Extraordinarily Pleased

All The Things We Feared

"...What?" Shrek uttered.

"What are you talking about?" Fiona asked vacantly, blinking in disbelief at her daughter.

"Nothing–" Farkle spat, his eyes darting from their parents to his sister. He sprang up from his seat, too fast for Fergus to halt him again. He made for Felicia, intending to drag her back into their bedroom, something, anything to mitigate this. Fergus shot up as well, noting the emergency measures being executed.

Felicia reflexively dodged the hand that made a grab for her arm. "Get away from–"

"STOP."

The three siblings' heads immediately whipped to their mother's bellow. "Who told you that?" Fiona asked, her voice low.

"What– what do you mean 'who told you that'?" Felicia stammered a reply.

"Felicia. Who told you that?" Fiona repeated, a bit more firmly than before.

This wasn't the response Felicia was expecting - not that she'd thought that far ahead, of course, but her parents really should have been vehemently denying what she'd just said, angrily asking where she'd heard such a ridiculous story.

Instead, they were very still, and very serious.

Felicia's eyes darted between her parents - her mother staring at the three with unwavering sobriety, her father still staring blankly ahead, not at her or anyone in particular.

"Wait, waitwaitwait–" Farkle blurted. "Is–"

"It's not true, is it?" Fergus interrupted.

Their parents stared back at them, their expressions unchanging.

Felicia felt her face begin to tingle.

"It's... true?" she felt leave her lips, her voice disconnected from her body. The white noise in her head warred with her heart pounding in her ears.

The anger in their father's face had long dissipated, but his current expression was hard to discern - his mouth was set in a flat line, and he looked at her with something she'd never seen in his eyes before, and couldn't place.

"Dad." Farkle attempted to break his catatonia.

Shrek finally blinked, his eyes glancing at his sons off of each of Felicia's shoulders. Farkle and Fergus looked at him with agitated insistence, growing with each second their father failed to reply.

"Where did ye hear that?" Shrek managed to ask, his voice flat.

The triplets frantically looked between themselves, their parents' lack of response causing their minds to splinter.

"What– do you mean–" Felicia reiterated slowly, perturbed by their refusal to answer, "'who told us?'" The violin string in her mind continued to tighten.

"Tell us," Fiona insisted. "Just tell us." She looked between her three children, her eyes unyielding.

"Why does it– matter where we–" Fergus sputtered, desperately trying to make sense of their odd behavior.

"Fine!" Felicia cut him off, topping her mother's tone. They refused to answer her question, instead demanding they answer theirs - as terrifying as the reason behind that likely was, anger was the only power she had right now. "Just some roadside merchant, that's who!"

"What– what merchant?" Shrek asked quickly, his voice regaining some color. "What'd he look like?"

The teenagers were silent half a moment, unable to fathom its relevance, perhaps naively hoping a parent would offer a why at some point.