Fiona hightailed it across the bridge, past a miffed dragon, and was sprinting up the spiral stairs when the yellow sparks began to warm her skin. She stopped in place and let the transform take her. Well, she was at least inside the tallest tower on schedule. She completed her walk up the stairs in her lithe, normal body.

Inside her room, she plopped down on her bed. She was exhausted, but her body was still amped up from the sprint back to the tower. Her dress was disheveled, the hemline soaked in mud and muck, and torn at one spot in the back by an errant footstep. She drew a deep breath, and smelled the tang of her hard-worked armpits. They didn't smell nearly as strong as she expected, and in fact that was the only scent she noticed. She lifted her left arm, shoved her nose in her armpit, and drew in a big sniff. Yep! Armpit! Also, why did I think that was a good idea? She scrunched her nose.

She had made it back to the highest room. She had obeyed her own rule; if a knight were to show up today, he'd find her there, ready to go. Well, sweaty. Quite possibly asleep. But she was ready and waiting for that bold knight.

She flopped back on the bed. Her heart still pumped. She had very nearly broken her rule today. Hunters had seen her ogre form, and she very well might not have been back in time for a knight to find her human form.

Hunters that she had, in pairs, dispatched and frightened into a hasty retreat. Dispatched with sudden, fierce action she would not have thought possible had she planned it out ahead, rather than responding in crisis. Frightened with a fiercely loud yell, one she'd never imagined would come from her refined mouth. Her treatment of those men hadn't an ounce of princess in it, but it was urgent. Necessary.

Wait, what was she thinking? What if she had failed? Was any of that danger worthwhile? Was she so desperate for interaction that she'd endanger her happily ever after? Maybe she should never have left. Maybe she should not have spent the night awake and then needed to sleep during the day and waste her true form. Maybe she had better not go back out tomorrow, or the next day. Fiona kicked her shoes off, dropping them over the edge of the bed.

But if she hadn't... Gretched would be gone. Wiped from the surface of the earth, for the crime of one misstep, one gap in attention. She might be a hideous, ugly ogre in form, but she had been kind to Fiona. Something was different about her than the ogres that terrorize towns. Maybe Gretched had been a loner so long that she had drifted away from conventional ogre behavior?

Well, whatever the reason, Fiona thought, Gretched spent time giving Fiona skills she didn't even know she needed - although maybe she wouldn't have needed them if she'd stayed put, as her father had sternly demanded her to! Gretched had been a stalwart companion to Fiona when Fiona needed it most. No, more than that. Gretched was her friend. Her only friend.

Fiona sank back into the pillow. Yes, Fiona would leave tomorrow night to see her friend, and every night after. Her heavy eyelids submerged her into desperately overdue sleep.


Authors' Note

I wrote this fic to answer two big questions in the universe.

First: Fiona was locked in a tower. For like thirteen years. Alone. Wikipedia: "Solitary confinement is considered to be a form of psychological torture with measurable long-term physiological effects when the period of confinement is longer than a few weeks." How did Fiona come out the other side a coy conversationalist, not a drooling nutjob?

Second: Fiona tolerated being locked in a tower for something like a decade in hopes of the reward of having the hideous ogress expunged from her being. How did she go from that state to falling in love with Shrek in 24 hours? No way overhearing a single conversation with a donkey undid such deep indoctrination.

My solution to the first problem is that Fiona wasn't completely isolated. She must have interacted with someone to avoid going bonkers. And those interactions may well explain why, when she meets Shrek, she demonstrates emotional and social maturity beyond a thirteen year old.

So who did she interact with? If we're going to let her interact with someone, it can't be many people, and it can't be someone connected to the rest of the human social network, or we've reduced "princess locked in the tower" to window dressing. But you know what kind of creature in this universe lives a solitary lifestyle? That's right! And do you know what else is great about an ogress? It gives Fiona a chance to chip away at that indoctrination, setting the stage for it to crumble to dust when she meets Shrek. It gives her expression at Shrek1 42:20 a surprising new meaning.

Having Gretched proffer survival skills to Fiona has the bonus benefit that it suggests how both Fiona and AU!Fiona acquired martial arts skill.

If you have not already read hanny spoon's Slain (By Night One Way, chapter 5), you should go do that right now. If you have, you'll notice it pretty seriously inspired this story; I tried to pay homage with the "sleep during the day and waste her true form" (chapter 15, Awaiting A Knight So Bold) and other plagiarisms in chapters 1 (Arriving Day) and 5 (Ogress Egress). I do have to apologize for one thing: in this story, I'm clearly "testing Fiona's muscles" a month into her tower stay; that's incompatible with Slain having occurred years after her arrival. In my head-canon, Slain actually occurs during the first month, before Fiona can go all the way crazy.

Besides merely inspiring this story, I'm also very grateful to hanny spoon for reviewing drafts of this story and making it much better! Patience of an oyster.