The eagle was circling the castle towers on its way back
to its nest when it heard the singing. A
melodious, “Ah ah ah, ah ah ahhhh, ah ah ah, ah ah, ah ahhhhhh…” that for some
reason drew it closer. Soon the eagle
saw the source – the window of the highest room in the tallest of the
towers. It had sometimes noted a human
female leaning there during the day, but now, despite the singing, the window
was barren. The eagle, now drawn by
curiosity as well as melody, swooped to the tower window. A second before it landed on the brick window
sill the singing suddenly stopped. Perching
on the sill and furling its wings it looked inside – and saw four of its
companion birds all perched upon a curtain rod set atop the headboard of the
bed, their heads covered by crude hoods and their feet bound by wrappings of yarn. The startling sight helped prevent it from
noticing the human figure leaning flat against the inside wall beside it. Before the eagle could react a hand suddenly
thrust out and grabbed it by the neck and it found itself wrestled to the floor. As it opened its beak to attack its assailant
the latter’s other hand thrust a hood over its head and drew a string at the
bottom to secure it. As the now blind eagle
tried to claw its opponent with its talons the hand that had secured the hood
quickly grabbed the bird’s feet and held them together as the hand that had
seized its neck let go and a moment later started winding yarn around the feet
until they were securely bound.
Fiona let herself plop into a sitting position on the stone
floor. She panted heavily as she watched
the bound and hooded eagle flap about futilely on the floor for several
seconds. It was the last eagle, and she
had come out of that encounter unscathed.
Unfortunately, it had taken a while for her to get the capturing technique
down just right, as the bloodstains that seeped through the makeshift bandage
on her wrist could attest. Still, now it
was done. She had assembled a convocation
of five roughly three-foot high eagles.
She should have had six, she
thought with regret, and glanced briefly and queasily down at the messy remains
of the first eagle that she had tried to trap, which she had shoved to the
side. She hadn’t realized the effect her
full-throated singing could have on birds, and it had taken her nearly an hour
to recover from the trauma after the poor thing had exploded. Since then she had toned down her singing:
enough to attract, but not enough to…destabilize. She shook her head. No doubt another side-effect of her
curse. The gift that kept on giving.
Once the eagle stopped struggling and her own breathing
steadied and her adrenaline level dropped, Fiona reached down and picked the
eagle up by the legs. It began
struggling again, but Fiona shushed it and gently stroked it as she began
quietly humming the song once more. The
eagle quieted down, and Fiona led it to the headboard where she sat it down upon
the curtain rod next to its fellows. She
then took more of the yarn from months’ worth of crocheting that she had
unraveled and tied the eagles’ feet with each other, leaving enough slack so
that, in flight, they would be able to space out with enough room to flap their
wings. She had also woven enough strands
together in a type of rope to support her weight so that when the eagles flew,
she would be able to hold onto the yarn that bound them, and used knots in such
a way that she could pull certain stands and release individual eagles. Her idea was that she could ride the eagles away
from the tower and over the lava moat, at which point she would start releasing
the eagles one-by-one, steadily lowering herself to the ground beyond. That was the theory, anyway. She thanked Heaven that one of her young
adult storybooks was a sailing adventure where the author had spent what she
thought at the time was way too much detail on knot-making.
Did I mention that this is a
really stupid idea?
a voice in her head spoke. Oh, yes, only about a zillion times!
She tried to ignore the voice. Of course this would work. It had to work.
It just had to.
Fiona continued humming softly, keeping the eagles calm,
as she finished the last knot, in her mind reciting the apt mnemonic, the dragon goes under the bridge, through
the loop, and finally, into the castle.
Then she glanced out the window and noticed that the sun was
frighteningly low. “Oh, please, no. Not now,” she muttered. She was so close. She wasn’t entirely sure that these eagles
could hold her human weight – Heaven knew what
would happen if they had to carry her ogress weight. If only, instead of this contrivance, she
could have just jumped onto the back of a really
large eagle and simply flown away – but she put that thought aside; she had to
concentrate on the task before her, not be side-tracked with silly fantasies. And
this isn’t a silly fantasy? that irritating inner voice spoke again. She mentally shoved it aside. As the bottom of the sun caressed the top of
the horizon, she briefly considered waiting until morning – but no. She was too hyped now, too afraid to wait
another night, lest the eagles escape somehow, or another knight show up for
his death…or her common sense have a chance to overcome her courage.
Steeling her resolve, Fiona detached the curtain rod from
the headboard and then picked it up with both hands, causing the birds to
flutter their wings and caw in alarm.
She hummed a bit louder but still in the slow, soothing cadence to calm
them again. She struggled to hold the
weight of the rod with the convocation perched upon it, but somehow managed –
perhaps it was the adrenalin, perhaps she was somehow drawing strength from her
alter ego whose dread appearance was drawing nigh, or perhaps it was just sheer
grit and resolve. In any event, once the
eagles were settled, Fiona carefully made her way to the window. Glancing at the horizon, she fought down her
own panic when she saw that the sun was half-way set. She worked the curtain rod with the eagles
carefully through the portal. Then, determinedly,
she set one foot on the top of the window sill, leaned forward and poked her
head and upper torso through, then had to pause for a moment to make sure she retained
her balance, then quickly lifted the other foot so that she was standing
precariously with both feet on the window sill, leaning outward and holding the
curtain rod with the eagles atop it over her head. As she tried to keep her balance she made the
mistake of looking down, and had to bite her lip to stifle a scream. Far down below an inlet of lava separated the
land upon which her tower sat from the rest of the courtyard, with a stone
bridge spanning the bubbling, molten river and connecting the tower to the rest
of the keep. If Fiona fell now it was
even money whether she would smash against stone or perish in fiery magma. As if to taunt her, a breeze suddenly picked
up, causing her ponytail to waver and her stance to sway slightly.
What was she thinking? How could she even be certain that the eagles
– even five of them – could bear her weight, even as a human? Then she looked back at the sun again and
realized with only a quarter of it still shining over the horizon that the
human element would all-too-soon be an academic question. With a final rush of determination, she took
hold of the yarn rope with one hand, said, “Okay, let’s do this, guys,” then
reached up and quickly unhooded all the eagles in quick succession. When they saw their own predicament, they
began cawing, let go of the rod – which tumbled downward to plop into the lava
– and tried flying away. Fiona winced at
the frenzied cawing for fear it would alert her keeper, and then gasped as she
grabbed onto the taughtening yarn rope with both hands and felt her feet being
lifted from the sill. As her feet slid
off their perch one of her green soft-soled slippers slipped off her foot and
plummeted downward, became caught in the breeze and was blown to a landing
somewhere to the castle grounds far below.
For a moment, Fiona feared that she truly had
miscalculated, for at first she dropped like a stone. But then the eagles spread apart as far as
their bonds would allow, flapping their wings madly, and the fall slowed and
then ceased altogether. Fiona found
herself being borne by the birds, roughly some hundred yards from the ground,
and tried to let the feeling of elation over realizing her calculations were
correct override the pain in her hands as the strands of yarn she held bit into
them it bore her dangling weight. As
they passed over the lava moat and then the crest of the volcano’s rim, Fiona
had to fight the urge to scream a loud ‘woo-hoo!’ in triumph lest the dragon
hear her. But just a bit further and she
could begin releasing the birds and begin her gradual descent to the ground.
That was when the last trace of the sun’s disk set below
the horizon. Fiona saw the wisps of
swirling golden cloud appear around her.
“No! Please! Not so close…” she whimpered, but all to no
avail. She felt the change taking
her. She held on tight to the yarn and squinched
her eyes shut as the metamorphosis briefly racked her body.
The birds cawed even more loudly, as suddenly they found
themselves transporting a dramatically different and considerably heavier
creature. But although the first few
yards’ drop was precipitous, the eagles beat their wings faster and the drop
slowed. It didn’t stabilize altogether
as it had previously, but when Fiona finally dared to open her eyes she found
that the ground was approaching, but at a pace whose result would be far
lighter than a crash landing. The
princess laughed. This was actually
working to her advantage! She could just
ride all the eagles to the ground, and once there, release them, and they she
would be on her way—
It was then she heard the dragon’s roar.
Fiona gasped and looked back over her shoulder. The dragon was charging from out the keep’s
front opening. The large red beast
stopped for a moment, looked up, saw Fiona with her avian bearers, and roared
again. Suddenly Fiona had flashbacks to
all those times when she had been a little girl newly arrived in her prison,
when the dragon would appear at her window to taunt and terrify her, at times
trying to force her to eat chunks of vile-looking meats torn from Heaven knew
what types of creatures – the worst part of which was that the obnoxious food did send Fiona’s foul ogrid stomach
rumbling, as if the dragon knew it would and was mocking her and attempting to
undermine her humanity, thus making Fiona despise the offering all the more. Now Fiona felt more helpless than she had as
that frightened little girl, without even the false security of brick walls
between her and the dragon’s wrath.
“Oh, no!” she said, and then looked down. She was still some forty yards in the air
over the rocky terrain that made up the downward slope of the volcano’s cone. Desperately, she pulled one of the yarn strands
to release one of the eagles. As it flew
away to freedom Fiona felt her rate of descent increase, but when she looked
down again she still had some thirty yards to go. She glanced back again. The dragon had just taken flight and was
heading straight at her, its roaring mouth open and long pointed teeth bared.
Fiona moved her head forward again but closed her
eyes. She had read that ogres were
considerably tougher than humans, and could absorb more punishment. Now was the time to test that. If she survived the fall, she might be able
to find some hiding place among the creases and crevices of the terrain below –
it might be a poor chance, but surely a better one than if she stayed in the
air in the path of an angry, charging dragon.
She pulled the strands of yarn to release all of the remaining birds at
once. As the eagles flew away, Fiona
found herself in freefall. She screamed,
wondering if she would survive contact with the ground.
She would never find out, for just before she landed her
scream was cut short as she was suddenly snatched by one of the dragon’s front
hand-like talons. “Noooo!” Fiona cried,
opening her eyes and seeing the ground again getting further away as the dragon
flew them back toward the top of the tallest tower. Fiona looked up at the beast that held her
firmly in its clutches. At first she was
terrified by the massive, living horror of the thing; it was the closest she
had been to it since it had visited her as a girl in the tower. Somehow it seemed even bigger now. “Let me go!”
Fiona yelled. The dragon looked down,
stared at her for a moment, and then opened its mouth wide and roared again. Fiona’s breath caught at the stench of
sulfur, and the velocity of its breath sent the skin of her plump cheeks
rippling and her ponytail whipping behind her.
For a moment Fiona feared the beast would toss her into its mouth and
devour her like a large green bon-bon.
But then the dragon turned its head forward again. Oh, well, Fiona, thought, at least she wasn’t
being eaten. Not yet, anyway.
A few moments later they were back near the top of the tallest
tower. The dragon pulled to a stop and
somehow managed to hover there, adjacent to Fiona’s room. It then opened the talon that held Fiona,
palm upward so that Fiona found herself lying upon it. The dragon moved the talon level with the
sill of the room’s window, the window that the princess knew too well.
Fiona looked back at the dragon. It stared at her, but the expression on its
reptilian face was no longer angry, just…annoyed. After a few seconds it jerked its snout
toward the window, as if directing Fiona to pass back through the portal into
her room.
Fiona blinked. The
beast’s actions now didn’t resemble an animal’s at all. As she looked into its eyes, Fiona almost
thought she saw some sort of intelligence lurking behind them.
The dragon jerked its snout back at the window again.
Fiona kept her eyes trained on the demonically slitted
pupils of the dragon’s yellowish green eyes as the princess slowly rose to her
feet and stood precariously on the beast’s paw, her bare foot relating its
leathery texture. “You want me to go
back in there?” she asked, waving an arm toward the window.
The dragon rolled its eyes and then nodded impatiently.
Fiona gaped for a moment, and then said, “You understand
what I say!”
The dragon rolled its eyes again, sighed, and once more
nodded.
Fiona stared at the beast a bit longer, her curiosity
starting to best her terror. She looked
beyond the monstrosity of the dragon and started noting details. Such as prominence of red in its lips, and
its elongated lashes, and just something about the set of its features…
Fiona’s eyes opened wide.
“You’re a female dragon!” she
declared.
For the briefest moment the dragon’s expression softened,
as if Fiona’s recognition of the dragon’s femininity had somehow tempered her
bestiality.
“Please!” Fiona said, allowing her newfound knowledge of
the dragon’s gender to give her hope that it would be more receptive to her entreaties. “I beg you.
You must understand. I’ve been
here for years. Years!”
The dragon shrugged.
Then it lifted the front talon that wasn’t holding Fiona and snapped its
fingers.
The gesture confused Fiona for a moment, but then she got
it. “You mean it’s just a drop in the
bucket to your lifetime,” she said.
The dragon nodded.
“Well, those lost years mean a lot to me,” Fiona said, feeling a spark of anger despite her precarious
position. “Hasn’t my presence brought
enough meals to your doorstep to satiate your copious appetite?”
The dragon, looking annoyed again, as well as increasingly
impatient, shook her head and once more gestured with her snout at the open
window.
The dragon’s flippancy and implacability spurred Fiona’s
own growing anger, and she spoke words she would never thought she could while
cowering in her room: “Have you grown that
lazy that you have to rely on me to
provide your livelihood?”
The dragon’s expression clouded, her eyes narrowed, and
her lip curled menacingly. But the ogress’s
own blood was up, too. The rage of her
own inner beast combining with the years of anger and frustration to overcome
her common sense, Fiona crossed her arms, straightened her spine, lifted her
chin, and said indignantly, “No! I refuse to play the worm on a hook any
longer. I am Princess Fiona of the
kingdom of Far Far Away, within whose domain this keep falls. Monster, I command you to put me down on the ground this instant!”
Dragon looked down at the insolent ogress standing heavily
in the palm of her talon, the creature’s plump green face turned sideways and
its pudgy nose turned up snootily.
Dragon shook her head. Even in
this bloated, odorous form, with features that Dragon knew humans found
hideous, and even in her current precarious predicament, her charge insisted on
maintaining her insufferable, infuriating manners. She had done so ever since she had arrived in
the castle. And a pity it was, too. Dragon, lonely after so many years of
solitude, then had such high hopes that at last she might have a companion;
someone who, at least on one level, knew what it was like to be looked upon as
just a beast, and with whom she could commune as a kindred spirit. Maybe even befriend. In those early days Dragon had, several
times, appeared at the child’s window and tried to open some sort of dialog –
horribly hampered by that blasted, thieving Godmother’s stealing her voice –
but Dragon had tried the best she could, even offering to share samples of some
of her best recipes from her kitchen which she felt certain that Fiona would
enjoy, at least when she was an ogre.
But each time the haughty little princess, whether in human or ogre
state, had rebuffed her, returning Dragon’s overtures with insults. Dragon had hoped that the brat’s attitudes might
change as she matured, but they had not.
And she had hoped, just a moment before, when the princess had
recognized her femininity – had seen her as a she and not an it – that
something might develop. But no – now
the princess had reverted to the pompous brat…a brat that needed to be taught a
lesson. Dragon was tempted to grant the
princess’s demand and simply turn her palm over – her stolen voice and the deal
with the Godmother be hanged – but perhaps a less lethal punishment would suffice.
One of the eagles cawed from somewhere many yards behind
them. Dragon glanced back at it, and
then turned to look at the princess again.
Although at one level Dragon admired the escape attempt – the princess
had certainly shown some unexpected gumption, ingenuity, and bravery – such
attempts had to discouraged and, where possible, their means removed. Dragon realized an action that would achieve
both psychological and practical means to that end – and provide her with a little
snack, as well.
Dragon reached down with her free talon and plucked the
ogress up by the back of her dress.
Fiona screamed – a sound that Dragon found rather satisfying after her
little tantrum – as Dragon lifted the princess off her other talon, over the
top of the conical brick roof above the highest room, and then set her roughly
down on the sloped side of that roof.
She wanted her to get a good and uncomfortable view of what was about to
happen. Fiona scrambled for and found
foot and hand-holds in a couple of the openings that had been left by crumbled
or fallen bricks in the neglected structure.
Dragon flew back a few yards, hovered while she examined Fiona to make
sure she had a stable enough hold, then turned and flew away.
“Wait!” Fiona called, her fear apparently having returned
and driven away her bravado. Dragon
ignored her. Instead, she set her sights
on the eagle whose caw she had just heard.
The eagle saw her, panicked, and tried flapping its wings faster in an
attempt to escape. But its speed was no
match. A moment later, Dragon’s mouth
closed down upon the unfortunate bird.
“Noooo!” Fiona half-screamed, half-moaned. Dragon only glanced at her…and smiled as she
swallowed. You say that I’m a monster, Dragon thought, then I’ll be what you say.
She then honed in on the next closest eagle, and a few moments later her
jaws snapped on that fleeing bird.
As Dragon chased down and devoured the princess’s
remaining flight team, she noticed Fiona’s demeanor shift yet again. “S-stop it!” the princess called as she
managed to slowly and carefully pull herself into a half-standing position as
she clung to the tower roof. And as
Dragon bore down on the last of the eagles Fiona called out sharply and
angrily, “Stop it, now!” and stamped
one foot down on the brick with all her might.
The bricks cracked and the roof immediately collapsed, Fiona falling
through the opening with a sharp, short scream.
Alarmed, Dragon allowed the remaining eagle to escape as
she flew back to the tower. She alighted
against it, the claws of her front and rear talons digging into crags in the
brick as she peered down into the new, five-foot wide hole in the tower
rooftop. There she saw Fiona, her green
felt dress dusty and torn in a few places, laying face-down among chunks of
brick and stone on the floor of her room, coughing as she tried to recover from
the fall.
That was where Dragon made her mistake. She dropped her guard as she looked down at
Fiona and wondered what injuries she might have sustained, and allowed her
scaly brow ridge to rise in a facial expression of concern, thus exposing an
area between her eyes unprotected by scales.
The sound that Dragon made was misinterpreted by the princess.
“What, you murderous beast, is killing those poor innocent
birds and defeating and humiliating me not enough…have you come to laugh at me now, too?” Fiona half spat,
half sobbed, still facing away from Dragon as she pushed herself up and rose
awkwardly to her feet…her right hand clandestinely keeping firm hold of a
bowling ball sized chunk of stone as she did so. “Well, don’t you dare!”
With that last word, Fiona whirled toward Dragon,
simultaneously whipping the stone forward and hurling it at her. Dragon had only a split second to register
the ogress’s flushed face, wild eyes, and bared teeth. Then, either through incredible luck or some
inherent and unsuspected gift on Fiona’s part, the stone, with all the velocity
imparted by an enraged ogress behind it, smashed hard against the exposed area
right between Dragon’s eyes, and everything went black.
Fiona saw the dragon’s head snap back as the beast gave
out a sharp, surprised ‘urk’. The
reptile’s eyes rolled back in her head, then her lids closed, and then she
began falling backward. The ogress
stood, teeth still bared, panting furiously, heart pounding, as she watched and
listened. A moment later she heard the
scrape of loosened claws against the exterior of the tower as the beast lost her
hold, and then a few seconds later a great splash from down below as the dragon
had apparently fallen into the lava-filled inlet.
Fiona waited, her anger slowly yielding to fear, as she continued
standing, eyes trained on the hole in the roof, acute ogre ears pricked and
straining for the inevitable sound of the furious dragon’s wings from bellow,
and then Heaven knew what sort of wrath she’d loose against the princess. Fiona shuddered as she could almost see the
brick walls crumbling and feel the flames broiling her skin.
But nothing happened.
From below, Fiona heard the usual sounds of boiling lava rumbling and the
sporadic bursting of bubbles, but nothing more.
No sounds of the dragon at all.
Both physically and emotionally exhausted, Fiona collapsed
into a sitting position on the floor, releasing a great breath she wasn’t even
aware that she’d been holding. She
panted for a while as sweat beaded on her forehead and began running down
toward her eyes. Reflexively, she took
out her handkerchief, wiped the moisture from her forehead, and distractedly
stuffed the favor only partially back under her left sleeve. Her mind was elsewhere.
She had done it.
She, a lone, helpless maiden, had defeated a dragon. A dragon that had killed scores of brave,
strong knights.
A little smile crept unbidden up one corner of Fiona’s
mouth. Helpless indeed, she
thought. She lifted her right arm and
looked upon the hand that had slain the beast.
For the first time, Fiona did not turn her eyes away in disgust as she observed
the disproportionably large paw of a hand, with its thick green skin and plump
fingers capped by nails triple their human density, so unlike her dainty human
female hand with its long, thin, delicate fingers. She noted a few nicks and scrapes from her
fall through the roof, and as she slowly turned her hand to face her palm she
noted the scuffs on the inside of the fingers where it gripped the stone that had
amazingly felled the dragon. Fiona then
impulsively curled her fingers together into a fist and flexed her arm, feeling
the tightening of the muscles of her fore and upper arm. She reached over and set her left hand upon
her upper arm, feeling the bicep there just beneath the too-thick covering of
flesh. It did not bulge as seen in the
sculptures of mythical gods and heroes, but it was firm and taught.
Fiona wondered…just how strong was she? She glanced around
the room, and her eyes fell upon her bed.
She got up and hurried over to it, feeling a strange, giddy
excitement. Squatting down, she grasped
the bottom of the footboard of the large, heavy structure. Then she straightened her legs. It took a little effort, but Fiona found
herself standing erect, holding the foot of the bed three feet off the
floor. She smiled. She
had done that? She found herself giggling, and mentally slapped
herself. This was silly…and undignified
for a princess. She slowly lowered the
bed until it was back on the floor, noticing as she did so her slipperless foot. She absently kicked off the remaining slipper
and reached under the bed for a new pair, not noticing as she did so that the
favor dropped from her sleeve and onto the floor. She then slowly turned and, as she sat on the
bed and put on the new slippers, tried to digest everything that had just
happened.
It appeared that she was actually free of the dragon.
Now what?
With the dragon dispatched, the need for immediate escape
would seem no longer to exist. She could
simply wait to be rescued.
But for how long?
Fiona remembered that, over the course of her
imprisonment, sometimes months – once more than a year – passed between rescue
attempts. She found her eyes drawn to
the tapestry that covered the wall where she had marked off all those many days
of waiting, and now she found the thought of simply staying here, marking off
who knew how many more such days, simply unbearable. Of course, another one of that Lord Farquaad’s
knights might arrive…or they might not.
Even if one did, Fiona now found the prospect of being delivered as a
bride to such a person as Farquaad, from what she had learned of him, to be
less than thrilling. Even if it ended your curse? she heard that
voice within her mind ask. Not that long
before, the answer would have been obvious: as long as it ended her curse, then
she’d be glad to marry Farquaad. Better
the devil unknown than the ogress known.
Now, though, she wasn’t so sure.
Then she thought back on her conversation with the last knight that had
arrived, and her contempt for this Farquaad returned. Share True Love’s kiss with such a man? She didn’t see it happening.
Then another thought struck her. What if the dragon wasn’t really dead? Fiona had originally assumed the dragon would
be returning immediately with a vengeance.
Then she assumed the reptile was slain.
But what if she wasn’t…what if she were just stunned?
Fiona nearly leapt to her feet, a tingle of fear
returning. No, she would need to leave,
right now. She would cross the bridge
and head back toward Far Far Away. Once
there, she and her parents would simply have to figure something else out, as
in her original escape plan.
The princess took one last look at her bookcase, petted Mr.
Fluffy, and leaned down and kissed Felicia.
“Maybe with luck I’ll have a real
daughter with your name, soon,” she said, smiling. “With her own Sir Squeakles doll,” she added,
and pushed on the belly of the smaller doll in Felicia’s lap, causing it to
squeak. Fiona stood, backed up a few
paces, and then stared at her long-time ‘family’ for several seconds. “Fare thee well,” she said. Wiping away an embarrassing tear, Fiona
turned away.
For a moment her eyes caught the hole in the roof again. Looking at it now, it reminded her
of…something. She couldn’t quite place
it. Had it been from a dream? Well, it didn’t matter now. If it was, then that dream, like so much
else, was in the past, and no longer mattered.
She turned to face the door.
It still seemed almost as imposing as it had for so many
years before.
Fiona took a deep breath and then strode forward, pausing
just before the door. After just a
moment’s more hesitation she reached forward and grasped the handle. She tried to turn it, but it resisted, having
rusted over the years. Fiona tried to
turn it a little harder, and suddenly something cracked and she found herself
holding the dislodged handle in her hand.
She blinked at it for a moment and then chuckled, finding something about
the situation almost comical. Then she fitted
the handle back into the lock, worked with jiggling it for a while, and then
carefully turning it this way and that.
Finally she heard a more normal-sounding click, and she smiled with
satisfaction and pushed outward.
The door quickly abutted against something. Fiona’s smile vanished as she pushed again a
time or two and then realized the problem: the door was barred shut from the
other side.
Fiona felt surprise.
Then annoyance. And then
anger. Barred from the other side by
people fearing…fearing what? That she’s
try to escape? That the prize princess
would choose to leave her prison? That
she would finally build up the courage to cast off this farce of an existence
and follow a different path? That the
poor, pathetic ogress might dare to show her face where it might embarrass
people? Is that what the ogress might
do?
“I’ll show you what else this ogress can do,” Fiona
snarled, a flash of rage briefly driving away further thought. Lifting one large leg, she cried, “Hiiii-yah!” and kicked hard on the door
just beside the handle. The door crashed
forward, splintering the wooden plank that had been barring it and even
dislodging the moorings that had held the plank in place. Fiona suddenly found herself staring through
an open doorway which opened upon a staircase that curved downward into
darkness. Twilight having now almost
completely yielded to night, it made that darkness that much more deep and
foreboding.
Fiona, her rage abated, swallowed nervously as she stared
forward. After several seconds, she walked
over to her dresser, pulled out a candle, lit it, and then, gripping it
tightly, returned to the doorway. She
paused for a few seconds more, trying to shove aside her last
trepidations. “Well,” she eventually
said in a quavering voice, “this is it.”
She then stepped forward over the threshold, and paused
after she had done so. It had been a
relatively small step in actuality but it left Fiona feeling as if she’d just
swam the Rubicon. Taking another deep
breath, she strode forward and began descending the winding stairway.