Submission (#819) Approved

A new job came for Daddy only days after he returned home. Rin, who’d been on their best behaviour in hopes of family adventures and treats, sighed from their hiding place. In the kitchen, Mummy and Daddy read over the note Daddy’s workplace had sent him.

Mummy couldn’t leave and make it a family trip since she was partway through a job herself.

“It’s only to Kyendi,” Daddy said. “That’s fairly safe. Maybe one of the kids…”

“Take Rin!” Rin yelled, bursting from around the corner.

A special trip with just Rin and Daddy! This was gonna be so awesome! (Daddy was such a pushover. As easy as Miss Whimsy, but with less rules and twice as desperate to have Rin love him.)

Daddy was, in fact, such a pushover that by the time they’d made their way through Bellmoril and across several of the Palu’au Islands, Rin had received a huge number of treats… and Daddy was close to broke.

As Rin turned large, watery eyes on Daddy, he patted their head. Radiating confidence, he said, “Don’t worry. I know how to fix this.” A few minutes later, he added, “Maybe… don’t tell your mother about this, though?”

That caught Rin’s attention. What exciting thing were they about to do that Mummy shouldn’t hear about?

“It’s not bad,” Daddy promised as they boarded a ferry in order to cross a lake to a dark island that sat in the middle. “We wouldn’t get in trouble. We just shouldn’t worry your mother for nothing.”

Rin nodded as the sky turned to night above them — despite the fact that it was still daytime. Rin often used that form of logic themselves. There were lots of things that adults simply didn’t need to know.

Peering over the side of the boat, Rin realised that the sparkles in the lake weren’t just reflections of the stars. The blue sparkles were actually in the lake! Lying down, Rin streeeeeeetched a paw… and was promptly snapped up by the scruff. Dangling and squirming, Rin whined, “Daddyyyyyy…!” but was moved away from the edge of the ferry.

“I want one,” Rin grumped, but was only allowed back near the side with strands of Daddy’s tail wrapped around their body like a harness. <i>Humiliating.</i>

“They need to stay in the water to live. Maybe if you’re lucky they’ll sell some in jars in the city,” Daddy tried to console Rin.

Rin hmphed and looked away, nose in the air.

Daddy laughed awkwardly. Despite his best efforts over the next several minutes, Rin continued to ignore him. Keep it up long enough and Daddy would be desperate to win his kittom’s love back, Rin gave a silent evil laugh in their head.

As the ferry landed, the harness finally retreated. Rin followed the stream of passengers off, staring around with wide eyes. They stepped onto a large paved road, lined with faerielights and glowing mushrooms as tall as Daddy’s tail was long. Bounding up to one, Rin heard Daddy call, “Don’t eat those!”

Who wanted to eat mushrooms, ick? Rin made a face. Rin just wanted to know if the glow would rub off. The mushroom was dark on top, but the stem and underside were lit yellow and orange. Raising a paw, Rin saw it looked orange in the glow. But no matter how they pushed, poked or rubbed at the mushroom, the glow wouldn’t transfer. Boo.

Daddy laughed as Rin turned eagerly to the faerielights instead. Strung up high above the reach of any elnin, let alone a kittom, Rin squinted to try and work out if they were magic or another special plant. Most of all, was it something Rin could steal and use as decoration?

“Don’t get us kicked out before daddy can earn some more money, okay?”

“Is Daddy allowed to do jobs here? Is there even any paths to find in a city?” Rin asked, secretly dubious over how Daddy was planning to earn money.

“Well…”

Rin’s ears perked up. Daddy’s tone sounded like Rin or Rize trying to avoid trouble.

“Not so much ‘earn’ as in a job,” Daddy said. “Silveil is… like a big fair. With lots of games. But instead of winning prizes, you win money.”

Win money!!

Lightning zapped through Rin and they stood to attention. Ears perked, tail out straight, fur raised. “Daddy.” Their tone was super serious. Rin had maybe never been this serious in their life. “How much money? How do you win the money? Where do they keep the money? Why didn’t anyone tell me about this place before???”

Daddy laughed as if Rin were telling jokes.

Rin trotted after him, walking so close beside him that Rin’s side leaned against Daddy’s arm. The trees outside the path gave way to buildings. Rin blinked, stunned by how bright it was even though it was nighttime. The faerielights still ran along the streets, crossing over to drape above the streets as well. The buildings were covered in hanging lamps and bright paper lanterns of many colours.

“But it’s not New Year, Daddy, why are there so many lanterns?”

A few people passing by chuckled. Daddy smiled and said, “Those are just normal lanterns. No pomu crystals. They like the light and the colours here.”

Rin stared around. “No kidding.” It was like the biggest festival they’d ever seen in their life. And it was like this all day, every day? AND it was filled with money?

Best. City. Ever.

As they walked, Daddy pointed out a large building with less lights. It was tall — several floors high with small spires and a central dome tallest of all with a giant pointy bit on top. Curved archways decorated the building even where there weren’t any doors or windows. It was like someone had carved out Miss Whimsy’s lace patterns into stone.

“That’s Goldspring Grande Treasury. A bank,” Daddy said. At Rin’s blank look, he added, “That’s where they keep lots of money.”

Rin immediately turned for the bank, only to be grabbed by the scruff again. Plonked down back in the street, Rin crossed their arms and glared up at Daddy.

“You can only get money from them if you gave them your money to keep safe. And no, they won’t let you just look at it. How many people do you think would say they just wanted to see it and then tried to steal it instead?”

Looking down at the ground, Rin mumbled, “I really do just want to see it. Maybe swim in it.” Live out some dragon dreams on top of a real treasure horde. Not that Rin was about to admit that part out loud.

“Come on, you’ll love the casinos even more. That’s where you win the money!”

Drooping ears perked back up and Rin pushed up to their feet, energy renewed.

The casino buildings were equally impressive. Maybe more impressive, even! They were the brightest buildings in the city, a whole long street of them in a row. Many of them were fashioned to look like famous Eyre locations or icons — a large gold tree, a fiery red volcano, a building with a giant dragon’s skeleton wrapped around it, a multi-tiered pagoda, a palace topped with a glowing purple crystal replication of the Night Gate.

“Not going there,” Daddy said to the last and firmly steered Rin away.

They entered the golden imitation of Yggdrasil.

“Gyaaah,” Rin said, raising a paw in front of their eyes to block the glare. Velvet rugs trailed down the middle of polished wooden floors. Branches ‘burst’ through the walls and ceiling, made from gold rather than wood. Golden leaves gathered in corners of the ceiling — too high up for most patrons to ‘accidentally’ break them off and walk away with an extra souvenir.

A tall Ieldi woman with bright feathers manned the front desk. Daddy walked up to her and then raised onto his hind legs to peer over the shortest section of the counter.

“Do we need to tell her we want to win money?” Rin asked.

“No, we need to book a room so we can sleep here.”

“Wooooow.” Rin imagined all of this gold and white light and glitter in a bedroom. How would you sleep if it was all this bright? On the other hand, maybe Rin could finally sleep on a bed of gold. Iiiiinteresting. “It’s not bedtime, though.”

Daddy laughed and patted Rin’s head. “Yes, but only adults are allowed in the casino. You’ll need to stay in a room.”

“Whaaaaaat? Whyyyyy?” Rin wailed. Daddy hadn’t mentioned this before! Rin wanted to see the games that gave money prizes. Maybe they would have all the money <i>right there</i> where Rin could see it. This wasn’t fair!

“Sorry, little one,” the Ieldi woman said as Daddy handed over a few coins and received a crystal keycard. “Grow up soon and come back to play, alright? We’ll look forward to your visit.”

Rin cried the entire way up to the room. Other patrons slunk to the edges of the halls or fled back into their room to avoid the kittom clinging to their father’s leg, wailing and shedding giant crocodile tears. Daddy alternated between trying to console Rin (useless), apologising profusely to other guests (with mixed responses), and shutting up to give all his effort to getting to their room as quickly as possible.

Once the door clicked shut behind them, Rin shrieked louder and Daddy yelled, “Okay, I have an idea!”

Wiping their eyes, Rin sniffled loudly but otherwise quieted down. They made sure to give Daddy their biggest, saddest, most watery eyes. Daddy looked panicked but Rin couldn’t let up just yet.

“How about we sneak you in? Just to have a look,” Daddy offered. He extended his hair and tail (usually kept short for travel) to their full length. “Everyone’s always saying I could pick up a kittom by mistake in all this and not notice, right? Let’s see if it will work.”

It took a bit of experimentation. With the help of a large mirror, they decided that Daddy’s wild hair and fringe hid a large space. He could then use his tail, swishing it about to make sure no one got too close to him to see two mis-matched eyes peering out of the wild mane.

Daddy’s pomu was fast asleep in his shadow, but Pirin took up a perch on Daddy’s horns, circling around occasionally to distract the eye of any watchers or swoop down to rearrange any hair that shifted in a manner that could give Rin away.

“I love you, Daddy,” Rin mumbled, hugging close to his neck as they left the room.

Daddy’s muscles were a bit tense under Rin. Whispering under his breath, he replied, “I love you, too, now quiet. Sneaking mode.”

Rin was very good at sneaking! Even better now that Rin didn’t need to move, just play dead (but hold tight) and stay silent. Realising their tail kept swishing in excitement, Rin trapped it under one leg.

As Daddy approached the entrance to the game sections of the casino, Rin held their breath. They could hear the swish-swish of Daddy’s magic tail waving back and forth. A bright trilling came from above Rin, not quite drowning out a soft flapping noise. Rin’s heart seemed like the loudest sound of all. But no one else seemed to notice and Daddy trotted in with no reaction beyond a greeting from the staff on watch.

Rin buried a hissing victory laugh in Daddy’s neck, which made him jump.

“Ah!” he said to cover the movement. “I almost forgot to exchange my EC for tokens.”

It seemed Daddy couldn’t play with real money, he had to use special painted fake-coins. Rin stared hard as Daddy took a seat in front of a large spinny wheel with black and red sections. A large kyunru in a humanoid guise spun the wheel, then tossed a white marble into it. The wheel slowed and whoever had guessed the correct colour or number, or both, that the marble stopped on won all the other fake-coins.

When he asked for bets, Rin hissed, “Red,” when it seemed like Daddy was going to place a bet on black.

“Hmm, or maybe red?” Daddy said loudly, as if talking to himself. “Or black could be just as good.”

“Red,” Rin whispered. “I have a good feeling.”

“Hmm, I guess red after all.” Daddy pushed two coins onto the red section. When the marble landed on red and Daddy got a handful of coins back, Rin hugged his neck tighter and chortled quietly.

After a few more turns at the roulette wheel, Daddy took a much larger pile of coins to another table. This one dealt out cards and the aim, Rin determined after a few hands, was to try and get close to certain number but not over it. The dealer played in this one as well, an elnin gijinka in a fancy outfit with a tight waistjacket.

After being dealt some cards at the start,Daddy’s only options were to take a new card or ‘hold’ and only use the cards he already had.

“New card,” Rin hissed as it came close to Daddy’s turn.

“Ahhhh,” Daddy made a hesitant noise, but was less able to convincingly ‘talk to himself’ when he was playing against other people rather than playing a game of chance.

Rin knew why he was hesitating. He was in the high end of the middle range — a high card could push him over. But without another low or middle card, he wasn’t certain to win, either. Rin had been monitoring the cards already out and not yet reshuffled and judged things were mostly in Daddy’s favour.

“Okay, hit me,” Daddy said.

Rin still didn’t know why all these people were asking to be hit and no one was hitting them! Missing opportunities!

Daddy got another card. He snuck a look too quick for Rin to see, but when they all had to turn over their cards, Daddy won. From that point on, Rin helped out more often and Daddy listened. Their pile of fake-coins increased to the point a staff member swapped many of them out for less coins of a different colour.

“You’re very good at this,” one of the other players told Daddy, words slurred like they were half asleep.

Daddy laughed awkwardly, partly at the compliment and partly because Rin whispered that they should go sleep if they were that tired.

“Just lucky, just lucky,” Daddy said and rubbed a paw against the back of his head — almost hitting Rin, who ducked and clung tighter. In retaliation, Rin bit at Daddy’s neck.

“Ah!” Daddy yelped. Recovering, he laughed again, “Ahahaha, maybe I should quit while my luck is ahead…”

Rin was a bit disappointed. Their coin pile was decent but could be a lot better. But if they were slipping up to the point Daddy was forgetting not to hit Rin, maybe Daddy was the one who needed to go to bed.

It also turned out that Rin had forgotten about the previous exchanging of coin colours. When Daddy took his pile back to the exchange area, the number of EC he got in return for the fake coins… was many times that number of fake coins. Behind Daddy’s hair, Rin’s eyes were huge and glistening brightly.

“We can have it delivered to your room?” the staff member offered, looking between Daddy and the stacks of coins that had a greater size than the elnin (excluding all his floating hair).

“Please and thank you!” Daddy sighed in relief before making a hasty retreat so that they could beat any staff members back to their room.

Later, as they stared at the gold pile, Daddy coughed and said, “I’ll split it with you 70/30 if you never tell your mother about this.”

Rin looked at the massive pile, working out what 30 percent of it would be. Small. Eyes narrowed, Rin stared Daddy down. “50/50 or no deal.”

“What? That’s entirely—” Daddy trailed off as Rin’s stare intensified.

<i>Who, exactly, do you think is going to be the one in trouble for this?</i> Rin’s expression asked.

Daddy folded. “Okay, 50/50.”

Rin beamed smugly as they began dividing the coins into two piles. Daddy was such a pushover, Rin thought as they sprawled out over their pile of coins, larger than Rin’s own body.

Best family bonding trip ever.