Chapter 1

Back To a Normal Life

Aria lay on her bed, starring up at the ceiling for what seemed like hours. Seeing a crack of sunlight peering throw her window blinds, she could tell it was now morning. Soon her mother would be in to awaken her.

Sure enough, moments later, Aria heard a light tapping.

"Aria?" Elizabeth called softly.

"I'm awake," Aria answered solemnly.

Elizabeth opened the door and walked in, switching on the bedroom lights.

With a sigh she asked her daughter, "So how long do you think you slept this time?"

"Oh, I don't know," Aria, answered still gazing up at the ceiling. "Maybe three hours."

Ever since she was kidnapped and taken to the tower to await true love's kiss, Aria has had trouble sleeping. Waking up in a dragon-guarded tower in another world seemed to make her afraid to fall into a deep sleep. Who knows where she might find herself next. Aria missed the days where she could easily sleep for twelve hours straight without even having to get up and use the restroom. Now, she was lucky if she got two to three hours or even fell asleep at all.

"Did you try out your new sleep mask?" asked Elizabeth.

"Yeah, it must have fallen off in the middle of the night."

Aria rummaged threw her messed up covers until she found the mask under her pillow. The light pink sleep mask contained the words, 'Sleeping Beauty' in fine cursive. Aria smiled as she held it. Derek seemed to think it would make a cute gift. Aria couldn't help but wonder what kind of store he was shopping in to find something like this in the first place. She didn't ask.

"You know, Aria," Elizabeth spoke to her daughter with concern. "We may need to consider taking you to the doctor so he can prescribe you something to help you sleep. You can't keep functioning on only a couple hours of sleep each night. It's not good for you."

"You think taking me to the doctor is a good idea, Mom?" Aria sat up in bed to look at her mother. "Don't you think they might notice something different about me?"

Elizabeth smiled. "You're still a human being, sweetie. You just happened to be born in a different dimension, that's all." She paused to think for a moment. "Unless, maybe it would be better if you got something to help you sleep from Galatia. They might have a potion or something that would be more effective than anything here."

"Yeah, maybe." Aria replied without much interest as she got out of bed and went over to the closet to pick out something to wear.

"Its something you can ask Adora when she picks you up after school."

Aria paused for a moment, feeling her heart pound harder. "Wait, is today Friday?"

"Yes, Aria." Elizabeth looked even more concerned. "You know you go to Galatia every other weekend and you didn't go last weekend so…"

Aria sighed. "It's not that, it's just… I have a history test today."

"Oh. Well, I'm sure you will be okay. Did you study at all?"

Aria shook her head morbidly. "I completely forgot about it." She then looked at her mother with pleading eyes. "Could I stay home today?"

Elizabeth just looked at Aria with exasperation. "What do you think the answer to that is going to be?"

Aria sighed looking down. "You were going to let me miss school on my birthday, remember?"

"That was only because we knew your life was in danger."

"Does social life count?" Aria grumbled. "If I am the only one who does poorly on the test, everyone will think I am stupid."

Her mother just turned around and responded with, "I'm sure you'll be fine on the test. Now, just get ready for school. Vanessa will be here soon."

Once again Aria sighed as she finished getting dressed. She took a moment to be thankful she no longer had to spend ten minutes each morning brushing her hair. On her last visit to Galatia, Aria had asked Freya if she could take away the gift of long hair so she could get a haircut. Freya explained that once a gift was bestowed it could not be undone. She was, however, able to improve the gift by making it so Aria's hair would not tangle. That saved her a great deal of time in getting ready to school.

Aria happened to finish getting ready early today. She knew it would be at least five more minutes before Vanessa would show up to walk to school.

As she walked around her average sized bedroom with purple painted walls, Aria couldn't help but feel out of place. Even though she had grown up in this house, lately it has felt especially strange to be here. Then again, being at her palace in Galatia felt even stranger. Even though it has been a month since she's known, Aria still has not come to terms with the fact that she's really a princess. She supposed she would never actually feel like royalty as long as she went to Sheerwood High. The unofficial title of 'queen' in the school remained in the possession of Kendal Lewis.

Aria opened the top right drawer to her dresser. In it, she hid the shoebox, which contained Myrtle's wand. Examining the wand, Aria wondered if there was some way she could use it to make herself smarter, but she has not been bold enough to try out it's magic. No one had knowledge that Aria held possession of this wand. After her fight with Myrtle, Aria told Adora that she destroyed it so the evil fairy would never be able to use it's magic again. If Adora or any of the other fairies found out the truth, Aria knew they would be displeased.

To be honest, Aria did not know why she held on to this magical devise, especially since she has never used it. She had no idea whether the wand itself contained evil magic, or if it was merely neutral and at the command of its owner. For a reason even she was unsure of, Aria wanted to find out.

The doorbell rang. Aria grabbed her backpack, rushed down the stairs, bid her parents farewell, and opened the door to greet her best friend.

"Hey!" Vanessa greeted then noticed her friend's tired expression. "Didn't sleep much again?"

Aria shook her head and replied, "Not only that, but I just remembered the history test today."

"Oh, right!" Vanessa slammed her hand against her forehead. "I am so going to fail that. Walter even refused to help me with the homework."

"Well, you did ask him for answers, Vanessa. You know he won't do that."

Vanessa only rolled her eyes. "It would have been helpful. Anyway, let's not talk about schoolwork anymore. It's too stressful." Vanessa let out a frustrated sigh, and then asked, "Hey, did Derek ask you out to homecoming yet?"

Aria shook her head looking down as they walked. "No. Not yet."

"He's better get moving. The dance is in less than a month."

"Maybe I should ask him," Aria considered aloud. "Or do you think that would be weird?"

Vanessa thought about this and answered, "No, some girls do it. I heard Lacey was the one that asked Matt to the dance. Maybe you should try asking him."

Aria did not know if she had the courage to do this. Oddly enough, she was brave enough to take on a fire-breathing dragon, but she had trouble bringing herself to ask out a guy that she liked. This happened to be another thing Aria had a difficult time adjusting to, the fact that she actually liked Derek James. Considering her feelings towards him at the beginning of the year, this seemed almost as unreal as Galatia.

As the two girls approached the school building, they found the usual crowd of popular kids, including Derek, Ian, Kendal, Lacey, and Karin, sitting on the front steps, chatting. Instead of throwing out some lame insult to Aria as he use to, Derek got up and greeted them, carrying a football, the moment they were in sight.

"Hey, how's it going?" Derek asked, while turning around to throw the football back to Ian.

"Fine," the girls replied in unison but without much enthusiasm.

Aria noticed Kendal roll her eyes as she saw Derek with them before turning back around to talk to her friends. Even since Derek and Aria started dating, or at least what Aria thought was dating, her social status has improved, which did not please Kendal at all. She decided the best way to handle it was to ignore Aria completely, which Aria did not have a problem with.

"So do you want to do something this weekend?" Derek asked Aria as they walked in the building.

Aria looked up to him apologetically, "I'm sorry, I can't. I'm going to Galatia for the weekend. Adora's picking me up right after school."

Derek shrugged with indifference. "It's cool. We can hang out another time."

Aria couldn't help but feel concerned that Derek was not more bothered by this. Did he not care enough or was he just not interested in spending time with her? She supposed she could be over thinking this.

Vanessa gave her a look, which encouraged Aria to say, "I know I've been going there a lot lately, but I'm sure I will be here on homecoming weekend so…"

"Hey, Aria," Derek interrupted. "I told Ian I'd help him study for the history test during homeroom so I better go now. See you later!"

"See you," Aria answered as Derek rushed off, and then turned to Vanessa. "You saw that, right? Every time I mention the dance, he gets like that. I don't think he wants to go with me."

Vanessa frowned. "That doesn't make sense. He obviously likes you or he wouldn't keep hanging out with you or say talk to you during school. Plus the whole rescuing you from the dragon-guarded tower does prove that he does have feelings for you. Maybe he's just nervous."

"Vanessa, don't talk about that here!" Aria hushed.

"Don't talk about what?" a voice came from behind them.

"Hey, Walter!" Aria greeted while Vanessa just smiled without much enthusiasm.

"So what are you not suppose to talk about?" He looked over to Vanessa. "You haven't figured out a way to cheat on the history test have you?"

"I wish," Vanessa muttered.

"No, we actually just talking about homecoming," Aria answered quickly, as the three of them walked into their classroom and sat in their usual places, waiting for Mr. Stone to begin the morning announcements.

Before Aria knew it homeroom had gone by as well as Latin. Now, it was time for the much dreaded history test. As Aria, walked into the room, she spotted Ian and sat beside him.

"Where's Derek?" Aria asked as Ian had his textbook out for last minute study.

"He's getting a drink," Ian replied looking up at her. "Are you ready for this? I'm sure not. There are just too many battles and dates and stuff we have to memorize. It's impossible!"

"Yeah, I'm having trouble with it too," Aria, answered while opening her own textbook to review the chapter on the Civil War.

Once the test was given, it did not seem too bad. Aria felt as though she answered at least half of them with certainty, and since it was multiple choice, she had a chance of getting the others right. All seemed to go okay, until Aria got to the last page which read, 'Name all the presidents of the United States.'

The first thing Aria did was check to see if this was a bonus question, which it was not. She couldn't believe this. Mr. Mosby never said anything about memorizing the presidents.

Okay, Aria, you can do this, She thought to herself trying to encourage confidence. She began by writing to ones she knew in order, and stopped after the first five. She then recalled Jackson, even thought she knew he wasn't until at least seven. Aria then couldn't remember anymore between Jackson and Lincoln. By the time she finished, Aria looked at her test in despair as she only named a little over half of the presidents.

The bell rang and everyone got up to turn in their tests.

"So how many presidents did you get?" Derek asked as they turned in the test.

"Twenty seven," Aria responded glumly. "What about you?"

"Forty," Derek answered proudly. "I wonder which ones I forgot. That's going to bug me the rest of the day."

Ian came up behind them. "Don't worry Aria, I beat him for you."

Derek raised his eyebrow. "Oh, yeah, how many did you get?"

"Fifty two," Ian answered with a grin.

Both Derek and Aria just starred at him.

Derek finally said, "Dude, there's only been forty four presidents including the one we have now."

"Oh," Ian sighed. "I wonder how many of those people I put down were actually president?"

"We'll find out when we get them back next week," Derek said without much worry.

"Great," Aria chimed in sarcastically.

"Oh, come on," Derek assured her. "You never do as bad as you think you will."

"That's not very reassuring."

The rest of the day dragged by slowly. By lunchtime, Aria could not wait to go to Galatia. With the day she was having, Aria had a feeling she might be tempted just to go ahead and live there for good.