Hello my beasties! It is time for another chapter of my Princess and the Frog story! In this chapter, we will catch up with Cecily (The picture above is how I imagine she looks like) fourteen years later, and something very important will be happening to her......

Fourteen years later....

The alarm on the Nightmare before Christmas alarm clock rang out through the morning, causing the girl who had been in bed to groan in frustration at the loud noise.

After a few tries of trying to hit the button on the alarm clock, and utterly missing it, the girl eventually hitting the button, silencing the noise.

Blinking her tired eyes, she got out of bed, yawning from the long night she had previously.

The girl felt her shadow moving along beside her. Smiling a little through her tiredness, Cecily regarded her shadow, which seemed to be as exhausted as her. "Good morning to you too."

She began to look around her room for something to wear, before she eventually found something to wear.

After getting dressed, she tied her hair back and regarded her reflection in the mirror for a moment before she heard her phone chime from her dresser. Picking it up, she regarded the message and sighed before she took a look at her shadow.

"Well, looks like Charlie wants to see us, says its important." Charlie LaBouff was one of her two best friends, and if he needed something, she'd have to go over to see what was wrong.

Her shadow gave her a look. "Come on, I'm sure it isn't anything to do with clothes this time."

Cecily began to head downstairs. "And don't worry, we'll be back in time to help out at the restaurant."

Time skip

Cecily rushed past people on the crowed sidewalk, trying hard not to bump into anyone or get anymore odd looks than she was already used to getting from people.

You see, despite the fact that she came from one of New Orleans's most famous families, Cecily was very different from most of her family. First, there was the clothes. Cecily typically wore a combination of darkly-coulored clothes, vintage outfits she found in thrift shops or vintage stores, and sneakers or boots. Her parents disapproved, saying she looked like a punk, but she didn't want to fit into their mold of what they wanted. Next, she was known to be stubborn, and had an attitude when people rubbed her the wrong way(her friends, family, and classmates at collage knew that for a fact.). People usually described her a stubborn, optionated, and a spitfire when she got worked up over something, which happened often, due to living in such a large family.

And the last thing, the one that made people suspect there wasn't something entirely normal about the girl?

A lot of people didn't know it, and her family pleaded for her to hide this skill, but Cecily had a talent. Specifically in the realm of magic. Voodoo magic.

It was a skill that her parents wanted her to hide, and very few members of her family approved of(her grandma Eva, her little brother Luka, and her great-grandmother Tiana hadn't condoned her skill), but Cecily didn't see why she should hide her skill. It wasn't like she couldn't control it, she was actually pretty decent at what she could do, so she wouldn't hurt anyone(at least by accident), she knew that her family didn't like her rather unique talent because of the ways she used said talent........

She shook her head, trying to shake off her troubling thoughts as she approached the building near the river that was known as Tiana's place. The building still had the seemingly magic glow that it had when it opened in the 1920's, and the former sugar mill seemed to welcome anyone who looked upon it.

Even all these years later, it still was a key feature in New Orleans, a place where people from all over came to taste the food that Cecily's family served up.....

A place where she would soon be in a whole heap of trouble if her momma caught her arriving late to help out with the dinner rush, again.

Rushing through the back door of the restaurant, she quickly hung up her jacket and bag before something caught her eye on the wall.

It was an old black and white photograph, of a young happy couple, a slew of other people, and even an alligator who held a trumpet......

Cecily went over to the picture and placed her hand on the edge of it, giving a small sad smile as she did so.

"Hey Great-Grandma Tia, Great-Grandpa Naveen. I'm back." Both of her great-grandparents had passed away when she was almost ten years old, and there wasn't a day that went by when she missed them. She knew that in whatever afterlife they had ended up in, they were together, and she could only hope that they were still proud of her as they had been when she was young.

Then, suddenly realizing where she had to be, she began to make her exit. "I'll see you guys later."

As she rushed through the hall, she bumped into someone.

"Where're you off to in such a hurry ducky?" The tall woman looked at her, her green eyes twinkling in concern, her dirty-blonde hair pulled into a high pony-tail and not brushed carefully into its shining waves.

"Oh hey Sandy. I'm really in a hurry, so I don't have time to talk right now."

The woman nodded in understanding. "Yeah, I kinda see that. Well I've gotta go back on the stage, my break is almost over." Sandy was the singer of the Firefly Five, a bund that played in the restaurant to entertain the costumers. She had mysteriously appeared after the old singer quit, and was well known for her elegant dresses, and the choker around her neck with the large ruby that she was hardly ever seen without.......

Cecily nodded gratefully, and sped off down the hall. She didn't notice how Sandy's eyes had flashed yellow, and her easy smile turned into something dark and terrible before she put on a neutral expression, and headed out back to her adoring public.......

The doors to the kitchen swung open as Cecily finally arrived, some of the cooks and servers heads went up to acknowledge her entrance, but the quickly went back down to whatever they had been previously doing.

Cecily paused, catching her breath, and then her sister, Mary Beth walked over. Her face was set in an expression of annoyance, and her neatly cut bobbed hair (Cecily always thought her older sister's haircut resembled a boring, brown-haired version of Madame Red's from the Black Butler comics) seemed to bounce up and down as she stalked closer to her younger sister.

"Where were you? Momma was expecting you thirty minutes ago! You're lucky I made up an excuse for you otherwise she'd be spitting mad right now."

Cecily rolled her eyes. "Momma's working up at the front, with grandma Eva like she always does, I don't think she particularly notices when I'm here or not. Also, I'm really sorry I'm late, but I had a good reason."

Flashback

"You want me to what?" Cecily stared in shock at Charlie, not believing what she had just heard come out of her friends mouth.

Charlie was one of her only friends, he was blond, muscular, attractive, had sparkling brown eyes, was really funny, and enjoyed reading classic books. They had been friends despite all odds since middle school, where Charlie became popular and Cecily settled into a sort of gothy-social outcast role, and they had been best friends ever since. Just like Cecily, Charlie had famous relatives too, he was the great-grandson of Charlotte LaBouff, the best friend of Tiana. Both of their families had been friends for years, so it might have been only natural that they would become friends like their great-grandparents did......

They were in Charlie's bedroom in the LaBouff mansion, sitting on Charlie's massive king-sized bed. Charlie had called her over, saying it was important, she had expected that he wanted her option on something like which shirt went better with his new slacks, but she hadn't expected this.

"Look, I know how it sounds, but it would be just for a little while, I'd pay you in whatever you wanted-" Charlie began to speak nervously, but Cecily cut him off.

"I am not going to pretend to be your girlfriend just because you're too chicken to tell your parents you're gay!" Cecily had known this since their last year in high school, where Charlie had come out to her. Cecily accepted who her friend was no matter what, but did he seriously want her to do this??

Charlie looked worried and he tried to shush her. "Hey, not so loud, I don't want my dad to hear!"

Cecily looked shocked at his response. "Did you tell Siobhan the same thing?  She'd pound your blond butt for that." Siobhan was Cecily's other friend, a short red-head with a wild personality and a love for Wiccan magic(Cecily and her had mostly the same interests). Siobhan was sweet, but if you insulted her, she'd probably beat you over the head with her Harry Potter book.

Charlie looked offended. "No of course not! Why would I do that to her?"

"And yet, here you are asking me to be your fake girlfriend. You know what? I think you should tell your parents the truth."

Charlie paled. "I can't do that."

Cecily got up to leave, and her shadow shook its head at Charlie. "It's the 21'rst century, not 1926. People are more accepting now than they were then. But whaterever, do what you want. I just think you should accept who you are."

Charlie looked at her. "Where are you going?"

Cecily merely replied bluntly: "I'm leaving. Call me when you've decided to stop running from who you are." She had then left, and had spent most of the day wandering around town, trying to cool off her anger at the stupidity of her friend. But she had lost track of time.......

Mary-Beth rolled her eyes. "Yeah, yeah I'm sure you do." Then out of the corner of her eye she spotted Cecily's shadow reaching for an unattended plate of beignets. She glared at the shadow, causing it to panic and go back to Cecily's side.

"And please try to keep your shadow under control. Momma doesn't want any of the guests to notice your abnormalities, so please try and act normally tonight."

Cecily mentally flinched at those words. Abnormalities. That's what mostly everyone thought she had, something that could be fixed by pretending to be the girl they wanted her to be.

"Oh and you're helping with prep tonight." Cecily looked at her sister in shock.

"But I thought I was doing waitressing?"

Mary Beth scoffed. "The last time, you nearly punched a woman when she changed her salad order three times, it's better for everyone if you just stay here." She motioned for Cecily to follow, and Cecily glumly did so.

It looked like it was just going to be another boring night......

Time skip

"But you can't leave without paying!" The middle aged woman said desperately. "We have a strict policy..." She was cut off by one of the people at the table passing her a twenty dollar bill.

She looked at it shocked. "This isn't even half of what is on your bill!"

The man rolled his eyes. "Tough. If you and this old broad didn't serve such slop, we would have paid. Now we're leaving and unless you want my friends and I to call immigration services to send you to Africa, you'll stay out of our way."

Adelina Florles, the mother of Cecily looked shocked. "You will not talk to my family in that way!"

"And just what are you going to do about it?" The man looked at her smugly. His two friends, a man and a woman, snickered.

Evangeline, the older woman and Adelina's mother tugged at her sleeve and whispered in her ear. Adelina's eyes grew wide and the two of them left the table to go somewhere more private to talk.

"Ma belle, they clearly won't listen to reason of any sort. Don't you think we should get your daughter to help sort them out." She looked at her daughter, trying to see her reaction.

Adelina gasped. "No, we can handle this, we'll get the cops, I can call my husband and he can come here,we'll do something. We can't let Cecily get involved again!"

Evangeline looked at her daughter. "I think her particular skills are suited for dealing with these people, even if you don't." She turned and headed off towards the kitchen.

Adelina groaned and held her face in her hands. Her mother was stubborn, much like her daughter, and once there was something put into her head, there was no stopping her. She prayed that Cecily wouldn't cause too much damage......

Cecily's P.O.V

Cecily headed out of the kitchen, brown eyes already looking for the people who had insulted her family.

Her grandmother had come into the kitchen and motioned for her to come over, and then whispered to Cecily that her talents were needed for a couple of very rude patrons who insulted her family.

Cecily had instantly agreed, and she was already planning something to get them back.....

They weren't at the table anymore, but she spied them over at the front of the restaurant, getting ready to leave. Taking a deep breath, she marched up to them and looked the offending man right in the eye.

"You come into my family's restaurant, insult my family, and leave without paying? I don't know who you think you are, but you better make things right otherwise it's not gonna be so good for any of you." The woman saw Cecily's shadow move on the wall, baring it's teeth like some sort of ferocious beast, but the other man didn't notice.

The man scoffed. "And what are you going to do exactly? I'm very important around here, and I could have this place shut down in a heartbeat, so go back to play with your dolls Cyrisse Hynde, this doesn't concern you." He noted her state of dress, smirking.

Cecily thought for a moment, then she smiled. "Maybe you're right, I am just a silly teen after all. Why don't you take a mint for the road?" She reached into her plaid shirt pocket and pulled out a cellophane-wrapped green mint.

The business man, clearly satisfied with what he had gotten, took the mint from her hand and after peeling the wrapper, popped it in his mouth. After he did so, he turned back to his friends, and opened his mouth to speak.

But instead of words, out of his mouth came the croak of a frog. Cecily's lips curved up into a smile as the man's eyes widened in shock and he began to panic.

She had read about this spell a while ago, but never tried it out until today. And this very rude man, was the perfect candidate.

He continued to croak, surprising some of the diners who looked up at the scene, and then the other man spoke in a panicked voice.

"Please, stop this! We'll do whatever you want!" He looked at his friend who looked terrified as he was.

Cecily regarded them coldly. "Then give me the money you owe and never come back here again." She practically growled the last few words, and all three of them paled.

The woman reached into her purse and withdrew a wad of cash, practically throwing it at Cecily. Cecily then gave the woman a normal mint, which she promptly gave to the man who was still croaking frenziedly, and he eventually stopped.

Then, the tree of them turned and got out of the restaurant as fast as they could. Cecily smirked.

That should teach them. She gave a high-five to her shadow, who was now practically doing excited backflips, and turned to head back to the kitchen.

But to her surprise, she saw her mother and her older sister, looking right back at her. They both had very different expressions, Mary-Beth's was one of annoyance and disappointment, but her mother's? She was angry, angrier than she had seen her in a very long time.

Cecily felt her shadow shrink behind her and she gulped.

Well, this wasn't good.

I'm finally done the first chapter! I hope you've enjoyed it, because I sure did! I bet you're wondering what's going to happen to Cecily now, but we'll explore that in the next chapter!

Also, I've introduced quite a few characters in this story, and made reference to one of Cecily's friends who will appear in another chapter.......

Anyway, I'll see you soon beasties!