NOTES:
What can I say about this? I saw Princess and the Frog when it was in theaters and absolutely fell in love with the characters. (And I have to say, my favorite couple in the whole thing was Ray and Evangeline.) A friend and I had been batting around the idea of a massive Disney crossover for a while -- and, well, this is my attempt at one.
Naveen speaks Italian because Maldonian sounded like Italian to me the first time I saw the movie.
If there are any foreign language phrases you can't figure out, I recommend going to wordreference (dot) com.

DISCLAIMER:
Everything (c) Disney.

Quand Tu Souhaites sur la Belle Evangeline

Look how she lights up the sky:
Ma belle Evangeline.
So far above me, yet I
Know her heart belongs to only me.

ONE.

Naveen bared his teeth at himself in the mirror, closely examining his pearly whites as they gleamed in the light streaming in through the window, turning his face first one way and then the other to ensure they were of a satisfactory whiteness. "So," he said around a finger he had jammed into his mouth to pick at a bit of plaque, "remind me again who it is you know that's going to the coronation?"

The burly, dark-haired man behind him rocked his chair onto its back legs and spat into a nearby potted plant. "Well," he began, and Naveen knew he had asked the wrong question. He had heard Gaston's tale of misery and woe several times before, and had no desire to hear it again. He just wanted to know the girl's name. "Well," he repeated, "she's a very pretty girl – and, you know, I'm a handsome man, so we're perfect for each other, naturally – and her name is Belle—"

Ah, there was the name. Belle. Naveen promptly stopped listening, filling in the story mentally as he proceeded to turn his attention from his glistening smile to his crown. It was a little tarnished, he thought as Gaston expounded on how Belle had so very nearly agreed to marry him when she was whisked away by a dreadful Beast. He breathed on the gold and buffed it with his sleeve, admiring his distorted profile in the now-gleaming surface, continuing to ignore Gaston as he elaborated on his daring attempts to rescue the girl from the clutches of that horrendous Beast.

"—I don't even know why she's going, really," Gaston said. "Apparently she's going with that monster that lives up in the castle. I mean, the people think that thing is royalty – can you believe it?" The Frenchman let out a loud guffaw, slapping his knee several times and not seeming to notice that Naveen wasn't joining in the merriment, being preoccupied now with polishing the brass medals on his jacket.

Not that he had actually earned the medals – no, no. Wars were far too messy. No, the medals had been his grandfather's. Or his great-grandfather's. Or something. But who really kept track of things like that? They looked impressive, anyway. "Turn some music on, or something."

Gaston frowned at being ordered around, but let his chair fall back onto its four legs and crossed the room to the Victrola, putting on a record. A bawdy waltz began to play, and the Maldonian prince was instantly on his feet, dancing around the room with an invisible partner. "Achitanza! I love this song!" He began singing along tunelessly with it as he danced.

Gaston rolled his eyes and dropped himself back into his chair, waiting impatiently for the record to come to its end and Naveen to come to his senses. The waltz became faster and more furious, and Naveen swept a floor lamp into his arms as a makeshift dance partner, proceeding to knock several things to the floor, where they promptly shattered. As the final chord was hit, he flung his arms wide and sent the lamp reeling towards the open doorway, where it struck LeFou squarely in the forehead.

Without bothering to apologize to Gaston's stout lackey, Naveen strode easily back to his dressing table and pulled his jacket on over his tunic before carelessly dropping his crown onto his head at a jaunty angle. He may not have had the money, but he sure looked the part. With a final check in the mirror, he turned on his heel and strode jovially from the room, Gaston following, with LeFou bringing up the rear, still rubbing at his reddening forehead.

Naveen, unsurprisingly, was the first out the doors of the chateau, pausing to look back at the other two men with an impatient frown. "Come!" he said imperiously, clapping his hands. "Time is of the essence, non? And already we are wasting it!"

Gaston rolled his eyes and continued at his same pace; LeFou gave a nervous sort of jump and trotted a bit faster. It was obvious it would be a long, long night.

Naveen danced ahead of them, stepping in time with the beat of a distant tambourine, strumming an imaginary ukulele as he went, humming to himself. He kicked his heels into the air and slid around a corner, nearly knocking a man standing there clear off his feet. "Mi dispiace," he said, grabbing the man by the elbow to keep him from toppling over.

"Not at all, monsieur, not at all," the man said. He caught hold of one of Naveen's hands in one of his own thin ones and peered at the prince's open palm. "Why, if I were a betting man, I'd wager I'm in the presence of visiting royalty," he said. He looked up at the Maldonian prince's astonished face and grinned slyly.

"Achitanza, that's amazing! Gaston! This man has just read my palm!"

The Frenchman had caught up to the prince, glanced from Naveen's eager face to the crown gleaming upon his head to the man in front of him and back again. He rolled his eyes and continued walking, LeFou following in his wake.

"What else can you tell me?" the Maldonian asked.

The man shot a glance at Naveen's eager face and dropped the prince's hand. "Much, much more," he said, still grinning broadly as he pulled out a business card from his coat pocket and handed it to the prince. "And for you – free of charge. If you'll just follow me."

Naveen followed the man down several progressively narrower streets, and finally down an alleyway to a doorway, over which hung a sign reading Doctor Facilier's Voodoo Emporium. He hesitated as the door opened – no, it definitely hadn't opened on its own; faulty hinges, that was all – and then entered, seating himself on one side of the table as Doctor Facilier swooped across the room and dropped himself into the opposite chair. The prince peered around in the semidarkness, straining his eyes to get a better look at the interior of the parlor. A sudden flare of light in front of him momentarily blinded him and captured his attention as the light settled to a weird sort of greenish glow. At the table's center, a candle was lit under a green shade – that explained the greenness of the light. And on the other side of the table, Doctor Facilier was regarding him pensively, the slender forefinger of one hand stroking at one side of his moustache while the fingers of his other hand drummed themselves on top of a deck of cards.

They regarded each other in silence for so long that when the man across from him spoke, Naveen jumped and nearly overturned his chair.

"So," the witchdoctor said. "Prince Naveen. Maldonia, right? Yes, well, my friends on the other side tell me we may be able to help each other out." He picked up the deck of cards and shuffled it, continuing to watch Naveen carefully.

The prince wasn't sure if he was meant to respond, so he kept his silence.

"You see—" Doctor Facilier flipped over a card and laid it on the table, pushing it toward Naveen. It depicted a beggar huddled in a doorway from the fierce winds of winter. "—I'm a little low on cash right now—" Another card went down. A man with a crown leaving a palace, his head bowed. "—but it seems, so are you." A third card: a king being crowned. "And your purpose here in Paris is to be crowned king." He laid down another card. This one depicted a pretty, young woman in a ball gown, dancing. "Problem is, you've got to have yourself a princess to be crowned king."

"Faldi faldonza! Una principessa! Oh, la-la-la-la!" Naveen made a miserable, strangled sort of noise. How could he have forgotten? No, how could he not have known? Damn. He knew there was a reason he should have paid more attention to what his parents had told him as a child.

"Fortunately," the man went on, laying down a fifth card. A pretty blonde girl in an elaborate ball gown, her arm through that of a crowned man. "Doctor Facilier can help make that happen." A sixth card: a wedding.

Naveen looked from the cards to Facilier, who was grinning broadly. "So, you get me a princess, I become king," he said. "I still have no money."

The man grinned still more broadly as he dropped a seventh card to the table. "That's what Daddy La Bouff is for. See, you marry his daughter, and you're set for life off the La Bouff sugar fortune. And in return for securing you your throne and fortune, I want a share. We'll split it right down the middle – 60-40. What do you say?"

The prince hesitated. It was true, he needed a princess to become king. But he was Prince Naveen – he was irresistible. He could easily find a princess on his own. Still, though... the man was very charismatic, and he needed a princess now. "And you can make sure she marries me by the coronation ceremony?" he asked.

"As sure as the sun will shine. Do we have a deal?" Doctor Facilier held out a hand across the table.

Slowly, Naveen nodded, and extended his own arm to shake the man's hand. A moment later, he jerked it back and examined his palm. There was a small cut on the side of his hand, bleeding.

"Sorry," Doctor Facilier said. "Guess I didn't realize my ring was so sharp. Listen, you just go on with the coronation festivities, and everything will fall into place. You just trust Doctor Facilier to take care of you. D'accord?"

Naveen nodded again and hesitated a moment before standing. He wasn't sure if he should thank the man or not, so he simply turned and left the building, glad to finally emerge back into the cool night air of Paris. The experience had been a little unreal, and he was wondering if he had been right to accept Doctor Facilier's proposal – not that he had been given much of a choice, when he really thought about it. But then, thinking wasn't something Naveen tried to do too often. As far as he was concerned, it was best to just keep dancing through life without worrying about anything too serious.

And so, quite turned around and lost, the Maldonian prince danced his way down the streets of Paris, following the distant sound of a tambourine, hoping to come across some familiar landmarks and get set back on his merry way to the coronation ball. As he rounded a corner, he abruptly came face-to-face with the tambourine player, startling her so much that she stepped backward and overturned a hat full of coins lying on the ground beside her.

She shot him a glowering look as she began scooping the gold coins back into the hat. She opened her mouth to say something to him, saw the glinting crown upon his head, and seemed to think better of it, settling for swearing under her breath in French.

"Mi dispiace, signiorina," he said absently, dropping a few coins from his own pocket into the hat. He ignored the fresh glare she threw his way, and looked around for any trace of Gaston or LeFou. They were nowhere to be seen; they were already at the ball, no doubt, and Gaston probably had his Belle on his arm and they were whirling away to a mad polka or waltz. Probably a waltz, Naveen decided; Gaston had never been a fan of the polka. But yes, he was sure they'd be dancing away, not a care in the world, not thinking of poor Prince Naveen lost alone on the streets of Paris….

Alone. He'd be showing up at the ball alone. That would never do. Really, he had never had a date to take with him, per se – he had planned on having his choice of princess once he arrived – but he had been planning on arriving with Gaston: two bachelors looking for a fun time, good wine, and pretty girls. Naveen's eyes slid back to the tambourine player, still picking up stray coins as she continued muttering away to the goat beside her, and an idea began to form in his mind. She was pretty, for a street performer; no one would have to know he had found her on the street – it was, after all, a costume ball; she could simply have chosen to dress as a gypsy girl. He knelt and began helping her collect her earnings. He took a deep whiff; she didn't smell too badly. He watched her hands for a moment; hardly any dirt under her fingernails. He glanced at her face; pretty, but for the scowl, and free from any sort of deformations or noticeable blemishes. Her hair was a little matted and oily – but who would look that closely?

He cleared his throat. "Do you dance here often?"

"Only on Thursdays," she said shortly, picking up the hat and straightening, tucking it under her arm. She tucked her dark hair behind her ear with her free hand and pressed her lips together.

"But today is sabato, no?"

She rolled her eyes and made to pass by him. "Look, if you don't mind—"

"Wait, wait, wait—!" Naveen reached out and caught her by the elbow as she brushed past him. He released her arm as she stopped walking and faced him. She put her hands on her hips and raised her eyebrows; obviously, Naveen hadn't made a good impression. "Ascolti," he said, "there is a party tonight – a big party, with lots of important people. You come with me, I get you in, you dance there, and you make money – more money than dancing on a street corner, no?"

She narrowed her eyes and cocked her head sideways, looking at him suspiciously. "What's the catch?"

"The catch? There is no catch. Maybe – okay, so it is a party for me, and it would be bad form to show up alone. So you will come, yes?" He flashed her a winning smile and offered her his arm. "It cannot be worse than dancing on the street."

The gypsy girl continued to regard him for a moment, and then looked down at the goat. "Well, Djali? What do you think?"

The Maldonian prince's smile faltered for a moment, but he quickly regained his composure, plastering it back into place. She was talking to a goat? Maybe picking up a date off the street hadn't been such a good idea after all – but on the bright side, he only had to put up with her until they were inside; he only had to be seen arriving with her. After that, she could go jump off a bridge, for all he cared. He glanced down at the goat, which gave the girl what he supposed passed as a sort of goatish shrug. Wait – what?

"Why not? It could be fun," the girl said, shrugging as she dumped the coins from the hat into a small coin purse. She tied the pouch onto the collar around the goat's neck. "You go home, now, Djali," she said, straightening and taking Naveen's arm. She ignored goat as it made a goatish expression of distaste, clearly unhappy about being told to leave.

The goat sauntered off all the same, and its look of goatish displeasure that it shot the girl and the prince over its shoulder as it left did not escape Naveen's notice. He wasn't entirely sure that he was altogether comfortable with being glared at by farm animals, but decided not to think too much of it. The more pressing matter was that he still hadn't the faintest idea of where he was or where he was going. "This is my first time in Paris," he said. "Do you know where the Hôtel de Sully is?"

She nodded, and then abruptly jerked him to the right, turning down a narrow side street. Fleetingly, he had the notion that perhaps she was taking him down some alley where her gypsy friends would be waiting to rob him blind and leave him bleeding in the crisp night air. If that were the case, the joke would be on them; he wasn't married to Charlotte La Bouff yet, after all. His more rational side calmed him; of course he wasn't going to be attacked in some dark alley – she was a native of Paris, after all, and probably knew a million and one shortcuts to anywhere and everywhere he could possibly want to go. She may have been crazy and may have spoken to goats, but Naveen was sure the gypsy girl was anything but a murderer. He hoped so, at any rate.

After traveling down a series of side streets and under several bridges, they emerged into a fairly open courtyard in front of a brightly lit building. Faint music drifted across the yard toward them. The silhouettes of women in large hoop skirts were making their way across the lawn on the arms of their suitors, pausing in the light of the open door to have their invitations verified by the doorman. There was no doubt that this was the right place.

Maybe tonight would shape up to be a good one after all.