A/N: This is going to be my first Princess and the Frog fanfiction piece. It will end up being what I hope to be a collection of small oneshots, all somehow connecting to Ray's belle, Evangeline. Each oneshot will either be set before, during, or after the setting of the movie. Yeah… not much else to say! Enjoy the first installment of Tears For Evangeline, and R&R.
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1. Shooting Stars
Setting: Prior
There really is magic in the bayou. When the evening settles in Louisiana, and all the daytime creatures go to bed, the beings of the night awaken and begin to roam the marshy land. Some to hunt; some to converse; and others yet to do… well, their own things. Among these things concerned a specific young firefly. Every night, before he would go out with his family, he would wake up before every other firefly in the bayou, and sit on a dandelion and stare up at the sky. Sometimes it would be the sky in general; however, most of the time, it would be at the brightest star in space.
It was his Evangeline, and he loved her.
But the story of his love is another one. One evening, in his much earlier years, this little firefly noticed something peculiar happen during his routine gaze at the sky. As he saw this thing occur, he gasped, scanned the sky to make sure what he just saw was true, and just about cried right there and then. But instead of doing that, he flew back to his family quicker than a cheetah in the wild.
"Mama!" He cried out as he entered a tree in which part of his family was still sleeping. The female firefly awoke with a jolt after being called by her young son. Her pouch lit up as she got up drearily. "Mama," her son pleaded again, this time clinging onto his mother.
"Calm down, Ray," she said tranquilly, yawning as she began to fly out of the tree, with Ray following not far behind. She frowned as she realized that the moon had yet to reach its apex in the sky. "It's still early. What did you get your mama out of bed so early for?"
"Mama, I done saw a firefly fall out of the sky!" The smaller firefly addressed as Ray exclaimed, pointing up at the dark blue firmament. The mother squinted, and then scoffed.
"Now don't be silly, Ray," his mother said with a bittersweet smile on her face. "Fireflies don't live up there. They live down here, in the bayou." Ray's eyes showed shock and fear at this. He then flew up close to his mother, and whispered in her ear.
"Mama, not in front of her." His mother's eyebrows furrowed in confusion.
"What?" Ray nodded his head over to his beloved, and his mother looked in that direction. Her look of bewilderment turned back to tranquility, and she smiled. That's right, how could I forget… he doesn't know. She thought, looking at her son as his attention returned to his love. If I didn't know better, I'd say I'm the only one left who knows the truth about them lights in the sky… "Don't worry, honey," Ray's mother said, gaining his attention again. "Evangeline won't fall out of the sky. She's safe."
"Are ya sure, mama?" Ray asked, looking worriedly up at his one and only.
"A hundred percent," she said, snuggling up against her son. Ray breathed a sigh of relief.
"Ya hear, that, Evangeline?" Ray called out to the nighttime sky. "Mama says you gon' be okay!" The evening star twinkled as if in answer to the lightning bug. His mother smiled as she began to fly back to the tree so she could get a few more hours of sleep while he began to fly back to his dandelion spot. As he sat back down on his flower and gazed up into the never ending blue, he could have sworn he saw another star shoot down from the heavens. But he paid no mind to it. All that mattered was his Evangeline.
Yes, it doesn't matter if the creature that shows it is big or small; every night, there is magic in the bayou.