A young princess Fiona lives trapped in a castle in the middle of a vast, pristine forest, where she makes friends with her dragon jailkeeper. One day a hideous creature with a small flying donkey break into the castle and shatter Fiona's world, defeating the dragon and taking her away. The creature is an ancient ogre of the forest named Shrek, and it does not speak. Fiona at first resists it, but over time feels as though she is beginning to understand this strange, mostly gentle creature, if not its motives. Soon it becomes apparent that something is wrong. The horizon glows with red fire at night. The great prince of a neighbouring kingdom has come to claim the princess for himself, and is burning the great wilderness to reach her, an army of monstrous archers and torchers and woodcutters and hunters, a fleet of airships spitting fire at the forest below. Fiona learns that Shrek has taken her not to save her, but to give her to the prince so that he will leave the ancient forest in peace and stop causing such destruction and pain. However, the ancient, silent ogre soon learns that Fiona is like he used to be, thousands of years ago, able to speak with the forest and in the first stages of transformation into an ogre. Rejecting the prince, he, Fiona, and the flying donkey rally the forces of the great forest and fly on the back of the dragon to defeat the prince's armies and restore balance. Shrek dies defending the princess while an incredible classical Japanese soundtrack plays, and Fiona afterward transforms into an ogre and takes his place as the new guardian of the ancient wilderness.