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siraranispleased · 5 years ago

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Characters: Makalov Rating: G Tags: Drinking, Gambling, Impulse Control Word Count: ~1800 (~9 minute read) Summary: (Pre FE9) After leaving the Begnion military, Makalov seeks to raise enough money to pay back his debts. He just needs a little extra cushion of cash before he can start working off his dues... Prompt: "makalov getting into shenanigans before marcia finds him in por."

Happy @nagamas to you, @bi-naesala! The prompts were all quite interesting, but as one of the only Makalov fans in the fandom, I knew exactly which one I would have to work on the moment I saw it. Writing isn’t really the medium for showing off freckles like you may have hoped, but I hope a quick little line in the middle of it might be enough.

If you prefer to do your reading on Tumblr, you can check out the story below the Read More, as well!

Makalov weighed the small pouch of coins in his hand, before looking back up across the bright lights of the gambling hall. There were cheers of winners, the clacking of wheels. A troupe of minstrels on the center stage played exciting music, and servers wandered about with delicious looking drink orders. Truly, it was a carnival of the senses.

“Careful, Makalov, this is what got you in this mess in the first place,” he muttered to himself. Since finding that debt notice nailed to his door, he knew more would keep coming until he could find some way to pay it back. And he couldn't go through that humiliating ordeal in front of the knights. Not in front of Lady Sigrun. Not in front of his sister.

“Just need a decent cushion, then I can start working off the debt like normal,” he reminded himself, exchanging his coins for ten small chips, and approaching the roulette tables. He watched the wheels for a few spins, trying to see any pattern or fault with it. Once an opening was made in one of the tables, he stepped forward.

“Alright, Makalov, just remember your bad luck...” he said below his breath, before placing two chips on the table. “Just bet small...” He pushed those coins to bet on red. No numbers, just red.

The wheel clicked and clacked as it spun, before coming to a slow crawl... “23 red,” called out the hall employee, and the winnings were dealt out.

Makalov smiled as he held up his new chips. Now he was up two from where he started. Collecting those, and the chips he initially bet with, he placed them down for the next spin. “Red again.”

And so the wheel spun several times. Many times, Makalov's heart jumped into his throat, before relief allowed him to melt and relax into the side of the table. All the while, he continued to bet “small,” always sticking to just picking the colour, never the number.

“13 black,” called out the hall employee.

Makalov cackled and cheered with delight, reaching over the table to start scooping up his winnings. “Fourteen in a row...!” he gasped, unable to believe his luck; in just one night, he had turned two chips into thirty-two thousand. If he did just that, one more time, he'd get enough to pay off his debt. All of it! In one swoop--

Quickly, Makalov started pulling his chips not just towards himself, but off the table entirely. No, no, that was exactly the sort of thinking that landed him in this mess in the first place. He could hear Marcia shrieking in his ear, see the soft but disappointed shake of Sigrun's head. Time to pack it in before anyone got hurt!

“Well, that was fun! Boy, what a night, think it's time for this good old boy to hit the hay,” Makalov quickly rambled, gathering up his chips in his purse, now full to bursting, even with the larger denominations.

“Oh, come, sir, you can't leave now! You're on a hot streak!” insisted the hall employee.

“No ho, no, I'm dreadfully thirsty,” Makalov “explained” with shifty eyes, “I have a particular drink order, and I certainly can't leave all my chips to go get it. But I shall lift my glass to you all, praising your good company, and wishing you all the greatest of--”

---

LIFE SUCKS! SO LET'S DANCE!

YEAAAAH, MAYBE IF WE HAVE SOME FUN

WE WON'T FEEL SO BAD!

Makalov interrupted his own warbling to grab the trumpet out of one of the minstrels's hands, throwing his still half full glass aside with a wet crash to play quite loudly and enthusiastically. And quite well, too, for someone three sheets to the wind and red in the nose.

Soon the trumpet was tossed aside, and so was Makalov, throwing himself off the stage and towards the crowd. “WHOO!”

KRRSSH!

---

“...300 for the drinks, 2000 for the tables, 8000 for the distress caused to the band,” the head of the gambling hall muttered, counting up the damages Makalov's bender had done to the establishment, while Makalov had buried his head in his hands, not just as part of nursing his hangover.

“All told, you owe us 32,500 gold.”

A weak, shaky smile spread on Makalov's lips. At least he remembered to cash out first before his inadvertent, drunken rampage forfeited it all. So he had reset himself back to square one. He still made more than 200 coins in profit from where he started.

He'd just need another 328 nights just like tonight to pay off all his outstanding debts.

And a couple more gambling halls; he certainly wasn't going to be allowed back in this one in his lifetime.

“Fair's fair,” Makalov whimpered, as he started to pile up his payment for the boss man. “Well, time to find another way to turn a hundred coins into a thousand, quickly...”

“...You're one of the knights, aren't you?” the boss man asked, looking Makalov over.

“H-Huh? Oh, um... Yes? Erm, formerly, admittedly. I, uh...retired? Retired.”

“...Uh-huh. Well, if you want to live out your, ahem, golden years in comfort, we do have a few tables still opened to wild drunks like you.”

“Sir, I must defend my honour and insist I was a splendid drunk.”

“Of course. Follow me, Sir Former Knight.”

The boss man walked with Makalov through the back room of the gambling hall, and down a flight of stairs to a cellar level. Instead of wine barrels or other stored goods, the cellar was made empty and wide open to make room for a large cage in the middle of it. Inside the cage were two men, engaging in a barefisted brawl. One was a Beorc with a bushy brown beard, the other was a Laguz with spiky red hair. Both of them exceptionally well built.

So of course Makalov winced when a punch from the Laguz sent the Beorc flying across the ring, into the cage, landing with a dull thud, drowned out over the roar of the excitable, rough looking crowd.

“The fighting pits aren't usually something we like to advertise,” the boss explained, “but you can make decent money betting on these things. And even more money winning them, Sir Former Knight of Begnion.”

“Mmhm, mmhmm,” Makalov hummed, stroking his chin, nodding his head. “Hmm.” He wagged his finger as though in understanding, before looking up towards the boss. “Alternately...?”

---

Makalov sighed, once again bouncing his small coin purse in his hand, before looking up and over the dingy mercenary campsite. Apparently, the Beorc who got laid out back at the fighting pit belonged to a band of local mercenaries, and his turn as a gladiator left his “spot” open on the team.

Well, it was dirty work, but less expectations of decency and pride than the knights, Makalov thought, wandering through the camp.

“Hey, freckles!” a rough voice called out.

Makalov stopped and looked about; it was a large camp, noises coming from everywhere, maybe he was inadvertently eavesdropping on something. As he whipped himself around, he finally spotted a group of three men sitting around a barrel with a wooden plank resting on top of it like a makeshift table. All three of them looking at him. He pointed to himself and lifted his eyebrows.

“Yeah, you. You're the new guy, yeah?” the rough sounding man asked.

“Erm, yes. Just arrived. Spent, um, spent a few nights traveling from the city to get here,” he explained. “Sorry, I just, those aren't usually what people use to call out to me in a crowd,” he said, bouncing his hand in his pink, frizzy hair.

“Heh heh, I'll bet. You ever play cards, new guy?”

“Certainly,” Makalov answered immediately, before clicking his tongue and wincing, realizing he just compelled himself to join them by speaking up.

“Well then, how about sitting in with us for a round? We could use a fourth.”

Yup, there it was. Makalov sighed, and took the empty stool and plomped down around the barrel, taking out a few coins from his money purse. “This isn't some hazing ritual to dunk on the new guy, is it?” he had to ask.

The other three men at the table laughed, the lead one shaking his head. “Fresh meat like you, probably pretty desperate to join up with us. Definitely not the kind to have a lot of spending money to throw around. What's the point in cleaning you out of what little you got?”

“Fair enough. So, who's dealing?”

And so Makalov sat in with the mercenary for a few hands of cards. A few hands turned to several, and several hands turned into a proper, tournament style game. Raises were called, pots fluxuated and expanded, and purses got lighter and lighter.

And all the while, Makalov was doing pretty well for himself. Soon, he and the rough sounding mercenary were the holders of the majority of the pot, and it was between them on one final hand to take it all home.

Makalov was sweating as the face cards landed on the table. The stakes were called. He and his new “friend” showed their hand.

“Three of a kind,” the mercenary boasted with a grin, which quickly faultered when he saw Makalov's hand.

“A flu—A flush!” Makalov gasped, before cheering, throwing his cards to the makeshift table and quickly scooping up the pot. “Ha ha! I'm not so unlucky after all!”

“You clever dick,” the mercenary grumbled through a teeth bearing smirk. “You had that hand before the last card was revealed!”

“Well, don't really have much of a poker face,” Makalov explained, “so might as well lean into the flop sweats!” He grinned as he started counting up his winnings. With the money he brought with him to the camp, he was now sitting on 500 coins. Not bad for his first day on the job!

“Come on, one more hand!” the mercenary insisted.

Makalov laughed and gently tapped the table. “My friend, I've nearly cleaned you out! I couldn't possibly take away what you have left, leave you with nothing for rations for the next few days! I'll tell you what, though: tonight, I'll buy us all a round, some extra nice rations for the table! Maybe they'll have some decent mead to go with--”

---

WELL I KNOW THAT I'M GONNA GO SCREWING UP IN THE END!

BUT THAT'S OKAY!

'CAUSE I'M YOUR AVERAGE MAN!

With his arms thrown around the shoulders of two other mercenaries, Makalov drunkenly screamed out his song while kicking atop one of the dining hall tables, sending plates and cups flying, stonework crashing on the floor.

“WHOO!”

KRRSSSH!

---

“...100 to replace the beer supply,” the mercenary captain growled through clenched teeth as he tallied up the damages, “one week's pay for the fruit supply crates kicked over, one week's pay for the grain supply, two weeks pay for that drunken brawl...”

Makalov planted his forehead on the captain's desk. He weighed his coin purse in his hand, a purse that was about to get substantially lighter. He let out a deep, exhausted sigh.

This was gonna take a while...

#nagamas #fire emblem #fe9 #tellius #makalov #sir aran is writing

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pjbehindthesun · 6 years ago

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Character Profile: Cora

Hey hi hello. When I asked you how you wanted to celebrate the latest reader milestone, you voted to see Cora's character profile in full. Here it is! Or, here it is, current as of chapter 23 (I had to take some stuff out, you know how it is). So if you're not through chapter 23 yet, there may be some undesired spoilers. And if you’re current up through chapter 23, then maybe some mild desired spoilers, who knows. Enjoy!

Name: Cora Lane Shaw

Age: 22 when the story starts. She’ll be 40 when it ends. (I told you guys, we got a whiiiiile yet to go…)

Nationality: American, with mostly Scottish and Irish ancestry.

Socioeconomic level as a child: Very poor early on, but became more solidly middle class once her mother remarried.

Socioeconomic level as an adult: At the start of the story, she’s able to make ends meet, but she’s pretty much living paycheck to paycheck and sharing living expenses with Alex.

Hometown: The general Asheville, NC area is all she’s ever told anyone. She has not told anyone the actual name of her hometown yet. She’s kind of embarrassed by it.

Current residence: At the beginning of the fic, she lives in Seattle WA.

Occupation: PhD student at UW College of Forest Resources, also a part-time waitress at Cyclops cafe. Her career will obviously change over the course of the fic.

Income: She gets a small stipend from working as a teaching assistant in her department, and picks up a little extra money waitressing.

Talents/Skills: Her biggest skill is being extremely book smart. She has decent wilderness skills. She had to learn some basic thriftiness skills like knitting and sewing, although she hates all that stuff. She does like to cook and bake but only because it appeals to her inner scientist. She also plays guitar (badly) and mandolin (worse).

Birth order: Oldest of two.

Siblings (describe relationship): She has one younger brother, Patrick, who she calls Patch and who is four years younger than her. Patch is 18 at the start of the fic. The two are extremely close, although nothing alike, and Cora is very protective of him. But she also relies heavily on his opinion.

Parents (describe relationship): Her biological parents are Shirley and Paul. Paul left when Cora was 8 years old and she has not seen or heard from him since. She has fond (albeit childlike) memories of him, but of course, his departure had a deep impact on her ability to trust people and her view of what commitment means. She has a terrible relationship with her mother, which has more to do with John, the man her mother remarried, than anything else. Whenever she has to go back to North Carolina, she stays with her childhood best friend's parents instead of her own.

Grandparents (describe relationship): She doesn't know her dad's parents or anything about them. Her mom's father died when her mom was very young, and her maternal grandmother is in a nursing home with dementia after having suffered a stroke a few years ago.

Significant others (describe relationship): At the beginning of the fic, she is dating Alex Henderson. Alex is a year older than her but they were the same year in college and met during the first month of freshman year. They used to have a very relaxed, fun-loving, easy relationship in which neither of them expected much from the other. But moving across the country together has exposed some of the fault lines that they hadn't noticed before. They do not share many worldviews or hobbies, and they never developed good communication skills as a couple. Their sex life used to be great but has dwindled to essentially nothing at all. They don't really fight, they just fall into cycles of ignoring/dismissing one another until one of them feels compelled to put more effort into the relationship to keep it going. Alex is the first boyfriend she’s ever had. She will have other relationships as the story progresses.

In a relationship: She throws herself entirely into everything she does, relationships included. Recently, things with Alex have gotten more distant and complicated, but generally, her relationship style is to be very loving and loyal and committed. She tends to develop huge blind spots, and she has terrible communication skills, preferring to hide from uncomfortable truths and lashing out when she’s called on it. But she’s good at using her sense of humor to diffuse bad situations and get things back to normal. Despite a heavy-handed religious upbringing, she enjoys sex and is... not particularly repressed about it.

Height: 5’3 if she stands up straight

Weight: 125 lbs

Race: Caucasian

Eye color: Very dark brown

Hair color: Bright red

Glasses or contact lenses? She wears glasses when she reads sometimes but not routinely.

Skin color: Very pale, very freckled.

Shape of face: Oval

How does she dress? She’s definitely a tomboy. She wears a lot of jeans and grandpa sweaters. (One pair of jeans in particular has a bunch of raggedy holes from a literal acid wash thanks to a lab accident.) She owns three skirts and zero dresses (with the exception of the Day-Glo orange bridesmaid’s dress). Footwear of choice is either Converse or Doc Martens.

Habits: (smoking, drinking etc.) She will smoke occasionally but only socially, not as a habit. She does drink a lot of bourbon, like, way too much bourbon. Can be a bit of a pothead, although not as much in grad school.

Health: She’s pretty healthy, but it’s almost by accident. She’s a vegetarian, and she likes to ride her bike more than drive (or she did, before she gave away her bike...), but those habits have to do with her environmental convictions, not being a fitness nut. She does not generally sleep well or take great care of herself outside of those activities, although she does periodically go for a run to clear her head.

Hobbies: Reading, running/biking/hiking/anything that gets her outside, cooking and baking. And sometimes playing guitar. Again, badly.

Speech patterns: She speaks very quickly and moves her hands a lot when she talks. She has a faint NC accent despite having tried hard to shed it. Her favorite swears are religious, like “sweet merciful zombie Jesus.”

Greatest flaw: Perfectionism in the unhealthiest way. This applies to her standards for herself (personally and professionally) as well as a rigidity in how she navigates her life. She also has a short temper.

Best quality: Her idealism drives her to make the world better. Not just in her planned career, but in how she deals with other people as well. She’s not an optimist but she wants to make a difference.

Short-term goals in life: On the immediate horizon, pass her prelim exams, get a fellowship, and publish her first paper from her research. In the initial months of the fic, her other primary short-term goal was to keep her relationship with Alex thriving, although she has become less committed to that idea recently.

Long-term goals in life: Finish her PhD, get a tenure-track job at a research university, and use evidence to impact people's decisions for the greater good. She’s always seen that happening through a career in scientific research. She doesn’t have distinct personal goals like “get married, have kids,” because she prizes her independence and has misgivings about some of those life choices, at least as she understands them right now.

How does she see herself? She second-guesses herself constantly, both personally and professionally. She doesn’t have a very high opinion of her looks, but she doesn’t get bent out of shape about it either. She finds other things to have low self-esteem about, like her foot-in-mouth tendencies or her perfectionism in school or her worry of hurting other people.

What would most embarrass her? She hates it when she puts her foot in her mouth and says something rude to a person she really cares about. She would also be very embarrassed to be seen as vulnerable in any way.

Strengths and weaknesses: Strengths are intelligence, altruism, humor, stubbornness, and generosity. Weaknesses are emotional fragility, stubbornness, short temper, inflexibility, anxiety.

Introvert or Extrovert? Introvert

How does she deal with anger? Her temper flares. She's not good with it at all.

With loss? Not well. She internalizes it and it sometimes causes her to hold on to people she probably shouldn't.

What makes her happy? Being in nature, being with her (very few) loved ones, and scientific discovery.

Rude or polite? Rude for sure.

What motivates her? Fear of failure and loss. Altruism and ideals.

Is she ruled by emotion or logic or some combination thereof? Almost always logic, although there are certain circumstances where she can be swept up in a moment.

Does she believe in God? Absolutely not. She was raised Catholic and still carries a lot of Catholic guilt around in her personality, but she’s pretty dismissive of spirituality in general.

Relationships with others:

1. Alex: They start out dating. They met when she was still a very naive 17 year old, and he’s been her whole world ever since. She’s starting to lose patience with him and doubt how truthful he’s being. And of course, she’s keeping a secret from him too.

2. Lucy: Best friend. Lives downstairs. You haven’t heard how they met yet but it’s a good story and you’ll hear it eventually from one of them. Suffice it to say they hit it off immediately.

3. Chris: Chris is the first member of the “Seattle scene” she met, out on their hike in an undisclosed location in the Northern Cascades. They have a deep friendship but they don’t see each other very often due to their respective schedules.

4. Jeff: Neighbors. They formally meet for the first time at the Off Ramp and don't really hit it off right away. He is annoyed by her sense of humor. Gradually he warms up to her as he understands her relationship with Lucy better. But they are always a little at odds.

4. Stone: She meets Stone at the Off Ramp at the same time as Jeff. They form a friendship very quickly, although Stone has feelings for her from the very start. She realizes slowly that she has feelings for him as well. Then... some things happen. It gets complicated, and not complicated.

4. Eddie: It takes a while for Eddie to stop being “that new guy” to anyone, including Cora. But she initially strikes up a conversation with him because she feels bad for how lonely he looks, and they hit it off well. They have a habit of oversharing with one another.

5. Patch: Little brother. Adores him, thinks the world of him, needs his validation for everything she does, is extremely protective of him.

How she is different at the end of the novel from when the novel began: Obviously much older, and much more flexible in her ideas.

#holy shit that is a lot of information #good on you if you actually care enough to read all that wow #character profile #cora

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