If thoughts could kill, Fiona's new husband, Shrek, would have been dieing very slowly in his bedchamber. King Harold could hardly remember a time he had thought such terrible thoughts about anyone or anything, as the case may be. An ogre, in his opinion, was no more human than a domesticated canine.
Queen Lillian sat silently on the cushioned couch of their sitting room. Harold paced back and forth between the two pillars of the chamber.
"She married an ogre!" He finally whispered. Flames that crackled merrily in the fireplace did not glow as bright as the perplexity in the king's eyes. "We were so careful and planned so thoroughly. Fiona was suppose to marry Prince Charming or some other young knight!" Harold gave a small cry of dismay and sunk down to sit on the floor. "Now she is still an ogre and her…" He paused unable to call Shrek her husband. "He is an ogre as well."
His hands went up to massage his temples and he sighed. Still the queen sat and said nothing.
"What did I do wrong?" Harold rose from the ground and began his fervent pacing once more. "Or was it me?" He turned his gaze to his wife.
"Lillian, that is it! It was not our fault…" Lillian raised her head up to look at him.
Unshed tears sparkled in her blue eyes. Her look was distant and Harold could have sworn that she was in deep distress of some sort.
"Darling? What is it?" He sat by her side and wrapped an arm around her slight shoulders. "Was it that beast's comment?"
A sob escaped the queen's mouth and slowly tears began trickling down her pale cheeks. Her whole body shook with emotion.
Harold tightened his embrace on his wife and soothingly rubbed her back. Her behavior was confusing to him, to say the least. He had imagined that his wife would be overjoyed at their daughter's return. However, he figured, the shock of seeing her daughter as a perpetual ogre and finding out her son-in-law was one as well, had been too much for her.
"No it is not our fault." Lillian whispered through her tears. Harold wiped her face with his handkerchief and smiled at her. "It is mine." Her statement caused her to break into another fresh wave of tears. Harold had never felt so helpless.
His wife blamed herself for Fiona's bad selection of husbands, when Harold knew that really it was no one's fault as all. They all had made decisions and it all led up to where they were then. He had put his daughter in a dragon-guarded castle to await her knight in shining armor. Lillian had distraughtly, yet loyally, allowed his to carry out his plan and Fiona had tearfully but bravely obeyed her father's command. He sighed…it was all his starting.
"My dear. It was not your fault." Harold waited for his wife's weeping to subside before hesitantly continuing. "It was mine."
"No!" Queen Lillian jerked her head up from her husband's wet tunic front. "No, Harold." The king knew then that he had, for too long, let his wife believe in a lie.
"Listen to me, Lillian." Harold said gently, but firmly. "It was my plan and my order. You did not wish it and you, for days, wept over my decision. Fiona was too young to resist her father's command and what small fight she did give me, I ignored. The past fifteen years, I have watched you suffer through each day. It caused me great distress that I caused your pain, but I told myself that is was necessary. I was wrong. Fiona should not have been sent away. She should have been raised by her lovely mother and wed to a man she loved. Yet I interfered with that and now she had married a beast and you are broken hearted."
Lillian listened wide-eyed to her husband's heartfelt confession. An almost blank expression came over her face. When he finished, she sighed deeply and gave him a small smile.
"Oh, Harold!" Misinterpreting her exclamation, the worried king went to speak, but was cut off when the queen pressed her lips up against his in a gentle kiss.
Needless to say, the royal couple stayed in their sitting room for some time after the confession.
The time for dinner arrived much faster than either the king or the queen remembered it coming before. After a wonderful time of apologizing and forgiving, Harold and Lillian returned to their bedchamber to prepare themselves for the meal; mentally as well as physically.
"Harold, he is not a creature from hell." Harold ceased his rambling to stare at his wife. "So sorry." She blushed. "But that is what you are comparing this young man to."
"He is not a man!" Harold took a deep breath, as he could see that his temper was building rapidly. "He is not a man." He repeated. Lillian sighed.
"Harold, what is he then?" She ran the hairbrush through her hair once more and set it down.
"He…it is an ogre. A monster who has always been a monster and always will be." He looked over at his wife as he finished. She was smiling.
"Darling, you said who instead of that." Lillian tucked her hair back into its net and sighed. "Come, you need to calm down and enjoy dinner."
"Of course. You are right, my dear. Sorry to have made such a fuss." Harold straightened his cape and offered his wife his arm, which she took. "I do look forward to getting to know our daughter." However, he added in his mind, I will not even try to get to know IT.
About 5 minutes after the dinner-
Queen Lillian cast a wary look over at her husband. He was still fuming from the "food fight' he had had with their son-in-law, Shrek. Silently several servants began to clean up the large mess.
"Harold." She said softly, catching his eye.
"Let's go to bed." Harold muttered stiffly getting up from the table and stomping off down the hallway. Lillian thanked the servants and hurried after him.
"Darling, don't you think you could have been a bit more sensitive?" she asked, shutting the bedroom doors behind her. Harold snorted.
"Sensitive? It is an ogre." He clenched his teeth as he undressed. Food was splattered all across his tunic and Harold groaned as he realized that it was ruined. "That was my best tunic." He muttered, trying to change the subject. Lillian raised an eyebrow.
"You may have ruined all chances of becoming a parent to your daughter, and all you can say is that your tunic is ruined?" Harold opened his mouth to argue but he was cut off by the sound of shouting.
"It sounds as though Fiona inherited your temper." Lillian said matter-of-factly, smiling. Harold said nothing as he approached the balcony and looked down into his daughter's old bedroom. Sure enough, Fiona and Shrek were having a heated discussion.
"I can't believe she's back." Harold sighed, almost forgetting his current problem.
"Neither can I." He turned at the unexpected sound of another person's voice and saw the fairy godmother seated on the balcony rim. "Good evening, Harold." She said, smiling.
I know the suspense will kill you…but chapter 5 should be posted soon…Oh yeah- for those of you who may not know what a domesticated canine is…it is a dog.