a bolt from the blue! Yes, that was the symbolism! It would be soon! Maybe even…maybe even today! Fiona struggled to retrieve her faded hope,
to reinvigorate it with her interpretation.
“I know it will be soon,” she said aloud. “I know…it’s today!” She arose, glided to her lone window, and
looked out. The courtyard of her
island-castle showed no one, nor was anyone to be seen on the other side of the
boiling moat of lava that surrounded the keep.
She did her best then to look out over the jagged edge of the volcanic
cone that fenced in her hated abode and across the devastated landscape beyond,
despite the dimness cast by the ever-present volcanic cloud above. “I know it’s today,” she said again, trying
for yet another of the many hundreds of times she had said it before to
convince herself of its reality, and tried to spy any sign of anything that
might pass for a knight or his steed: the rescuer that her vision had
foretold. Sadly, she saw no one.
Stubbornly, Fiona waited and
continued her vigil across the apocalyptic landscape through the tower window,
her fingers almost digging into its brick sill as she clutched it. He must
be coming; a dream that real must
have meant something special was about to happen. “I know
it’s today,” she repeated over and over like a mantra. Hours passed and the day grew darker, and
even though Fiona could not see the sun through the cloud, she knew it was
descending. If he did not come soon,
then…Fiona shuttered. Not again. Please, God, don’t let it happen again.
The sun did appear briefly as it
fell beneath the volcanic cloud cover just above the horizon. Then, all too soon after that, it fell below
the horizon. As it did so, Fiona saw the
familiar swirling, sparkling mist begin at her feet and start enveloping
her. She closed her eyes and gripped the
sill tighter with her hands as she felt her body began to expand and distort,
as it had every sunset for thousands of days before. It was soon over. She opened her eyes to behold two pudgy green
ogre hands clasping the window sill. She
felt her grotesquely elongated ears droop in disappointment. She needed no mirror – she had broken all the
mirrors in this room long ago – to know that her divine beauty had been
replaced by the ugly visage of a boated ogress.
Fiona dejectedly dropped her hands
to her sides, then turned her back to the window and slumped down against the
stone breast wall below it until she was sitting on the cold, dirty floor. She stared into the bleak darkness of her
room. So intent was she in her vigil
that she had not noticed that the torches on her walls had burned out.
The dream had meant nothing. Tears began to well in Fiona’s eyes, but then
her ears pricked up as they caught a soft sound beside her. She looked over to see a large cockroach,
perhaps some four inches long, slowly crawling up the wall a couple of feet
away. It had long, active antennae and a
sleek, dark brown carapace that almost glistened in the dimming light that
filtered through the window. Fiona felt
her now plump tummy rumble as she looked upon the tasty insect. Then her eyes widened. Tasty? Dear God, what
was she thinking?! She jerked her head away until she was again staring
into the darkness of her room. “I am not a monster,” she said to
herself. “I am not a monster. I—”
Then her ears picked up another
sound, this time from outside. Fiona leapt to her feet and looked out the
window again. This time she saw
him: A knight in full armor, carrying a
banner, and riding a steed. He looked
much more conventional than in her vision, but the point was that he had come! The vision was true after all! Fiona felt her heartbeat quicken again as the
knight halted his charger just short of the rickety rope-and-plank bridge that
spanned the moat. He began to dismount –
and proceeded to fall flat on his back with a loud clatter as a foot got caught
in a stirrup. Fiona winced. After some noisy effort rolling this way and
then that, the knight finally managed to rise again. He then carefully approached the edge of the
moat and tentatively looked down into its bubbling, fiery depths, its hellish
red glow flickering off of his steel armature.
After a few moments he shifted his gaze upward in the direction of
Fiona’s tower, as if reconsidering.
Fiona was about to pull her handkerchief out and wave it to him when she
remembered: she was an ogress now! She
instinctively drew back toward the shadows – where such beasts belong, she
thought bitterly – until she could just barely make the knight’s figure out
over the window sill. Eventually, his
internal debate apparently resolved, the knight dropped his gaze from the
tower. Fiona took a couple of steps
forward again as the knight pulled out a scroll, unfurled it, and, using the
caldera’s crimson radiance as a light source to aid the fading twilight,
started reading.
“I-I-I, as the champion of the Duloc Invitational Dragon-slaying and Princess-rescuing Tournament,
do challenge thee, foul beast—” Here he stopped, looked at the castle entrance,
said apologetically “Nothing personal,” and then resumed reading, “—and do
hereby p-proclaim my intention to free the beautiful, fair, flawless Fiona from
thy keep and escort her back to Duloc where she shall
wed the manly and brave Lord Farquaad – whose boots I
am not worthy to shine, whose hair I am not worthy to anoint, and whose cheeks
I am not worthy to pinch – and where she may rule as the perfect queen,
subservient to his Perfect King.”
With that the knight re-furled the
scroll with trembling hands, put it away, drew his sword, and after another
moment’s hesitation where it seemed to Fiona that he took a large gulp, he
began striding across the bridge. A few
seconds later he disappeared from Fiona’s line of sight as he entered the
castle itself.
The princess stood and tried to
absorb everything she had just heard. So
this knight wasn’t to be the one to
break the spell, but was just to deliver her to this – had he said “Farquaad”? It
sounded like an obscene insult – as if she were some package and he just some
delivery boy? After waiting all these
years she wasn’t even going to be rescued properly? And to be taken to Duloc
of all places, which if she recalled correctly was some second-rate kingdom
bordering the southern outskirts of Far Far Away and
which had apparently, under the stewardship of this Lord Farquaad,
either grown in stature or acquired delusions of grandeur. Fiona began to seethe. This just wasn’t right. This just wasn’t—
Then suddenly her more immediate predicament
dawned on her yet again. Even if the
knight did slay the dragon and enter
this chamber, he wouldn’t find a “beautiful, fair, flawless” princess. Due to that little thing that happened at
night, he would find another beast.
Might he already know about the curse?
Extremely unlikely, she reflected; her parents, especially her father,
had always taken pains to keep her condition a secret, and emphasized that she
should never let anyone know about it.
Ogres were big, stupid, ugly brutes and to become an ogre was surely one
of the most hideous and shameful fates that could befall anyone, let alone a
princess. Of course, her parents
insisted, Fiona didn’t turn into a real
ogre; it was just the external manifestation of that dreaded curse. Unlike those true creatures, she still
retained her soul. But the knight below
wouldn’t know any of that; if he entered this room, he might see her and
believe that she was another of Fiona’s monstrous captors, and might even slay her believing he was saving the
princess. How ironic would that be?
And so, when Fiona turned in the
direction of the lone, locked door of her room, it was not so much with hope as
with apprehension. But it was
apprehension that was short-lived, as from within the bowels of the keep she
heard the dragon’s roar, followed immediately by the knight’s scream, which was
abruptly cut off.
So much for her vision. Another knight had perished trying to rescue
her. Although Fiona was often able to rationalize
herself out of feeling guilt over such tragedies since the knights knew what
they were getting into and did it voluntarily, she got the impression that such
was not the case with this knight,
especially with his “Farquaad” talk. Plus, she now actually felt…relief.
Relief not only that she wouldn’t accidentally be killed in her own
rescue, but simply that she wouldn’t have to be seen…like this. But that relief only added a weight of guilt
to her despair. Plus, who knew how much longer she would have to wait
now until the next rescuer, who would more than likely meet the same fate? It all seemed so useless, so futile. Her frustration and other emotions bubbling
over, Fiona opened her mouth and let out a great, loud scream, a louder scream
than she had ever unleashed before. But
part way through the scream something happened; the tenor of her voice deepened
and became more gravelly, more angry, and what started out as a woman’s shrill
scream mutated into an ogre’s fierce roar, which resounded for miles across the
landscape. Fiona quickly clasped her hands
over her mouth to stifle the bellow, her eyes widening in shock. Did that
come from her?
Fiona closed her eyes and tried to
concentrate on controlling her breathing.
Her overwrought emotions seemed to trip some inner breaker, and she felt
energy and passion oozing away as she slowly forced herself to calm down until
at last, mentally and emotionally spent, she slumped back into a sitting
position on the floor, again leaning against the breast wall beneath the
window. Once more Fiona heard a tiny
scratching sound and listlessly turned her head to face its source. The cockroach was still there; now it was
staring at her, its antennae twitching curiously. Without thinking about it, Fiona reached
over, seized the insect, tossed it into her mouth, and crunched down. She needed comfort food. She was licking her lips when the full impact
of what she had just done hit her. Then
she moaned, rolled onto the floor, curled up there, and buried her face in her
hands as twilight faded and she was plunged deeper into darkness. “I am not
a monster,” she sobbed weakly. “I am not a monster…”