Cast No Shadow

A Princess and the Frog Fanfiction

By Amber C.S. (AmberPalette)

Disclaimer: Walt Disney Pictures owns pretty much everything Dr. Facilier and all other characters of the Princess and the Frog. This is in all likelihood a one-shot I composed when trying to calibrate myself to the headspace of the delightfully groovy villain of the film, whom most people I know wish had not died, when he is reminiscing about his life while in a sort of limbo-torment at the hands of his "friends on the other side." But it also has the potential to become a longer fanfiction….someday. Potentially. Most likely. Because I am addicted to writing about villains and antiheroes. ADDICTED.

Dr. Facilier's given name "Michel" is the idea of FlamiatheDemon at . Give her props!

Enjoy the drabble!

Don't you dare call me a charlatan. Don't you dare….I'll show you. I'll see green. Green envy, green money, green…frogs….

Michel, Michel! On and on, in a shrill voice. That's my name, ain't it? Goddamn. I forget why anyone's even calling me. At least by that name. Nobody in this town knows my given name anymore.

Oh but wait, who said I was still in New Orleans? I'm not.

At least a supernatural neon Voodoo mask with an ax to grind is no longer dragging me down to hell by my sorry legs. This isn't hell. It isn't earth either, and it sure ain't heaven.

It's…disorientation itself. That's what it is. It's acidic and hot-cold and it's terror and despair and a lot of other things thrown into a nauseating gumbo-pot. I am in the gumbo-pot of Beezelbub. And all my joints hurt like I'm ninety. And my skin hurts. My HAIR hurts. I'm spinning endlessly and voices are thundering in my head asking me if I'm ready, echoing my own credo, like a gospel choir of devils.

There are other voices too. Voices from people who are dead and gone. People I just might have once cared for. Maybe. And now I think my skin's on fire. Ohhhh, whoopee, joy!

Right.

Meeeee-sheyull, scolded my mama, who had dark nutmeg lines under her raisin-hued eyes, but, on account of her great shock of curly black hair, always looked like she was fifteen. The age she was when she conceived me. By some blue-eyed fella, Army man, on leave of the Spanish-American War, "confused," afraid to stick anywhere or to anyone, especially since his rich mama and daddy were going to cut him off if he continued any "exotic" liasons.

It's thanks to him I was born with cinnamon skin and blue eyes. Pale blue. Spectral blue. But, but: easy to adjust to a charming shade of amethyst with the right sort of Voodoo.

It's also thanks to him I was raised with a healthy streak of bitterness toward…people on the other side of the nice glass windows.

Like that big orange-haired buffoon who's a half-penny echo of cotton kings on horses with whips from not so long ago. And his vacuous-brained blond daughter. Like that apish clout, Jeeves or…Dawes or…Lawrence or some pompous Old-World anachronism, bursting with more leechy gall than I could ever have, banding together with me, the spineless and the cunning as one.

And people of my ilk, born in my world, who felt childishly romantic urges to join the ranks of Cotton Princess and her daddy, and disregard ME.

Like that industrious negro Cinderella lusting after a café and a playboy prince. Tiana, you stupid girl. You'll always be ALMOST there. They're only letting you pass as someone else. I know. Believe you me.

It's most likely why I made friends on the…OTHER other side…with which to punish them all. And win. And finally rule something of my own.

Mama hated my eyes. They made the lines under hers deeper. So when magic made me able, I fixed my eyes purple. Even though, by then, she was already dead.

Hey now, cherie. I never said I was a logical man.

Oh none of that. I will shove your pity up your fine little ass. I am explaining, friend, not lamenting.

I also did my eyes purple because it attracted more customers to my parlor. It intrigued them, my offbeat look.

That's right, I commercialized my mama's woes. Now where is your pity? Oho, ahaha! There we are. There's the disgust with which I am familiar. Yes, and always on the receiving end. While the fat cats ride by in their glistening cars without sparing so much as a passing….

Feh.

I even keep a shrunken head I joke about BEING my mama, you know. "I'm a royal on my mother's side." "Mother always taught me to apologize later 'stead of ask permission now." "My hair is voluminous and untamable like mama's." "That's a square deal right there, ask my mama." Always holding up the greenish shrunken head for a laugh.

Soooo. Where was I?

Mee-SHELL, mama'd squawk, stop tormenting frogs or I'll feed you to old Odie! Sure as that gap between your two front teeth!

Bluffs, I thought. Until the day I turned seven and she couldn't buy me anything to celebrate but a tarot card set at the dime store, and she found a sturdy rope and went down to the basement by herself, and didn't come back up by dinner time. They say it's a time for "Roaring" and flappers in gold dresses and streetcars that lead across marble streets of uniform American prosperity, but, cherie, some of us never partook of those things. Never.

Anyway, that's when a completely batty old hag in white with droopy earlobes hanging down under the weight of faux gold hoops, blind as a dingbat, took me in. Until I was the age my mama was when she conceived me.

I learned magic from Mama Odie. And then I learned more useful magic to boot. And she called me a foolish ingrate and stayed in her hellhole ship-house in the swamp, and I came back to New Orleans to sell myself and bide my time. Bought myself an old theater that went under when the moving pictures run 'em clean out of business. Turned it into my Voodoo Emporium, cut off little bits of my soul for loans from the darkest authorities in this world or the next, and waited for my prey. To make everyone I hated lower than me. And slimier.

It almost worked. Almost.

"I'm almost there…."

Michel, why you always being cruel to them frogs?

Well hell, Miss Tiana. Maybe I'm stupid, too.

Michel! They's God's creatures too!

Sorry, mama, I ain't listening. I stopped minding you when you went away.

Ever tasted frog legs, friend? Assuming you ARE a friend. And not a figment of my…tortured imagination. Heh. Right, so: The old adage about chicken completely applies, with a sort of…piquant fishy aftertaste. I always wanted to try frog legs when I was little. I didn't really fancy squelching through the bayou to catch one myself-since, aside leeches and gators, the crackers whose territory I'd be crossing always had guns-and I couldn't buy any until I was roundabout eighteen. And the extremely white man with the extremely yellow teeth who ran the joint kicked me out mid-meal. Sort of anticlimactic, you know.

I learned the art of manipulating poppets that year. My first one had very yellow teeth. I picked a real good sewing needle for that one. Shiny steel.

Heh.

There my mind goes wandering again. My mouth's a damn motor. Fi'tty mile an hour. I'm a Gemini, you know, that means quicksilver tongue and a lady in every port (mighty accurate suppositions, those). And it means my mouth usually gets me out of trouble, but lately, it's been getting me right back into it too. I need to stop jabbering and focus.

Focus…debt. DEBT. That's a nastier four-letter d-word than "damn." Especially when you tack on an s at the end, and it becomes the very inconvenient thing called DEBTS. Plural. No fun at all. Trust me there.

Michel, Michel, stop tormenting the frogs…

Huh. Thought if I was dead I'd be seeing mama again. I can hear her, but I can't see her. All I can see are roiling, sorta…sick…neon colors. Haven't thought about my mama since she up and killed herself. Not sure if that means I'm "emotionally uninvested" or whatever the newest psychologists like to theorize. Most likely it means I just took a hard look at my situation and cut my losses, and kept going…

With my tarot cards…never did stop using that first set she gave me. Up till my last breath.

Oh, you know what, I got it! I'm not dead. Oh Facilier, go to BED. You genius.

…Well, but hell. Where am I?

You know, I always thought of myself as some nimble little critter on a long red wire suspended over the bayou, complete with hungry gators. There was something downright exciting about teetering around on that wire, taunting those fat opulent-scaled gators but never quite satisfying their gluttonous bellies, even taking a piss or two on their heads…but damned if this time I didn't fall clean into the water and get…chomped on. A bit. Well alright, a lot.

It hurts. My hide is hard but I'm skinny. And I can't deflect none of my crimes onto my Shadow no more, cause he up and left me. It doesn't take much bruising to hit my vital organs. I need to get out of this goddamn purgatory.

I think I'd rather be in hell and have it done with. Walk straight on into hell and be gone. But they aren't letting me. I've been batted around like a scrawny mouse by a few particularly vicious alley cats, feathery black shadows with long fangs and long claws, the past…damned if I know (possibly literally, though if you don't mind, I'd rather not dwell on it like that). Coulda been ten seconds, coulda been ten years.

I just want out. Out, OUT. OUT, damned spot, as the fancy actors say. Oh LORD that smarts! I'll do anything. ANYTHING! Isn't that a fair offer?

Shake a poor sinner's hand!

On second thought that hurts…I think that cracking was all the little bones in my digits…STOP…!

Ohhh you pissy sonbitches, my kingdom for a GODDAMN CANDLE to BLAST you shadows APART with! What was I, your WHORE? Did I never have control to begin with? COME ON!

Leave them frogs alone, Michel….

I got no pride left!

Michel, why you such a mean child? You're breaking mama's heart….Can't you control yourself, boy? Put it down, you hurtin' it!

SOMEONE HELP ME OUT! SOMEONE HELP ME OUT AND I'LL CAST NO MORE SHADOWS! EVER!

You make your mama wanna leave. Why you so mean, Michel? What'll you do when everyone leaves, boy?

I'LL PAY MY DEBTS. Just give me back my tarot cards and my feathered hat, and HELP!

I'll cast no shadow. It's all too dark to see already. Too dark to see a thing.

The joke's on me.