Disclaimer: I do not know Gail Carson Levine nor am I Gail Carson Levine, and many of the settings and some of the characters are her's.

A/N: My first Ella Enchanted story—please tell me what you guys think of it! Thanks and enjoy :)

Aria's Melody

Prologue

She pushed through the brambles, leaves rustling and sticks crackling as she made her way quickly through the forest. Somewhere in the back of her mind she knew what she was doing was foolish—she had no idea where she was headed, and whatever place she did end up in, she had no idea what she was going to do when she got there.

A small clearing was ahead and she headed towards it, only to realize a vine was tugging on her leg and preventing her from moving forward. She knelt down to untangle the vine that had caught on her ankle when a rustling noise near her caused her to freeze. It had been slow and quiet, as though whoever was making the sound didn't want anyone to hear it. It stopped almost at the same time she froze.

Her eyes scanned her surroundings, an ominous feeling in the pit of her stomach. She hadn't taken into account the dangers that she'd put herself in when she'd run away, and the predicament she suddenly found herself in reminded her again of how foolish she was probably acting. Her eyes rested on a bush several feet in front of her, to the left. Straining her eyes, she made out the face of a person, his eyes on her and a finger to his lips, signaling for her to be silent as he inconspicuously pointed to her right.

Heart pounding, she slowly turned her head in the direction he'd pointed and a chill went up her spine when she noticed the bright yellow eyes hidden in the brush only a few feet to her right, looking right at her. She swallowed and the thought that she didn't want to die raced through her mind.

Suddenly, in a blur of sound and movement, she found herself leaning back as the owner of the yellow eyes came towards her, only to fall back as the man from the bush tackled it, followed by several other men who must have been hidden near her also.

A moment later, she found herself being helped up, her legs shaky from what had just happened.

"Are you alright, child?"

She looked up at the man beside her and recognized him as the one who had signaled for her to be silent. She nodded numbly. "Y-yes, I think so. Thank you." She walked slowly forward to the clearing where the other men were tying the creature up and stared down at the greasy skin and stringy hair. An ogre.

She silently studied the men. From the emblems on the outfits of all of the six people except two, she realized they were knights from Kyrria. The other two, one man and a boy, she realized, were royalty from the royal emblems on their shirts. Was it King Charmont and one of his sons?

She swept into a curtsy, gagging at the thought that finishing school had taught something she'd actually picked up. "Thank you, your Highnesses—and Sirs—" she added, "for rescuing me. I could have become an ogre's dinner." She spoke in Kyrrian, hoping she hadn't stumbled over the words too much.

The man who she guessed was the king looked at her, his smile warm and surprisingly bright on his swarthy skin. There was undeniable resemblance between him and his son who stood next to him. "What's your name child?" The king asked her.

"Aria. Aria Delamont from Ayortha." There was no hiding where she was from; she figured they could tell from her Ayorthaian accent.

"And how old are you, Aria Delamont?"

She raised her head up a little indignantly. "Twelve, Your Highness."

"Twelve! And what is a twelve-year-old doing in the middle of a forest?"

"I ran away from finishing school." Aria's voice was laced with pride.

Unexpectedly, the king began to laugh, his laughter deep and genuine, and when his eyes met Aria's, she could see that he had a faraway look, as though he was remembering something from his past. He smiled down at the little girl with the dark brown hair and blue eyes full of defiance. "My wife did the same thing when she was younger." He seemed as though he was about to say something else when one of the knights standing nearby interrupted.

"Char—we seem to have a problem…"

The king looked up from his conversation with Aria and his face visibly paled when he looked in the directions the knights were pointing in.

Aria gasped as she scanned the area around them. They were completely surrounded by bright yellow eyes, more than could be counted, all glistening in the shadows.

"Does the girl have beeswax to use for her ears?" One of the knights asked as he pulled out a sword along with the others, including the king and prince.

"I can use my fingers." Aria quickly raised her hands to her ears to keep out the dangerous words of the ogres that could persuade almost anything to do whatever the ogres wanted.

"Talk or sing as loudly as you can," someone suggested and Aria nodded, her heart beating at a fast, irregular pace.

She searched her mind frantically for a song. They'd sung many at court, and she remembered the monthly "sings" that she'd been in before leaving for finishing school. Aria began to sing a popular but sad Ayorthaian song about a farmer with a starving family.

She hesitated for a moment when she realized the yellow eyes had now all seemed to focus on her, but she continued to sing, a little louder this time, when a knight beside her patted her on the back, urging her to continue.

It was strange. The yellow eyes of the ogres seemed to slowly glaze over and one slumped to the ground, face first.

Aria's eyes widened and she looked up at the king next to her, who was looking down at her and then at the ogres in confusion.

"Keep singing," he mouthed.

Aria nodded and sang louder, her clear voice filling the silence of the forest. She watched in amazement along with the others next to her as the ogres around them began to fall, as though being knocked unconscious by an invisible object. Soon enough, as Aria finished the last stanza of her song, the ogres were all on the ground, yellow eyes hidden behind closed eyelids, all unconscious.

Aria stopped singing cautiously, afraid the ogres would spring up again, alive and evil like before.

"Quickly, let's tie up these monsters before they wake," the king commanded the awestruck group, who had been eyeing Aria as not just as a stubborn, amusing twelve-year-old rebellion, as they had before.

The king turned to Aria. "You have an amazing gift, Aria. Is this the first time you've noticed it?"

Aria nodded. "Yes, Majesty."

"How unusual. A singing voice that can conquer the ogres. Truly, this is special." King Charmont smiled. "Thank you Aria."

* * *

Aria lay stiffly in the makeshift bed on the ground, staring up at the dark black-blue ceiling of the tent. The night sounds of the forest filtered through the opening of the tent—crickets and owls, and the occasional light scampering of squirrels. She waited a moment longer before turning back the blanket that covered her and slowly crept to the door of the tent and looked outside into the moonlight. No one was around.

Aria slowly emerged from the covering and bit her lip. It'd been too late and too dark by the time the men had tied up all the ogres for one of the knights to take her back to Ayortha and the dreaded finishing school. Aria was glad, for this meant if she was careful and quiet enough, she could sneak out of the camp they'd set up for the night, and be on her way. She wasn't about to go back to finishing school.

The adventure earlier in the day would have taught anyone that it was extremely foolish for a twelve-year-old to run away, especially into a forest alone. It was also probably even more absurd to leave by herself in the dead of the night, when many things weren't that dead at all. Aria knew this, but the spark of rebellion and her stubborn nature was too much to hold back for the twelve-year-old, and she went along with her ideas, foolish as they were.

"What do you think you're doing?" A voice hissed, causing Aria to stop midway in her trek across the camp.

She turned, to find the prince of Kyrria sitting up against a tree, watching her with both curiosity and alarm.

"N-nothing," she said, and then added, "Your Majesty."

The prince raised his eyebrows. "You aren't trying to run away are you? What are you doing up?"

Aria folded her arms against her chest. "I could ask you the same question."

"I'm guarding to make sure we don't get attacked," the prince explained, "and to make sure people like you don't do anything stupid."

Aria narrowed her eyes and frowned at him, forgetting anything about being polite to royalty. "What do you mean and to make sure people like you don't do anything stupid?"

The prince smiled and Aria's heart softened a bit. "I'm just teasing. But," he added, "don't run away. It's too dangerous. Anyway, Father will have a fit if he learned that I'd let you run away by yourself into the forest at night. You were lucky not to have gotten killed before we found you."

Aria raised her head in the most dignified way she could. "What does your Father care what I do? Anyway, I was doing perfectly fine until you found me."

The prince raised his eyebrows in silent contradiction at her last statement. "Father cares what you do because you are our responsibility now, whether you want to be or not, and anyway, I think you remind him of my mother."

"Your mother?" Aria's voice raised in curiosity. She'd heard of Queen Eleanor. She and King Charmont were famous for their generosity and perfect marriage together. How was she like the Queen of Kyrria?

"Like Father said, she also ran away from finishing school once, and he and his knights happened to be going through the forest the same time my mother got caught by ogres. But she was able to talk in Ogrese and convince the creatures to do partly what she said." Aria watched as the prince raised a hand to his head to smooth his hair, golden-brown with a silver tint from the moonlight. "I guess Mother's stubborn and can be pretty rebellious herself and I guess you are a lot like that too."

"Oh." Aria smiled a little, liking the idea that she was a bit like Queen Eleanor. They were both silent for a moment, studying one another.

"So you don't like finishing school?" The prince spoke up, watching as Aria lowered herself to the ground and leaned against a tree opposite his.

Aria shook her head. "I was only there for a month, but it so awful that the only thing I could think of to do was to run away. We learned the dullest things."

"Did you learn to speak Kyrrian and to sing there?"

"No, I learned Kyrrian at home. My tutor taught me. And singing…it's a natural thing I guess. Everyone sings in Ayortha. It's life for us. I don't think our kingdom would be normal without it."

The prince nodded and absently picked up a leaf from the ground. "You have a pretty voice."

Aria smiled. "Thank you, Your Majesty."

"You can call me Terence."

A/N: Any reviews, whether good or bad, and suggestions are all welcome. Thanks you guys!