The Purple Dragon was just opening its doors and there was already someone sitting at the bar. In fact, the man had been sitting there since the night before. The owner, Hunter, knew better than to try and get him to go home, so the man had stayed the night. With a groan, Mark lifted his head from the crook of his arms, looking around in a haze wondering where he was. Looking around him, he recognized the mahogany walls and the line of bottes on the wall across from him. Remembering the night before, he reached a hand out and grabbed at a half full bottle that sat near him. Before it reached the ale, an ivory clad hand grabbed the tactician's wrist. "When you weren't at training I assumed I'd find you here." Cordelia sighed, pulling the alcohol from the bar and placing it on a near table. "Hunter told me you've been here since dusk last night. Wanna say what happened?"
"I was drunk by about sundown. I bet Virion that he couldn't make 3 bullseyes in a row." Mark lifted his head to stare into his friend's eyes. "The bastards a fine shot after a bottle of wine." He tried to stand but he stumbled out of the chair, Cordelia had to act quickly to catch him in her arms. She smelled the spirits on his breath, and the weakness in his legs only helped in her assumptions.
"How much did you lose, Mark?" Cordelia implored, slinging her inebriated friend's arms over her shoulders, the pair slowly making their way out of work.
"Two hundred and fifty gold pieces." Mark managed to blurt out, releasing himself from Cordelia's grasp to steady himself on a table. "It was most of what I had. All I had left was twenty gold." Mark finally balanced himself and motioned for his friend to help him walk.
"And so you spent twenty gold here, didn't you." As Cordelia guessed, the bartender handed a bill over to her from the previous night's activities. "You racked up a fifty-five gold tab?!" She gave the tactician in her arms a sideways glance, before managing to retrieve her coin purse out and compensate the Dragon for his reckless drinking. "You really need to learn ow to stop yourself."
"Couldn't help it. Gave up." The pair made their way out the doors of the tavern and down the streets of the capital. With a lot of effort on Mark's part, they finally made it to the palace and up to Mark's room. "Thanks, Cordelia. You're a really…really shiny friend you know?" Mark gave a grin to the Pegasus knight as he half-fell into bed. Before she could even suggest he change out of his clothes into something more comfortable, he was face down asleep, snoring loudly into his pillow. She shook her head at him, before grabbing a roll of paper from the desk next to the bed and dipping a quill into a nearby inkwell. Quietly, she scratched a note explaining that Mark wasn't to be interrupted for any reason, other than war being declared. She gave a final look at the tactician to see if he was alive, then slipped out the door. Posting the note to the door, she hoped that Mark's bad luck ended today, along with his over excessive wagering. For now, she turned on her heels down the hallway, for there was an archer she wanted to see about two hundred gold he was carrying.