The Christmas Special
Later that evening, dinner was had, a fire was roaring, and gifts were about to be exchanged. The boys' bedroom door squeaked back open as Fergus exited, a conspicuous mass in his hands. Shrek lifted his head at the sound, himself knelt retrieving three wrapped presents from beneath the tree.
Fergus took his seat on the floor between his siblings, both of whom eyed what he held with what could have been jealousy, could have been alarm.
Shrek returned to his easy chair, meeting his wife's amused expression with his own as she sat in her rocking chair beside him.
"You didn't have to get us anything," Fiona began to Fergus. "You've been out there for–"
"No, it's fine," he countered amiably. "It wasn't any trouble–"
"It's the least we could do," Farkle inserted, smiling wide.
"Mhm!" Felicia chirped.
Fergus's expression flattened as he looked at his parents, no more words needed for the adults to know the true credit behind the gift. He handed his mother the burlap package he held, and Shrek in turn handed him the stack of gifts. The two ogres on either side of Fergus grabbed the box with their name on it.
"Biggest one, heh." Farkle shook his box gently, but couldn't get a read on what it contained.
"Bigger isn't always better," Felicia muttered as she held her smaller box, eyeing Fergus's and noting theirs were around the same size.
"You guys open yours first," Fergus nudged his head up at their parents, ignoring his siblings' pettiness.
"Okay," Fiona accepted. She set the parcel across the arms of both her and Shrek's chairs, and Shrek pulled the twine tie. The burlap sloughed away revealing a small bundle of sticks tied together, sharpened ironstone tips fastened to the ends. They sat atop a pressed purple flower tacked to the back cover of one of Fergus's filled notebooks, four uneven branches secured as a frame around the perimeter.
"Toothpicks," Fergus clarified as his father examined the stick bundle. Shrek's eyebrows raised and a grin spread as he looked up at his son. He pulled one from the pack and put it to use.
Fiona held the framed flower before her to admire it, absentmindedly playing with the twine secured to the back for hanging. "This is lovely Gus, thank you." She looked at him fondly and set the gift down in what remained of her lap. "Oh– I mean thank all of you for this team effort gift." She looked at the sibling off either side of him, her smile taking on a good-natured edge. Felicia and Farkle flushed under her gaze.
"Go on," Shrek said, gesturing at the packages the teenagers held. They didn't need to be told twice, twine and paper flying off the three boxes.
Farkle lifted the lid off the box in his lap, revealing a brand new pair of boots, the scent of freshly oiled leather still potent. He picked them up out of the box and admired them.
"I'm surprised your current pair isn't completely fallen apart," Fiona teased lightly. "And I knew you wouldn't make your own. I think a new pair is overdue."
Farkle looked up at her with a smile. "Thanks, Mom." He eagerly pulled one onto his bare foot, his brow creasing slightly as he attempted to wiggle his toes.
"I used thicker leather than usual, to last longer," Fiona continued, noticing his expression. "You'll need to break them in a bit." She smiled. Farkle nodded, trying to maintain his smile as he pulled it off his cramped foot, the laces jostling at the action.
Fergus closed an eye as he looked down the fork of the slingshot he'd unwrapped, pulling the leather pouch back in mock-aim. He let it go, the rubber releasing with a satisfying crack.
"Thought ye might want somethin' fer long-distance huntin'," Shrek offered, admiring his handiwork that Fergus held. Fergus wrapped his hand around the knotty handle again, and looked up at his father with a smile.
"Whoa," Felicia said, her spyglass held to her eye as she focused on a far-off forest tree out of the house's front window. She shifted its aim, only to be met with an extreme close-up of her father's nose hair. She jumped in surprise, to everyone's amusement including her own. She collapsed the two hollowed-out branches back into each other and admired its polished finish, similar to Fergus's slingshot.
The three siblings looked among each other's gifts, smiles on their faces. They looked back up to their parents, and offered their overlapping thanks.
"Useful stuff while yer out there," Shrek sighed with satisfaction. "Didn't even hafta hide makin' 'em this year!" He and Fiona chuckled lightly, followed by the three. The family sat a moment in contented silence, the opening of gifts appearing to come to a natural conclusion.
"Hey," Farkle inserted. "There's still presents under the tree." His eyes were on three thin, flat parcels toward the back of the tree, obscured in shadow.
Shrek and Fiona glanced aside at each other briefly. "Good eye, lad," Shrek replied, the corner of his mouth twitching upward.
"Those ones must be for Uncle Puss, Uncle Donkey, and–" Felicia offered her natural assumption.
"No, they're for you," Fiona said simply, a similar grin to her husband's appearing on her face. She raised her eyebrows and nodded her head down, to which Fergus crawled forward to pull them out.
"There's no names on them," he noted, laying out the three gifts on the floor before them.
Shrek shrugged innocently. "Guess ye'll hafta just pick one."
The three looked between each other with both hesitance and intrigue, as they each picked up one. They untied the twine and pushed the wrapping off, slower than they had the first time.
In each of their hands sat a book, their mother's stitching evident around the soft leather covers. Each were near-identical, save for the titles written across the covers in their father's handwriting: in Felicia's hands, Recipes Tinctures & Remedies; in Farkle's, Construction Forging & Sewing; and in Fergus's, Trapping & Foraging Field Guide. They flipped through the pages, seeing that each page was filled with Shrek's handwritten notes and diagrams.
"Knew ye had enough in yer skulls that ye'd be fine out there when ye first Left," Shrek offered. "But wanted to make sure ye had everythin' fer, ya know… the future." Fiona put her hand on his arm.
"Dad, these are…" Felicia began. She looked back down at the book she held, and let her fingers flip to a random page: Cicada 'n Cockroach Casserole, her favorite, what had been in the leftover pack her father had brought her early that morning.
Her brothers had the books they held open as well - Fergus was on a page outlining how to construct a spring trap, and Farkle how to plumb an outhouse.
While they'd been in Duloc seeking a map to the place their mom had spent a huge chunk of her life, that gave her nightmares… she'd been binding these books. And while they were telling each other they never wanted to see their faces again, and letting a dirty little man's words infiltrate their brains… their dad was putting everything he knew down on parchment. For them.
Felicia glanced aside at her brothers, and the three knew they had all been thinking the same thing.
"These are… wow," she finished her almost-abandoned thought, exhaling with self-awareness at her anticlimactic conclusion. Fergus and Farkle nodded, unable to think of anything better to add themselves.
"I know ye already know quite a lot that's in there," their father added, as if he felt compelled to further justify the gifts, "There's lotsa new stuff in there, too… hope there is at least, heh. 'N lotsa blank pages in the back to jot down yer own findins'."
"They're meant for all of you," Fiona continued, "so you can trade between yourselves as you need. You can make your own copies too, if you– when you, you know… go out on your own." She let out a measured, deliberate sigh, and Shrek put his arm around her shoulders.
There'd been a lot of gifts exchanged this Christmas - tangible and otherwise, purposeful or not, both pleasant and painful. Despite the growing pains it had taken both parents and children to get here, where they had ended up wasn't half bad.
Obligatory sentimental holiday content!
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