A/N: Thanks for the reviews! I don't feel completely done with this chapter, but I thought I'd post it anyway since the last update was ages go. Got sidetracked by a stack load of new video games I had to break in. In this chapter, we finally get more AU!Fiona action with Rumpel (slap yourself, not that kind of action, this is still rated T ). Now, I took some creative license with Fiona's outfit and changed a few things. I wondered to myself just what Fiona might wear during the day being that the average woman doesn't walk around town in armor. There's kinda no point trying to remain incognito if she's armed to the teeth, ready for battle. So instead of having her wear the iron shoulder pads, (that make me relive horrible nightmares of the 80's) I figured she'd tone it down a bit. And 'cause... y'know... there's something incredibly hot about knee high leather boots with a short plaid skirt.*cough* I hope you enjoy and review!
Disclaimer: Not mine.
In his line of business, Rumpelstiltskin believed there were two kinds of people: sheep, and wolves.
Sheep, as the name implies, are the easiest to take advantage of. They didn't necessarily have to be weak people, in fact, even a man in the highest position of power could fit the description. They like to be spoken to with soft words of flattery and encouragement and take comfort in simple pleasures. With the false nudge of sympathy and trust, they'll happily sign a contract, no matter how wary they were at first. Shrek was the perfect example of a sheep; not too bright and with a love for simplicity. You talk too fast and sheep get spooked, so listening to them bleat is the best tactic. All Rumpelstiltskin had to do was suffer through his horrible jokes, soften him up with drinks and food, and it was smooth sailing after that.
Wolves are trickier. Their intelligence is usually higher then the average sheep and are quick to snarl if it looks like you're trying to play them for a fool. They're not there to listen to your sales pitch and even have the nerve to believe they're doing you a favor. The best way to win them over is by leading them to believe that they're getting the best deal since instant gratification usually outweighs any small cost. It's a verbal tug of war with them; nothing but cut and dry straight facts with far too much bargaining for his tastes. They're challenging, but don't have the appeal of creative license that Rumpelstiltskin preferred. He's only glad there aren't too many of them.
But every once in a great while, Rumpelstiltskin comes across a type of person that isn't classified so easily. Neither sheep nor wolf. Not even mixture of the both, but something completely different. A category all of its own. An 'unknown'... and with every passing second in Fiona's company, he was starting to get the nagging feeling in the pit of his stomach that he was dealing with a very dangerous unknown...
Fiona slowed her steps to match his, seemingly at ease with taking a relaxing stroll through her enemy's garden... but her hand was never far from the pummel of her sword. It whispered it's caution anytime his eyes would drift, trying to seek a way out of his predicament. Neither of them spoke for what felt like an eternity, but every so often her eyes would catch his, flashing in some secret amusement over his own obvious discomfort. He only frowned in reply and decided to stay silent for the moment. It's all very well and good to be the smartest thinker, but it won't get you very far if you're not listening. Especially if someone has a sword. And a very big one at that.
The sword wasn't the only thing that caught his eye about Fiona. She had changed drastically since he's last seen her; an almost wild air about her that put the Princess she once was to shame in his opinion. Instead of the velvet green dress and slippers, she wore rough leather boots buckled up to the knee that let the eyes linger on the frayed edges of a green plaid skirt. An ankle length, forest green cloak hid her sword from view but with every step of her stride, a mean dagger strapped to her thigh glinted it's cheerful warn -
"You were checking her out!"
Fiona's voice barely broke the surface of his narrative and he blinked as if he were waking from a dream. "What?" he said dumbly; more confused then anything and not quite sure if heard her in the first place.
"You were so checking her out," Fiona brought a hand up to muffle her laughter. "You were, weren't you?"
Rumpelstiltskin chewed his lip; inwardly grateful that the sun hadn't yet risen since he could feel a sudden heat creep up his neck he knew turned his ears an obvious shade of pink. How the hell was he supposed to answer that? He felt the obligation of deal tug at him and one way or another, he knew he had to answer. He quickly leafed through the mental thesaurus that's always come in handy for such situations and found a good enough reply so it could be taken whichever way she pleases without exactly lying.
"I was scrutinizing the dagger..." at her thigh; the tattered edge of that skirt just brushing the buckle against her pale skin. It was a nice blade alright. "C'mon, I'm like... y'know..." and here he gestured at the top of his head offhandedly, wondering just where he was going with this. "I'm hip height at most people, so don't flatter yourself." Weak excuse, yeah, but it was more or less true. When your view is nothing but asses and bellybuttons all day, it's hard not to look anywhere else.
"Okay," Fiona nodded, although he wasn't altogether sure if she said that in agreement or not. "Go ahead. You were at the part where you were scrutinizing her dagger..."
"So," he continued as if he hadn't heard her. "There she was; cloak billowing in all her badassery, but I wasn't very worried about her running me through. Just like you said, Fiona came down to try and figure me out..."
"Are you happy with what you've done to my father's kingdom?"
Rumpelstiltskin followed her gaze over the parapets towards the once prosperous city of Far Far Away. Once upon a time, in another world, the main road that led towards his castle was lined with gorgeous homes of lesser nobles and royalty . Exotic palm trees disappeared high into the skies and dignified, well bred horses pulled stretch-carriages at a pleasurable trot. It was a rich city of trade and tourism. A city where the very streets were said to be paved with gold and a Farbuck's Coffee Shoppe at every corner. A city where your dreams came true; your happily ever after...
In short: it was a city for those who could afford it.
It was a city where only the rich got richer and the poor barely scraped by. People were born to their station and no one ever had a better life for themselves if they weren't born into money or if their fairy tale wasn't written with a flattering quill. Rumpelstiltskin personally believed that you should only rise as high as your merits and cunning will take you, but not everyone agreed with that reasonable outlook. No matter how hard he tried, he learned that a man in that once beautiful city, is born in his place and expected to stay there.
And so, he did what any king would do to even the playing field and not all of it was his own doing. He squeezed the nobles for more gold just for the hell of it. He didn't actually need more riches; he did have the key to the treasury of the whole kingdom after all. Since their own greed wouldn't be outdone, the nobles squeezed their tenants. And in turn, the tenants squeezed the peasants down to the last coin. It was like an intricate domino effect and Rumpelstiltskin was the only one left standing. Now, even the haughtiest of nobles couldn't afford to powder their faces and lived no better then their lowliest of stable boys. Those who's hands weren't used to making a living for themselves were solely dependent on him and come to make deals or beg to work in the castle on their own. Business had boomed and Cinderella's one of his best maids, head of the castle's staff and everything.
In short: everyone's equal.
"Yeah," he said evenly and left it at that. Fiona glanced down at him, but her face was a calm mask, only the slight tightening of her jaw was any indicator of emotion."I'm sure you're not here to chat about old times. What do you want?"
Fiona turned away from the view, her back against the sun warmed stones and held his gaze. For a long moment, she didn't say anything as her eyes searched his face. Only when his patience started to wear thin did she glance away. "Last night, you did something I never would've expected of you," she said with a not-quite smile. "You let that ogre girl go free. You are so... so confusing. I thought it meant that there was some... good in you somewhere. I guess it's a lost cause, isn't it?"
Ah, the sting of disenchantment. Sucks, doesn't it? It's funny how the very lies everyone frowns upon, actually are what people want to hear. But the thing is, the truth is harsh. People who can manufacture romance or bottle up happily ever afters are like an oases in the desert; everyone flocks to them. It's one of the many reasons why he got into magical transactions in the first place since there's a lot to be earned in tapping into the fantasies of the masses.
"You're putting points into your delusion skill aren't you? I bet you are."
"No, I stopped doing that a long time ago," she sighed and fixed her eyes up at the castle. "Still... at least it wasn't a complete waste of time. Might as well take a look at my old room while I'm here."
Say what?
"Whoa, if you think I'm just gonna let you dance right into my castle, you are seriou– "
Fiona slid a few inches of her sword out of its scabbard with a harsh hiss. It didn't so much as whisper it's caution anymore but promised a dire threat. "I'm not asking, Rumpel. You did something nice last night – whether you meant to or not – so I'm playing pretty nice for the moment. Let's just pretend we're getting along right now or I might remember how much I hate you."
Usually, a normal person at that moment would at least have the decency to act ashamed of themselves, but since Rumpelstiltskin was anything but shameless, he only shrugged and fell into step next to her. "Call me sensitive, but I can't help but take that personally. It's not like I dumped an entire pig farm in your lap first."
"You hunt down and enslave my kind, remember?" Fiona said past her shoulder at him conversationally as she made her way to the fountain that dominated the center of the garden. Her voice held no anger or contempt; almost as if enslaving a whole race for no reason was something everyone did on the weekends. She was calm and collected; cold as ice. Rumpelstiltskin had to bite back his smile. This definitely wasn't the soft, emotional mess of a princess he once knew.
Rumpelstiltskin decided that was a good thing. He could hate her a little less now.
Before he could think of a reply to that, Fiona went down on one knee at the base of the fountain and clawed away at the twisted vines that crept up the side. It wasn't much of a fountain being that no water ever ran from it ever since he's been there. He'd been meaning to get an architect to take a look at it and see what the problem was, but had forgotten over one thing or another. She scraped away the roots that grew out of the weathered stones and ran her fingers over them, almost as if she were counting them. With some help from her dagger, she dug into the cracks and slid a stone back from view. A halting, grating sound of stone against stone rumbled up form beneath his feet and with some surprise, he watched the fountain's centerpiece sink from view.*
"Huh," he said as if admiring more closet space. Not every eloquent, sure, but what's there to really say when you see a fountain sink into a descending staircase in your backyard? At least he knew why the fountain never worked now.
"You go first," Fiona nodded towards the opening as she cleaned her dagger off on her cloak.
He had half a mind to argue, but the sunlight caught the edge of that blade again and he had to submit to her demands for the moment until he comes up with something. That's what you do with unknowns. You wait and see how it'll play out and watch for an opening. A chink in their armor; your own subtle blade. Everyone wants something after all. He's made it a point to avoid unknowns in the past but there was something about this one that intrigued him and he had no idea why. Maybe it was because she was an opposing force in everything that he stood for and his equal all at once. Maybe he had just grown bored of their games so far and wanted the higher stakes that came with playing with your enemy in person. Hell – maybe it was just that damn skirt.
Whatever it was, he felt the need to classify her.
"Did she ever tell you what that passage was for?"
Rumpelstiltskin downed the last of his drink as he searched through the recollections of that day. "No, she didn't say." He paused for a moment and considered not asking, it wasn't any of his business after all, but he knew he'll just end up thinking about it all day. "So... you're gonna to leave me guessing or what?"
"It was for me," Fiona said simply with a faint smile. "I used to hate the winter nights when I was a little girl. The days were shorter and the sun sets earlier. My father never let me out of my room after sunset and so I'd be stuck in there for hours before bedtime. My mother had that passageway built so I could play in the gardens in the evenings... I used to pretend I was sneaking out of an evil witch's lair to go meet my prince charming out by the willow trees."
"Well... that was sad and disappointing," he said before he could stop himself. Seriously though, maybe he should have saved himself that little mystery since he could have thought up a dozen way more interesting things by noon. It would've given him something to do anyway.
"You are such a jerk!" She said after a moments pause at his rudeness, but she laughed regardless. He only shrugged in reply with a laugh. Yeah, he could be a jerk. No denying that, but he felt it was better than feeling sorry since there seriously wasn't anything pitiable about her.
He looked down at his hands and couldn't help but wonder what Fiona could have been thinking when she led down into the passageway that day. Was she already numb at that point to remember the cool, evening breeze of childhood make-believes? Was she smiling softly when he wasn't looking like this Fiona does now? She never shared with him her bittersweet childhood or how she passed her years locked away in the tower after. He didn't really care to know so he never asked. Talking about themselves just wasn't something they did to pass the time.
"I think she wanted to get under my skin by showing me how easy it was for her to get into the castle," he continued and fixed his eyes towards the lightening skies; there wasn't much time left. "And it worked too... whenever I'd see a red-head around, I'd do a double-take after that. So... I was led by sword point down this hole in the ground and the first thing she tells me was the first thing that ran through my mind..."
"You can cave in this passageway if you want," came Fiona's voice from somewhere above him before stepping lightly down after him. "I know other ways into the castle."
Well there goes that idea, he sighed inwardly.
The rumbling of stone intensified again as the passage closed over them and cloaked them in darkness. Metal screeched it's protest somewhere to his left and after a moment, sparks flared out of the darkness and a small flame flickered into life in a rusted lantern. An exhausting looking staircase loomed in the shadows ahead and Rumpelstiltskin vaguely wondered just what the deal was with princesses and staircases. It's like their whole lives were measured with each step. 'The princess was locked away in the tallest tower' or 'in the deepest of dungeons' or something like that. Isn't there ever a first floor?
After following Fiona's steps for a few paces, his mind kicked back into gear and wondered just why Fiona hadn't just sneaked in one night and suffocated him with a pillow or the like. Didn't she want to take back her kingdom? Perhaps, she just didn't want to be queen... The more he thought about it, the more it made sense. Ever since she escaped the dragons keep, she hasn't done anything to claim her royalty. Nothing but the resistance. A rebellion for equality... not that it'd come about to anything really. The influence of the contract wouldn't allow a revolt to shake it's magical binding since he made sure of that when he first wrote the thing. Nothing short of death will remove him from the throne. And of course... Shrek. But that's another contract after all.
"I'll save myself the trouble since we both know you don't want to kill me," he tested and caught Fiona's quick glance as they climbed the staircase.
"Oh? And why's that?"
"You could have already."
"True," Fiona said smoothly as her footsteps echoed throughout the rough stone walls; like it wasn't out of the ordinary to converse about the subject of murder after all. "But... I could just be waiting for the right moment. Still haven't set a date."
"Oh yeah, and then what? Be queen by day and hide in another tower by night?" he smirked. They both knew the public would never accept an ogre or let alone a cursed queen to rule them. "Face it, without me around, you'd have nothing to do."
They had reached the top of the staircase and Fiona gave him one of her almost smiles before blowing the light out and covering them in darkness once more. "I could say the same about you..."
The rumble of stone cut him off before he could shoot back a comeback and light blossomed from a widening gap as the wall slid away. It was just as well though. He seriously had no reply to that because in a way... she was right. Without her around to muck up his day in one way or another, he'd grow bored in no time. She was the only person who didn't simper with false flattery at him, begged him for deals or jumped when he barked. Not a wolf... but definitely not a sheep. Not all ogre either... Unknown.
He hoped to never classify her.
*: Since I'm so obsessive, I watched the whole series over again several days ago and in Shrek: The Third, it shows that Fiona has some knowledge of the castle's secret passages. At first, I thought nothing of it till I watched Forever After again and wondered why AU!Fiona never took advantage of that to break in. But, who knows? Maybe she did break in a few times and slunk around the place. So... yeah. That's kinda what made this chapter. Thanks for reading!