Vitae Memorandum

04-Fiscal Negligence

Sunlight split the dawn of a brand new day. It was the beginning of another days work at the Citadel Inn.

Lywn had been, as expected, awake for a while now. Tenets would be expecting breakfast soon, after all. She had a responsibility to her customers! Her family had high expectations of her. It was their family business after all, keeping the Citadel Inn going. Her father owned everything, as his father did before him. The family business had been going strong ever since the Magus Citadel was first created, so long ago. As such, even being a merchant family, their family was incredibly rich and well regarded, a very high class merchant family indeed. And since it was the source of the family's wealth, the whole family pitched into it. Her elder brother would be the next one to take over the family business, and being an established adult already gave him a management role in the business. Her boss in fact was the selfsame brother. Her younger sister also worked here, but being the young treasure of the family left the same sister with few responsibilities. Typically, such a sister could be found relaxing lazily at the reception counter, waiting to greet the next customer. Being held in such high regards, her position was considered yet another reason for good days of business.

Not everything was smooth for the Qtehlatys family, especially for Lywn. The reason she was given such heavy workloads had little to do with being the middle child, even if that might not have helped. What haunted her was that she was adopted, she wasn't a true member of her own family. Everyone knew this, and everyone treated her like this. This wasn't even the worst of it. While she had kept it secret her life, as she was ever told, her family was still then the only ones to be familiar with the most awful secret she held. She was a half-elf.

The prejudice against a half-elf in Celese is more than just bad. Her parents were a human father and a half-elf mother. Both of them were killed when she was very little, her mother because her presence offended someone, and then her father died because he was defending a half-elf. In a way, that means she's only a quarter.. elf.. but that didn't make it much better. It only made it easier to hide. Her ears would only barely give her away if you got a clear look at it for more than an instant, they are only barely 'mis-shapened', themselves having only the faint edges kin to elves but somehow being very rounded. Elves also tended to have a much lower stamina than humans due to their physique, but she did well enough that you couldn't tell. Her sight was only slightly better than what would be typical of a human, and completely paled compared to an elf, but this distinction was so slight she didn't even need to hide it. Some people just see a bit better, it happens. She was lucky how much she got from her father, probably the only reason she was still alive within such an important business. Though, she did learn that the Arch-Magus himself had a few things to do with the adoption when it occurred, though she never understood why he bothered. It didn't really matter, anyway.

What mattered right now was customers. She didn't exactly have an easy job, in fact she was kinda the default for the worst of jobs. Calling her a maid would be putting it nicely, calling her a janitor would be an understatement. She was thankful that she had finally finished hand-washing the clothes of that one gentleman who had found himself too inebriated last night.. and had... inebriated all over his clothes. She suspected he would be waking up rather grumpy, so getting his stuff promptly in order was exceptionally important. It didn't stop anything though.

"The service here sucks, I thought you guys were supposed to take care of my stuff last night, this shirt still has a wrinkle. It's also blue for some reason." The customer was going relentlessly on the subject with her brother when she arrived. Her brother might have known the shirt was originally blue, that didn't phase him at all. "I'm getting complaints from our customers about your level of service. This is coming out of your pay, you know." It always came out of her pay. At this point, she hardly even got paid. She was taking all this abuse for really cheap.