The interloper was none other than the idiot that had invaded her tent.
"Nice moves," he said, an eyebrow cocked smoothly.
"What are you doing?" Fiona asked, her lip curled in contempt.
"What does it look like? I'm getting ready for the ambush action. Ah yah. Ah always like to … quad my lutes and do some … scrunches before an … operational op." Fiona's brow furled itself at the absurdity. This guy has been doing a lot more mud-bathing than battle training.
He plucked an implement from the barrel. "This one taken?"
"We use that to clean the toilets," she said patiently, as if to a toddler.
"Ah," he said, discarding the brush and fetching a spiky stick.
She hoisted her axe onto her shoulder; this was going to take a while. "…aaand we use that one to clean the thing we clean the toilets with." Perhaps extraordinary patience was leaking over from her meditative focus, but the supply was rapidly vanishing. Maybe he wasn't the most inept recruit she'd ever had to train, but this was not the day for it.
"Ah knew that," he said, his confidence drooping. He pulled an axe from the barrel and asked about it with only an awkward smile.
"There ya go, chief," Fiona said, dripping with condescension.
The ogre hefted the axe, then gaped when the head dropped onto an inertia chain. He adapted quickly, spinning the axehead on the chain, inadvertently releasing it and sending it careening away into a gourd target, thankfully well clear of Fiona's own melon. He celebrated, only to collapse into the armory, lurching and rebounding off of barrels and bins. She winced.
That was almost an impressive display of clumsy, Fiona thought. The typical new recruit needed training in advanced weapons and technique, but for Pete's sake, almost all possessed basic shoe-tying and gum-chewing-while-walking skills! This fellow was on the left end of that bell curve. Maybe he was the most inept recruit yet. "Hey, umm... Scott?" she began.
"Heh. My name is Shrek, actually."
"You're going to get yourself killed at the ambush tonight," Fiona said with finality. Training wasn't a viable strategy; the best she could do was to prove this point to get him to stay clear of the battlefield. She swiveled on a foot and walked to fetch him a shield to hold while she schooled him in Martial Arts Humility.
"I'll be fine!" he answered dismissively. The guy who couldn't remaining standing while leaning on a barrel. "Ah think ah can take care'a m'sel—" You are ridiculously persistent. Fiona interrupted his thought by delivering a heavy iron shield into his doughy gut.
She had collected her spiked shield and a stone battle hammer. Turning to face him, she spun the hammer in understated challenge. "Well let's see about that."
She delivered blow after blow with both weapon and shield, putting him immediately on the ground. He grunted in surprise — that a girl might have the upper hand? — and then swung a spiked club sloppily and ineffectively at her shield.
He was bigger than her, but his fighting skills were pathetic; his gullibility likely worse. Fiona panted and cowered behind her shield to draw him out.
"Fiona?" he asked tenderly.
Bingo. Fiona roundhoused his face, sending him off balance. A couple strikes to keep him busy, and then a straight kick followed by a donkey kick sent him lunging into a tree, conking a mannequin with his noggin. He might be ignorant, but he's tenacious! Fiona smiled at the absurdity.
Shrek popped back up with a smile. He's enjoying getting his clock cleaned! This was unlike the typical new recruit who didn't have much experience losing a fight, and thus didn't much relish the experience. He actually likes being here! The idea of obliterating him one final time to drive him away faded, and she began to enjoy the almost silly sparring.
Instead of trying to flatten him, Fiona began to toy with him, making time to deliver blows with one weapon after another. And he returned the gesture. Finally, she clobbered him with a downed snag twice her height, giggling as she laid him out. The guy got up laughing! This was supposed to be a serious lesson in humility, a wake-up call to vulnerability. She should be annoyed by his good humor, but watching him take her blows like slapstick was funny.
There was just something about him. He didn't care that he was getting creamed, he was just really happy right where he was. Fiona was often proud of where she was, or what she had accomplished. But she never thought of herself as happy. She waited decades for happy. Happy was for ever-afters. Ogres don't live happily ever after.
The ogress exchanged hook punches with the ogre, his genuine joy ultimately infecting her own attitude. Her mind was acutely aware of the looming battle, but somehow the stress that came with that awareness was fading. Fiona just rolled with the playfulness. It was refreshing.
Once she became consciously aware that she was actually enjoying his company, Fiona caught Shrek's fists in her hands, forcing a truce while they caught their breath. Her skin glistened with sweat. She gave her lungs permission to resupply her with air.
He stared directly into her eyes; she realized that he'd take another hour's beating just to get to look at her again. Something clicked in her heart. She stopped seeing a randy suitor with poor boundaries and began seeing … what, exactly? She couldn't figure him. It arrested her thinking.
Shrek's brace fell off.
"I got it," Fiona said, picking it up. "Give me your hand." She felt compelled to this little kindness, maybe an apology for underestimating him. Maybe he was fifty percent incompetent and fifty percent nuts, but he was a hundred percent sincere. "The dragon goes under the bridge," she began, reciting the rhyme to which she'd tied her shoes ever since her mom taught it to her at age four. "Through the loop and finally—"
"Into the castle!" Shrek spoke as she tied the knot.
The fiber linking them was joined by four more, spinning into a thread and pulling her eyes back to his. Her jaw slackened in wonder.
Shrek just stared back at her, a splash of sadness in his big brown eyes, but mostly radiating a tenuous peace.
Fiona realized she'd been staring, unblinking, into those eyes. She broke eye contact. What am I doing!? There are ogres that need my full attention, Fiona thought.She felt ashamed that she'd even been tempted by such a shallow gratification as happiness. She scolded herself.
"Okay … good," she said, standing up, putting some distance between herself and Shrek. She was frustrated that she'd let down her guard; that she'd let this insider attack her fortress on the very night she needed to be most strong. She held her chin high. "It seems like you can handle yourself," she said coolly, trying to wrap the interaction back up into its original premise.
"Fiona!" he pleaded.
"Now go get ready for the mission!" she commanded with a dismissive wave.
"I will! But Fiona—"
"That's an order!" she spoke over him. She turned and marched out of the glade.