AN: I fell in love with The Princess and the Frog the moment I heard Disney was making a new movie using its classic style. I became obsessed with it after seeing the trailer. I've been dying to write something for this wonderful movie, and found a site with some creative writing prompts that got me thinking. So here's my first TPatF fanfiction!
Prompt 19: Begin a story with "There was once a chance I didn't take…"
There was once a chance Tiana didn't take.
The bright yellow light that glowed from her restaurant blinded Tiana that Mardi Gras night. The place was alive, the music, the excited chatter of servers and customers alike, the clinking of fine silverware, all came together into a thrumming so much like a heartbeat. Tiana's own heart stuttered as she took everything in. The chandelier! The finery of it all! Every detail was just as her Daddy had drawn it, and just as she had dreamed since she was a little girl, still wishing on the Evening Star.
Looking over to the ukulele player, seeing the bronze skin and black hair, she thought how all her dreams had magically come true. She had her restaurant, and with her the man she lov—
He turned around, and her stuttering heart stopped, the beat of her surroundings continuing on.
It wasn't him.
Dr. Facilier spoke to her then, tempting her with what for nearly two decades she thought was all she wanted.
"You're almost there," he hissed, like the serpent tempting Eve with the forbidden fruit.
Tiana recalled her father's weary face, lined prematurely from those double, sometimes triple shifts, lighting up when he spoke of the restaurant. How happy it would make him to finally get what he worked so hard for, what he'd for so long wanted…
Wanted.
There was that word again. The wisdom from Mama Odie, the image of her parents embracing as they told her to never lose sight of what's important…
Tiana lost her chance.
Everything became a whirlwind then. All of a sudden she was a frog again, then breaking the amulet, then watching as Dr. Facilier's friends from the other side dragged him away to fulfill his debt…
Alone and vulnerable in that graveyard, staring at Dr. Facilier's terrified image on the headstone, Tiana thought of what she'd just thrown away.
Naveen's froggy face came into her thoughts then, invading every inch of her mind, and she couldn't help but think that he was worth every chance not taken.