Fiona was like a whirling dervish, outrage fueling her as
she assaulted Farquaad’s soldiers.
Expertly delivered kicks and punches felled man after man. They appeared lost without their
weapons. Although their armor afforded
them protection from her body blows, which could only knock them off-balance
without doing real damage, it also slowed their own movements, which were
already significantly slower than the princess’s. Those that tried to grab her found themselves
grasping only air as she spun away while simultaneously delivering a swift
punch or kick to the soldier’s head in recompense.
Still, Fiona had miscalculated. There were simply too many of them, and
several fled the clearing and dashed into the woods. Had they stopped to retrieve their weapons
there, they might still have prevailed.
Fortunately for Fiona, the men were too panicked. Indoctrinated to fear those that were different
and that they didn’t understand, they were able to maintain cohesion and discipline
in dealing with the ogres through Farquaad’s force of will. But now they had seen their leader humiliated
and negated by this vixen that was not only not acting like a princess, but not
acting anything like a proper woman at all according to the strict regimented
standards of Dulocian society. Indeed,
her actions now were closer to those of a crazed demon. Even Fiona’s hair contributed to this
perception, as superstition held that red hair sometimes indicated a
supernatural nature, from vampire to werewolf to some other nefarious entity. So for those that escaped her physical wrath, irrational
fear accomplished for Fiona what her fists and feet did not as the routed
soldiers continued their mad dash through the forest, the sounds of their crashing
through the undergrowth growing fainter until they faded altogether.
Fiona eventually dropped the last soldier still in the
clearing. She stood there for a moment,
panting, hands on knees as she felt the rush of adrenalin and rage ebbing from
her body. Then she heard the sounds of
human grunts and equine whinnying. She
looked over to see Lord Farquaad by his steed.
The diminutive despot had crawled away during the scuffle and now was
trying to mount the horse for a getaway.
Unfortunately, without any of his soldiers to aid him, he couldn’t reach
the saddle.
He looked over his shoulder and saw Fiona glaring at
him. His eyes widened for a moment in
fright and he turned back to his steed to try again. He placed one foot atop the false foot in the
stirrup, push himself upward and tried grabbing up the saddle for the pommel to
try pulling himself up. He ended up
slipping and falling backwards onto the ground with a painful grunt.
Fiona wiped a stray lock of hair that had fallen across
her forehead back into place and then strode toward him as he scrambled to his
feet. Instead of trying to mount again,
he slid a shortsword out from a scabbard attached to the saddle, then turned to
face Fiona, who came to a halt about four feet before him.
“Stand back!” he commanded, brandishing the weapon toward
her. “Or I’ll…I’ll…”
“You’ll what?”
Fiona sneered contemptuously. “Kill
me? Force me to marry you? Lock me back in that tower for the rest of my
days? You pathetic cur. In what alternate reality do you think I’d accede
to marry a monster like you?”
“I’m not the monster here, they are!” Farqaad said, nodding in the direction of he ogres. “And they’ve poisoned you, my perfect
princess, and turned you into some sort of feral freak. Now beware!” he warned, nodding to the sword,
“I’m an expert with this!”
“Seriously?” Fiona said derisively. She shook her head scornfully, and then with
a shout she whirled, whipping her leg around and kicking the sword out of
Farquaad’s hands.
Farquaad stood there for a moment, dumbfounded. But then Fiona dropped to her knees, grabbed
the top of his armor vest and pulled him toward her until they were almost
literally eye-to-eye.
“I am taking my family away from here,” she said
evenly. “If you try to follow us…or
cause us any grief in the future…then I’ll…I’ll…” Fiona heard a moan from the direction of the
wagon. She looked over to it to see
Groyl wincing in a spasm of pain, and Moyre gasping his hand and looking down
upon him with concern. Then Fiona looked
back at the man who had caused all this, and she felt her heart fill with a
cold, stony resolution. “Then I will
kill you,” she stated simply, realizing that she meant it, that she really
could do it. The thought frightened her
as much as she hoped it would frighten him, but her face remained impassive as
she added, “Do you understand me?”
Farquaad stared at her for several seconds. Then his gaze drifted behind her
briefly. Then he looked back at her…and
smiled. “Indeed,” he said, his voice
resuming confidence, “despite the reek of your breath. Symptomatic, no doubt, that the things these
beasts have been feeding you have corrupted your body as well as your
mind. But that will change soon.”
Fiona frowned, and then spared a glance over her
shoulder. Sir Thomas now stood there,
about fifteen yards behind her, between her and the wagon. The sly knight had snuck away during the
fight and, showing more bravado than the simple soldiers, had retrieved one of
the crossbows which he now had aimed between her shoulder blades. Despite the temerity of returning with a
weapon and his threatening pose, he appeared uncomfortable, and when he saw
Fiona looking at him he gulped.
“Don’t worry, my dear,” Farquaad said. “You’re just an impressionable girl, an
inherent foible of your gender. I won’t
hold you accountable for that. Soon
you’ll be back in a proper palatial environment, and with a few weeks of
reparative therapy I’m sure you’ll come to understand how foolish and unnatural
your life here was, and will accept – nay, embrace – your divinely ordained
position as a royal. I’ll tell you what:
if you agree to return with us quietly, then assuming they live I’ll see if I can’t negotiate
with Rumpelstiltskin to have him return your pets to us once he’s finished with
them; I hear he’s always willing to make a deal. We can build a nice enclosure for them in the
Duloc zoo, where you can visit them when you wish. So what say you? Have we come to a meeting of minds?”
Fiona glared at Farquaad for a few moments, her angry face
turning almost as red as her hair. But then
she smiled herself. “Come to a meeting
of minds?” she said. “Yes, sweetie. I think we have.” With that, she shouted, “Hi-ya!” and threw her head forward, impacting Farquaad’s head and
the precise point she aimed and knocking him unconscious. She released him, letting his limp body
tumble the short distance to the ground while she stood up.
She felt no crossbow bolt pierce her back. That was promising.
She slowly turned to face the knight.
Sir Thomas took an awkward step back, but then brandished
the crossbow more threateningly. “S-stay
back!” he warned.
Fiona cautiously raised her hands by her sides in a
placating gesture. She tried hard to
contain her anger at the knight whose informing had brought all this tragedy
upon them. “Look, Sir Thomas,” she said,
her words clipped but controlled, “you don’t need to make this any worse than
it is. I’m sure you didn’t want anybody
to get hurt, did you?”
“No,” he said, licking his lips. “But they fought back! He had the drop on them, but they fought
back!”
Of course they did, you idiot, she wanted to say, but managed
to restrain herself except for taking an unconscious step forward. This caused Sir Thomas to take another short,
bumbling step backward in response, and Fiona saw his hand tighten on the
trigger, compressing it about half-way to firing. Fiona froze and took a deep breath before
continuing.
“They were defending their home,” she explained. “You’re a brave and gallant man,” she lied. “Would you not do the same if someone came
along and threatened your home and
loved ones?”
“That’s different,” he said. “I’m…not an ogre.”
“But we and humans – I mean ogres – we all share the same
values and beliefs regarding home and family.
I know; I’ve been living with them. Had you…been more thorough in your
reconnaissance” – and not jumped to
bigoted conclusions, she wanted to add – “you would have observed
that. Yes, they’re big and strong and ominous. Their attitude is rough and unrefined. And when it comes to humans, yes, they can
appear threatening, intentionally so.
But that’s a defense mechanism.
It doesn’t mean they want to hurt you.”
Not necessarily, she
omitted. “It just means they want you to
leave them alone.” Although it is fun to watch you run, she mused, remembering the
villagers.
“But what about your old home? Far Far Away?
What about that?” he
challenged.
Fiona’s brow furrowed.
She was taken aback by the apparent non sequitur. “What are you talking about?” she said.
“A pack of these…friends
of yours,” he said, gesturing with his head behind him at the ogres. “Or should I say fiends, attacked it. They
burned much of it to the ground while terrorizing the citizenry. The place still hasn’t recovered…it may never recover.”
Fiona blinked, now at a loss what to think. It was an audacious claim – but this knight
didn’t seem bright enough to make up such a tale from whole cloth, especially
given the stress he was under. “I…don’t
understand.” Then a new chill ran down
her spine. “What of the king and queen?”
she asked.
“There is no queen yet,” he replied. “But King Rumpelstiltskin survived.”
“King Rumpel—” Fiona said, confused. There was that weird name again. “But…what of King Harold and Queen Lillian?”
“We were eventually to ask you about that,” he said.
“Word had spread that you and they had taken to retreat after your
release from the dragon’s keep, vacating the throne in payment to
Rumpelstiltskin.”
Fiona’s brow furrowed.
“I have not seen my parents in years,” she said. “And I never heard of this…Rumpelstiltskin. From whence did you hear of this?”
“It was in an interview, distributed around the kingdoms
in a pamphlet published by King Larry.”
“But…who is this Rumpelstiltskin? Where did he come from?”
“Reportedly he’s an imp who used to peddle magical deals
in the seedier parts of the kingdom.”
“And it never occurred to anyone to question the veracity
of such a creature?” she asked incredulously.
“Your Highness, you
were the one who was just defending swamp-dwelling ogres.”
As the knight spoke, Fiona saw the two witches moving
forward from the wagon behind him, gliding silently on their broomsticks, until
they hovered some twenty feet above the knight to either side of him. She felt her heart sink – apparently the witches
were intervening on the side of Farquaad, the man who had made a deal with them
for the ogres, as if they were so many cattle.
“But I understand your skepticism,” the knight
continued. “Lord Farquaad has been
drumming into us for years the foolishness of trusting such creatures. But as with the witches to whom he sold the
ogres, he says that sometimes one must hold one’s nose and perform the deals
that will benefit the kingdom’s coffers, even if it means having to abide the
presence of such foul crones as are sitting on the wagon.”
“No,” one of the witches – the one whom had spoken to
Farquaad – said. “We’re right here.”
“Wha—” Sir Thomas said in surprise, looking up. Fiona, seeing an opening, began to move
forward. But she halted as she saw the
witch drop an item from her hand. It
landed by Sir Thomas, bounced once, and settled. Both Thomas and Fiona stared at if for a
moment. It appeared to be a small jack-o-lantern. But before they could react, it exploded.
Fiona felt herself thrown backward and onto the
ground. She didn’t quite lose
consciousness, but her head felt fuzzy and there was a ringing in her
ears. She sat up as quickly as she
could, but her muscles seemed reluctant to obey her brain. She looked with somewhat blurry vision over
to where Sir Thomas stood, or had
stood…now he was laying on his back. The
witches both descended to the ground near him.
Fiona couldn’t quite understand what had just happened. She struggled to her feet as the witches both
dismounted.
Fiona looked down at Thomas’s still form. “Is he…dead?” she asked.
“Oh, no, my dear,” the witch whom had dropped the bomb
said. “Just stunned cold. Like the others you’ve left strewn about,”
she flippantly indicated Farquaad and the squad of unconscious soldiers.
“Why…why did you do that?” Fiona asked, trying to steady
her wobbly feet, grateful that the ringing in her ears was starting to fade. “Are you trying to help me?”
“Help you out of Farquaad’s clutches, our pleasure,” the
witch said, reaching into a small cauldron attached to the rear of her
broom. From it she withdrew the first
part of a chain with some sort of object attached to its end. Then, holding the chain about three feet down
its length from the object she twirled it several times in the air, building
momentum, at which point she flung it toward Fiona.
Betrayed by a mind still trying to recover from the blast
and cope with the surreal situation, and reflexes similarly dulled, Fiona
couldn’t react quickly enough to avoid the chain, which turned out to be quite
long as the rest of it flew from the cauldron, the witch adroitly catching hold
of the very end as it exited. It wrapped
about Fiona, pinning her arms to her sides, and continued coiling itself around
her as if she were the post in a game of tetherball. At last the object at the head of the chain,
which turned out to be in the shape of a small metallic skull, swung about and
its ‘teeth’ clamped onto one of the coils, locking the chain in place. Belatedly Fiona tried to struggle, but it was
no use. The effort caused her to lose
balance and she fell to her knees. She
looked up as the witches approached her.
“Sorry, my dear,” the witch who spoke before said. “But I’m afraid it’s out of the cauldron and
onto the pyre for you.”
Fiona felt her confusion giving way to anger as her head
cleared. “Who are you?” she demanded.
“Name’s Yaga,” the witch responded as she reached down
with a green hand featuring long, rough black nails and a group of warts down
one finger, grasped Fiona’s chin and turned it up toward her crook-nosed face. Fiona glared at her with for a moment, and
then shook off the hand.
Yaga scoffed. “So
you’re Princess Fiona,” she said, and then turned to her silent partner, whom
had come up to within a yard and was still holding her broom. “You’d think Farquaad would have mentioned
that she was with the ogres. Oh, well, I
guess he’d figured that it was none of our business. Ha!
Little did he know…” Yaga then
leaned down and stared into Fiona’s face.
“My dear,” Yaga said, “you’re supposed to be dead.”
“Yeah, I’m aware of that,” Fiona said snidely.
“The thing is,” Yaga explained, “it is our business. Or at least
that of our boss, which makes it our
business.”
“Your boss being…?” Fiona asked.
“King Rumpelstiltskin,” Yaga said. “The one that wants you dead.”
Fiona’s mouth dropped open. Sorry,
my dear. King’s orders, the
assassin-prince had said. “So the
assassin…was not sent by my father.”
“What, you mean the blond pretty-boy prince?” Yaga
said. “Na’ah, that was Rumpel ordered
that. Your father made a deal to give up
his crown and get you out of that
place.”
Fiona felt a flood of emotions pour over her, grief and
guilt at the forefront. She realized
that in the back of her mind she had started suspecting this Rumpelstiltskin as
the true villain from what Sir Thomas had said, but to have it confirmed like
still hit her like a body blow. “I was
wrong,” she almost whispered.
“Join the club,” Yaga said. “Seems everybody was wrong. The pretty prince, Rumpel for trusting him,
and your dad for trusting Rumpel…”
“Oh my God,” Fiona said, still stunned by the enormity of
the revelation.
“Well, you can take that up with Him personally soon
enough,” Yaga said. “The question is, do
we take you back to Rumpel whole, or do we just kill you here and take back
your head. Seems to me the latter would
be safer, leave less room for you to wiggle your way out of this as well.” She turned toward her fellow witch. “Which do you th—” Yaga began, only to have
her silent associate ram the front of her broomstick into her midsection. Yaga let out a surprised “oof!”, grabbed her
abdomen and doubled over, but did not quite fall to the ground. The other witch then raised her broomstick
and brought it down hard on Yaga’s head, knocking off her hat. Yaga looked up unsteadily with dazed eyes
through the crop of scraggly gray hair that now hung from her head and croaked,
“And you call yourself…a Wiccan.” Then
Yaga collapsed, unconscious.
Fiona watched the shocking turn of events with incredulous
eyes. Her mind had now physically
recovered from the stun grenade, but was a blur nevertheless. She could only stare dumbly at the other
witch as she undid the skull-clamp and started unwinding the chain from around
Fiona. “Who are you?” the princess eventually managed to stammer.
“My name’s Hazel,” the witch said as the last of the chain
fell from around Fiona. Hazel reached
into one of Yaga’s pickets and retrieved the key for the cage on the wagon –
which a soldier had handed Yaga after locking it – and dropped it into her own
pocket. “Now,” Hazel said, “come with me
if you want to live.”
“Come—where—what—”
But Hazel was busy turning Yaga over, and then with a
grunt she hoisted the dead weight up over her shoulder. “Grab the brooms and follow,” she ordered
Fiona.
“But—”
“Move!” Hazel
ordered, and began walking as quickly as she could toward the wagon.
Fiona gave a huff of frustrated confusion, but obediently picked
up the brooms and followed her.
As they approached the wagon Moyre stared at the
approaching witch. “Hazel?” she
said. “Is that you?”
“Yeah, yeah, it’s me,” she said as she neared the back of
the wagon. But she stopped short, almost
causing Fiona, trotting behind, to nearly run into her. “Well, don’t just stand there,” Hazel said,
turning and staring at the frazzled princess.
“Get the key out of my pocket.
I’m carrying a bit of a load here.”
“Fine,” Fiona
said, dropping the brooms and rustling through one of Hazel’s pockets, but
finding only loose bundles of herbs and small bound cloth sacks. One of them wiggled when she touched it.
“The other one,”
Hazel said, and huffed impatiently.
“Good grief, weren’t you paying attention?”
“Sorry, I was preoccupied.” Fiona snapped back, and
reached into another of Hazel’s pockets.
“But why are you helping us?”
“Tell you later,” Hazel said as Fiona pulled out the key
from among other assorted items in the pocket.
“Now unlock it.”
“Yeah, I figured that was next in the plan,” Fiona mumbled
as she fumbled with the large heavy lock and key. A moment later she swung the cage door open.
“Can you drive this thing?” Hazel asked, stepping up
inside the cage and dropping the unconscious Yaga into a corner as if she were
a sack of potatoes.
“I guess so—”
“Don’t guess, do it,”
Hazel said, kneeling beside Groyl on the other side of him from Moyre. “But first toss in those brooms.”
Fiona did as she was instructed as Hazel examined Groyl’s
wound.
“Have you got anything that can help?” Moyre asked. “We lost all our herbs and elixirs in the
fire.”
“Yeah, a couple of things with me,” she said, reaching into
a pocket. “And more once we reach my
cottage.” She looked over to see Fiona
watching her with concern as she examined Groyl. “I said move,
girl!” Hazel snapped. “Head back down the path we came in by – you
can tell by the wheel tracks. When you
get to the main trail, hang a right and I’ll guide you to my cottage. Now hurry,
blast ya!”
“Okay, fine,” Fiona said, and quickly climbed upon the
wagon’s driver’s seat.
As Fiona took the reigns in her hands, she heard Moyre
say, “Take it easy on the lass, Hazel.
She’s not the cause of all this.”
“No,” Hazel said.
“But she’s the catalyst.”