Layer 18: Ever So Humble

Fiona opened her eyes, having finally had several hours of restful sleep…with no bad dreams.

Sunlight was streaming through the unevenly cut window, illuminating all those corners of the room that had seemed mysteriously dark the night before and showed them for the simple and innocuous (and dusty) recesses that they really were. She also noted several more stains on the walls.

Fiona lifted her arm and saw the light reflecting off of the pinkish flesh of her dainty human hand. Although she still felt some relief, instead of thanking Heaven for being back in her proper human form as she usually did, she sighed and shrugged.

Then she felt a much less magical part of nature calling.

“Groyl? Moyre?” she called herself. Several seconds of silence ensued, during which Fiona strained to catch any sounds and, so failing, cursed her inferior human hearing. “Hey, anybody out there?”

Some birds tweeted and cawed outside, but Fiona heard nothing from beyond the plain bamboo bead curtain that now awkwardly draped the bedroom door, giving her privacy. Well, she thought she could make out the scampering of little feet, but those would belong to a being much too small to be an ogre. Fiona’s stomach growled, and she hoped that was due to the aroma of something cooking that wafted in from the room beyond the curtain rather than whatever vermin was attached to those feet. Whatever fat, juicy vermin—

Fiona shook her head. “Rats,” she said, but then shook it again.

The princess frowned. Her body had priorities which could not wait for her hosts, food, or anything else. She swung one arm down and groped under the bed. After a moment of flailing it struck something round – or round-ish – and made of pottery. “Thank Heaven,” Fiona said. “Civilization.” A moment later she had pulled the vessel out from under the bed. Its finish was of unadorned beige clay and not the smooth, refined, illustrated glaze that she was used to in her rooms at home or even in the tower, and it was significantly larger than she was used to, but she recognized a chamber pot when she saw one.

She thanked Heaven again when she saw that it was empty.

Fiona carefully sat up in bed. Her wound still pained her at the effort, but already the intensity was dying. The wrapping – and the brown leather halter-top she had been dressed in – had magically shrunk to fit her human frame, just as the dresses she had worn would shrink and expand with her changes. Good to know.

Fiona took care of what she needed to and carefully slid the chamber pot back beneath the bed, taking a mental note to unload and clean it properly later – upon pain of gross embarrassment.

Fiona stood and stretched as best she could with her wound. Although the brown tunic covered her upper torso, she still only had her undergarment for her lower body. She looked around the room with some sense of urgency, lest puckish fate decide that this would be the ideal time for her hosts to show up. She didn’t see any of the knightly clothing she had been wearing the night before, and almost cursed the ogres that they couldn’t have left them in this room as logic would dictate – until she reminded herself that they could just as easily have left her and her outfit in the wilderness and saved themselves possible grief as logic would dictate.

There was one closet door. She opened it and found a couple of worn dresses and a pair of soiled shirts. She had been hoping for a robe of some sort, but there was none. She was not keen on wearing her hosts’ regular clothes without their permission. Besides, they were all ogre-sized and much too large for her current dimensions.

There was one old dresser with chipped dull blue paint with a mirror which had a crack running in a rough catty-cornered track across its face. After a moment’s hesitation, Fiona opened and looked through its two drawers. She found nothing but underthings which Fiona assumed belonged to Moyre; items that Fiona doubted would fit her even in her ogress state. She shut the drawers in frustration and stood for a moment with her hands on the dresser top. She cast her eyes upward and her gaze alit on her human reflection; even her chopped, unkempt hair couldn’t distract from the beautiful features gazing back at her. One side of her mouth curled into a sardonic half-grin. “Mirror, mirror, with the crack,” she said. “Who’s the fairest in this shack?”

She chuckled mirthlessly and then looked back down and noted an old wooden comb sitting on the dresser top. She picked it up and noticed that about half its teeth were missing. She chuckled again and ran the comb through her hair several times, with only minor success in straightening it. She tossed the comb back on the dresser top.

She looked around again and her eyes fell upon a folded cloth draped over the back of the chair that Moyre had been sitting in the previous night. Fiona picked it up and unfurled it. It appeared to be some sort of ogre-sized shawl, of a plaid design of alternating dark and darker green with thin black and white perpendicular lines connecting and completing the tartan pattern. Appropriate, Fiona thought with another little half-grin, given her hosts’ accents. Its sides were not finished and were somewhat frayed, but it would suffice. She wrapped it about her waist just below her wound. It was long enough that it left no gaps, and it fell just around her knees. “That’ll work,” she said, with some sense of self-satisfaction. “If only I could find something to secure it with. A pin or something…”

Fiona’s eyes drifted to the nightstand. Atop it sat the gutted remains of that candle with the odd wax. She frowned, embarrassed that she had cost them an entire candle in addition to all the other trouble she was making. She recalled the night before, just after the ogres had bid her goodnight and were taking their leave, Moyre picked up the candle and was about to blow it out. Fiona had felt an odd pang of panic. “Moyre!” she called. “Wait!”

The older ogress paused, almost in mid-breath. “Yes, lass?” she said.

“Would you mind…leaving the candle lit?” Fiona asked.

Moyre looked down at her, puzzled. Fiona felt herself blush, and wondered if it showed through her green skin. “I just…I know it doesn’t make sense…but…” Fiona didn’t now how to finish. How could she explain to the ogress that, after having received such kindness and finding a haven that felt so…so right, that she had been seized with a sudden, irrational fear that if she were plunged into darkness that the next moment she would awaken, alone again, back in that dreadful tower?

But Fiona didn’t have to explain. Moyre’s featured softened and she smiled. “It’s aw’right, lass,” Moyre said, gently putting the candle back down on the nightstand. “Blow it out when you’re ready. Or not. Don’t worry, tis no great loss. It’s made of…what y’might call a renewable resource.”

Moyre’s smile was oddly both warm and impish. She leaned down and stroked the side of Fiona’s hair. She looked at Fiona benignly, and paused there with one huge hand laid comfortingly beside the youngster’s head. Then Moyre’s gaze changed somewhat. Her expression remained calm and benign, but instead of focusing on Fiona, the princess suddenly felt as if Moyre was looking – through her? No, past her, as if recalling – or imagining – someone else. Someone else who was there in her place. Or who had been in her place. Or perhaps should have been in her place.

Fiona reached up and placed her own plump hand on Moyre’s. The contact seemed to break the older ogress’s brief reverie. Moyre blinked a couple of times, offered another warm smile, said, “G’night, lass,” and then, after a playful pinch of Fiona’s amble cheek, slid her hand from Fiona’s face, stood, turned, and hurried from the room…but not before Fiona caught what she thought was a glint of a tear in her aged eye.

Fiona had lain there after Moyre had left, wondering what might have affected her so, and wondering if there was anything she could do to help. Fiona’s hand stayed on her own cheek, as if holding the warm touch of Moyre’s caress in place. To feel such a caring touch of another living being after so long...the last time she recalled such a moment was so many years ago, being tucked in by her own mother—

Fiona’s jaw tightened and her eyes shut. Best not start dredging up those memories, lest the pain that they would undoubtedly summon would drive her back into depression. Instead her eyes opened, and she found herself starting back at the candle, with its warm, flickering, reassuring light. Fiona smiled, and shortly thereafter her eyes closed again as sleep enveloped her.

Fiona blinked, and then shook her head. “Concentrate, Princess,” she chided herself. “Here and now.” She saw no pins on the top of the nightstand. But it had a second shelf. There were no pins there, either, but she did see a wound-up belt of some sort. She reached down, picked it up, and unwound it. Yes, it was a long belt, some four or five inches wide, and made of some sort of brown leather. No, it was scaled, like snakeskin. And there was a large, awkward iron buckle. She wrapped the belt around her waste atop the shawl, tightened it, and then fidgeted with the heavy buckle until she figured out how to latch it. Then she lifted her hands away from her sides and looked down at her make-shift skirt.

“Oh, no, not skirt. T’would be a kilt, lass,” Fiona said in a mock brogue, and snickered at her own joke. She shook her hips as hard as she could without causing pain and then did a brief squat. The ‘skirt’ stayed in place. Fiona checked her reflection in the mirror, nodded, and then patted the side of the belt. “That’ll do, Princess,” she muttered to herself with some satisfaction at her resourcefulness. “That’ll do.”

Then she saw that there was another object on the nightstand’s second shelf that the belt had been sitting atop. It was a worn, dog-eared book of some sort, with a plain green cover bare except for the title lettering. Fiona picked it up and looked at the title. Fifty Shades of Green, it read. Interesting. So it appeared that ogres had their bedside storybooks, too. After what she had experienced over the past day, Fiona was now only mildly surprised. She wondered what sort of morality tales the book might contain. She would have to check it out later; she might learn something.

Her stomach growled again. Fiona looked down at her slim tummy and smirked. “Yes, I know. First things first,” she said, laying the book back on its shelf. Then she turned and walked through the bead curtain.

Fiona paused in the doorway. She saw no ogres. “Groyl? Moyre?” she called again, but heard no answer. Her hosts were obviously out. She paused for a few moments to gaze at the den before her.

She wasn’t sure what she was expecting, but this wasn’t it.

There was one great room. Its dimensions were not square, or even rectangular. They were more…circular, but not quite. She was finding that the house had a noticeable lack of pure shapes or angles. The walls were made of the same daubing as in the bedroom, and were framed by plain, wooden, irregularly shaped boards. Boards? They looked more like the branches of trees. Speaking of trees, she saw that the fireplace where a cauldron housed some sort of bubbling stew was itself constructed of a tree trunk. She wondered for a moment of the logistics of getting it through the door when she realized that it had not been cut from a tree – the tree itself was still in place. Looking up, she saw what she thought looked like branches converging to make the roof, and realized that instead of branches, they were roots.

Her curiosity pricked, she headed out the door – itself an odd construct of planks that was not cut rectangularly but had one corner angled to a slant – and into the ‘courtyard’ of a swamp. A very nice swamp, though. A carpet of lush green grasses laid about her, which felt warm and springy beneath her bare feet. Beyond the carpet there was a border of taller grasses, and beyond that were the trees of the forest where Fiona presumed Groyl had found her. After she took a few steps she turned and looked back at the house. It was, indeed, built into the base of what had been a large tree. Some twenty feet up or so the top had broken off, and it now apparently served as a chimney as she could see some tendrils of smoke drifting from it. One corner of Fiona’s mouth curled into a smile and she shook her head in wonder. Did all ogres’ homes look like this? She would more likely have expected a hole in the ground.

She looked around a bit. There was one small wooden building a few yards off to the side with a crescent moon carved into its door, and a well-worn path connecting it to the front of the house. It confused her for a few moments, so she wandered over to it, carefully opened the door and looked in. “Oh,” she said. Well, now she knew where to dispose of the contents of her chamber pot later.

She noted a couple of other paths leading off toward the woods. She was curious about those also, but then her stomach growled again. Her thoughts returned to the bubbling stew in the cauldron, and so she made her way back into the house.

Once back inside, she paused again to look more closely at the main room’s contents. Near the fireplace there was a plain wooden dining table about four by eight feet with four large but basically designed wooden chairs around it. At one end of the table a chessboard was set up; this was yet another surprise, as she would hardly think such a game would appeal to ogres. An easy chair upholstered with snakeskin and a rocking chair sat beside each other along one wall. There was one shelf stacked with books, a recess where a cupboard held various dishes, cups and mugs, and one wall where cooking utensils hung. Set against another wall was a long, worn sofa, with a rug sat in front of it. Although rustic in the extreme, the place appeared surprisingly tidy, except for crumpled blankets lying on the sofa and on the rug beside it. But a moment later Fiona realized the reason for that. There were no other bedrooms. The ogres had let her sleep in their bed, while they themselves slept out here on the sofa and on the floor. She blushed in embarrassment.

She also saw her coat of mail, armor and sword sitting in another recess.

Sighing, she moved toward the cauldron. She looked down into the stew of bubbling white…liquid? No, thicker than that, more like porridge than stew; with pieces of some sort of meet that bobbed across its surface. The smell was heavenly, and she felt herself start salivating. Fiona felt even more beholden; the ogres had obviously gone out of their way to cook something palatable to human tastes. She knew she should wait for her hosts to return, but her stomach growled again, and the thought of digging into fresh, hot food proved too much to resist.

Fiona carefully pulled an earthen bowl from the cupboard and cast about for an appropriately sized spoon, but the smallest she could find was a wooden spoon with about the capacity of two tablespoons. She shrugged, and ladled in several spoonfuls into her bowl. When it was near full, she held the steaming mixture up near her nose and inhaled deeply, then closed her eyes. “Mmmmm,” she said, smiling in anticipation. Then she opened her eyes and took a seat at the table by the chess set, plopping her bowl in front of herself. She took a small amount onto the spoon, blew on it, touched it to her lips to test the temperature, and then took a bite. “Mmmmm!” she said again, even more loudly than before. “This is really good!”

The food had whetted her thirst, and she looked about and noted a chipped water pitcher sitting by a basin on a table beneath a window. She filled a mug with water and resumed her seat.

As she began eating more spoonfuls – well, half-spoonfuls – of the porridge, she examined the chess pieces more carefully. They were obviously hand-carved, but showed surprising detail. The ‘white’ pieces were actually left in their natural light beige color, while the black pieces had been painted. Likewise the board itself was of a not-quite-square piece of wood, with the 64-square outline engraved atop it, with lines not quite straight in some places, and then every other square painted black with apparently the same paint used for the black pieces – and which ran slightly over the lines in some areas. Fiona chuckled at the result. The two sides were already aligned in their proper starting rows – they even had the queens set to their correct colored squares – with the white side facing Fiona.

As Fiona neared the end of her bowl, she idly touched a few of the pieces. She had a book on chess strategy among her little library in the tower, and had even created a small cut-out set that she used to play herself in solitaire matches sometimes. Out of curiosity, she had even used chess to test her human mind against her ogress mind, alternating moves, once per daylight hours and once per nighttime, to see if the change adversely affected her thinking abilities as she assumed would happen in her beastly form. She played a few such games, which of course took several days to complete – alas, she had the time – but despite her hypothesis, she found the ogress and human were equally adept at the game. But she then rationalized that she already had the moves thought out ahead of time – plus, it was just further proof that she wasn’t a real ogre.

The bowl emptied, Fiona crossed her arms and stared down at the board for a while, contemplating first the board, then her situation. “I guess I’m lucky, finding these…this couple to take me in and show me such hospitality,” she mused. Then her attention returned to the board. After a few more moments she reached forward and pushed one of the white pawns forward two squares, and then stared at the empty chair across from her. “Your move,” she said, and snickered.

Fiona then rose, walked around the end of the table, and took the seat in the chair behind the black row. She looked down at the board from that perspective for a moment, and then commented, “You think so? You really think that their motives are pure, do you? Haven’t the events of the past couple of days taught you anything about trusting people…let alone ogres?” She then moved one of the black pawns forward a space.

Fiona sighed. Then she rose, walked back around the end of the table, and seated herself back behind the white side. After a moment staring down at the board, she said, “Ogres or not, they’ve shown nothing but kindness. Groyl didn’t have to save me from the robbers. Or Moyre tend my wound. If they meant me harm, why would they do that?” She then moved another white pawn up one space.

She again rose and resumed her seat behind the black pieces. “Since they are ogres, perhaps they thought you’d make a nice snack,” she suggested, moving a black knight out from the back row.

Fiona continued alternating seats as she played the game, and debated with herself.

“If they wanted to do that, then they’ve had plenty of opportunity. Why wait?” she challenged from the white side.

“Ever hear of Hansel and Gretel?” she responded from the black side, with a nod toward the cauldron of porridge.

“No. I can’t believe that. Besides, why would they leave me alone, unrestrained, if that was their plan?”

“Why leave you? Maybe instead of having you for dinner, they’ve gone to turn you in to your father’s henchmen. I’d wager you’re worth some sort of reward.”

“That still doesn’t explain why they would leave me unrestrained if they had malign intentions.”

“Perhaps this swamp itself is a prison. You don’t really know where you are, do you? If you set out into that wilderness, my pristine Highness, how long do you think these beasts would take to track you down?”

“If that’s the case, then why even bother trying to escape? By your cynical logic, I’m dead either way.”

“Not necessarily,” the dark-side Fiona said, nodding toward the sword in the corner. “When the practicality of flight has been removed, that still leaves one option.”

“An option that will not be necessary,” Fiona responded from the white side. “Why would they leave such a weapon unguarded? No. I…trust these people.”

“These beasts?”

“Very well, then. Yes, these beasts.”

“Even when your own parents betrayed your trust? Do you believe you can trust monsters when you couldn’t even trust your own blood? Is that what you really believe?”

Fiona contemplated for a moment. “I believe…” she began. Then paused, thought some more, sighed, and said, “I believe I’ll have some more of that porridge.” She picked up her bowl, stood, began to turn toward the fireplace, and then stopped. “Oh, and by the way,” she said, turning back to the chessboard. She moved her guarded queen forward, captured a pawn from before her opponent’s king, and said, “Checkmate.” She smiled, looked at the empty chair, and said, “Care for another game?”

A scarecrow stood in a cornfield, its lumpy straw-stuffed body held up by a rotting wooden post. The smiling face painted upon the burlap sack that made up its head stared unblinkingly forward. Then, from the distance, the tall ears of corn began to part. The parting wave moved steadily forward until the ears from just before the scarecrow parted to reveal a tall, ugly, green ogre carrying a burlap sack of its own, albeit much larger. The scarecrow screamed, leapt off of its post, and ran with awkward, panicked strides away through the rows.

Groyl rolled his eyes. “Oy,” he said. “That’s just so predictable.” He looked back behind him to where Moyre stood, examining a large ear of corn for imperfections before plucking it and dropping it into her own sack. Both ogres’ sacks were nearly full. “Tell me why we’re doing this again?”

“B’cause a lotta the food we eat’s poison to humans, and might kill Fiona if she eats it while she’s in that form. I thought you understood that b’fore we started.”

“No, I mean, why’re we going t’all this trouble for her?” Groyl said. “Can’t we just patch’er up and send her on her way? We’ve gathered ‘nuff vegetables for a month.”

“Why’re you in such a hurry to be rid of her?” Moyre countered, and then cocking a bemused eyebrow said, “Seemed to me you found her a bit attractive, no?”

Groyl blushed. “Well, I confess, she’s not bad, if on the shrimpy side. Only a tad over six feet, and maybe twenty stone. Nothing compared to you, m’dear.”

This time it was Moyre’s turn to blush. “Y’always were a sweet talker, y’old lump,” she said.

They chuckled and smiled at each other, but then Groyl’s smile faded and he said, “She’s not ours, y’know.”

Moyre’s smile also faded. She fidgeted uncomfortably for a moment, and then said, “I don’t know what you mean.”

“Sure yeh do,” he said. “I’ve seen it in your eyes. She’s about the right age for our child. The one that wasn’t born.”

Moyre shrugged. “Is she? Well, I s’pose she is.” Her gaze lowered self-consciously to the ground.

Groyl stepped forward and placed a hand gently against her shoulder. “She’s not ours, Moyre. She can’t be. She b’longs to an entirely different world. A world of humans. And not just humans, it’s a world of kings and princes and royalty and customs and beliefs that just don’t fit with the things we believe and value. Some of those differences are things we find abhorrent in each other. We can’t…adopt her into a life that she’d despise. T’wouldn’t be fair to her…or us.”

Moyre continued staring down at the ground for a moment, and then looked back up at Groyl. “I understand that,” she conceded. “But for now, she needs a place to stay, until she gets better and feels safe to move on.”

“Aye, and that we’ll give her,” Groyl said. “But don’t get your hopes up that we’ll…connect on anything but the most basic things. Remember, despite her nighttime appearance, inside she’s only human.”

Moyre nodded. “I know. It’s just that…something I thought I saw’n her last night…but you’re right, I guess I was just…romanticizing.”

Groyl’s expression hardened a bit. “A human trait,” he said. “And one we can’t afford. It’s a cold, hard world for our kind, my sweet, and we need to keep that in mind, every day.”

Moyre nodded. “Agreed,” she sighed resignedly. “But some days’re harder than others.”

Groyl’s face softened into a sad smile. He reached up and nudged her chin. “Buck up,” he said, then turned to the pole and hung a small sack of coins on the rusted nail that had held the scarecrow; coins amounting to the estimated value of the goods they had picked. “Now let’s go home and see what our guest looks like in her real form.”

“Probably twig thin and pretty as a button, like all those other blasted fairy tale princesses,” Moyre said, wrinkling her nose. Then, as they began walking together down a path between corn row back toward their home, she forced a chuckle and said, “If she starts singing to some blasted woodland animals, I’m gonna slap her silly.”

“Now, that’s more like it,” Groyl said, his smile warming as he nudged her arm playfully, nearly knocking her over. She nudged him back a little harder, then he pushed her hard, knocking her down into the corn as he took off running down the path, laughing. Moyre also began laughing, pulling out a potato and throwing it at him, cocking him in the head as she began running after him, both ogres now laughing playfully.

When Groyl opened the door to their home and stepped in with his wife, both he and Moyre stopped short when they saw the human female sitting at the table, propped up on her elbows with a half-empty bowl of porridge sitting between them. She stared, engrossed with the chessboard upon which a game was in progress, and she didn’t notice the ogres at first. Still staring at the board, she scooped up a spoonful of porridge and ladled it into her mouth. It left a ‘moustache’ of the food clinging to her upper lip, which she unconsciously wiped off with the back of her wrist. After she swallowed, she let out a long, loud burp. She then reached for a mug of water and gulped the remainder of its contents down…at which point she noted the ogres standing just inside the doorway.

“Oh!” Fiona exclaimed, startled. Then, blushing, “Um…good morning! I…uh…well, I was a little hungry this morning. I hope you don’t mind me going ahead and eating some of your porridge. It’s delicious! It hit the spot…just right!”

“Really?” Moyre said as she and Groyl looked at each other and exchanged quizzical expressions. Then they looked back at Fiona and Moyre continued, “Well, we were just out gathering veggies to make yeh something we thought yeh could eat in…this form.” She then led Groyl to an alcove that served as a pantry of sorts where they laid their sacks.

“You were?” Fiona said, confused. “But…but this was great!”

Moyre and Groyl turned back to Fiona. “It’s an honor t’meet you…your Highness,” Moyre said with a little grin, and gave a mock curtsey.

“Huh? Oh!” Fiona said, looking down at her human body. “Please don’t do that. I’m basically the same person, just in my true form.”

“True form, eh?” Moyre said with a reflective expression that made Fiona’s brow furrow in confusion.

“Are yeh feeling aw’right?” Groyl asked Fiona with some concern.

“Why, yes,” Fiona said. “The side still hurts, but that wound treatment of yours did wonders!”

“But you’re feeling aw’right in your head…in your stomach?”

“Well, I’m feeling a bit full,” Fiona said, blushing again as she patted her slightly extended belly. “I’m working on a third bowl.”

Groyl turned to Moyre, confusion in his face, but Moyre continued looking at Fiona. “Y’know what,” she said. “We’ve got something better t’wash that down with than water,” then turned and went over to a shelf that held a tall unmarked bottle. As she took the bottle down and pulled out two other mugs Groyl approached her.

“Are yeh mad, woman?” he whispered in her ear. “She’ll never handle that as a human.”

“She shouldn’t have handled the porridge, either,” Moyre whispered back, “considering the ingredients. Fungus? Tree rot? Stink bugs? The smell alone should’a kept her from even entering this room. And she ate it up. Literally. And did yeh see the way she was acting when she wasn’t paying attention to herself?”

“So? A lotta humans are slobs when nobody’s looking.”

“Even princesses?”

“Who knows? Have you ever seen other princesses when they’re alone?” Groyl paused, and then whispered, “Don’t get your hopes up, Moyre. She’s not an ogre.”

“Well, let’s give ourselves – and Fiona – a chance to discover just what she is, shall we, and not judge her b’fore we get to t’know her?”

Before Groyl could respond, Moyre turned back around, one hand holding the bottle and the other holding two empty mugs, and said, “Here’s a little something that we ogres find…refreshing. Perhaps you might do so, too.” She looked beside her to see Groyl staring at her with barely hidden displeasure. “Groyl, dear, why don’t yeh go have a seat at the table? That’s a good man.”

Groyl gave his wife one more chiding glance as he strode over and took the seat opposite Fiona. Moyre took a seat beside the princess. “Here yeh go, lass,” she said as she filled Fiona’s mug with the contents of the bottle. Fiona took the mug and smelled it curiously as Moyre filled Groyl’s mug and then her own.

“What is this?” Fiona asked.

“Ograrian ale,” Moyre replied. “It would be like…let’s see, what would it be similar to for you humans…champagne!”

Groyl almost choked as he held back a guffaw. Moyre shot him a visual rebuke of her own, but Fiona’s attention was on the contents of the mug. “I’ve never had champagne, or any alcohol. I was just a child when they…imprisoned me. And they didn’t leave any in the tower.”

“Well, you’re a big girl now,” Moyre said. Then she held up her mug. “To a full recuperation and a safe and happy stay!”

Fiona tentatively touched her mug to Moyre’s, and then Groyl reluctantly touched his mug to the other two.

As the two ogres lifted their mugs to their mouths and began drinking – keeping their eyes on Fiona as they did so – Fiona stared at the contents of her mug a moment longer, then lifted it to her own lips. She began sipping…but instead of lowering the mug she lifted it higher, taking a few gulps until it was half drained. She then lowered it and set it on the table with a thump.

Fiona coughed for a moment, and then choked out, “Oh, my! Is that what champagne is like?”

“Are yeh feeling a’right?” Groyl asked, examining her expression almost clinically.

“Why, yes,” Fiona said, catching her breath. “Just fine. That…ale, did you call it?...did burn a bit going down. And I feel a little…light-headed. But not in a bad way.”

“Mmm,” Moyre said noncommittally, casting a clandestine wink at Groyl. “Why don’t you two talk for a while and I’ll sort the veggies we just picked.”

Moyre got up from the chair and made her way to the pantry. Groyl signed resignedly as he turned toward Fiona, who was taking another drink from her mug.

“I see you’ve discovered our chessboard,” he said.

“Yes. I hope you don’t mind!” Fiona responded.

“Oh, not at all. Moyre and I like to play from time to time…not a lot of recreational choices out here.” He smiled. “I’ll bet yeh didn’t think an ogre’d play a game like chess, though, eh?”

Fiona blushed again. “Well…actually…I…um…”

He waved her concern aside. “Forget it,” he said. “We’re all learning new things ‘bout each other.” Moyre looked back at him from her sorting and he and she shared another knowing glance. “So,” he continued after a moment, “you’re playing yourself?”

“I was earlier,” Fiona said. “But this time I’m trying to re-create one of the famous grandmaster matches that they included in a chapter of a chess strategy book that I read a few times in the tower. You see, the person playing the white pieces is about to start employing his end game that will defeat black.”

Groyl looked over the board. “Really?” he said. “I see black mating white in three moves.”

“What?” Fiona said, looking more intently at the board.

“Here…here…here…” Groyl said, waving a sausage-like finger above the board tracing out the moves.

Fiona blinked. “That…that can’t be. Maybe I set the board wrong…” she scratched her head and squinted her eyes as she studied the board. “But I don’t think so…”

“I guess whoever was playing the black pieces wasn’t such a grand player after all,” he mused. “But enough of copying what other people do or think. Would yeh like to play a real game, you and me? We’ll see if I’m still the second-best player in this house.” He and Moyre then shared a playful glance.

Fiona looked at Groyl, then down at the board, then again traced out the moves he had pointed out to her, then back up at Groyl again. She smiled and said, “I’d love to.”