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Lillith had been assigned the dreadful task of checking the taxes for the emporers coven. It was a truly terrible job that did nothing but eat her time when she could be doing so many more important things, like research or recruitment or trying to convince her sister to join her.
She had gone through all the outside branches tax records, most had paid correctly with only a few dozen underpaying and Steve accidentally overpaying by several hundred… needless to say she had issued a refund.
Now she had to go through all the castle employee records. Every person officially employed by the castle was part of the emporers coven. If they weren’t the individual was employed by an outside agency and just happened to work in the castle. The other coven heads, while they spent time in the castle and some even had offices and lived there, we’re not official employees and therefore lillith did not have to review their taxes.
She glared at the stack of binders and folders and files taped together and begged the titan for patience. She took the first one off the top and found that it was sticky. Groaning she opened it. Reading through it she stopped. The numbers looked right at first glance but she gave it a second read through and found that it was off by 3 snails. She considered just ignoring it and giving the scout a pass but her integrity was on the line. If she couldn’t be trusted to report every error made on the tex reports how could she be trusted to lead the coven?
It was boring work. Most had filled it out correctly. Many had filled the files out with pencil. Those she set in a different stack. It was official coven policy to fill out the tax forms using black ink pens or quills. There were enough she was just going to give a lecture about proper pen usage for official documents, again. None of the scouts seemed to get the message!
The next file In the stack looked very nice. A sleek black binder half inch thickness with the emperors sigil stamped on the front.
Then lillith opened it. It was done in crayon. Glitter crayon. She checked the name on the taxes, Darcy. Darcy was in trouble. A pencil was one thing but glitter crayon? Unacceptable!
She tossed the file on the “wrong stack”. She would have Kikimora get onto him later.
She took a moment to stretch. Her back cracked and she stood, her legs felt numb from sitting, how long had she been doing this?
Looking at the clock on the wall she saw it was well after 5:00. She had forgotten to stop for lunch so, shaking the last bit of numbness from her legs, she made her way down to the dining room.
There was a separate dining room for the coven heads. They often ate in their own private office but lilith didn’t feel like taking her food all the way from the communal space back to the room she’d been sitting in for almost 10 hours.
She found her stabgetti in the fridge from where she’d forgotten about it days ago when she’d been assigned to go through all the taxes. She put It in the microwave and waited for it to scream and signal her food as done.
It smelled amazing when she pulled it out. She ate it while standing, she’d had enough sitting for awhile. It tasted just as amazing as it smelled.
Only as she ate bite after bite did she realize how tired and hungry she had been. The flavors reminded her of lunch at hexide. She smiled fondly as she though back to one time edalyn had put actual knives in the stabgetti. Principal Faust had given eda an entire week of detention for it. When eda joined the coven they could reminisce about old times together.
She should check on raine sometime, hey had also been there for that incident. Lilith had fallen out of touch with them but had heard they were a high ranking bard now.
Lilith was pulled abruptly out of her through by a groan from the couch farthest from her. The golden gaurd had apparently fallen asleep and was just now waking up. Ha! He hadn’t been working, she had to make fun of him at this golden (pun intended) opportunity.
“Slacking off on your duties, golden gaurd?” She asked him in a snide tone of voice
“Huh” he started as he realized he wasn’t alone, “no!” He tried to stand up from the couch but overestimated, stepping on his cloak and tipping over right onto his face. “Ow.”
Lilith snickered, “don’t you have a patrol you’re late for.”
The teen prodigy righted himself and crossed his arms, no doubt glaring at her through his mask. “I don’t have patrol until 5:45 and it’s only,” he looked at a watch on his wrist, “5:44! Shoot I have to run!” And proceeded to half crawl half run out of the room.
Lilith watched him go with an amused look. He wouldn’t be in to much trouble, after all he was the youngest golden gaurd. The genius teen prodigy. She did not like him.
She took the next fifteen minutes to leisurely finish her stabgetti and then walked back to her desk. She might have to stay up all night if she wanted enough time to work on her presentation for the covention.
Taking a deep breath Lilith plopped back down at her desk. She would finish verifying these taxes if it killed her which it very well might.
6 hours later and with only a 30 files left Lilith felt herself nodding off. She shook her head to stave off the exhaustion but her efforts were futile and she ended up slumped forward on her desk fast asleep.
6:00 am the next morning she was jolted into consciousness by the castle wide alarm that signaled the start of the day. She found herself sprawled on the floor using a stack of incorrect taxes for a pillow. She had a line of drool on her chin that she quickly wiped away. Taking a moment to stand and stretch she looked at the stack that reached up to her waist. It was the last of the files. She would finish them and then go eat breakfast. She slumped at her desk and began.
It took her three hours to finish them all. Kikimora had paid the correct amount but not without being as complicated as she could be. She had taken some obscure deduction that Lilith had had to go and search up on the web and apparently, yes. In the boiling isles if you were under 2 feet and 7 inches you were allowed to pay 17 less snails in taxes. Why this law existed Lilith had no idea! She had never heard of it before but it existed!
She let herself sit for a moment before she walked from her tower office down into the dining hall. The food for the higher ranked members was better but it was also farther. She could pick up a quick snack on her way to lunch, no one would notice.
And no one did! None of the scouts cared that she snuck in and grabbed a crabapple from the fruit tray. She had gotten most of the way to the dining hall she was supposed to be at when an annoying voice interrupted her. “Did you steal that from the scouts lunch hall?”
The golden brat was leaning against the wall. His mask was tilted up smugly, well he hadn’t won this interaction yet! “What if I did. It’s not illegal is it?”
“No no no of course not. It’s just not something done.”
“Well I did it. And I don’t care what you think.”
“Oh wow, my opinion doesn’t matter to you, bummer.” He put his hand up to his mask in mock concern.
“Your opinion has never mattered to me.” She stated hotly, turning to leave.
“Oh it didn’t matter last week when I said we should wait out the wild witches instead of charging.” He took a challenging step toward her.
Lillith glared at him. So what if he’d been right that a full assault against that sect of wild witches would have ended disastrously. He was wrong most of the time. “That was a one time good idea. You rarely have those.”
He laughed slightly at that. “Well I had a better idea than you. And look who got stuck going through all the taxes this time. Not a scout or Kikimora, you.”
“I was trusted to make sure everything was done honestly and that’s what I did.” Suddenly a lightbulb went off over Lilith's head. “I didn’t see your taxes there. What, the prodigy to good to turn in taxes.”
He scoffed, “I don’t have to do taxes.”
“That’s ridiculous, everyone in the emperors coven has to do taxes.”
“I don’t.” He shrugged
“You do.” Lilith turned to face him fully, rubbing her forehead to distract from the approaching headache. “All coven members have a tax file they must fill out to pay part of their income back to keep the isles running.”
“I don’t.”
His simple statement sent rage all through Lilith's body, “did you not hear me every-“
“Everyone has to pay blah blah blah. I don’t cause I don’t get paid. Nothing there to tax! Idiot.”
Lilith opened her mouth to reply. He wasn’t being paid? How did that work? “You aren’t paid.”
“No. Unlike you, I don’t need to be compensated for helping the emperor fulfil his plans.”
Lilith was speechless. He wasn’t getting paid? Sure, serving the titans was a good purpose but this was a job. You had to be paid. “Are you okay?” She asked in an uncharacteristic moment of worry.
The golden guard stared at her, then burst out laughing, “Am I okay! Hahaha! Of course! Man you just don’t know how to react to real loyalty, damn.” Then he walked off, still chuckling to himself.
Lilith continued onto breakfast. She thought about the odd interaction as she ate her eye bagels.
She was quickly distracted as the covention was in three days and she needed to prepare as she was this years special guest. She had the task of wrangling the scouts into a cohesive show and that would take all the time up to the showcase.
Groaning she slid the interaction with the golden guard to the back of her brain. She could think it over when she had more time