Before Forever After
By Gadfly
Introduction
As the title implies, this work concentrates on incidents leading up to the scenario that Shrek encounters in Shrek Forever After in an alternate reality where Shrek was never born.
Copyright Notice
Characters, places and situations from the motion pictures Shrek, Shrek 2, Shrek the Third, and Shrek Forever After belong to DreamWorks. They are used here with affection but, alas, without permission.
Table of Contents
Layer 1: Yet Another Knight in the Castle
Layer 2: For Want of a Dentist
Layer 3: Rendezvous with a Rapscallion
Layer 4: Charming Encounters
Layer 5: Deals with Evils Past
Layer 6: Deals with Evils Present
Layer 7: Last Knight
Layer 8: Roadside Showdown
Layer 9: The King’s Speech
Layer 10: Of Cottages and Kings
Layer 11: Flight from Captivity
Layer 12: Confronting Demons
Layer 13: Fare Thee Well, Castle
Layer 14: The Bad, the Worse, and the Pretty
Layer 15: You’ve Got a Friend
Layer 16: An Unorthodox Rescue
Layer 17: An Unexpected Haven
Layer 18: Ever So Humble
Layer 19: Absolute-tion
Layer 20: The Good Times are Ogre
Layer 21: Getting to Know Them
Layer 22: How the Other Side Lives
Layer 23: An Eventful Evening
Layer 24: Rescued Properly
Layer 25: Head Knocks and Broomsticks
Layer 26: A Plan and a Parting
Layer 27: Roar Recruits
Layer 28: Catsassin
Layer 1: Yet Another Knight in the Castle
The lovely Princess Fiona of the Kingdom of Far Far Away was in the midst of a beauty nap when she was jolted awake as something large and heavy crashed through the stone ceiling of her tower room cell. She bolted upright into a sitting position on her bed, wondering if the castle had come under siege, when she saw, laying on the floor amidst rocky debris,the back of a tall, broad figure, wearing the helmet and armguards of a knight and some exotic reptilian skin vest – perhaps from some dragon he’d slain! Dazed but amazingly still conscious, he shook his head and then very slowly began pushing himself up.
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 theheavy 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 castby 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, sparklingmist 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 immediatepredicament 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, rolledonto 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…”
Layer 2: For Want of a Dentist
“Excuse me, I’d like to see the Fairy Godmother.”
Jerome, a thin, sharp-featured elf, looked up from the papers he was working on from his seat behind the reception desk of the Fairy Godmother’s waiting lounge. “May I help y—” he began to say, his words clipped with a hint of irritation, but stopped when he saw no one standing before him.