CHAPTER 2: Rumpelstiltskin's checkup

It felt strange; Rumpel was in a dangling little cage, like a bird pet, watching Shrek and his family when they took to leaving the swamp, or going back inside. At night, no mercy was shown for the little deal-maker; because of what he nearly did to Shrek, there's no way in hell that Shrek would ever consider Rumpel a guy to sympathise. He blatantly admitted that his kids didn't exist in that alternative universe, and he was a sadistic when it came to wanting Shrek's life to end. If there's a thing he's good at aside from his previous-deal-making life, it's that he's able to conceal his true intentions with his body language, his facial expressions and his voice, coming across as the opposite of the tone of his intentions. He did this perfectly when Shrek was in his carriage whilst Fifi was running, attached to the carriage, when Rumpel had ultimately got Shrek to sign the contract.

But amongst all of this, vengeance had fueled his body. As he did nothing but sit in the cage, all he could think about was escaping the coldness of the cage in order to build his credibility back up, and to essentially finish what he had started. But now with no magical contracts, and his tiny, miniature size in comparison to Shrek, it'll be impossible to accomplish it. Technically, Rumpel was always a sadistic even before the events that Shrek had to go through with Farquaad; before Fiona's parents were informed that she was saved from the tower, they came extremely close to signing a contract with Rumpel, where he insisted that if they had signed the kingdom of Far Far Away over to his hands, then he'd end Fiona's curse. The reason why this solidifies his status as the longest-living sadistic out of himself, Farquaad, Prince Charming and the Fairy Godmother is because in actual fact, if they had signed the contract, they would of disappeared from reality, meaning that Rumpel had lied to them, and it would of costed them their entire lives if he had succeeded in his lies. He was willing to get rid of the parents of somebody locked in a tower, with no remorse, and on top of that, he would of allowed Fiona to remain locked in it, with a curse, just for the sake of being power-hungry of Far Far Away. If what he did to Shrek was anything to go by, he basically sent a confirmation that he's truly the most evil one out of the four villains.

It was a cold night, and dangling in the cage, just scratching the metal outlines of it was Rumpel himself; he was humming to himself as the swamp was exposing it's green, peculiar and scent into him. Shrek and his family, whenever they had walked past the cage, payed no acknowledgment to him, and in return, he ignored Shrek's presence especially, as he did for his kids and Fiona and Shrek's other friends. The best source of food that he had gotten on the occasional moment was a small piece of cooked rat, but even that wasn't enough to sustain his body. In the end, Rumpel had learnt to just focus his time on imagining how he could do his resurrection and give Shrek a piece of revenge, but the idea of escaping the cage itself had got in the way of those thoughts.

Rumpel suddenly felt an urge of escaping; no longer could he bare watching the horrific and disgusting presence of orges from an isolated and trapped position. He stood up in the cage, and studied it from the bottom and upwards. The cage's bars were structured in a manner where the top had small gaps inbetween the metal lines, but towards the bottom, there was a huge gap between the second metal line and the bottom of the cage, which could potentially be enough for Rumpel to fit through. Rumpel was scratching his chin as his sly little eyes were visioning and examining the metal carefully, as he was finally plotting his escape whilst it was night, and Shrek and his family were asleep.

"Must...escape..." Rumpelstiltskin whispered in his breath, holding onto the cold and hard bars of the cage as it was dangling over a stuck-out root from Shrek's house.

He had an idea; not only was his small size beneficial to him for this type of plan, but if he could somehow make himself more greased up, then he could easily get his way out of the cage in a second. Suddenly, Rumpel gripped upon the hard metal in a tight, firm manner; in which he directed his head directly towards it. Then, he pelted out spit from his mouth right onto the metal; it didn't matter to him how peculiar his method was as long as he could escape. After pelting tons of collections of spit from his mouth onto the cage, Rumpel wiped the spit further into the metal to give a slippery surface, in which he would be able to fit through it.

He ducked down in the cage, and moved his head so he was facing the left. He pelted his head through the metal, and, despite receiving a painful collision with his nose, he was able to successfully pelt it through with ease. As he got his head through to the outside from the cage, his body was now stuck, however. It felt like he was being strangled by somebody who had armour as palms. He was starting to struggle, and he planted his hands against the bars in order to try and bust himself through the slippery metal.

"EURGHH, COME ON, GET THROUGH!" Rumpel yelled to himself, visibly getting hot and red from the amount of painful pressure he's enduring by trying to get through the lower part of the steel cage.

His pesky little voice got through to the top floor of Shrek's swamp house, and ultimately, because he and Fiona sleep right in front of a window, Shrek had heard Rumpel's voice echo through it. Shrek opened his eyes, reluctantly, after being interrupted by a deep sleep, slowly turning to see if it was Fiona that made the noise. Baring in mind that he was half-asleep before Rumpel had yelled it, which was why he couldn't instantly tell the distinguished voices apart. Shrek removed the covers off of his part of the bed, before sitting up on the side.

"If it's him, I'm gonna plonk him down" Shrek said to himself quietly, referring to Rumpel, concluding that it was most likely him.

Of course, the aggression that Shrek has just implied through his minor sentence would be worrying, but again, this was against Rumpelstiltskin, who nearly killed him, so it was 100% justified against the guy who nearly took the orge's family away for good. Shrek fully stood up, exposed within his bed-shorts, walking over towards the steps down. Shrek's gigantic orge feet has caused for the footsteps to be heard loud and clear from the outside, and as a result, Rumpel's ears had picked up on them.

Rumpelstilskin's heart felt like it was imploded by a needle, the second he heard footsteps emerging from within the swamp house. He knew that it was probably Shrek, and if Shrek sees him, chances are, his attempts of an escape will instantly be drowned down. This only caused Rumpel's speed to increase, because as the footsteps were emerging within a lower altitude from the volume, the pressure was on within Rumpel to just slide out as quickly as possible before Shrek opens the front wooden door. Rapidly, Rumpel was pushing himself back and fourth as his neck was in between the metal bars within the slippery part of the cage from his spit.

"EH, EHH, EHHHHHH!" he struggled, before he suddenly made a miracle happen.

Despite his little clothes, Rumpel's entire body had suddenly slid through the bottom part of the metal in the cage, but it came at a cost; as soon as he slipped through, his body was briefly in the air as he suddenly felt a touch of mud bring itself onto his tongue as soon as he collided with the ground. Rumpel sat up, holding onto his chest, rubbing his hair, before sticking his tongue out. There, he was making disgusted noises as he was rushing his palms against his tongue, coughing up and spitting out the mud. As he was on his knees on the ground doing this, the wooden door had opened from the noise, and instantly, Rumpel scrambled away from the house with his tiny little feet towards the trees of the swamp, There, the smell of dampness could be scented through his nose, given the nature of the swamp. He ducked down behind a tree trunk as he slightly revealed his head from it, to see if Shrek had noticed him.

Shrek didn't end up stepping outside entirely due to him being in just his bed-shorts, but he couldn't instantly see anything of a distraction. He shrugged, before emitting his tone down to a quiet one as to not wake up Fergus, Farkle or Felicia; his three orge kids. He slowly shut the door, not checking on the cage, since he had initially thought, from the sound of the yelling, that Rumpel had escaped, but he saw nothing, so clearly, he was still in his cage from Shrek's point of view.

"Darstly little birds..." Shrek whispered, concluding that it was probably the chirps of the birds that had caused him to hear things.

Upon hearing the door shut as the moon was shining amongst a million stars in the dark sky above the swamp, Rumpel stood up straight, rubbing his palms together with his tongue stuck out. His teeth were gritted together as he suddenly had the devil's look upon his expression like he did when he looked at Shrek in the alternative universe after saying 'Fiona isn't all orge, is she?'

His plan was just beginning; his road to revenge against Shrek was underway, but he clearly needed assistance for this. Rumpelstiltskin then took off away from the vicinity of Shrek's house, briefly looking at the outhouse Shrek uses on the other side of the wooden two storied hut before turning to the opposite direction to get out of here.