I can imagine Duck Dodgers and Duck Avenger having the craziest adventures in the universe and beyond.
But nothing stops them from watching the movie of their comic book idol, Tremendous Terence. Sure, it would be great if it weren't for the fact that Uno is giving away so many spoilers before entering the theater.
This takes place in my headcanon 87/comic universe. No beta gotta get out this stuff fast EVERY DAY I GOTTA WRITE *cries* When posted later on AO3 will be beta-ed and have better descs I swear.
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It wasn’t the first time Gladstone had been in Magica’s old family home. She had taken him here more times than he could count on his fingers now. He wondered why she just didn’t live here and not the shack by that volcano. Instead, she seemed to treat this place like a safe house whenever they were in trouble with another magical being.
From the living room Gladstone could hear Magica and Poe upstairs arguing about what to do next with the current problem. From what Gladstone had gathered, another witch had been trying to get his Uncle’s dime. So technically the sibling duo was working on a plan to protect the dime from this third party. They were also trying to figure out who the third party was.
Gladstone wasn’t too worried about it. He had been dragged into the whole situation because he may have seen the would-be thief. Though the information he had wasn’t much help to the De Spells, they still made him tag along.
He was able to get the ancient TV working in the living room. The machine had been covered in a thick layer of dust. It was built with a wooden box around it and had a bulbous glass screen. Gladstone figured it had never been used in ages because dust was on the knobs as well. With just a few turns though it had turned on for him. The black and white screen showed modern news on it. The news was in italian though, so it wasn’t something he understood. It didn’t hold his attention long.
The goose realized that every time he was here, Magica never said he couldn’t wander around. She never said there wasn’t anywhere he couldn’t go in the house. When he got up off the couch he did a big stretch before walking out to the entryway of the home. Gladstone made a mental map of the house in his head. The estate wasn’t huge, but he knew he had only seen half of the upstairs. He had also never seen the kitchen.
He didn’t expect there to be any food in the kitchen. Gladstone had already assumed Magica did not stay here for long periods of time. From what he had seen of the house, some rooms were kept up. Then there were a majority of rooms that have covers over the furniture with layers of dust. The only consistent thing through the house was the dark wood trim every room had.
Gladstone had three doors in the entryway to choose from. He didn’t want to go upstairs since the two siblings were still half arguing over the dime thief situation. There was a doorway to the right, one to the left, and one that was in the middle, tucked in the side of the large staircase going up. The goose went to the left, most logical for a kitchen to be.
He was right, it was a kitchen. However, it was clearly not in use. There was an empty gap in the cabinets where a fridge would normally be plugged in. It also looked like it used to have a center island cabinet that had been torn out. An outline was left on the off white stone tile where it used to be. All the surfaces were covered in dust except for the sink. The sink looked like it had been used more recently, maybe for a quick hand wash.
Out of curiosity, Gladstone still went over to the large double doors in the abandoned kitchen. He assumed they were doors to a pantry. Swinging the doors open, he found he was correct. The dark wood shelves were bare though. About to close the doors, Gladstone noticed some books in the far left corner shelf.
He made a face at the dust that rose when he picked one up. It did not stop him though. What he found was just some very old cook books. The goose wondered if he was expecting spell books instead. It was a kitchen after all. As he looked through the covers of the books, there was disappointment that none of them had funny pun titles.
The last book in the pile had no title. It was a different darker leather bound than the others as well. Gladstone shrugged and opened to find it was not a cookbook at all. Instead, it was a photo album. The page he opened to no one looked familiar. It was more to the front of the book and the photos were old matte brown and white. He flipped through more to the back where the photos were still not colored, but a black and white glossy finish.
Gladstone recognized a young Magica in the photos. He also assumed the other duckling of the same age was Poe in the pictures as well. It had been mentioned in passing that the two were twins. There was also two teenagers in some pictures with the young Magica and Poe. The older girl Gladstone knew he had seen in other pictures in the house before. Magica had told him it was her older sister that unfortunately was killed in an altercation with witch hunters.
With the older boy in the pictures, Gladstone had never seen anything around the house before. He kept flipping through the pages closer to the back of the photo album. The older sister and the older boy looked to be around the same age. Gladstone thought to himself that maybe they were twins like the two De Spells he always had to deal with now? The older siblings looked like they had black feathers around their eyes with a thin line of black going from the far corners of their eyes down the side of their face.
There was a point where the older boy wasn’t in any of the pictures. The very last picture in the book was the older sister looking fully adult with Magica and Poe, probably around early teens. The picture was in color. After that there were no more photos but plenty of blank pages to fill. No more photos were added after that.
“Looking for a snack?” Poe’s voice interrupted the goose before he could have any deep thoughts. Gladstone was surprised he didn’t hear the raven’s wings before hearing his voice
“Huh? Oh! No! I was just- looking around. I found this,” Gladstone lifted up the open book in his hands. The goose had no shame to hide that he was technically snooping around. And after all, it was Poe’s family album. He wasn’t going to keep it from the raven.
Poe landed on Gladstone’s shoulder before the goose turned to walk out of the pantry. Gladstone was used to the raven sitting on his shoulder, especially when his sister wasn’t around to perch on instead. He flipped the pages on the photo album a few pages back for the raven to see.
“I found this with the cook books. That’s your older sister right? Magica mentioned her before. Nestra?” Gladstone didn’t ask brashly. He had been told their sister had died, but he asked in a delicate tone. He was curious about their family. In the back of his goose brain he also thought the photos would bring back good memories.
Luckily, Gladstone was right, and Poe’s raven head perked up at the images, “Oh yes! That's right! I didn’t even know this was here! In with the cookbooks! That’s strange. Well, I guess out of all of us she cooked the most. Maybe she left it here.”
The green clad flipped through a few more pages slowly so Poe could see the pictures. Gladstone’s curiosity got the best of him and he had to ask, “So who’s the other kid in the pictures?”
“Oh, that’s Castor,” Poe didn’t seem to have any problems spilling the dirt. It wasn’t a touchy subject for him, it seemed, “We kinda had a falling out with him a long time ago.”
“I noticed there weren't any pictures of him around the house too,” Gladstone stated.
“Magica took them all down when we started coming here more often. She holds more of a grudge against him,” Poe gave a shrug with his wings, “I’m still mad at him but at the same time, it was all stuff out of his control.”
“Do you want to elaborate on that?” Gladstone tried to pry.
“I don’t know how much my sister wants you to know,” Poe replied.
“Alright, alright, I get it. I don’t want to cause any trouble between you two. You seem to have enough already,” the goose added. Poe made an ‘ugh’ noise in reply.
“She’s busy calling up witches she thinks may be encroaching on her territory. One of the calls would be an ex-girlfriend of mine so I wasn't too thrilled,” the raven explained before preening one of his wing feathers.
“You know, sometimes my luck helps me stumble upon clues like this. Could there be a possibility it’s your older brother that is trying to steal the dime?” the goose speculated.
“Oh no, Castor isn’t interested in magic in general. He’s off being a lawyer somewhere. Last I heard he’s never lost a case either. He was always really smart,” Poe stated.
“He got named Castor and then couldn’t do magic?” Gladstone asked before putting the photo album down open on the nearest kitchen counters. He flipped back to the beginning so Poe could look over his shoulder at the much older pictures.
“He can do magic, he just chose not to. Ironic since I would LOVE to do it but I can’t,” Poe muttered as his eyes still followed the old photo album, “You know, after my sister is done making her calls, you should show this to her too. I don’t think it would make her mad, she’d like to see pictures of Nestra and our parents too. She might be happy that you found it.”
Gladstone hadn’t even registered the pictures of the twin’s parents. In that moment it reminded him that Poe and Magica were orphans as kids, like him too, “Alright- well let me know when she is in a better mood.”
Right then as if on cue Magica could be heard yelling from upstairs for her brother, “POE! I NEED YOU TO HELP ME FIND MY YEARBOOK. MAYBE ONE OF THEM IS THE CULPRIT!”
“Aheh- welp, back to the mines,” Poe said with a half laugh before taking off from Gladstone’s shoulder and out of the kitchen, “talk to you later!”
“Sure,” Gladstone replied softly, the ‘orphan’ thought still lingered on his mind. He shook his head hard and closed the photo album. He walked out of the kitchen to see Poe already gone. The goose held the album under his arm.
He came back out to the entryway. He eyed the door to the right to be his next place to explore. Or, he could hunker down back in the living room and go through the photo album more slowly. At that moment he noticed the door under the stairs was open. It had not been open before. He could still hear the siblings upstairs talking to each other, so they weren’t in whatever room that door led to.
Gladstone didn’t think much of it.Though the setting of the house others may consider spooky, he had grown quite comfortable with it. If anything, it was the old wood of the house settling that made boards creak and doors open. The other option he thought to himself was that his luck may be leading to that yearbook Magica was looking for.
He was sure that was it. The goose headed to the open door to find it had stairs going down. With blind confidence he headed down the stairs in hopes to impress the twins with his book finding luck.
Duckvember Day 25: Animated Duck
A young Della Duck, looking at the stars before falling asleep. But the stars call her attention more than the tiredness of her body.
I'm sorry it's so simple, but I've done another drawing that I didn't like and I started from scratch with this one.
Little B.O.Y.D. has had some minor glitches in his system. But kind and sweet Lyla Lay has decided to help him, after all she is a very advanced android.
But nothing is free in this life. So in exchange for helping him, she hopes that the sweet boy will actually give her the location of the famous hero: Duck Avenger (Paperinik).
I need to be able to read more of the Ducks' comics, they have some amazing universes. Especially the super hero version of Donald.
