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The Gambler's Den is a city full of casinos where every vice is easy enough to access.
There is only one motto in this land: the house always wins.
Eda is more than eager to test this.
Just an FYI, this story plays a little loose with the established canon. It's pre-season two but also features Raine in it.
If you're cool with that then enjoy!
Eda groaned as she peeled herself away from the sheets, blinking through the blurriness in her vision. The world slowly returned to her one painful colour at a time.
A dull throb pounded away in her skull, making her wince as she tried to get a bearing on her surroundings.
She wasn’t in her own room, wasn’t even close to it.
This place looked far more elegant than the Owl House. It was sprawling and made of marble with expensive furniture littered about. Though the furniture was not exactly in the greatest of shape. It had been shattered and torn to shreds.
And considering the number of grey feathers that littered every surface in the room, she had a pretty good idea of who might’ve been responsible for that.
Just a smidge of an inkling really.
Eda reached up and ran a hand through her hair. She tried her best to pick up on any memories, any fragmented passages that could’ve shed some light on what the hell had happened to her.
When none of them could be summoned upon command, she forced herself to her feet.
As she stood, something clinked upon the ground. She looked down and noticed that it was a round glass bottle with a few droplets of neon orange oozing from it and creating a path of tiny droplets upon the floor.
A clue, if the hundreds of feathers weren’t already enough.
“Stupid elixir,” she grumbled through an impossibly hoarse voice.
Water, she definitely needed water.
She lumbered forwards, unsure of where she was going. Her body seemed to know the way and she really wasn’t in the mood to contradict it. A wise choice as she noticed it led her towards a bathroom on the left side of the room.
As she stepped inside, she looked in the mirror.
She really wished she hadn’t done that.
There was a pattern of orange plastered upon her face, glowing with a runic power. Sure, it was awesome looking but it also wasn’t even remotely discrete.
“What did I do last night?” she grumbled.
She turned on the tap and ducked under the flow of water, drinking from it with greed. The water was nice, cleansing, reminding her of drinking something refreshing after a long night with a little too much apple blood.
Apple Blood.
Those two words made her stomach roll and she nearly gagged upon the flow of water. Thankfully, she restrained herself and didn’t upchuck as she turned off the faucet.
Sadly, the water did very little to piece together what had happened to her.
“Work your way backwards,” Eda murmured to herself. “You obviously changed forms sometime last night, which probably happened after you got this amazing runic tattoo…”
She drifted off and shook her head.
Was that really all she really had to work with here?
Oh, and the apple blood…
She stifled another potent gag.
Those words were making her gag which probably meant she had way too much last night.
She glanced towards the bathroom door and then back towards the mirror. Thankfully, her magic seemed to be in working order as she removed the rune from her face.
It was a shame to see it go but such a bold look would likely get her clocked in a heartbeat.
“Luz?” Eda called, feeling her voice finally return to her. “King!”
No voices responded as she stepped out of the bathroom.
She surveyed the room again, studying it closely. It was eerily quiet for somewhere that had been torn to shreds only a little while ago.
“Maybe they just went out to get breakfast?” Eda chuckled, though she wasn’t buying it. “Yeah, that must be it.”
But where would they even get breakfast? Where even was here?
Eda noticed that there was a massive window at the end of the room. So, she moved towards it, once more letting her body take control and merely observing from the reigns.
It felt strange having so many blank spaces left in her memories. Not that this had never happened before but it was never a great experience not knowing what she’d done over the past twenty-four hours.
Eda’s foot bumped into a pillow and she noticed that there were deep talon marks embedded into it. A shame since her attack had seemed to utterly destroy an emblem or logo that might’ve given away where she was.
“Owlbert?” Eda called.
Nothing.
Eda swallowed a lump in her throat. “This isn’t good. This really isn’t good.”
No Luz, no King, no Owlbert.
“Hooty?” Eda desperately tried. She was really scraping at the bottom of her social connections at this point. “Lilith?”
Nope and nada.
She was actually alone.
All alone.
It’d been ages since she’d been this alone.
“Just keep calm, Eda,” she told herself. “So, what if you have holes in your memory, woke up in a strange palace, and don’t know where your family is? There is probably a totally reasonable explanation for all of this.”
She smiled but it soon slipped as her mind wasn’t buying this sham of a story in the slightest.
How far back was the memory loss?
She tried to rove her grey matter but couldn’t recall anything in the last two days. Her first coherent memories were getting a note back at the Owl House. Even worse, she couldn’t even recall what that note had said. It was just utterly blank according to the gaping chasm within her mind.
Finally, she stumbled over to a window and her eyes widened.
Before her was a realm of tall buildings, each vastly different from the last. There was an old imperial palace, next to a building as colourful as a bird, and one that looked like the floating city of Verenta.
There were hundreds of people on the streets below and a rollercoaster suddenly zipped around one of the many elegantly designed environments.
It was an exotic place but was also deeply memorable, stirring something within Eda.
“Am I…” She shook her head. “When did I get to the Gambler’s Den?”
Two Day Prior
“We’ve got mail!” a voice beaconed.
Eda watched as Hooty burst into the living space, snaking his way towards her. There was no mail within his mouth which gave her a pretty clear idea where…
The accursed beast started to wretch violently, gagging over and over until a spew of letters ejected violently out of his mouth. Thankfully, a quick cantrip managed to curtail them into a neat and mostly mucus free pile.
Eda forced a smile. “Thank you.”
Hooty stayed there, blinking with his beady little eyes.
“Is there… anything else?” Eda asked.
Hooty shook his head. “Nope!”
Eda continued to hold her smile as she picked up the pile of letters and drew away from the living room and those beady little eyes.
“Bill.”
“Bill.”
“Court Summon.”
“Bill.”
“Scam.”
Each word ended with a flick of her wrist and the offending article being turned into magical ash. A second motion of her wrist then cast a hex upon whoever sent them to her. It really was an efficient way of sorting through her mail and ensuring that the junk always remained minimal.
Eda cocked a brow as she picked up a red rimmed envelope. “Love letter from…”
She then turned it over and sneered as she cast it into the ether as well. Though the hex on this one was especially potent.
Finally, there was the thickest piece of mail of them all. It didn’t say anything about ‘past due’ nor bore an imperial seal. It was just an unnervingly normal envelope except for the lack of return address on the top.
Eda drew a nail under the fold and opened it. Inside was a plain letter and three golden tickets.
“This smells like a trap,” she grumbled to herself before unfolding the letter.
Hey,
I’d love to see you again.
I’m putting together a show in the Gambler’s Den if you’d like to come.
-Raine
A simple letter, brief and to the point. Yet, those seventeen words bore an equal number of complex emotions.
“Miss me?” Eda asked, offering a dopey smile. Though it promptly fell. “Well, I don’t miss you.”
She nearly believed herself.
Nearly.
She worked her jaw and almost sent the letter into the ether with all of the others. One little snap and she could pretend that this never happened. One little snap and they could return to enjoying their separate little lives.
One little snap.
A little snap that she didn’t make.
A little snap that she couldn’t bring herself to make.
Instead, she placed the letter upon the kitchen table and moved towards the nearest mirror. She looked into it and flashed herself a snag-toothed smile.
“Wonder if Raine would mind that I have grey hair nowadays,” Eda whispered.
She shook her head and snorted.
“You could be bald and that nerd wouldn’t care,” Eda replied. “They were always far too good for some like you.” She then sneered at her reflection. “No, you’re far too good for them, you silly little witch.”
Disdain, anger, and self-loathing, such a strange cocktail of emotions for the morning mail to bring about.
Eda huffed and made her way towards the fridge, leaving the letter unattended. She reached inside and grabbed a box of apple blood, stabbing a straw through the top of it. As she sipped from the strong beverage, a little of her worries started to bleed away.
“Afraid of an old flame,” Eda whispered to herself.
She snorted.
A little.
And that was the worst part.
Eda sighed before forcing a smile and cupping a hand around the side of her mouth.
“Luz! King!” she called.
The patter of many feet bounded down the stairs and a moment later the two of them were before her.
“What’s up?” Luz asked.
She looked excited. Though didn’t she always?
King grinned. “She’s having a mood.”
“I am not having a mood,” Eda retorted, glaring at him.
He really did know her too well, didn’t he?
“Oh yeah?” King smirked. “Then why are you having apple blood at this hour?”
“Because it’s my day off. Can’t a girl do a little day drinking,” she replied with a shake of her head. “Anyways I was wondering if you two would like to take a trip down to the Pelvic Valley. I just got invited to this thing in the Gambler’s Den.”
King’s eyes sparkled. “We haven’t been there in years?”
“Gambler’s Den?” Luz asked.
Eda nodded. “It’s another town on the isles. It was built by a bunch of unreputable folk who were looking to get away from the emperor’s influence. So, it houses all of those petty little sins that piss him off.”
“Well maybe in the old days.” King snorted. “Now they mostly just have a bunch of casinos, theatres, shopping malls, and restaurants. It’s still really cool to go to though!”
“Sounds like Las Vegas,” Luz said, though her smile still grew. “But I’d love to see more of the isles!”
“That’s the spirit,” Eda said.
King hummed. “Aren’t hotels kind of expensive?”
Eda made her way over to the table. “Let me worry about accommodations, King. I can promise you that we’ll be lounging in first class the entire time.”
“First class?” King’s eyes sparkled. “Does that mean I can order the service staff around?”
“Go wild,” Eda said, winking at him.
King looked at Luz. “I’m going to take you to all the cool restaurants and all the best shows. There’s this one place that will deep fry literally anything you ask for.”
“Amazing,” Luz said. “Can we deep fry ice cream?”
“I don’t see why not!” King beamed.
Eda swore that she’d never seen eyes wider than Luz’s in her entire life.
She returned to the letter and looked at the tickets, whistling when she realized that Raine was getting them a penthouse suite on the strip itself.
Raine, you really know how to spoil a witch.
Visit my website to see where else to find my work, join my Discord, or support me on Patreon!
There is only one motto in this land: the house always wins.
Eda is more than eager to test this.
Just an FYI, this story plays a little loose with the established canon. It's pre-season two but also features Raine in it.
If you're cool with that then enjoy!
Eda groaned as she peeled herself away from the sheets, blinking through the blurriness in her vision. The world slowly returned to her one painful colour at a time.
A dull throb pounded away in her skull, making her wince as she tried to get a bearing on her surroundings.
She wasn’t in her own room, wasn’t even close to it.
This place looked far more elegant than the Owl House. It was sprawling and made of marble with expensive furniture littered about. Though the furniture was not exactly in the greatest of shape. It had been shattered and torn to shreds.
And considering the number of grey feathers that littered every surface in the room, she had a pretty good idea of who might’ve been responsible for that.
Just a smidge of an inkling really.
Eda reached up and ran a hand through her hair. She tried her best to pick up on any memories, any fragmented passages that could’ve shed some light on what the hell had happened to her.
When none of them could be summoned upon command, she forced herself to her feet.
As she stood, something clinked upon the ground. She looked down and noticed that it was a round glass bottle with a few droplets of neon orange oozing from it and creating a path of tiny droplets upon the floor.
A clue, if the hundreds of feathers weren’t already enough.
“Stupid elixir,” she grumbled through an impossibly hoarse voice.
Water, she definitely needed water.
She lumbered forwards, unsure of where she was going. Her body seemed to know the way and she really wasn’t in the mood to contradict it. A wise choice as she noticed it led her towards a bathroom on the left side of the room.
As she stepped inside, she looked in the mirror.
She really wished she hadn’t done that.
There was a pattern of orange plastered upon her face, glowing with a runic power. Sure, it was awesome looking but it also wasn’t even remotely discrete.
“What did I do last night?” she grumbled.
She turned on the tap and ducked under the flow of water, drinking from it with greed. The water was nice, cleansing, reminding her of drinking something refreshing after a long night with a little too much apple blood.
Apple Blood.
Those two words made her stomach roll and she nearly gagged upon the flow of water. Thankfully, she restrained herself and didn’t upchuck as she turned off the faucet.
Sadly, the water did very little to piece together what had happened to her.
“Work your way backwards,” Eda murmured to herself. “You obviously changed forms sometime last night, which probably happened after you got this amazing runic tattoo…”
She drifted off and shook her head.
Was that really all she really had to work with here?
Oh, and the apple blood…
She stifled another potent gag.
Those words were making her gag which probably meant she had way too much last night.
She glanced towards the bathroom door and then back towards the mirror. Thankfully, her magic seemed to be in working order as she removed the rune from her face.
It was a shame to see it go but such a bold look would likely get her clocked in a heartbeat.
“Luz?” Eda called, feeling her voice finally return to her. “King!”
No voices responded as she stepped out of the bathroom.
She surveyed the room again, studying it closely. It was eerily quiet for somewhere that had been torn to shreds only a little while ago.
“Maybe they just went out to get breakfast?” Eda chuckled, though she wasn’t buying it. “Yeah, that must be it.”
But where would they even get breakfast? Where even was here?
Eda noticed that there was a massive window at the end of the room. So, she moved towards it, once more letting her body take control and merely observing from the reigns.
It felt strange having so many blank spaces left in her memories. Not that this had never happened before but it was never a great experience not knowing what she’d done over the past twenty-four hours.
Eda’s foot bumped into a pillow and she noticed that there were deep talon marks embedded into it. A shame since her attack had seemed to utterly destroy an emblem or logo that might’ve given away where she was.
“Owlbert?” Eda called.
Nothing.
Eda swallowed a lump in her throat. “This isn’t good. This really isn’t good.”
No Luz, no King, no Owlbert.
“Hooty?” Eda desperately tried. She was really scraping at the bottom of her social connections at this point. “Lilith?”
Nope and nada.
She was actually alone.
All alone.
It’d been ages since she’d been this alone.
“Just keep calm, Eda,” she told herself. “So, what if you have holes in your memory, woke up in a strange palace, and don’t know where your family is? There is probably a totally reasonable explanation for all of this.”
She smiled but it soon slipped as her mind wasn’t buying this sham of a story in the slightest.
How far back was the memory loss?
She tried to rove her grey matter but couldn’t recall anything in the last two days. Her first coherent memories were getting a note back at the Owl House. Even worse, she couldn’t even recall what that note had said. It was just utterly blank according to the gaping chasm within her mind.
Finally, she stumbled over to a window and her eyes widened.
Before her was a realm of tall buildings, each vastly different from the last. There was an old imperial palace, next to a building as colourful as a bird, and one that looked like the floating city of Verenta.
There were hundreds of people on the streets below and a rollercoaster suddenly zipped around one of the many elegantly designed environments.
It was an exotic place but was also deeply memorable, stirring something within Eda.
“Am I…” She shook her head. “When did I get to the Gambler’s Den?”
Two Day Prior
“We’ve got mail!” a voice beaconed.
Eda watched as Hooty burst into the living space, snaking his way towards her. There was no mail within his mouth which gave her a pretty clear idea where…
The accursed beast started to wretch violently, gagging over and over until a spew of letters ejected violently out of his mouth. Thankfully, a quick cantrip managed to curtail them into a neat and mostly mucus free pile.
Eda forced a smile. “Thank you.”
Hooty stayed there, blinking with his beady little eyes.
“Is there… anything else?” Eda asked.
Hooty shook his head. “Nope!”
Eda continued to hold her smile as she picked up the pile of letters and drew away from the living room and those beady little eyes.
“Bill.”
“Bill.”
“Court Summon.”
“Bill.”
“Scam.”
Each word ended with a flick of her wrist and the offending article being turned into magical ash. A second motion of her wrist then cast a hex upon whoever sent them to her. It really was an efficient way of sorting through her mail and ensuring that the junk always remained minimal.
Eda cocked a brow as she picked up a red rimmed envelope. “Love letter from…”
She then turned it over and sneered as she cast it into the ether as well. Though the hex on this one was especially potent.
Finally, there was the thickest piece of mail of them all. It didn’t say anything about ‘past due’ nor bore an imperial seal. It was just an unnervingly normal envelope except for the lack of return address on the top.
Eda drew a nail under the fold and opened it. Inside was a plain letter and three golden tickets.
“This smells like a trap,” she grumbled to herself before unfolding the letter.
Hey,
I’d love to see you again.
I’m putting together a show in the Gambler’s Den if you’d like to come.
-Raine
A simple letter, brief and to the point. Yet, those seventeen words bore an equal number of complex emotions.
“Miss me?” Eda asked, offering a dopey smile. Though it promptly fell. “Well, I don’t miss you.”
She nearly believed herself.
Nearly.
She worked her jaw and almost sent the letter into the ether with all of the others. One little snap and she could pretend that this never happened. One little snap and they could return to enjoying their separate little lives.
One little snap.
A little snap that she didn’t make.
A little snap that she couldn’t bring herself to make.
Instead, she placed the letter upon the kitchen table and moved towards the nearest mirror. She looked into it and flashed herself a snag-toothed smile.
“Wonder if Raine would mind that I have grey hair nowadays,” Eda whispered.
She shook her head and snorted.
“You could be bald and that nerd wouldn’t care,” Eda replied. “They were always far too good for some like you.” She then sneered at her reflection. “No, you’re far too good for them, you silly little witch.”
Disdain, anger, and self-loathing, such a strange cocktail of emotions for the morning mail to bring about.
Eda huffed and made her way towards the fridge, leaving the letter unattended. She reached inside and grabbed a box of apple blood, stabbing a straw through the top of it. As she sipped from the strong beverage, a little of her worries started to bleed away.
“Afraid of an old flame,” Eda whispered to herself.
She snorted.
A little.
And that was the worst part.
Eda sighed before forcing a smile and cupping a hand around the side of her mouth.
“Luz! King!” she called.
The patter of many feet bounded down the stairs and a moment later the two of them were before her.
“What’s up?” Luz asked.
She looked excited. Though didn’t she always?
King grinned. “She’s having a mood.”
“I am not having a mood,” Eda retorted, glaring at him.
He really did know her too well, didn’t he?
“Oh yeah?” King smirked. “Then why are you having apple blood at this hour?”
“Because it’s my day off. Can’t a girl do a little day drinking,” she replied with a shake of her head. “Anyways I was wondering if you two would like to take a trip down to the Pelvic Valley. I just got invited to this thing in the Gambler’s Den.”
King’s eyes sparkled. “We haven’t been there in years?”
“Gambler’s Den?” Luz asked.
Eda nodded. “It’s another town on the isles. It was built by a bunch of unreputable folk who were looking to get away from the emperor’s influence. So, it houses all of those petty little sins that piss him off.”
“Well maybe in the old days.” King snorted. “Now they mostly just have a bunch of casinos, theatres, shopping malls, and restaurants. It’s still really cool to go to though!”
“Sounds like Las Vegas,” Luz said, though her smile still grew. “But I’d love to see more of the isles!”
“That’s the spirit,” Eda said.
King hummed. “Aren’t hotels kind of expensive?”
Eda made her way over to the table. “Let me worry about accommodations, King. I can promise you that we’ll be lounging in first class the entire time.”
“First class?” King’s eyes sparkled. “Does that mean I can order the service staff around?”
“Go wild,” Eda said, winking at him.
King looked at Luz. “I’m going to take you to all the cool restaurants and all the best shows. There’s this one place that will deep fry literally anything you ask for.”
“Amazing,” Luz said. “Can we deep fry ice cream?”
“I don’t see why not!” King beamed.
Eda swore that she’d never seen eyes wider than Luz’s in her entire life.
She returned to the letter and looked at the tickets, whistling when she realized that Raine was getting them a penthouse suite on the strip itself.
Raine, you really know how to spoil a witch.
Visit my website to see where else to find my work, join my Discord, or support me on Patreon!
Category Story / All
Species Unspecified / Any
Size 120 x 120px
File Size 12.6 kB
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