Chapter 7
"The Plot Thickens"
"So…where are we headed?"
Shrek stepped off the bridge and turned upstream, back toward his original path, only to find Fiona standing in his way, arms crossed, patiently awaiting an answer to her question.
Shrek glared at his wife as he tried to sidestep her, but the ogress stepped right along with him, keeping the ogre squarely in front of her. Now that Fiona had caught up with her evasive husband, she wasn't about to let him out of her sight - not even for a second.
"Well? Are going to tell me where we're going, or are we just going to stand here all day?" Fiona asked again, as ready as Shrek to get moving toward whatever destination he had in mind.
Shrek, though, saw things differently.
"We? There's no w- "
"'Yeah, yeah, I know - 'There's no we, there's no we,'" Donkey broke in before Shrek could even finish the thought, doing his sarcastic best to mimic Shrek's distinctive Scottish brogue. "I heard it all before. Man, how come y'always say that, huh? Y'sound like a broken record or somethin,' always- "
"YOU stay out of this," Shrek growled, wagging a finger in the animal's face. It was bad enough being nagged by Fiona, but he drew the line at taking any lip from Donkey.
"No, he's right, Shrek," Fiona jumped to Donkey's defense. "Every time there's so much as…as a hint of trouble, you going charging off by yourself, like the rest of us are just going to get in the way. Never mind the fact that I've had to save your butt TWICE this morning alone!"
"I didn't ask for ye t'come along…" Shrek grumbled.
"No. You're right - you didn't. You just left. Without so much as one word goodbye, you left me to wonder where you were or what you were doing or…or if you were even alive or not! I mean, what were you thinking, Shrek!?!"
"Look, I'm sorry about that - really, I am. I just…I didn't want ye to…to…"
"To know what was bothering you? To know where you were going? To go with you? To WHAT?"
"T'get hurt."
The words were barely a whisper compared the shouting matches Fiona had grown used to from Shrek in the past day or so, but they were powerful enough to stop the ogress in mid-argument. For a second, she just looked at Shrek, and what she found looking back at her from within those big brown eyes shocked her more than any words the ogre could have said.
She found fear.
"Shrek…I…I don't…I'm not going to get hurt," Fiona whispered, searching for the right words to comfort her visibly shaken husband. In the months she had known him, Fiona had seen Shrek in a lot of moods - happy, sad, angry, and of course his favorite, annoyed - but never scared. His sudden disappearance had frightened her, but this…this frightened her more.
"Ye don't know that," Shrek mumbled, looking away to keep Fiona from seeing the tears pooling in his eyes.
Fiona reached out for Shrek, cupping her husband's substantial chin in her hand and turning his face toward hers so that she could look him in the eye.
"Shrek, haven't I always taken care of myself?"
"Well, yeah…"
"And that's not going to change now."
"That's easy for ye t'say," he tried weakly one last time to dissuade Fiona. "Ye - ye don't know where I'm headed..."
"Where WE are headed," the ogress answered softly but firmly, leaving no room for argument. With a sigh of equal parts exasperation and relief, Fiona took Shrek's hand in hers. "Shrek, I love you. And whatever it is you have to face, we'll face it together - ALL of us."
She tossed a quick, knowing glance at Donkey, who grinned as he nodded his wholehearted agreement.
"But- "
"But nothing. It's settled. Lead on."
Fiona stepped out of Shrek's way and gestured dramatically toward the trail. Shrek looked from Fiona to the path and back to his wife again. With a shake of his head and what Fiona could have sworn was a smile, he shrugged and headed back upstream - Fiona to his left, Donkey to his right.
As the trio resumed their quest (whatever it was), Fiona stretched to wrap her arm around Shrek's waist, cuddling as best she could with the ogre without sending the both of them tumbling over each other's feet. As she slipped closer, she leaned in to whisper a few final words of reassurance to her still rattled spouse.
"Relax, honey - I'll be fine. You'll see…"
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The rest of the day's journey passed without incident, and Fiona was glad to see that whatever dark cloud had hung over Shrek the past few days had lifted, at least for the moment.
In fact, he sounded happier than he had in weeks as he laughed and joked with Donkey, the two buddies trading the sorts of bad puns and worse bathroom humor which amused them almost as much as they exasperated Fiona, even suspending his own standing rule against singing long enough to join Donkey in an enthusiastically off-key rendition of "On The Road Again."
The three were so engrossed in their revelry that they didn't notice as the swamp's thick foliage began to thin. Overhead, the buzzing of insects slowly gave way to the chirping of birds, while underfoot the ground became more solid with each step.
In fact, the would-be adventurers didn't even realize that the path they were following ended suddenly at a moss-draped rock wall until the roadblock was literally just inches from their faces.
"Now what?" Fiona asked as she eyed the wall.
"We keep goin'," Shrek answered nonchalantly as he stepped to the front of the group and began to run his hands along the rock face, wiping away bits of mud and greenery. "There's a door here somewhere…"
"Y'sure 'bout that?" Donkey asked, as unconvinced as Fiona. "'I mean, ya sure we ain't lost? 'Cause I gotta be honest with ya - this whole swamp looks the same t'me, and personally, I think we shoulda taken a left back there at th- "
"We're not lost, Donkey," Shrek sighed as he continued his examination of the wall.
"Are y'sure?"
"Yes, I'm sure."
"Really sure?"
"Yes…"
"Really, really sure?"
"I said 'Yes!'" Shrek bellowed, bringing the argument to an abrupt end. "Now, if ye can be quiet for half a second an' let me think, I just have t- AHA!"
With a flourish, the ogre ripped away a patch of moss and vines nearly as big as himself to reveal a boulder wedged into a narrow opening in the wall. Carved into the rock, faded from time and a losing battle with the elements, was a rough but unmistakable portrait of -
"An ogre!" Fiona exclaimed in shocked recognition as she strode forward to get a better look at the carving, tracing the trumpet ears and sharp-toothed grimace of the relief with a finger.
"Yeah," Shrek mumbled in agreement as he removed his helmet and handed it to his wife. "An ogre. Now stand back, an' I'll get the door…"
"THAT's a door?" Fiona asked incredulously as Shrek paced slowly around the massive stone, chin in hand, eyeballing the rock from every conceivable angle as he sized up the task at hand.
"Sure!" Shrek answered confidently, rubbing his hands together as he readied himself. He braced a shoulder firmly against the boulder and began to push. "Or it will be, anyway, once I get…this…rock…out of…th'…way…"
At first, the rock refused to budge, and for a moment it looked to Fiona as if even Shrek's considerable strength wouldn't be enough. But after a few tries, Shrek finally managed to budge the heavy obstacle. Inch by inch, muttering under his breath the entire time, Shrek forced the stone aside until there was just enough room for the ogre to squeeze between the wall and the boulder and into the darkness beyond.
One problem taken care of - and one to go Shrek thought to himself as he turned once more to Fiona and Donkey in one final attempt to resolve another, more stubborn and, in truth, much more worrisome concern.
"This is it," he said quietly, gesturing toward the shadowy mouth of the now-unblocked passageway. "The point o' no return, as they say. If ye want t'go home - and I still wish ye would - ye'd better do it now. If not - well, don't say I didn't warn ye."
He looked up as his wife and friend, halfway hoping the two would reconsider their decision to stick with him. But both were already headed toward the opening.
"Face it, honey - you're stuck with us," Fiona purred as she walked past, patting Shrek on the cheek.
"That's what I was afraid of," Shrek mumbled to himself as he fell in step behind Fiona, easing his way through the narrow gap and into the tunnel beyond. "That's what I was afraid of…"
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As their eyes adjusted to the darkness, Fiona and Donkey found themselves staring down what looked to be a series of caves which continued on as far as either could see. Of course, considering that the few stray sunbeams that managed to find their way through the "door" was the only illumination in the otherwise pitch-black tunnel, that was only a few dozen feet or so.
"We're going through the rock?" Fiona asked, her voice betraying just a hint of disbelief.
"Ye have a better idea?" Shrek grunted in response as he struggled to move the boulder back into place, the low rumble of rock scraping against rock echoing eerily off the tunnel walls.
"No. I…I didn't mean it like that, Shrek. I just meant that I'm just not entirely comfortable with the idea of- HEY!" Fiona cut her comment short as the cave was plunged suddenly into darkness. "Now what?"
"Now, we find a torch," Shrek's voice boomed from the mouth of the tunnel. "Let's see - if I remember right, there should be one around here somewhere…no…maybe over this way…got it! Now then, if I can just find a match…"
Shrek fumbled around in his pocket, hoping that he hadn't forgotten the matches along with everything else in his rush to leave the night before. Finally, his thick fingers closed around the slender sticks, and a moment later the cave was filled with the warm glow and faint crackle of torchlight.
"There, see - much better!" Shrek crowed as he waved the torch around, illuminating the far corners of the chamber, its light glistening on the tunnel's cool, clammy walls . "Everything's nice an' bright an' happy now. So let's get movin,' then, shall we?"
"Moving where?," Fiona asked, still unable to get a straight answer out of Shrek. "You still haven't told us where we're going!"
"An' I'm not goin' to. Besides, we'll be there in a couple hours anyway…"
With that, Shrek snatched his helmet from the hands of his flustered spouse and marched off into the darkness, leaving Fiona and Donkey to scramble after him and the fading light of the torch.
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Shrek didn't have much to say for the remainder of the trio's trek, and Fiona and Donkey didn't press him. In fact, when it came right down to it, they had very little to say themselves, except to gasp in awe at the subterranean landscapes that unfolded before them as Shrek led them deeper and deeper into the tunnel.
The first thing that Fiona and Donkey discovered, upon emerging from that first passageway, was that what they had taken to be a tunnel was in fact a sprawling labyrinth of interconnected caves, caverns and long-abandoned mines, stretching for miles in every direction. Fiona wondered to herself how anyone could keep so many seemingly identical passages straight, but Shrek seemed to have no trouble at all keeping his bearings as he forged ahead, holding the torch high overhead to chase away the creeping shadows that threatened to envelope them all.
As the group moved deeper underground, the tunnels gave way to vast, open-air chambers unlike anything Fiona or Donkey had ever seen before. In one place, the three had to navigate their way through a forest of huge, phosphorescent toadstools, each easily as big as the cypress trees that filled Shrek's swamp, shielding their eyes from the sudden and unexpected light. Moments later, they were tiptoeing their way past a colony of slumbering bats, so many that the cave's ceiling appeared a wave of swaying, squirming, squeaking black. A few minutes more, and the trio were carefully easing their way across a narrow rock bridge spanning a chasm so deep that a shower of pebbles dislodged by a near-disastrous misstep by Donkey disappeared into the depths of the canyon without so much as a sound.
Hours later, having survived more perils than any of them cared to count, Shrek, Fiona and Donkey finally emerged from the caverns into another long but seemingly harmless tunnel which Shrek assured his companions led back to the surface. But, like so many before it, the tunnel stretched on and on, with no end in sight, until Shrek had to admit that maybe - just maybe - he was a little more lost than he had let on.
"Oh, this is just wonderful!" Fiona griped as they trudged on. "Here we are, a million miles from home, and we have no idea where we are OR where we're headed! I thought you knew these tunnels, Shrek!"
"I do! Or at least I did - it's been a while, y'know!" Shrek barked back, more upset with himself than with Fiona. He did know these tunnels, or he had once upon a time at any rate. He was sure the exit was this way, but he'd have been be hard-pressed to prove it.
What I need is a map Shrek thought dejectedly to himself. Or a compass…or a -
"A sign! Hey look, Shrek - a sign!"
Shrek looked up to see Donkey jumping up and down excitedly a few yards up the path, shouting at the top of his lungs as he pranced about what indeed appeared to be a sign post of some kind.
"What's it say? What's it say?" Donkey pestered Shrek as the ogre drew closer, hopping circles around his green friend, suddenly re-energized.
"If ye can sit still for five seconds, I'll tell ye," Shrek growled, placing one huge hand atop Donkey's bobbing head, bringing the animal's hopping to a quick conclusion . The ogre knelt down and held the torch up to the badly tilting sign, squinting as he tried to decipher the faded lettering.
"'Quiet - Falling Rocks.' Well, that's simple enough…"
Simple enough for Shrek, maybe, but it sent Donkey into full panic mode as the animal pondered the idea of being buried beneath a ton of plummeting cave roof.
"Falling rocks! Falling rocks!" Donkey began to shriek, his eyes darting from side to side and especially toward the tunnel's suddenly sinister ceiling. "But I don't wanna be buried alive, Shrek! Ya gotta save us. Ya gotta- "
Shrek reached out and wrapped his thick fingers around Donkey's snout, bringing his friend's hysterics to a sudden and silent halt.
"We'll be fine, Donkey - as long as ye keep yer trap shut for once. Understand?" Shrek whispered, pointing to the sign. Donkey nodded that he did indeed understand. But no sooner had Shrek released his grip than the excitable animal's mouth went right back to work, now fueled by indignation at Shrek's insinuation.
"What, ya sayin' I can't keep quiet? 'Cause let me tell you somethin,' Mr. 'keep yer trap shut,' I can be as quiet as anybody here. More quiet, even! It's not like I'm one o' those people what can't keep their mouth shut, babblin' on an' on just t'hear themselves talk. No, sir! Ya want quiet, ya got quiet! Not a word! Not a - "
It was all too much for Shrek. With a roar of anger, he grabbed Donkey around he guessed to be the waist and physically lifted the stunned animal from the ground.
"DONKEY! SHUT U- Uh, oh…"
Too late, Shrek realized the error of his ways, as the sound of his outburst echoing down the tunnel was drowned out by the distant rumble of a rockslide growing quickly closer.
"Get down!" Shrek shouted to his companion, and Fiona and Donkey did just that, diving for cover as the noise around them reached a raucous crescendo. Finding himself alone in the open, Shrek could only crouch in the middle of the tunnel, pulling his dented helmet tight around his ears as he braced himself for-
A pebble. One single, solitary, pebble, which dropped from the still-quaking tunnel ceiling and bounced harmlessly off the helmet with an almost-inaudible *ping* before skittering off into the shadows.
"Well, that wasn't so bad, now was it?" Shrek chuckled as he dusted himself off. "For a minute there, I thought I was really caught between a rock an' a hard place - y'get it? A hard place! Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha…hmmm?"
He looked up at Donkey, expecting some equally bad pun in reply, but Donkey only stared back in Shrek's direction, his expression more horrified than amused.
"Uh, Shrek…"
"What? Oh, come on - that was funny!"
"Shrek!!!"
The urgency of Fiona's scream snapped Shrek to attention. Turning away from Donkey, Shrek located his wife a few feet behind him, her face a mirror of Donkey's as she too stared back down the tunnel in horror. He followed her gaze along the trail they had traversed just minutes earlier, just in time to see a massive boulder finally dislodge itself from the tunnel ceiling and begin to rumble toward them, picking up speed as it bounced along.
Leaping into action, Shrek grabbed Fiona's arm and took off running, pausing just long enough to scoop up a petrified Donkey along the way. With Donkey tucked firmly under one arm and Fiona clinging to the other, Shrek sprinted up the tunnel, the boulder growing closer with every passing second.
Shrek's options were few, and dwindling quickly. He couldn't outrun the rock, and getting out of its way was impossible in the narrow tunnel. His only hope (and Donkey and Fiona's only hope as well) was to stay one step ahead of the stone along enough to reach the exit - wherever that was.
The ogre charged ahead, his eyes scanning the horizon for some hint of escape. Shrek didn't dare turn around to see how close the boulder was or how quickly it was closing on him, but he could feel the cavern floor beneath him shake and see chunks of rock drop from the tunnel's low ceiling begin to collapse as the boulder bounded along.
Just as he was sure his lungs would give out, Shrek caught a glimpse of sunlight out of the corner of his eye. He shoved Fiona in the direction of the light, tossing Donkey after her. At the last second, the boulder practically on top of him, Shrek dove after his friends, the wind whipping around his feet as the boulder whizzed past and crashed into the far wall of the tunnel, bringing down a shower of stone and dust.
Outside, Shrek could only hack and cough, the combination of over-exertion and dust-laden air too much for even his ogre lungs.
"Are ye *koff* OK?" he finally managed to spit out, struggling to catch his breath.
"Yes, I'm…I'm fine, Shrek," groaned Fiona from a few feet away, and Shrek looked over to find his wife in a similar state of exhaustion, sprawled out on the muddy ground just beyond the tunnel exit. "But I hope I never see another rock the rest of my life. How're you doing, Donkey?"
From his resting spot beside Fiona, Donkey coughed violently, exhaling a billowing cloud of smoky dust that would have made his girlfriend proud.
"Me? Oh, I'm just great. Y'know, back there when I thought we was all gonna squashed by the rock, my life flashed before my eyes. Man, I never realized before what a boring life a donkey has. Eat, sleep, eat, sleep, eat, sleep…"
An' talk Shrek thought to himself with a smile, glad to hear his friend was OK. Slowly, he struggled to his feet and checked himself over for any broken bones - a valid concern, especially considering ogres have 15 more bones than regular people. Finding himself in one piece, he helped Fiona up, the two sharing a laugh at the other's grime-streaked face.
"Next time you tell somebody to be quiet, take your own advice, OK?" Fiona teased as she took a minute to dust herself off.
"Hey, I got us out of the cave, didn't I?" Shrek shot back. "I told ye I get us here, an' I did."
"Yes, you did. So, NOW can you tell me where here is?"
"Just take a look for yeself."
Fiona did. Just a few hundred yards from the cave, at the bottom of the rocky hillside, lay a bustling city not unlike Duloc, with its neat homes and tidy shops. Here and there, going busily about their business, Fiona could see a few bustling citizens.
Ogre citizens.
She turned to Shrek in bewilderment. One ogre visitor had been odd enough - an entire city of ogres (and Fiona could only guess that the rest of the city's citizens were ogres as well) was almost beyond imagination.
"Shrek? What…what IS all of this?"
But Shrek's expression belied the same confusion as he muttered absent-mindedly to himself, lost in thought.
"This isn't right…this is…it's- "
Fiona took hold of Shrek's shoulders and shook him gently, just enough to rouse him from his contemplations.
"Shrek? Honey? Where ARE we?"
Trying to collect his scattered thoughts, Shrek looked down at the city below, then back to his wife, his expression unreadable even to her.
"Home."
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