Disclaimer: The Princess and the Frog belongs to Disney, not me.
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Maldonia: July, 1905
Mira stared out of the wide open windows into the soft dark blue of the early evening sky, her narrow shouldersg heaving. "Is it a boy or a girl?" she asked.
"It's a boy, Princess, a healthy boy."
Mira leaned back into the pillows, smiling. "I gave you a son, Arturo," she said.
Arturo kissed her hand. "It doesn't matter to me," he said. "I'm just glad you're both safe."
Mira closed her eyes and breathed deeply. The waves lapped against the shore outside her open windows, making a soft soothing sound. "Can I hold him?" she asked.
The midwife carried the baby to the young princess. She held out her arms, staring wide eyed at her newborn child. "He's so small," she murmured.
"Babies usually are," the midwife said, amused.
The baby yawned and nestled placidly against his mother's shoulder. "What should we name him, Arturo?" she asked.
"We had a girl's name picked out, but we never did decide on a boy's name, did we?" Arturo said. He scratched the back of his neck. "He's the crown prince of Maldonia, so he needs a Maldonian name."
"But can't he have a name from my language too?" she asked eagerly. Mira stroked her fingers lightly across the baby's soft dark hair. "After all, he's a prince of Lilioukuala too."
"You're right," Arturo said. "We could name him after your father, if you'd like."
Mira wrinkled her nose. "Not my father," she said.
"Well, how about your grandfather, then?" Arturo suggested.
"My father's father was named Naveen," Mira said. "
"I like that," Arturo said. "And his Maldonian name can be…Donato, or Leandro, or Amando…."
"What does 'Amando' mean?" Mira interrupted.
"It's an old name," he said. "It means 'lovable'."
Mira smiled down at her baby son. "That's perfect," she said. "Naveen Amando della Isola, crown prince of Maldonia."
Arturo kissed her on the cheek. "I'll tell them to make the announcement," he said. He left the bedchamber, whistling happily.
"I can take the baby to the nursery, your highness," the maid said.
"I'd like to hold him a little while longer," Mira said.
"As you wish," the maid said, bobbing a curtsy.
Mira tugged the blanket away from the baby's face. "Hello, my little prince," she cooed. She touched Naveen's soft little hand. "Aren't you a lucky one, to be a prince of two islands. The whole world is open to you."
The dark sky outside lit up in yellows, blues, and reds. The crack of the fireworks echoed as the light reflected on the polished marble floor. The baby squinted. "Those are for you," she said. "All of Maldonia is celebrating the birth of the crown prince."
She looked towards the windows, idly watching the fireworks. Music echoed through the streets, and she tapped her toes lightly under the covers. "Everything will be different now," she murmured. "I'm not just a princess anymore. I'm a mother. Your mother."
Mira stared at the baby in her arms. "You can take him to the nursery now," she said. The maid took him; Mira settled back into the soft pillows of her bed and listened to the music drift through the open window.
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New Orleans: June, 1906
"James."
"Hm?"
"She's awake."
James sat up slowly, blinking in the early morning light. "Is it my turn?" he mumbled blearily.
"I got up last time," Eudora said into her pillow.
The baby made a soft mewling noise. James stood up and rubbed his eyes as he walked over to the cradle. He smiled. "Good morning, baby girl," he said. His week-old daughter stared up at him, her golden brown eyes wide and searching. He picked her up carefully. "You're an early riser, aren't you?"
James wrapped the soft lavender blanket around the baby and sat down on the edge of the bed. "Is she hungry?" Eudora murmured.
"No, I think she just wants some attention," James said.
Eudora sat up. "She's probably fussing because she doesn't have a name yet," she said dryly.
"Come on, Dora," James grinned. "She'd have a name if you'd let me win."
"I'm not naming my daughter Mildred," Eudora said.
"It was my mother's name," he said
"And it's terrible," she retorted. She took the baby from him. "Besides, she looks like a Madeline. And we could call her Maddy for short."
James rolled his eyes. "That's a boring name," he said.
"And Mildred's not?" Eudora said skeptically.
"All right, it's boring," James said, flopping back on the bed. "But I still don't like Maddy." He propped himself up on his elbows. "What about Milly? That's a nice compromise."
"I don't think so," Eudora said.
"So what are we going to do?" James said.
Eudora smiled as the baby grabbed ahold of her finger. "Just start listing names," she said. "I'll tell you if I like them."
James scratched the back of his neck. "Rachel?" he tried.
"Too many Rachels," Eudora said.
"Alexandra?"
"Too formal."
"Annabelle?"
"Too cutesy."
"Beatrice?"
"Are you kidding me?"
"Diana?"
Eudora paused.
"You like Diana?" James said.
"Sort of," Eudora said. "It's pretty."
"Yeah," James said slowly. "Diana Woodward."
Eudora made a face. "It's not quite right yet," she said. "It sounds too soft. She's so spunky. She needs a name to match her personality."
"Tiana," James said suddenly.
"What?"
"We should name her Tiana," James said. "It'd be perfect for her."
"Tiana," Eudora mused. "I like it."
"Tiana Madeline Woodward," James said.
Eudora glanced at him over her shoulder. "You'll let me name her Madeline?" she said.
"I don't like Maddy. Never said I didn't like Madeline," James grinned. He leaned over his wife's shoulder and kissed her on the cheek. "I win."
Eudora turned and kissed him soundly. "We both win," she said.
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Maldonia: November, 1907
"No, no, no," Graciela said, picking up the recalcitrant two-year-old. "No, your highness, you mustn't put that in your mouth."
"Wanna," Naveen said, unperturbed.
"No," Graciela said patiently. The young nursery maid set the little prince on her hip and carried him away from the toys spread wide across the floor. "It's time for you to go to bed."
Naveen rubbed his eyes. "Not sleepy," he argued. He tried to wriggle away from her. "Want to see Mami."
"Your mother is at a party, Prince Naveen," Graciela said. "Again."
Naveen scowled. "Want to see Mami!" he repeated emphatically.
Graciela ignored the toddler's whining and got him ready for bed. It was like this every night. He would protest the indignity of his early bedtime while calling for his mother, but she never came. The princess was too busy attending parties and going to the theater to kiss her son goodnight. Instead, Graciela would hold the little prince on her lap, reading him stories and singing him lullabies, until finally he was too tired to wait for his mother any longer.
Graciela settled into the rosewood rocking chair. "No sleep!" Naveen shrieked.
"I know, I know," she soothed. "We'll stay up and wait for Mami."
"Story?" he asked.
"Which one?" she smiled. "The Frog Prince?"
"Yes!" he crowed, clapping his small hands.
"All right," she said. "But you must sit and be quiet." He settled into her lap and tucked his thumb in his mouth as she began the familiar story. "Once upon a time, there was a lovely princess who lived in a big, beautiful palace with her father…"
She was nearly at the end of the story, and Naveen had nearly fallen asleep, when the door to the nursery swung wide open. "Naveen!" Princess Mira called. "Naveen, where are you?"
The sleepy toddler roused and rubbed his wide eyes. "Mami!" he said.
The princess hurried into the nursery, her gold and green gown rustling. "There's my little one," she said, picking him up and accepting the sloppy kisses he pressed on her cheeks. Her flawless makeup smeared, but she only laughed.
Graciela dropped a curtsy. "Good evening, your highness," she said.
"Did I wake up him?" Mira asked.
"He wasn't asleep quite yet," Graciela said.
Princess Mira sat down on the cream-colored carpet with Naveen on her lap. Her silk dress pooled around her like a green lagoon. "That state dinner was so dull," she said. "I told Arturo I wanted to check on Naveen and I would be right back, but I don't think I shall!"
Small and slight, with her eyes too bright and her cheeks too pink, she looked more like a naughty child playing dress up than the crown princess of Maldonia. She laughed, and Graciela could smell the champagne on her breath. "Should I call for your lady-in-waiting?" she asked politely.
"No, no, I'm fine," she said dismissively. "I'll put the baby to bed myself. Go on, go on."
Graciela curtsied and left the nursery. But she only went as far as the playroom; she busied herself with putting away the prince's toys while she listened to the princess playing with her son. Princess Mira spoke in rapid-fire Hindustani, Naveen answered her clumsily. After all, he was surrounded by servants who spoke the Maldonian dialect of Spanish- he knew very little of his mother's language.
The nursery had been quiet for a while. Graciela closed the lid of the toybox and peeked into the room. The princess was asleep on the floor, her narrow chest heaving under the ribs of her corset. Naveen curled up against her side, his head on her shoulder and his thumb tucked in his mouth. Graciela shook her head and sent for the princess's lady-in-waiting.
She returned to find them both still fast asleep. Carefully she lifted the toddler into her arms without rousing him. Graciela hummed lightly under her breath as she laid him in his little bed and tucked his silk blankets around him.
The lady-in-waiting entered the nursery, accompanied by a royal bodyguard. The huge man picked up the tiny princess as easily as a child would pick up a doll and carried her into the hall. The lady followed, nodding at Graciela as she did. After all, this wasn't this first time this had happened.
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New Orleans: April, 1907
Eudora rang the mansion's doorbell and adjusted Tiana in her arms. "I hope they're going to be all right with this," she murmured.
A petite blonde woman with round green eyes and a baby on her hip answered the door. "Can I help you?" she asked cheerfully.
"I'm Eudora Woodward, from Allbright's dress shop," she said. "Mrs. LaBouff called and said she needed some alterations done."
"Oh, I did, didn't I?" the blonde woman said. "Come in, Eudora."
Eudora stepped into the airy foyer of the mansion. "You're Mrs. LaBouff?" she said.
"Please, call me Pansy," she said, bumping the door closed with her hip. "And this sugarplum is Charlotte." Pansy smiled and held out her hand.
Eudora shook her hand, a little confused. "Pleased to meet you," she said.
"Who's this little angel?" Pansy said.
"My daughter, Tiana," Eudora said. "I hope you don't mind that I brought her. Usually a friend of mine keeps an eye on her, but-"
"Don't worry about it, sugar," Pansy said with a wave of her hand. "I know how it is with rambunctious little girls. Why, my Lottie pitches a fit if I even so much leave the room. Don't you, lamb?" She pinched Charlotte's round cheek; the little girl howled with laughter.
"How old is she?" Eudora asked.
"Just turned a year," Pansy said proudly. "Come on up, the dress is in my boudoir."
Eudora adjusted Tiana on her hip. The toddler studied her surroundings, her golden brown eyes wide. Eudora absently kissed her on the temple as Pansy opened the door to her pink and white boudoir. "Allbright's did my wedding dress when I married Eli two years ago," she said. "I just loved it. It fit so much better than the dresses my mother had made for me at that shop on Juno Street." Pansy plopped her round-cheeked daughter on the floor and opened the wardrobe. "And now that I had my little puddin', none of my dresses still fit right. I called Allbright's up and asked who did my dress in the first place, and they said it was you, so I told them to send you over and take a look at my things." Eudora shifted Tiana to one arm and touched the skirt of a yellow and white dress. "Oh, just put her down with Lottie. The two of them can play."
Eudora set Tiana down on the thick carpet. "You play nice, now," she said. Charlotte reached over and grabbed at Tiana's short curly pigtails; Tiana giggled and poked the blonde toddler in the cheek.
Pansy rifled through the wardrobe. "Frankly, most of my dresses are just too frilly," she said. "Mama always did like me to look like a princess."
"You have enough ruffles for three princesses," Eudora agreed. "You want these taken off?"
"Could you?" Pansy said. "I always hated that dress. Eli likes it, but bless the man, he'd tell me I look pretty in a potato sack." She sat down on the floor beside her daughter. "And as long as I can as I can ride in it, I don't care."
Eudora pulled out a green frock trimmed in lace frills. "You ride?" she said.
"Ever since I was a little girl growing up in Kentucky," Pansy sighed. She laid down on her stomach beside the two toddlers. "Horses are everywhere there. It's beautiful. Mama always thought it wasn't dignified, but I loved it." She sat up and rumpled her blonde curls as Eudora draped the green dress across the back of a gilded chair. "Can you fix that one too?"
"I sure can," Eudora said.
"I'm so glad," Pansy said. "And it looks like our little girls are getting along just fine. Aren't they sweet?"
Eudora looked down at her daughter. Tiana had pulled the ribbon from Charlotte's hair and was wrapping it around her little hands, laughing. "She sure is," she said.
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Author's Notes:
I have a whole slew of ideas for Princess and the Frog stories, and I'm SUPER EXCITED ABOUT THEM!!
Also, this is going to be a rather long author's note. Just so you're warned.
First off, when it comes to Naveen...
I was inspired by a drawing that Isaia did on Deviantart, showing the two lines of royalty. Naveen's father seemed European, and his mother seemed Indian. So I decided that Maldonia is an island between Spain and Italy, and I decided that his mother came from an island on the coast of India. So that's how that came to be.
As for Tiana's name...as much as I love her, it annoys me that they changed her name from Maddy (which seems to fit her better and is a more period-approporiate name). But, if she's going to be named Tiana, she needs a good reason. Also, the names that James suggests are all the names that Eric suggests might be Ariel's name (going by the movie and the Broadway recording). Little inside Disney joke there...
So yeah. Here's the first chapter! I plan on writing a chapter for every year up to 1925. How do I know it's 1925? Well, in the prologue of the film, Tiana is six years old. And there's a man reading a newspaper that says "Wilson Elected." Woodrow Wilson was elected president in 1912, ergo Tiana was born in 1906. And the casting sheet for the film revealed that Tiana is nineteen and Naveen is twenty. Ergo, iana was born in 1906 and Naveen was born in 1905, and the film takes place in 1925.
Now I'm going to stop saying "ergo."
I hope you liked this! Let me know what you think!