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Anonymous asked:
29 for writing prompts. Can it be a the princess and the frog coco crossover?
(It can be, but it’ll be the most self-indulgent thing you’ve ever read. Because in the PatF!AU, Hector lives and the Riveras end up with a substantial amount of children. Five children. Including a particular youngest son.)
29 - Preparation
“Iriiiiiiiiiiiiia!”
“Faldi faldonza.” Iria kept the exclamation under her breath as she ducked behind a marble column before the source of the voice arrived. How had she forgotten that the Riveras were starting their visit today? She tucked a loose curl behind her ear as she peeked around the column. Oh, thank god, Mama was intercepting him before he could find her.
“Rodrigo, honey, you’ve been here for five minutes. Are you already stirring up trouble?”
Ruy looked down at her–he’d gotten taller since the last time they visited, huh–and his brown eyes immediately widened entreatingly. “Trouble? I’m not getting into trouble, Auntie Tiana. I just wanted to find your daughter.” He grinned. “I have something I want to show her before the concert tonight.”
Mama set a hand on her hip, raising her eyebrow at him the same way she did at Papai. “Do you? Or are you just trying to get out of the preparations for that concert?” The brown eyes only widened more, but Mama was unaffected. “Are you planning to say ‘you wound me’ or ‘I would never dream of getting out of the preparations’?”
Ruy blinked, then stood up straight. “‘How could my own Auntie Tiana think something like that,’ actually. But I really do want to find Iria.” He gave a bright grin, holding up a stack of papers. “I wrote this on the boat ride. I think she’ll like it. Look, I wrote a whole solo for a ukulele, and I can only see her playing it.”
Iria peeked out curiously from behind the marble column. Last summer Ruy had been all sulky when he wasn’t getting them in trouble, and he never showed off the music he wrote.
“Iria!”
Chie pelize. He’d spotted her. She shot an entreating look to Mama, silently asking to be saved, but only got a smile and a shrug in return. She turned back to Ruy, who was already shuffling through the pages.
“I know you were eavesdropping so I’ll, uh…what’s the phrase? When you cut chases?”
“You’ll cut to the chase.”
He grinned, squeezing in beside her between the columns. “This is why we’re friends, Rita.”
“We’re not friends after that horse thing last year, Rodrigo,” she said flatly, looking up at him. Huh, he was even taller than her now. Weird. “So what do you…” She was cut off by sheet music being shoved at her.
“I want you to play this. See how it sounds. I think it’s fine as is but you be the judge, bueno?”
She looked down at the pages, then glanced up at him. “One condition.”
“Mm?”
“You don’t do anything stupid at the concert this year.”
“Is this about Caprice?”
“Is Caprice the horse?”
“Yes.”
“Then yes.”
Ruy groaned. “Iriiiiia, you saw how much happier she was after we took her home.”
“I also saw nothing but my room for a month!” She puffed at an escaped curl. “You can be fun, Ruy, but you have some really, really terrible impulse control…”
“That sounds like a very Auntie Tiana thing to say.”
“And I need to start thinking about how I look to the public. That horse thing was all over the papers…there was a newsreel about it! I…I don’t want to end up like Papai did when he went to America.” She twirled a strand of hair worriedly. “I want people to think I’m a good princess. Even if I’m not next in line for the throne.”
Ruy blinked slowly, bright expression fading. “And that means not being friends with me anymore.”
Iria grimaced. “It means being friends with you at your best.” She gripped Ruy’s arm, giving it a small squeeze. “Look, just…no crazy stunts while you’re here, okay? Please? For me?”
He glanced down at her hand, then looked up at her. She could see the hard look in his eyes and the set of his jaw–that was the face he made whenever he argued with Tio Hector about…well, everything–and braced herself for a shouting match. To her surprise, though, he let out a breath and nodded.
“Fine. I’ll behave,” he said, drawling out the last word. Any sting in his reaction was soothed by him immediately tapping the papers in her hand. “But can you go get your ukulele? I’ve been waiting a week to see how this sounds and I might just explode if I have to wait any longer.”
Iria smiled. “I think we can sneak away from the preparations long enough to do that. You remember the way to my room?”
“Rita, please. My mind is a steel trap.”
“So you forgot.”
He gave her an embarrassed grin. “Give me a refresher, please?”
She rolled her eyes with a smile, taking his wrist and leading him out. “We’ve got to hurry. Papai will be wounded if he finds out you wrote a solo for me and not him.”