Charming
Opal Gimstone
Summary: So, at the end, the last time we see Charming, he was whisked off by Doris, though I highly doubt he stayed for long. And you know Shrek wasn't about to just let that guy walk away. So here is what happened to Charming. Yeeeeeeeeeah
AN: I dunno. I got rather obsessed wif this movie after we got it for Christmas. (When I say we, I mean my little brother got it and I nicked it from him!) I loved the first one, and the second one kicks butt even more. And everyone who is a part of M.A.A.J.E.K. are hoping that there's a third, 'cos things can only get better, you know?
There was no hope left. It was over. There was no way things could go back the way they were.
Seriously; when a dragon appears with about six mutant dragon-donkey hybrid babies, it kind of kills anything romantic left in the mood. It was all too bizarre, even for two ogres, a little cat who's an assassin, and a king who was -in fact- a frog. The only one who didn't seem to be bothered at all was Donkey, and that was probably because he happened to be the father of the six mutant dragon-donkey hybrid babies.
As Puss walked off with his dates, and the King and Queen went off to their chambers, Shrek and Fiona congratulated their friend, then started up for Fiona's room. Shrek was explaining how he sneaked into the Fairy Godmother's factory to steal the Happily Ever After potion when he tripped over someone sitting on the stairs. He fell back down onto the landing with a surprised "oof!" From his position on the floor, the ogre looked up at the surprised young man sitting a few steps up.
"Prince Charming?" Fiona said with a hint of distaste. She resisted the urge to spit, remembering the taste of his cherry lip-gloss. In short: Blargh. Shrek leapt to his feet, an angry scowl on his once apologetic face.
"You." He growled in a pretty terrifying manner. However, the blond prince paid no attention to him. He stood up, looking at Fiona.
"Fiona. . ." he began.
"Hey! Don't you go making moves on my wife again." Shrek warned, brown eyes narrowed.
"I don't understand," Charming continued, still ignoring Shrek, "How you could choose to give up your beauty to become this. . . monster over being with me!" Fiona's scowl suddenly matched Shrek's.
"Hey!" Fiona cried. Shrek had enough. This guy went and tried to kill him, then tried steal his wife, and now he was calling her ugly. In short, the prince had crossed this particular ogre one time too many in the past twenty-four hours.
"Fiona, I'll handle him, you go on up." He said, voice even.
"Shrek. . ." Fiona said, raising an eyebrow at him.
"Don't worry, Fi. I'm just sayin' maybe I should. . .talk to this guy." the ogre said, flexing his large fingers menacingly. His wife shrugged and continued up the stairs. She turned back and shot Charming an evil grin.
"Darling, while you're "talking," you might want to "talk" about his nose. I mean, wouldn't it look nicer with a little work?" She suggested. Shrek returned the evil grin.
"Will do." he replied, amused by his wife's suggestion. Oh, he loved that ogress! Once she had gone, Shrek turned to the prince, who was looking none too comfortable.
"So." Shrek began pleasantly. He pinned Charming to the wall with one large hand. "Let's talk about you leaving my wife alone."
"Look, it's not my fault, all right?" Charming pleaded, trying to loosen the ogre's grip around his throat.
"What are you talking about? You were going to be the one to steal her, right? You were gonna force her to love you with a potion." Shrek reminded him, his grip going a little tighter.
"Well, what would you do if all your life you've been told that there's a beautiful, kind woman waiting for you and you alone to break her curse and rescue her from solitude in a tower, and that in turn she would love you?" the prince burst out. "And then, after training and becoming what all the stories said you were going to be, what if you endured "blistering winds and scorching heat, riding for many days and night, risking life and limb to reach the Dragon's keep," when all you find in the highest stupid room of the tallest stupid tower was some wolf in a nightgown telling you that the woman who was supposed to be waiting for you, had married someone else!"
"What?" Shrek dropped him to the floor in surprise. Charming rubbed his neck for a moment.
"Ever since I was a kid, everyone's been telling me that my purpose in life was to rescue this poor princess from a terrible curse, and from her prison, and that she knew of me and was waiting for me." He explained. "They all said she was waiting for her 'Handsome Prince Charming' and so, of course, that's what I became for her. I wanted to be an actor. But I didn't like the thought of just blowing off my destiny and leaving the princess locked away forever."
"Wait a minute, you were supposed to be the guy to rescue her?" Shrek questioned. "But then what about the other knights? What would be the point of trying if it was already figured out?"
"I don't know. I guess no man can resist a beautiful woman locked away with no other company except a fire-breathing dragon." Charming said, shrugging. "But no one was supposed to be able to pass the dragon except for me."
"How were you supposed to get past?" Shrek wanted to know. He was remembering how he had passed the dragon. He probably wouldn't have made it if Donkey hadn't charmed Dragon into falling in love with him.
"Well. . ." Charming lowered his eyes to the floor, looking a little embarrassed. "It was part of the deal. When Fiona was cursed, King Harold came to my mother for help. She said that she would solve his problem if he would allow me to marry Fiona later on."
"So the Fairy Godmother charmed the dragon." Shrek guessed.
"To recognize me and only me." Charming confirmed. "I didn't like that very much. It didn't seem fair, but I suppose it would have impressed the princess if everyone else failed and I made it."
"Yeah, she was impressed all right." The ogre said, smiling a little at Fiona's enthusiasm after he'd rescued her. Until the whole helmet incident, that is. But, of course, that was another story altogether. "So if you didn't like it, why'd you go along with it, then?"
"Um, well, the truth is, I'm absolutely terrified of my mother." the prince checked himself. "Was, I mean. I was terrified of my mother." This was said a little mournfully. With good reason, since she was dead. Charming looked up, blue eyes sad.
"All she wanted was a kingdom and more power. I was the one who would give it to her. If I hadn't gone along with every little detail, she would have turned me out, like she did with my sister." he said.
"Your sister?" Shrek was a little bit lost now.
"Oh, yes." Charming sighed. "I had a twin sister named Beauty. She didn't want to play her part in Mother's plan. She wouldn't do anything Mother told her to, so Mother threw her out into the streets, disowned her and everything. Last I heard she was adopted by some crazy old inventor who called her Belle."
"Oh." Shrek said. He wondered why everyone had loved the Fairy Godmother so much when everything he heard about her made him dislike her more and more.
"I didn't want that to happen. And the other reason was that I didn't want to give up on my princess. But I never wanted to force her into anything." Charming continued. "She wasn't exactly what I'd always imagined, but I knew that we could make it. I thought, you know, maybe you'd forced her to marry you or something."
"What!" Shrek demanded, the scowl returning to his face. He flexed his fingers. Charming shook his head quickly, holding out his hands.
"But that was before Mother stepped in and made me pretend to be you! Now I see that she loves you. I mean, she was apologizing for bringing me here. . . you here, rather. And she was talking about what you two could do with the swamp when you got back, and she kept saying how sorry she was and how she had been so worried about you, and that you hadn't had to do this for her." Charming explained. "The way she talked, it was as if she missed being an ogre." Shrek stopped cracking his knuckles, but he didn't say anything.
"I guess I ruined everything. But I got sort of desperate when I figured out that not only did she not love me, when she looked at me, it felt as if I was the ogre and she was the high and mighty princess who wasn't looking at the handsome prince she'd been looking for. And that hurt, but even more because I knew that she looked at me like that because I am the handsome prince, notthe ogre." Charming said, running a hand through his perfect blond hair. Shrek raised an eyebrow at his choice of words, but understood exactly what the prince meant. He remembered.
"Okay." the ogre said, not sure what else to say. Unfortunately, instead of using the traditional "Supercalifragilisticexpialadocious" for a substitute, which would have made things quite interesting, he just looked at Charming suspiciously. "What about me? Did you ever think about how I'd take all this?"
"Well, in the original plans, you were dead." Charming said, wincing a little. "In which case I would step in to comfort the mourning princess and she'd fall in love with me instead, but you defeated the assassin-."
"The assassin was a cat." Shrek pointed out. Charming made a face.
"You defeated the assassin, and we didn't know what to do until you stole that potion. Then Mum stepped in and, well, she solved the "problem" in her favorite way." He said. "By messing it all up."
"You didn't want her to step in?" Shrek guessed.
"Of course not!" Charming wrinkled his nose. "I could have handled things on my own. And besides, do you have any idea how hard it is to pretend to be someone you have no idea about? I didn't know the first thing about being an ogre. Do you know how many times I had to say "the potion changed a lot of things..." and watch Fiona sigh? I don't know what half of what she said meant. She said something about an onion and started giggling, and I was sitting there completely lost. It was terrible."
"All right. Look, I guess I can't blame you. That was one scary fairy." Shrek didn't seem to notice his rhyme, though Charming had to work to suppress a giggle. "I'll let you off the hook this time. But if you ever try to take my wife away from me again. . ."
"Don't worry!" Charming assured the ogre, holding his hands out. "My mother is. . . is gone. I don't have to do whatever she says. I've got plenty of women who would love to marry me." he made a face. "And one she-male. Ugh." Shrek grinned, knowing the prince meant Doris, the Ugly Stepsister, who was probably once a man.
"But what are you going to do now?" Shrek wanted to know. "I mean, with your destiny all messed up and everything." This was grudgingly admitted.
"I don't know." Charming admitted. "I guess I'll have to do something with the factory. But other than that, I don't know what I'm going to do."
"Hey! Hey!" a sudden cry made both prince and ogre look up. A young woman in a yellow dress ran toward them, her long blonde hair flying out behind her. She dashed up the stairs and flung her arms around Charming's neck, causing them to fall over. The ogre stared in shock.
"Ouch." Charming said observantly. "What is the meaning of this?"
"Charming! I just heard! Kyle came and told me!" The girl exclaimed, her blue eyes sparkling. Her face was very familiar. Shrek realized she looked exactly like Charming. So did the prince.
"Beauty!" he exclaimed. "What are you doing here?"
"I just told you, dumbbell. Kyle is a friend of mine, and I had him spy on Mum and tell me when I could come back and get you. I missed you." Charming's twin said.
"You came to find me?" Charming asked, smiling.
"Of course I did. You're my only brother and everything. Besides, you've got to come meet my fiancé!" Beauty replied.
"Your fiancé?" Charming questioned in surprise.
"Yeah. He isn't very social yet. He's only been a human for a week or so." Beauty said, shrugging. "But he said he'll meet you, because you're my brother."
"What?" The question came from both Shrek and Charming.
"See, he was under this enchantment that turned him into a beast until he could find true love." Beauty explained, not seeming to notice the stares of ogre and man.
"He wasn't. . ." Charming began uncertainly, glancing at Shrek, who finished his sentence for him.
"An ogre. Was he?" he asked. Beauty looked at Shrek and grinned, shaking her head.
"Of course not! I would have said "ogre" if he'd been an ogre. He was just some unknown Beast. We never did figure it out, but I broke the spell and everything. But he's going to get annoyed with me if I stay away too long. He's watching me in his magic mirror, after all. He might get jealous, if he finds out I'm hanging out with another guy besides my brother." She said. "He kind of gets jealous easily. Especially if I'm hanging out with a guy as famous as you, Shrek." Beauty tugged Charming to his feet. (He hadn't bothered to stand up in his amazed state.)
"So come on!" She said cheerfully.
"Hold on." Charming said. He looked at Shrek, a solemn look on his face that actually made him look his age. "I owe you an apology. I am terribly sorry about nearly ruining everything. And for trying to have you killed." Shrek shrugged.
"Don't worry about it. Nearly everyone who meets me wants to kill me." He said, quoting what Donkey had said earlier. "Just stay away from Fiona."
"Trust me, I won't ever try and steal her again. And good luck with becoming the first Ogre King." Charming said good-naturedly.
"Hey, good luck to you." Shrek said, grinning. "It looks like you've got another Happily-Ever-After to crash. What is it with you lot and breaking enchantments anyway?"
"What can I say?" Charming replied. He turned and smiled at his sister. "Must run in the family. Let's go, Beauty."
The two of them walked off, Beauty on Charming's arm. Charming turned to his twin and said something and suddenly Shrek heard Beauty start to sing.
"Ding dong! The witch is dead! The wicked witch is dead!" Charming laughed as they continued down the stairs and away from the palace. Shrek shook his head and went up to his and Fiona's room.
He walked in to find Fiona trying to teach the little cotton-ball that liked to think it was a puppy to roar instead of bark in a high-pitched manner. I am quite sorry to report that she was failing miserably.
"Shrek!" She exclaimed, smiling as her ogre walked in. "What took you so long? What happened?" Shrek ran a hand over his bald head.
"Well. We talked." He said, sitting on the floor next to his wife. The puppy backed up a couple steps, yipped once, and fell silent. It was still sort of terrified of Shrek. Fiona grinned mischievously, not noticing her puppy's odd behavior.
"Come on. There's no need for that. What did you do to him?" she wanted to know. "You were ready to kill. You didn't kill him, did you?"
"No, of course not! All we did was talk. Really. He's not such a bad. . . okay, well I still can't stand him. But he's not evil. He's just. . .a wimp." Shrek replied thoughtfully.
"Really? Where is he now?" Fiona asked. She briefly wondered whether being human scrambled her beloved ogre's emotions. It wasn't like him to be so forgiving of a man who was trying to steal her from him. The last guy who tried it got eaten upon Shrek's command, after all.
"Turns out he has a twin sister named Beauty who's getting married to a Beast. She came and dragged him off." Shrek said, shaking his head.
"He has a sister. Who is marrying a beast." Fiona repeated. "What a weird world."
"Oh no." Shrek grinned. "It gets weirder. The beast was under an enchantment, and only true love would break it and turn him back into a human." Fiona stared.
"You're kidding me." She said. "Really?"
"Really, really." Shrek replied. Fiona smiled.
"Well, then maybe we should invite Beauty and the Beast over for dinner sometime." She said.
"Are you serious?" Shrek questioned nervously. Oh, great, he thought to himself, MORE company.
"Come on, Shrek! We all do have a lot in common." Fiona said. "It would be nice to have someone over that went through the same situation we did."
"What if they bring Charming with them?" Shrek asked, trying to find a way out of it.
"Then you can invite Donkey." Fiona said. "They can annoy each other and leave you alone."
"Oh." Shrek said. "Fine." he'd think of something later. For now, he didn't want to argue with Fiona. He finally had her back and everything was good. He wasn't going to mess it up again for a while, at least.
Meanwhile, Charming and Beauty were walking down a dark road. Charming looked around nervously.
"Are you sure this is the way?" he asked.
"Of course." Beauty said, not bothered in the least. "I was going to have Kyle drive us, but he had some things to do now that he's not Mom's personal butler/chauffeur/whip-wielder. Something about buying new shirts. . . "
"Beauty?" A deep voice questioned from one side of the road. Charming jumped and managed not to shriek, though he did squeak very, very, very quietly.
"Beast!" Beauty cried, turning loose of Charming's arm and throwing her arms around someone's neck. A very tall someone. Charming looked at the shadowed figure embracing his long-lost sister and gulped.
"Hello." He said, forcing a smile. (He was good at this.) "I'm Prince. . . I mean, I'm Charming."
"Do you admit this to everyone you meet?" The shadowy figure asked.
"That's his name." Beauty said, smiling. "This is my brother, Charming. And Char, this is Beast."
"I heard about you." Beast said suspiciously. "You tried to ruin Princess Fiona's marriage to the Ogre, Shrek. It did not sound like a pleasant affair."
"Um. Yes. I did do that." Charming admitted, looking a little embarrassed.
"If you try that here, I can still rip you to shreds, human form or no." Beast warned. "But, I doubt you will try it, so come. My teapot will have dinner on the table."
Charming followed the couple, staring with wide eyes. Besides being rather confused about the teapot remark, Beast made him rather nervous. Death threats were not things that Charming got very often. And he couldn't count on his sister to do anything more than laugh from the sidelines.
Thus began the reformation of Prince Charming.
The End.
End-Note: Ye-ah. I don't know. I really don't like Charming. He's a snot. But I had fun writing this, so get over it.
Besides, I like scaring him, which I did a lot in here. He is a scaredy wuss guy! HAHAHAAA! ahem I should not laugh at other peoples. . . problems. snigger
Review or I shall send my pet dragon-donkey hybrid after you!
O.G.
