Morning at the Nautical Caper Inn

Sunlight hit Alcea straight in the face.  Her room was a prank upon herself really.  She technically wasn’t a morning Enivi, but running an Inn meant she had to adjust to the task, or tasks, at hand, and being up and at them was part of the parcel.  Today, it was sunlight as an alarm, mostly because the weather as of late had been cloud free.  She did have a magical alarm to wake her up for the mornings where sunlight wasn’t a factor.  She also  still managed to sleep in on the weekends.  No sense in overworking oneself after all.  Had to have some time for breaks.  Snorting at the light, she rolled out of her nest of blankets, and off her bed cushion, stretching out her front legs in front of her, and touching her nose to the floor, and then stretching out each of her hind legs individually.  She yawned widely, and then shuffled over to her mirror and desk, taking a brush to her hair.  She fixed the braids she had left in, and then pinned her roses into place, fully completing the ritual to wake up.  She drew her posture into a prim and dignified persona before exiting her room on the first floor, and stepping into the common area.  Her door was one of five on this level of the Inn.  It was the largest room in the place of course, benefits of owning the Nautical Caper Inn, and it was also closest to the kitchen.  The other few doors led to a smallish dressing room where whoever was entertaining for the evening could store props, outfits, etcetera, and a couple of closets used to store cleaning supplies and the like.  The biggest draw of the downstairs was the larger space used in the event of an entertainer.  Tables could be resized with table leaves if need be, depending on the party size of the patrons, and the available rooms.  For now, the tables were arranged in a simple fashion, evenly spaced around the floor.  She hadn’t had anyone scheduled to give any sort of show this week, so there hadn’t been a need to rearrange anything from the standard.

She made her way into the kitchen, ears pointing out the activity going on already.  She gave a nod to the hired cook, before yoinking a cheesy pastry leftover from yesterday’s baking.  “Many thanks, friend.  Is there anything that we might need to pick up or add to our order?”  The cook shook their head, not skipping a beat as they continued working.  “Everything’s solid for the next week at least.  We might need some more garlic.  Fish is, as always, readily available.” Alcea nodded, and bit into her breakfast, chewing and swallowing before speaking.  “Sounds good.  Just keep me updated on that.”  She moved to check the pantry, fully trusting the cook that nothing was running low, but also thinking on if she could potentially take something to prank one of the new patrons expected to check in today.  Nothing jumped out at her for now, and she finished her pastry, before slipping back out of the kitchen and pacing over to the closest, looking around there.  Spotting a thing of paper towels, she grinned a little to herself, before grabbing what else was needed to go clean up the room for the patron.  She had some hired help, but she did like actually doing the work where she could and when it wasn’t too busy.  Also gave her the chance to get back in touch with her younger, much more mischievous side.

Alcea trotted up the stairs surprisingly quietly, the metal shoes and bracelets she had on not leaving much of a thud on the steps going upwards.  She opened the door, stepping inside and placing all her cleaning materials down.  Most of the rooms were cleaned within the hour of a patron checking out, so she hadn’t expected to see anything too amiss as she entered.  The layout was standard.  Bed cushion in one corner, but easily switched around depending on individual needs, and whatever alarms an individual might want.  Standard alarms for this particular room included sunlight, a sea breeze, a hoof to the door, whichever was elected, was provided of course.  She pulled out a duster and set about dusting some of the higher spaces, taking care to work from the top, down.  Everything fell down, so it was better to always clean at the top first.  The bed was already made and the dusting was light, so Alcea pulled out the roll of paper towels, located the closet, and then started setting up her prank.

She took some glitter out of the cleaning supplies, and started folding it into a couple pieces of paper towel, being careful to leave it easily pulled open.  The sliding doors in the closet made it much easier to work with.  She added some tape, sticking that to the sliding door and making sure it stayed in place, but could also pull open the glitter packet and dump it on the unsuspecting occupant as they went to put their stuff away.  She giggled a little to herself, before going back to cleaning the room, and sweeping the floor.  Any dust that had been gathering seemed to be vanquished at this point, collected into the dust bin to be carried away to the next room.  Alcea stood a little proudly at the door, looking forward to seeing what color the glitter turned when it had gotten dumped on the unsuspecting patron.  She had specially infused this glitter with magic to change colors to something that at least matched and complemented the surfaces it fell on.  Stepping out fully and closing the door, she moved onwards to her next duty, which was returning back downstairs to welcome current patrons, and incoming patrons.  Her job was her home, and her home life was entertaining.  She tucked all the supplies back in the closet, and moved to take a seat at the reception counter bringing out a book to pass the time.