Fiona closed the well-worn leather-bound storybook and laid it aside, chuckling to herself as she rose to her feet and brushed the dust from the rough fabric of her simple burlap dress. It was a cute story and all, and she couldn't argue with the ending, but…

Well, it was funny how "happily ever after" works out sometimes.

She had spent a lifetime waiting for some Prince Charming to come and rescue her from the gloomy keep of that not-so-terrible dragon, to sweep her off her feet and carry her to his castle on a hill. After all, that was how the story went. So she waited, day after day, week after week, year after year, expecting any minute to finally meet her knight in shining armor.

Fate, though, had other ideas.

Her "knight in shining armor" turned out to be an irritable ogre in a rusty, dented helmet and slightly singed second-hand armor, and he didn't so much sweep her off her feet as drag her to her feet and push her out the door. But he did rescue her, and the pair soon discovered that, despite their perceived differences, there were feelings there. One last-minute rescue and thoroughly untraditional wedding later, Fiona finally had her happy ending, as Mrs.-

"Shrek!"

She beamed at the sight of her husband as he trudged up the beaten dirt path that led to their home. He wasn't exactly the prince Fiona had spent all those lonely nights dreaming of. In fact, with his splotchy, pea-green skin and the odd, trumpet-shaped ears sprouting from his lumpy bald head, Shrek was far from anyone's idea of handsome - unless that someone was-

"Fiona!"

The ogre returned his wife's warm greeting with a wave, his oversized mouth stretching into a broad grin as he dropped the heavy bag ("Probably dinner," Fiona thought to herself) slung across his shoulder and splashed across the muddy expanse between them.

He swept Fiona up in a massive bear hug, lifting her from the ground, and the two shared the latest in a long line of passionate kisses that had followed that first, magical one. They had been married almost a year now, but it still amazed him every single time he saw Fiona that she was still there, that a princess like her would trade a chance at Prince Charming for…well, for him.

He ran his pudgy fingers through her meticulously braided red hair and along her own trumpet ears. She had been human, once - cursed to spend her days as a princess and her nights as an ogress - but that first kiss had broken the spell…after a fashion. She no longer changed with each sunrise and sunset, true, but she had been trapped forever in the body of an ogre - "love's true form," according to the spell…not that he was complaining.

Ogre or human, he loved her, and he was determined to make sure that she knew it. He opened his mouth to tell her as much (not that he hadn't a thousand times before) when a loud, braying voice from further up the path echoed across the swamp, shattering the silence and killing the mood instantly.

"Hey, Shrek - did ya forget something?"

The ogre's arms dropped to his side, his shoulders slumped. With a roll of his eyes, he slowly turned around. Across the yard, sitting wearily next to the bag, sat Shrek's best friend - and only friend for that matter - Donkey. As his name suggested, Donkey was just that - a donkey, a "dense, irritating miniature beast o' burden" as Shrek had once described him in exasperation. He could be irritating, and as he came barely to Shrek's ample waist, miniature wasn't exactly inaccurate, either. But what Donkey lacked in size, he made up for in enthusiasm - and volume.

"Oh, more of the mushy stuff, huh?" Donkey teased, returning Shrek's eye roll. "Well, you got your 'needs' and I got mine - and mine's dinner! Now how 'bout helpin' me with this, before I get a hernia or somethin'…"

With that, Donkey stood up, shaking a couple times to get rid of the grime that clung to his shaggy gray-brown fur, and took the bag in his teeth. He began to drag the heavy burden across the mud, still mumbling unintelligibly to himself as he made his way slowly toward Shrek's house.

With a sigh, Shrek gave Fiona one last peck on the cheek and stomped across the yard, snatching up the bag in one massive hand.

"Gimme that," the ogre growled, crouching so that he was eye-to-eye with his talkative companion. "If ye hadn't noticed, I was sort of in the middle o' something - hmm?" he hissed, nodding meaningfully in his wife's direction.

"Huh? What?" Donkey asked innocently, a familiar look of confusion spreading across his long face, oblivious to the ogre's not-so-subtle hint.

Shrek just sighed again and labored to his feet, shaking his head in disgust. "Never mind, Donkey," he grunted as he hoisted the unwieldy bulk once again onto his broad shoulders.

He turned again to Fiona, and made a sweeping gesture toward the weathered front door of their home.

"After you, 'Your Highness,'" Shrek teased with an exaggerated bow. Fiona answered the bow with a quick curtsy and a giggle, then headed for the door, tugging it open and holding it for Shrek as he marched inside with dinner.

"Are you coming in, Donkey?" Fiona asked, turning to her friend and gesturing toward the cozy confines of the hut, the warm glow of its fireplace flickering through the open doorway. Shrek might consider Donkey a pest at times, but she had always had a soft spot for the excitable animal, ever since he had helped Shrek rescue her all those months ago.

"Huh? Oh, yeah!" Donkey yelped with a start, snapping out of his one-sided conversation. He pranced across the wooden porch and inside, continuing to ramble on to no one in particular.

"Y'know, I coulda gotten that. I can handle myself just fine, thank you very much. That's right, I been workin' out - pumpin' iron, runnin' wind sprints. Gotta keep my stamina up, gotta look good for Dragon. She says I'm a stud! Y'hear that, I'm a stud! 'Donkey the Stud' - uh huh, that's me…"

From inside, Fiona could hear Shrek grumbling to himself as he started to get dinner ready. She took one last long look around the yard as the amber rays of another Duloc sunset fell across the towering cypress trees and still pools of Shrek's swamp.

Our swamp she corrected herself with a small smile as she shut the door. A castle on a hill? No. But happily ever after nonetheless.