Foreword
This is a Shrek fanfiction that begins approximately a decade before the first film, and explains the intrigues and events that took the Princess Fiona far away from her parents and home in the Kingdom of Far, Far Away, and made her a prisoner in a tower guarded by a terrible fire breathing dragon for many, many years. This in fact is really the story of that most important, yet largely neglected character from the world of Shrek, the dragon called Dragon who saved Shrek and Fiona from certain death in the original film and went on to become the wife of Donkey and mother of the adorable mutant Dronkies. The work will eventually bring the reader up to the state of affairs at the conclusion of the third film, with careful attention to retaining both the distinctive "gallows humor"of the original films and remaining true to the established "Canon" of the Shrek Universe.
I give many thanks to Gadfly, whose tremendous knowledge and insights regarding the characters and world of Shrek have been of invaluable assistance in creating this work, as well as his continued words of encouragement. He certainly needs no introduction, but for those who are newcomers here, and are fans of Shrek, I heartily recommend his own Shrek fanfictions that are posted on and on his own website with it wealth of additional information, original artwork and links to relevant and related sites pertaining to all things Shrek.
Copyright Notice
Characters, places and situations from the motion picture Shrek and its sequels belong to DreamWorks.
Introduction
The Shrek epic as a whole, is characterized by its clever role reversal of the classic medieval European fairytale. Thus in the world of Shrek then we see the seemingly "good" human ruler of a clean, ordered, Disneyesque kingdom portrayed as a Hitler-like dictator torturing and deporting the non-human, fairytale creatures of this world. Later we see the Prince Charmings and Fairy Godmothers as opportunists, oppressors and murderers. On the contrary, we see creatures like ogres and even dragons having feelings, and it is the ogre who emerges as the real hero. An even more unlikely hero, or more properly a heroine is the dragon known as Dragon, who in the finale of the original production, saves the ogre and ogress from the evil human dictator who would have them killed.
For centuries dragons have been the most unredeemable of fictional creatures, and no wonder, for the supreme villain and epitome of evil in the Christian World happens to be the Great Red Dragon of Revelation that is named Satan. It is really not until the mid 20th century that we begin to see dragons portrayed a better light in both film and novels. We have the Reluctant Dragon of the Disney cartoon who would rather have tea with a princess than devour her, Custard the Cowardly Dragon, the the puppy-dog loyal dragons of the Dragonriders of Pern that would never harm a human being, and the equally saccharine Draco of Dragonheart, and Saphira of Eragon. But are these really dragons or are they just oversized, scale covered, winged wonder horses for human heroes to ride, as Trigger is to Roy Rogers?
Real dragons don't eat quiche.
Real dragons eat humans, or so the plethora of ancient and medieval legends tell us, and as the dragon character in Shrek unflinchingly confirms. We have then, in the character of Dragon, one of the only recognized good dragons of fiction that is not afraid to behave like a dragon, and this makes the character delightfully unique, and deserving to have her full story told, but not as a scaly vegetarian wonder horse, like virtually every other good dragon, but as a proper man-eating dragon as she is portrayed in the films, or at least the first film, for Dragon's subsequent appearances have been regrettably sparse, yet with no evidence she has become a Vegan Buddhist in the meantime.
I suspect there is an assumption among many Shrek fans that Dragon is now a reformed, good dragon and only eats quiche, or whatever else all of those sissy, wonder horse, good dragons eat instead of a proper dragon diet of humans. But there is nothing revealed in the subsequent films to substantiate this view. Therefore, the character called Dragon presented in this work is the same Dragon presented in the three films, a creature that delights in devouring people, with a diagram of the best cuts of meat in a human torso prominently displayed in her kitchen. And not all of her victims are villains perhaps deserving of such an awful fate, but rather, the best and bravest men of the realm, guilty only of the desire to save a helpless young girl would grow into a woman, all the while held captive by a frightening reptilian predator, though for at least some of her victims, the allure of marrying the princess and eventually becoming a king, may have been a contributing factor.
As with many fan fictions, new characters have been added, some that may bear resemblence to well known characters we might expect to be found in a fairy tale universe, though none that will alter the established canon established in the offical Shrek storyline. Like the original films, this work is meant to be humorous, and in both somewhat lewd and dark ways to be true to the original film, and with the same aim of continuing to satirize the fantasy and fairy tale genres that have made the films so entertaining.
The Great Red Dragon of Revelation seems to be no more voracious and terrifying than the Great Red Dragoness of Shrek, and the two might have made a handsome, and well-matched couple, save for Dragon's unexpected crush on an endearing little talking Donkey.