What the heck just happened? She shoved Captain Clumsy out of her mind, or at least she tried. He spoke like an idiot, he acted like a buffoon, but those eyes. She didn't know those eyes, but they obviously, inexplicably knew her. They looked right inside her. Desperate. Pleading. Aching. And yet, when he clocked her with a battle hammer, overjoyed. What was that look?
He misses me.
Well that doesn't make even a lick of sense. Uncertainty gnawed at her.
She closed her eyes and thought about who she was. I'm a warrior. I'm not a princess.
She looked down over her coarse leather vest to her broad belt with holstered dagger, as if to confirm she hadn't somehow been magically re-adorned in a neatly fit velvet dress. A blue woolen thread had snagged in the sparring, torn loose from the hem of her tartan skirt. Fiona tugged at the thread, and a little more structure unwound from the skirt. That'll never do, she thought, can't go into battle showing my backside.
Fiona was furious with herself for being lured by attraction, drawn into a romance, a fairy tale. A fantasy of easy happiness. That wasn't the world she knew to be true. The world was a dark, cruel, painful place. Why, of all the places, of all the times, would she even entertain such a thought right now? Probably because it's a lot easier to paint a fantasy than think about what's actually about to happen. Doubt clouded her mind; the possibility of defeat teased at the edges of her consciousness.
I'm the leader my friends need. My familyneeds! I'm not a prize for some ambitious prince, or for that matter,a lovestruck ogre.
Fiona shook her head vigorously. What was she even doing, spending time thinking about this, tonight of all nights? Everything depended on her. Everyone depended on her: on her wise planning, clear thinking, single-minded focus and quick adaptation.
She sidestepped to a log bench and tried to cut the stray thread off near the hem to keep it from unraveling further. Her dagger was too dull for sewing tasks, but she worked it against the bench and managed to shred the thread shorter. "Harrumph." She sheathed the dagger at her thigh and resumed her stride to the center of the camp.
She couldn't let a bizarre distraction take up residence in her mind; if she did, all her carefully laid plans might unwind before she had Rumpel in her grip.
Rumpel.
Just the thought of him instantly refocused her mind, quickly restoring a familiar background buzz of anger and slow drip of adrenaline.
She arrived at the central clearing. Dinner had been cleaned up. Ogres were busying themselves, but Fiona could sense the jitters. They couldn't stand waiting.
"Brogan." The ogre turned to her, a shield in one hand. She gestured to the moon with her chin, calling attention to its position in the sky. "It's time."
"It is," he said, his voice bold. "We march!"
"We march!" affirmed a chorus of nearby voices emanating from whomever was in earshot. Brogan had that effect on others.