Disclaimer: Ella Enchanted belongs to Gail Carson Levine.

Summary: The transition from boy to man is hard enough without being in love. A retelling of Ella Enchanted through the eyes of one secretly-flustered Prince of Kyrria, who can't tell that it's love. It's not going to be pretty. Slightly angst-y in the beginning.

Forget me

By: DeathCry

An "Ella Enchanted" Fanfiction

Chapter One: Green-Eyes

"Cousin of mine. Never liked him. I liked your mother." I say to the young lady, the daughter of Lady Eleanor.

I am Charmont.

No, not Charmont. That is no longer my name. My name is Char.

Char.

It is strange to think that though I am one of the most powerful people in Kyrria, even the lowliest peasant could strip me of my own name.

Did anyone ever ask me what I would have liked to be called?

Did anyone ever ask me, before they tore my own name from my soul?

"You can call me Char," I tell her.

She's the first one I've ever said that to.

No one else waits for me to allow them.

Could she be-

"Everyone else does."

-different?

She does not smile.

Maybe, just maybe, there could be a chance. . . Could she understand me? When even my own father, the King of Kyrria, could not?

Would she?

"My father calls me Char too," I add.

"Thank you." She says. Those are her first words to me. And they are sincere.

You're welcome, lady.

I think I'm smiling. I haven't done that in such a long time that it feels strange. Like it doesn't exactly fit my face. Very strange.

"Thank you, Char." I say. Thank you, lady. Thank you.

Now, I know I'm smiling.

Thank you, lady.

"Your mother used to make me laugh. . ."

We were halfway back to Lady Eleanor's resting place. It was starting to rain. I could only make out one figure, small in the distance, standing by her mother's grave. I think that it is her father. Sir Peter, if I remember correctly.

And as the two of us walk closer, the name is confirmed. It is indeed Sir Peter. The man who crushed Lady Eleanor's blue napkin.

My tutor tells me that I have remarkable memorization skills, especially when it comes to faces.

But what do faces matter when you are a prince?

My own name does not matter, so why should my face?

"Where did everybody go?" I can hear the lady ask.

"They all left before I came to find you," I say. I am worse than the bum of an ogre, and that is saying something. I think only of myself and forget about the feelings of others. Was I so thick that I would immediately push away any chance to gain a true friend?

Perhaps this is the reason that I have none. Friends, I mean.

"Did you want them to wait?" I asked her quickly. Perhaps I should have forced them to stay. Yes, I should have! It was rude to leave a funeral so early, was it not? Especially this one. How dare they disrespect this young lady's mother? It was an outrage!

"No, I didn't want any of them to wait." She tells me. I study her face. She is sad.

She should not be so sad. Her vivid green eyes should shine with mirth, not tears. And those eyes should never reflect the cold gray finality of her mother's newly carved tombstone.

"I know all about you." I announce after a few more steps. I know all about you lady. Except for your name. Your wondrous, glorious, sparkly-green-eyes name.

Please look up. Please stop looking like you are lost, all alone, and have forgotten how to cry. Please, please.

I want to make you smile.

"You do?" she asks, surprised. "How could you?"

Her eyes catch some invisible spark and alight with curiosity. And her eyes are looking straight into mine.

And they are greener than spring.

I almost forget how to talk. I have to look away. They make me feel- she makes me feel-

Even if I should drown in a green that bright and deep, I would die blissfully happy.

And I am not just saying that to be poetic.

"Your cook and our cook meet at the market. She talks about you." I reply finally, desperately hoping she doesn't notice how fast my heart is beating. I look at her sideways. Should friends feel this way about each other? I have never had one before, so I would not know. But I did not know it could feel like this.

When I draw in breath to speak to her, it feels like I am breathing for the first time.

Again, I am not naturally poetic and I swear I do not know where all these descriptions keep materializing from. I was not aware that I even had this side of me.

It is highly peculiar. Matter of fact, I, myself, am known to be irregular at times but never poetic. Never.

I wonder what she thinks of me. Do I seem irregular or poetic to her?

"Do you know much about me?" The words just blurt out of my mouth. Unbidden.

Allow me to stress this. That question was never supposed to escape from the confines of my mind. How in the name of Kyrria did it get loose?

This conversation has jumped from 'highly peculiar' to 'downright terrifying.'

I have never lost control of my mouth in that fashion. Honestly. I have had lessons since I was an infant on the art of rhetoric, speech-making, evasive-answering, subtle speaking, tactful comprising, etiquette, and all other twists of the Kyrrian language.

And after thousands of hours devoted to controlling the effectiveness of voice, it all turns out to be wasted.

How could one person tear down all the defenses I have trained and trained my whole life to keep up?

I will inform my tutor of this failure, and strive for a better grasp on the subject.

"No." The lady speaks again! Did I miss something? What if I did and said something and she would know I hadn't been listening? What if- wait. . . why am I so flustered? She's just answering my previous question.

Calm down, Charmont. She would not bite your head off for replying rudely. Well, it is not likely she would, anyway.

"What do you know?" she asks after a pause.

What do I know? I know that I want to talk to her forever, no matter how much I should trip over my words. I know that I never want to be away from the exhilarating green that floods my soul and makes me want her to call me Char.

But I don't know her name.

Instead, I reply, "I know you can imitate people just as Lady Eleanor could. Once you imitated your manservant to his face, and he wasn't sure whether he was the servant or you were. You make up your own fairy tales and you drop things and trip over things. I know once you broke a whole set of dishes."

As I said, good memorization skills. Our cook has only mentioned her once or twice.

And now I'm bragging. Admittedly, I am bragging inside my own head. Which is also not a good thing.

And now I'm rambling. Good Lord, what is going on with me?

"I slipped on ice!" she exclaims, playfully offended.

"Ice chips you spilled before you slipped on them." I retort. Then I laugh.

I laugh.

I almost choke in shock.

I am laughing.

And it doesn't feel stressed or bored or false.

It feels... good.

"An accident." She protests. But now her lips form a trembling smile.

And I was right. Her face was meant for being happy.

She is beautiful.

I freeze in shock and stop walking. But I was in luck, for we had reached the lady's father, who bowed low.

"Thank you, Highness, for accompanying my daughter."

My middle automatically bends to return the bow.

My mind is racing. Did I just call her-

Beautiful?

I am so distracted by my own thoughts that I almost miss what the her father says next.

"Come, Eleanor."

Was that her name? Her smile faded. No, it could not be. It did not fit her eyes.

"Ella." She says blankly, as though the very presence of her father drains her of her personality.

"I'm Ella."

Ella. Her name was Ella.

It fit.

It fit her as Char now fit me. Because she made it that way.

Because Ella knew me as Char.

Because her eyes were green.

And because her smile was beautiful.

Author's Notes:

This is turning out to be one of my weirder stories. It starts out semi-angsty and ends semi-humorous/semi-romantic.

I love Ella's personality, but I didn't catch much about Char in the books so I wrote this on him.

REVIEWERS!!!!

I have a few questions that my audience needs to answer. And I'm a greedy little pig who wants more reviews.

1) Should I continue this as an angst (as I had been planning to but now am having doubts) or jump into Humor?

2) Ella's eyes are green, aren't they?

3) What color is Ella's hair? I know on the cover it's brown but what did the book say?

4) I know this is getting to be a lot of questions but this is the last one! I swear! (for this chapter anyway) And it's not even really a question. It's more of a request. Please inform me of any grammatical/spelling errors because I find them highly unprofessional and embarrassing.

Thank you.

The Review button is waiting.

Just click the [Go] button and you will spoil me silly.

Again, thank you.