Fiona stuffed more sausage into her face than belonged in a single bite.

"Now, dearest, don't be a little monster," Lillian admonished.

"I try not to, mom," Fiona spluttered through stuffed cheeks. Queen Lillian raised an eyebrow, and the little girl brought a hand to her mouth, chagrined.

An awkwardly long period passed in near silence as Fiona chewed and chewed through the indecorously large bite. Lillian waited patiently to give the girl a chance to speak; it was important to reward her for waiting to speak until her mouth was empty.

"I try not to, mommy," Fiona tried again. "Why do I turn into a monster every night?"

The moment had finally arrived. The moment Lillian and Harold had discussed, had anticipated and planned for. Harold was never entirely forthcoming about the events of that first dawn, and Lillian was never entirely convinced she believed what she had been told. And so the couple had come to an accord: When the time came, it was to be Harold, who had observed the events, who was to explain the story to Fiona.

The time had come. Lillian looked at Harold with a serious face that conveyed her expectations.

"You see, dear," Harold said, turning to Fiona, "when you were a very little, a magician..."

"A witch," Lillian interjected forcefully.

"–a witch," Harold continued admonished, "cast a spell on you. It is why you transform every night and every morning."

"A spell..." Fiona repeated in wonder. "What did she say when she did it, daddy?"

Harold gulped. As much as the queen had tried to extract the story, she'd never asked quite that question, and thus Harold had avoided ever reciting the rhyme. But he couldn't deny his daughter this truth, this defining event that had shaped her life so severely.

"By night one way, by day another," he began. "This shall be the norm... until you find true love's first kiss... and then take love's true form."

"Wooooow!" Fiona's eyes grew huge. A bit of sausage escaped and bounded down her velvet dress.

Lillian looked at Harold, a note of surprise propping up one eyebrow. "You knew thespell?" she inquired.

"I mean, I was right there when it happened." Harold sunk into his chair, not quite making eye contact. "But it was pretty hard to forget, all things considered."

Lillian furrowed one eyebrow. She considered asking him why he hadn't ever recited it for her, but she anticipated his answer would involve his contempt for the cure. It wouldn't do to make him say so in front of Fiona, so she dropped her petty complaint.

"That's sooo neat!" Fiona said, the adults' exchange flying right over her head. "So someday when I'm a big girl and I can kiss I'll get to be a real princess and stay up late every night!"

"That's right, dear!" Harold enthused. It was a great relief to have this moment behind him, so long anticipated and so feared. His daughter had taken the news of being cursed so … easily. Children were resilient that way.

"But why did she turn me into an ogre every night, daddy? I don't understand."

"Yes, Harold," Lillian intoned, subtly pleased to revisit her complaint. "That is an excellent question! You were there for the spell; what insight do you have?"

"That's— that's not exactly what happened," Harold said. Through the few times they'd discussed the morning of the birth, his wife had begun with the assumption that she'd birthed this beautiful baby girl, and thus concluded that the magical event that had transpired in the side room had been a calamity.

Harold knew the truth, that the spell had in fact been a complete blessing. Well, half a blessing at least, and the important daytime half. But Lillian was no simpleton. Should she learn the true nature of the spell, she would instantly derive the terrible truth: she'd given birth to the hideous ogre. And worse yet, that smiling bubbly little girl she loved and embraced every day was a fraud, a thin wrapper around that slippery green mass that had oozed out of her womb.

Harold shuddered. That truth poked around the back of his head every evening; it was why he had such a difficult time facing the child in her real form. It would be sheer foolishness to taint his wife with the same knowledge; better she remained ignorant so she could embrace their daughter without hesitation. At least one parent could do a good job, and that would have to be enough. Enough for now.

"I— I don't know," Harold said. "I don't think we'll ever know. We must simply be grateful that this … calamity … came with an escape clause," he said to Lillian. "That's right dear," he brightened, turning back to Fiona. "Some day when it's the right time, when you're big enough, this problem will all go away."


Author's note: Canon leaves unexplained details about how Fiona came under such a frightful enchantment, details that different historians have resolved in different ways. The other day I watched Shrek 2. The sacred text at the beginning says: "The king and queen were blessed with a beautiful baby girl and throughout the land everyone was happy until the sun went down and they saw that their daughter was cursed." A literal reading of this verse implies that the curse occurred on baby's first day. As an ogre-sympathizer, I liked the idea that the spell-caster didn't curse human Fiona to be an ogress so much as curse ogress Fiona to be a human.

This backstory is incompatible with other explanations well supported by better scholars than I, but I enjoyed telling it. It will come as no surprise that the esteemed ogrelogical scholar hanny spoon improved this story, for which I am very grateful.