Chapter 12
"Family Feud"
"Oooooowwww…oooh, mah head..."
Shrek struggled to sit up, rubbing his head gingerly as he tried to clear away the cobwebs stubbornly clinging there. His recollection of just what had gone on the night before was foggy at best — but judging by the after-effects, it had involved WAY too much swamp brew.
Finally forced to accept that his headache wasn't going away anytime soon, the ogre climbed wearily to his feet, bracing his hands against the mattress — only to jerk them back at the unexpected sensation of something dry and prickly between his thick fingers.
Straw? he puzzled as he examined the few brittle bits of grass he'd inadvertently pulled away. But our bed's stuffed with moss — not STRAW! So why's my bed suddenly full o'—
"Hey!"
Shrek flinched as the familiar, LOUD voice of Donkey bounced around in his already aching noggin. He wasn't quite sure what would cure his mystery ailment, but he was pretty certain early-morning hysterics from one hypersensitive beast of burden weren't part of the recommended treatment.
"Hey, you're awake! That's GREAT!" Donkey shouted excitedly, seemingly oblivious to Shrek's suffering. "Now we can figure how t'get out o' h— HURMPH!"
Shrek had heard enough. One huge, surprisingly quick green hand darted out, wrapping itself around Donkey's motor mouth. Without releasing his grip, Shrek leaned down to look his undersized friend in the eye.
"Donkey!" the ogre hissed. "Zip it, OK?"
Donkey nodded his mute agreement.
Shrek sighed and let go, flicking away a few stray strands of Donkey slobber.
"Isn't it a little early in the mornin' for panickin'?"
"Mornin'?" Donkey asked, giving Shrek a perplexed look with which the ogre had become all too familiar in the months since the animal had made himself at home in his sleepy little swamp. "How can y'tell it's MORNIN' from in HERE?"
"In here? Donkey, what're ye babblin' abo— oh."
For the first time since awakening, Shrek took a moment to survey his surroundings. Even taking into account the paltry lighting and his still-bleary eyes, it was all too apparent to the ogre that he was a long way from his swamp and his bed.
The "mattress" he'd been resting on, Shrek quickly noticed, was in fact nothing more than a heap of musty straw, one of several scattered about the room. But contrary to his initial impression, the straw was FAR from dry. In fact, it was, once he got past the first half-inch or so, damp and moldy and decomposing seemingly before his very eyes — which made sense, considering the condition of the rest of the room.
It should have been obvious, Shrek realized with one quick look around, that he and Donkey (and a couple of rather mangy-looking rats smart enough to keep their distance) were in a cell of some sort. Even without the cold, clammy stone floor that reminded Shrek of the caves that had brought him and his companions to Slobberknob, or the strange, sparkling blocks of water-streaked black rock that made up the room's claustrophobic walls, the heavy, reinforced wooden door a few feet away was a dead giveaway.
"…Odius…" Shrek growled, the events of the previous night coming back to him. "NOW I remember! The dinner, an'…an' the wine, an' talkin' about takin' over Duloc — DULOC! Donkey, we've got t'get out o' here!"
"That's what I wuz TRYIN' t'tell ya!" Donkey huffed, exasperated and a bit offended, twisting his long face into a scowl.
"OK, OK — sorry," Shrek apologized. "I'm a little out o'sorts, as if ye couldn't tell."
"Well…OK," Donkey grudgingly accepted the apology. "I'll let ya slide — THIS time!"
"Thank ye," Shrek responded with a smirk he hoped the shadows would hide from Donkey. "Now, I'M gonna try an' find a way out o' here. YOU help Fiona t— "
"Fiona?"
"Yeah, ye know — ogress, 'bout this tall, red hair, blue eyes?" Shrek groused in annoyance at such a pointless question. "My wife? THAT Fiona!"
"I KNOW who she is, Shrek!" Donkey snapped, the ogre's bad mood starting to rub off. "What I wuz askin' is, WHERE is she?"
"What d'ye mean, where is she? Isn't she with you?"
Donkey shook his head, his anxious expression mirroring Shrek's own growing alarm. For the first time, the ogre noticed his wife wasn't beside him, or with Donkey — or anywhere in sight, for that matter. He had been so preoccupied with shutting up his talkative cellmate and finding a way out that it had never even crossed his mind to look around for her. He'd just ASSUMED she was keeping quiet — after all, it wasn't uncommon for he and Donkey to bicker for sometimes hours at a time before the long-suffering ogress could manage to get a word in edgewise.
"Donkey, where's Fiona?"
"I don't know."
"Ye don't KNOW?!" the now-frantic Shrek shouted at his bewildered friend. "What d'ye mean, y'don't KNOW?"
"I mean I— Don't— Know!" Donkey shouted back, head bobbing with each word. "YOU passed out, then them guards came in an' grabbed ya, an' THEN they came after me an' the princess. An' the princess, she's all like, 'No way, man!' She starts throwin' food an' bustin' chairs over top o' people — an' me, I kicked this one guy right in the…the…well, y'know! Ya shoulda seen it, Shrek — it was GREAT!"
"Get t'the point, Donkey…"
"Oh, yeah…OK. So then, just when I'm gettin' ready to REALLY get medieval on 'em, they grab the princess, an' THEN that Grunder guy grabs me, an'…well, I gotta be honest with ya, Shrek — that's the last time I saw her.
"Perfect…"
"Y'know, you're lucky I found you — they had me in this one cell, but they said I was annoyin' the other prisoners, so they stuck me in here with you instead!"
"Lucky me," Shrek grumbled as he made his way to the door. He knew Fiona hated it when he fussed over her — she could take care of herself just fine, as she so often reminded him.
Yeah, but she's never been locked up in a castle full o' ogres, now has she? Shrek reminded himself as he tested the door, finding it as solid as it looked. 'Specially deranged ogre kings lookin' to take over the world! I'd say the situation MERITS a l'il worryin'…
"Can ya believe that?" Donkey rambled on as Shrek worked. "ME — annoyin'! Don't know what they wuz talkin' about! I'll have you know that I am a sparklin' cov…conserv…convas…"
"Conversationalist?" Shrek offered without looking up.
"Yeah, that's it! Conserv…cons…I'm a good talker, y'know?"
"Believe me, I know…"
"Guess you WOULD, huh?" Donkey agreed, completely missing the meaning of Shrek's sarcasm. "Oh, hey! I almost forgot, Shrek — I got a question for ya!"
"Yeah?" Shrek responded absent-mindedly as he ran his hands along the edges of the doorframe, not even bothering to turn around.
"Yeah! Right before me an' Fiona got dragged off, I heard that Odius guy talkin' about ya, an' he called ya 'sweet prince'…"
"So?"
"Soooo…ARE ya?"
"Are I what?"
"A prince!"
"What?!"
"A PRINCE! Y'know, royalty! I mean, ya DO know the king…"
Shrek sighed and turned around to face his inquisitive friend. He had a sneaking suspicion of where this conversation was headed — and he intended to nip it in the bud, before things got out of hand.
"Donkey, ye've known me f'r what, a year now?"
"Yeah, somethin' like that…"
"An' have I ever, even ONCE, struck ye as the 'royalty' type?"
"Well, no…not exactly…"
"Well, there ye go then!"
Shrek nodded, seemingly content with the answer, but Donkey wasn't quite so satisfied.
"That's not much of an answer," he pressed Shrek, fixing his skeptical stare squarely on the ogre, convinced he had stumbled onto something here.
"How 'bout this, then?" Shrek shot back, placing his left hand squarely over his heart (at least, Donkey — no expert on ogre anatomy — ASSUMED that's where his heart was) and raising his right, palm open, toward Donkey. "I, Shrek, am not, nor have I ever been, a prince. Satisfied?"
"I guess so…"
"Great, now— "
"Y'know, it's too bad, really…"
Shrek sighed again, his shoulders slumping in defeat. Obviously, Donkey wasn't going to let the subject drop without a fight.
"WHAT's too bad, Donkey?"
"You not bein' a prince, what with Fiona bein' a princess an' all…"
"What's that got t'do with anything?"
"Nothin', really," Donkey conceded. "I'm just sayin' it'd be…nice — y'know, a 'fairy-tale ending!'"
"Let me tell YOU somethin' about fairy tales," Shrek growled, his voice taking on a grim, bitter tone Donkey hadn't heard in a long time — since Shrek and Fiona had gotten hitched, at the very least. "Everybody thinks they're all nice an' sweet an' ever'body lives happily ever after, THE END. But let me ask ye somethin' — ye ever read a fairy tale with a happy endin' for the monster? Oh sure, yer princes an' princesses an' what have ye get t'live happily ever after, sure enough, but how 'bout the ogre, hmmm? Or the DRAGON, f'r that matter? How 'bout them?"
"I…uh…I guess I never really looked at it like THAT before…" Donkey stammered, taken aback by the venom in Shrek's tone.
"Well, maybe ye should…"
"Yeah, maybe…" Donkey stalled, trying desperately to come up with some sort of response. "B-but you're different, man! I mean, ya DID save a princess! An' ya ARE livin' happily ever after — well, least y'were before the whole 'gettin' locked in a dungeon by a crazy ogre that wants t'take over Duloc' thing, anyway. So why CAN'T ya be a prince?"
"Donkey, f'r the last time — I am NOT a PRINCE!"
"OK, OK! Sorry! I didn't know it was a sore spot…"
"It is NOT a sore spot!" Shrek roared at the now cowering Donkey, his concern for Fiona's safety venting itself, and rather violently, at his friend's expense. Shrek was being too hard on Donkey, and he knew it, but it was too late to fix things now — and besides, Shrek reasoned with himself, a few hurt feelings were a small price to pay for keeping Donkey quiet. "Now get over here an' help me with this door, so maybe I can get us ouAAAAH!"
Shrek had turned back to the door to find a pair of watery, red-rimmed eyes glaring back at him.
"Step away from the door!" a muffled but clearly unfriendly voice grunted from the other side. Shocked speechless, Shrek took a few uncertain steps back as the previously overlooked spyhole slammed shut again with a dull thud.
"Well, I see ye've met Brutus…"
Shrek snapped out of his short daze, not so much because of the comment as the realization that it HADN'T come from Donkey!
"Who?" Shrek called out, squinting into the darkness that enveloped the far side of the room for a better look at his mysterious and until now unnoticed cellmate. There was something about the voice, something in the inflection, something…familiar…
"I think he's talkin' 'bout the guard…" Donkey whispered, trying to be helpful.
"Not Brutus, Donkey!" the ogre hissed in annoyance, nodding in the direction from which the voice had come. "HIM!"
"Oh, HIM!" Donkey yelped in sudden comprehension of Shrek's question. He chuckled self-consciously. "Whoops — guess I kinda forgot t'introduce you two! Sorry 'bout that, Ce— ."
"It's OK, Donkey — I'm used t'bein' forgotten about," the voice interrupted, its tone friendly enough if a little annoyed. "Just ask Shrek."
Shrek's brown eyes grew wide at the voice's mention of his name.
"Cerul?"
Donkey looked up at his friend in concern. "Ya know this guy, Shrek?" he asked, trying to read the storm of emotions raging across the ogre's suddenly ashen face.
"Well, I should hope so!" Shrek finally answered, cracking an awkward grin and taking a couple steps toward the shadows. "After all, he IS m'baby brother!"
"BROTHER!" Donkey shrieked, loudly enough to draw a couple raps on the door from the guard.
"Ya never told me y'had a brother!" Donkey continued in an angry whisper. "Man, first the king, now a brother — I gotta tell ya, Shrek, for a guy who said he didn't wanna say hi t'anybody, you sure got a lot o' friends here!"
"Look — f'r the last time, Odius is NOT m'friend! Shrek tried once again to defend himself in regards to the king. "An' as for Cerul here, I…I…it's hard t'explain."
"What's t'explain?" the voice spoke up again as the bulky form of another ogre, draped in a long, indigo cloak decorated here and there with tiny gold stars and moons and other shapes Donkey had never seen before, emerged from the shadows.
This guy is Shrek's BROTHER? Donkey thought to himself incredulously as he got his first good look at the stranger. Must be adopted or somethin'…
The ogre was shorter — maybe an inch or two taller than Fiona, Donkey figured — and thinner than Shrek, with shaggy pumpkin-orange hair that hung into his eyes from beneath a battered, peaked blue hat and faded into a scruffy would-be beard. But it wasn't the hair, or the clothes, or even the shock of finding out his best friend had a brother he'd conveniently forgotten to tell anybody about that left Donkey staring, slack-jawed, as cell's original occupant stomped past in the direction of the equally stunned Shrek. It was the fact that even in the meager light of the cell, it was impossible not to notice that this Cerul character was blue — not bluish-green, or greenish-blue, but BLUE, the bright blue of a Duloc summer sky .
"…Ye took off in the middle o' the night without a word an' never bothered t'so much as check in on me!" Cerul continued, too put out with Shrek to even notice Donkey's flabbergasted gawking. "Seems pretty cut an' dried t'me!"
"Look, th-that's not EXACTLY how it happened, OK, Cer?" Shrek argued weakly, obviously a little thrown off by his estranged sibling's sudden reappearance. "Besides, things were…different…then."
"Oh, I'll say!" Cerul sneered. "I wasn't wastin' away in a dungeon cell THEN, now was I?!!"
"No, but ye were headed that way!" Shrek shot back, reaching up to thump his brother's beat-up cap, nearly knocking it from the ogre's head. "Nice hat, by the way…"
"What, now ye're makin' fun o' my hat?"
"Oh, no," Shrek drawled sarcastically. "It's a very nice hat — goes very nicely with yer DRESS!"
"I told ye before," Cerul growled as he readjusted his toppled headwear, "it's a ROBE!"
"Hey! Like the wolf!"
The brothers' argument screeched to a halt as both ogres looked down in bewilderment at the forgotten Donkey, who was grinning broadly at the chance to get back in the conversation with a bit of brilliant insight.
"Wha…?"
"The WOLF!" Donkey said again more slowly, as if that would help jog Shrek's memory. "Y'know — hairy guy, deep voice? Big eyes? Big ears? Big teeth? That guy?"
Shrek just stared blankly in incomprehension.
"Got a thing for ol' ladies an' pigs?"
Shrek nodded as he finally caught on. "Oh, yeah — HIM…"
"Was HE wearin' a robe?"
Shrek chuckled at the question despite the gravity of the situation.
"No, THAT was a dress," Shrek laughed, gesturing at his brother's gaudy, star-spangled outfit, "and so is THIS!"
"It's a ROBE!" Cerul vainly protested in indignation. "A wizard's ROBE!"
"Wizard?"
Donkey's ears perked up at the word, his spirits brightening just a little. "Like, abracadabra, pull-a-rabbit-outta-your-hat, magical-type-wizard wizard?"
"Well, it's really magicians that do the whole rabbit thing…" Cerul started to explain, but he quickly realized he was wasting his time. "Yeah — that kind o' wizard."
"Ya hear that, Shrek! That's PERFECT!" Donkey crowed, all but jumping up and down with excitement. "He can just 'magic' us right on outta here! Then we can go rescue the princess, an' save Duloc, an—
"NO WAY!" Shrek roared, the sheer force of his voice knocking Donkey to the ground and drawing another angry pounding at the door from Brutus.
"Huh? What d'ya mean, 'no way?'" Donkey asked as he struggled to regain his footing (or hoofing, as the case were) on the wet floor, more confused than ever.
"I mean, no way! I've seen his magic before! In fact," Shrek continued as he ran one hand over his bald head, "if it weren't for one o' his little 'magic tricks,' I'd still have m'hair!"
"I can't believe ye're still steamed about that!" Cerul groaned, shaking his head in incredulity, inadvertently upsetting his hat again. "That was YEARS ago…"
"Yeah, once upon a time, when I had HAIR!" Shrek groused angrily. "Probably lucky t'still have m'eyebrows! An' look at you! Whoever heard of a BLUE ogre?"
"I'll have ye know a lot o' people say blue's my color!" Cerul countered as he straightened his hat. "Besides, if YOU hadn't distracted me— "
"ME? Distracted YOU?!! I oughtta—
Shrek started to advance, hands outstretched menacingly, as his brother settled into an clumsy-looking boxing stance. But the ogre hadn't managed more than a couple steps before he found his progress impeded by a certain four-legged peacemaker, the animal's head braced against Shrek's sizeable gut in a last-ditch effort to slow the ogre.
It worked, in as much as Shrek stopped to glower at his diminutive friend — only to find an equally stubborn-looking Donkey glaring back at him.
"Whoa! Whoa, whoa, whoa, Shrek!" Donkey hissed as he struggled to put some distance between the brothers. "Ya gotta focus here, man!"
"Oh, I'm focused, all right! Focused on— "
"Rescuin' Fiona? Savin' Duloc? Or did ya just forget 'bout that stuff?"
"I…I…I'm sorry. Got a little carried away there," Shrek mumbled, a little embarrassed by his temper tantrum and Donkey's stinging criticism — though not too embarrassed to shoot one last dirty look in Cerul's direction. "Ye were sayin', Donkey?"
"I was SAYIN', before I was so RUDELY interrupted, that your brother here can whip us up a magic spell t'get out o' here, or at least conjure a key or…or…something! Right, Cerul?"
Donkey looked up at Cerul hopefully, awaiting confirmation of his foolproof plan with a toothy grin — a grin that disappeared with a shake of the ogre's hairy head.
"Wrong."
"Wrong? What d'ya mean, wrong?" Donkey whined, growing more confused and frustrated by the second. First, Shrek tells him he doesn't know anybody in town, only to find out he knows the king AND a brother he never mentioned — and NOW, that same brother turns out to be magical, except that he won't actually DO any magic! "I thought you said you wuz a magician!"
"I'm a wizard," Cerul corrected Donkey again, for all the good it did. "But it doesn't matter. First thing they did when they threw me in here was take m'wand."
"An' that's bad, huh?"
"Only if ye want t'do magic!" Cerul answered tersely. "Ye ever notice how wizards an' witches an' all those other magic types always carry around a wand or a broomstick or crystal ball or the like?"
"Yeah…"
"Well, that's t'focus the magic! Ye have t'understand — magic's a funny sort o' thing. If ye have somethin' like a wand to direct it, sometimes — sometimes, mind ye — ye can make it do what ye want it to."
"An'…uh…an' if ya don't?" Donkey asked, the anxious expression on his face making it all too clear he didn't expect to like the answer much.
"If ye don't," the wizard continued, waving his arms about wildly, "it just sort o' goes willy-nilly all o'er the place, with no rhyme or reason — an' trust me, ye don't want THAT happenin'!"
Donkey nodded, awestruck. But Shrek was a little harder to impress.
"I can't believe we're even discussin' this…" the ogre muttered to himself in disgust, turning his back on his fellow prisoners and his attention once again to the door.
"OK, so ya need a wand," Shrek could hear Donkey say over the clatter of hooves on the bare stone floor as the animal paced back and forth, trying to devise an escape plan of his own. "We can handle that, right? I mean, it's just a stick…"
"It's not 'just a stick'— it's a finely honed instrument!" Cerul scolded. "But even if we COULD get one, I still couldn't help ye out."
"Huh? Why's that?"
"Ye see those little shiny bits in the wall?" the wizard asked, pointing to the tiny pinpoints of lights shimmering from the otherwise dreary walls.
"Uh huh."
"That's mundanium."
"Mud…mand…maWHATium?"
"Mun-da-nee-um," Cerul said again, stressing each syllable. "It's like…anti-magic. The longer stuff's around it, the less magical it becomes. An' considerin' how long I've been rottin' away down here, I doubt I could do any magic even if I had m'wand!"
"Anti-magic?" Donkey sniffed. "All right, now yer just talkin' crazy, man!"
"Don't ye think I woulda 'magicked' m'way out o' here by now if I could?"
"Yeah, well…well, how come I never heard o' this mu…mu…WHATEVER the stuff before?" Donkey asked, still not quite sold on the idea. "Besides, if this stuff's so 'anti-magic,' then how come I'm still talkin', huh? Huh? HuueeHaw!"
The next sound Donkey uttered was hard to describe — part scream, part whimper, part whinny. But whatever it was, it startled everyone within earshot — especially Donkey, his mouth snapping shut before anything else unexpected could escape.
"See? What'd I tell ye?"
Donkey just stared back pitifully at Cerul. Before he could figure out a way to answer the wizard, the sound of laughter from across the room grabbed both their attention. They looked over to find Shrek leaning against the still-locked door, arms crossed, a smirk on his green face.
"Wow! Now THAT's magic!" Shrek chuckled with a nod in the direction of his silenced companion. "I've been tryin' t'shut him up for months!"
Donkey glared at Shrek, hoping his face would convey at least a couple of the choice words he was thinking at the moment.
"All right, all right — sorry, Donkey," Shrek finally apologized, still trying to hide his amusement as he raised his palms in surrender. "I'm sure m'brother here can have ye yakkin' yer head off again just as soon as we're all out o' here. Speakin' o' which," he continued, pointing to Cerul, "I think it's high time for YOU t'perform a little disappearin' act!"
"Oh, brilliant!" Cerul sneered with a roll of his azure eyes. "Weren't ye listenin' to a word o' my little show-an'-tell here? I— can't— do— MAGIC!"
Shrek smiled knowingly.
"We'll see about that…"