The war council was set to convene an hour hence. Fiona stood alone in the war room, shuffling the carved figures around the scale theater map, replaying in her mind flanking maneuvers, advances, feints, retreats. She knew every operation by heart, just as she had reviewed them in her mind on the walk to camp. She controlled the battlefield as surely as she controlled the tokens on the map.

Her hands came to rest on the table. This was the plan for tonight, but when they succeeded, there was a tomorrow after that. A future. A future for all of her comrades; a future for the ogres they'd rescue from Rumpelstiltskin's fortress.

Her eyes lit on the redheaded figurine with its dagger.

"And what's your future, miss?" Fiona asked the figurine. "What happens to you after that dagger spills Rumpel's blood?" She silenced the next thought. What place is there for half an ogress in that future?

Her conscious mind tried to paint a picture of tomorrow for herself. The other ogres would be celebrating long into the daylight; she'd be hiding. And then they'd disband, each scattering to distant parts of the land. They'd return to normal ogre lives, however they had been before Rumpel began building his kingdom on their backs.

Whatever a normal life was. Her heart pined. She wanted that normal ogress life, and she didn't even know what it was. Nor could she ever have it.

That's what her conscious mind thought about. Somewhere, deep in her subconscious, another thread of thought snaked menacingly around, out of reach. Fiona never permitted herself to think consciously about the possibility of failure, but deep down below the surface, she knew there was a very good chance that, in six hours, she would be dead. She and four dozen of her closest friends. That she led to their graves.

"So anyway", she spoke aloud into the empty room to squash that line of thought. What will I be doing tomorrow? After the victory?

Victory. The end of the need. The end of her mission. The end of her story.

Her story.

Would a poet write it down, memorialize it with a constellation? Ogres gathered around a campfire decades from now, recounting the battle cries, the clang of shields, the stench of sweat and musk as their army overran the castle?

And that story they will tell, it will end with the events this night. It has nothing to say about tomorrow. What would become of her? Her family's kingdom was irrevocably gone, but surely the rest of human civilisation must rebound. For whatever that's worth; there was nothing for her there. In the years since she'd won her freedom, she had come to detest her daytime form as much as she had once hated her ogress form. That's stupid. Why hate any of myself? Maybe because she had met so many hateful humans as an adult.

The ogres would be grateful for their freedom, but once this despot was toppled, the raiding party wasn't going to turn into a social party. They were all going to go their separate ways. It was in their nature. It was in her nature. She wasn't exactly happy being all alone, but she could deal with isolation, and often preferred it to a gathering. Always preferred it to a crowd. So she could predict what would happen: once the enemy has been neutralized, they'll disperse back to their swamps and hovels and hillsides and shacks, and it'd be surprisingly difficult to cross paths with them, much less integrate into a non-existent society. Was this her fate? Being a hermit?

That didn't seem right either. Maybe that was the human poking her pointy little pink nose into Fiona's ogress business. And besides, she'd gathered that, as isolated as they were, most adult ogres didn't live alone; they lived with their mate. Ogres mostly made lifelong mates. Maybe that was a silly thing to observe, but in her studies, she learned that for many animals, the males brutishly impregnated as many females as they could find; civilized relationships were for people. And ogres weren't people.

Now she'd met a lot of ogres, and seen them to be fiercely dedicated to their mates. A much deeper bond than the affairs and dalliances that drenched stories of high court, supposedly the very most sophisticated of humans.

Take Traif, a warrior who found their crew early on, when they were only maybe twenty all told. She had watched a witch squadron tear her mate right out of a clearing, hauling him off into captivity, him yelling her name between curses as he soared above the treetops. Just seconds of good fortune kept her from being spotted and taken as well. She saw the witches fly away to the northeast, and set out the same direction that very hour, determined not to stop until she had tracked him down.

Fiona remembered Traif telling the story; the way her ears throbbed with ferocity as she explained how many would die at her hands if she didn't find her beloved ogre in one piece. Her journey led her to Fiona's band, and there was no question that Traif was obstinately dedicated. Every other ogre in the army could be captured and she had no doubt they'd find Traif digging her way under the castle wall by her fingernails.

The castle. She tried not to think about it, but how could she not? Stiltskin's garish castle was sited on the same hill as her own childhood home, overlooking the same ocean shore. There wasn't much evidence of the kingdom that had raised her to be its queen. Perhaps some humans had distant memories of the Kingdom of Far Far Away, but she'd heard nary a word of it back when she fraternized with them in the daytime.

The gaudy fortress now in its place insulted her, insulted the memory of her mom and father. She fought to free her companions, but at some level, she also fought to avenge her family. If he could see her, would her father be proud of her? Taking up the mantle of royalty, restoring stability to the land? Her focus came back from looking through the table to the stout green sausages leaning on its surface. No, proud might be hard for him, given the circumstances.

It was still the right thing to do, though. His memory was the only thing she had left of him.

Brogan entered the war room, snapping Fiona back to her surroundings. He stood next to her leaving a respectful space, and slammed his palms down on the table. Despite it being a cut-off stump embedded in the soil, the table shook and a few of the figurines toppled. "Are we ready?" came his gruff voice.

"We're ready."

Author's Note: A few links I'd like to share for this section. The constellation refers to Mutik the Champion from chapter 26 of Before Forever After. The rest of the paragraph is homage to the songs Who I'd Be and This Is Our Story from Shrek the Musical. Go indulge. Go on, do it!