Chapter 215: Dwarfwhore
I shoulder the door open with my hip and let the tavern’s stink of sweat, beer, and wet dog slap in the face like a long-lost debtor. It’s still early enough the whores aren’t moaning yet, but late enough the drunks have started pissing in corners.
There. Back booth. That beard. That mug. That dwarf.
I flop down beside him like a sack of drama and sigh the sigh of a woman wronged by at least five n in the last forty-eight hours and none of them worth the regret. Or the chafing.
He doesn’t look up. Just grunts and pushes a fresh cup my way.
I take it. Sip. Gag. “Gods, what is this?”
“Fernted pine sap,” he says, deadpan.
Fair enough.
We sit a while in silence, like two war veterans who only survived the brothel by chance and bad decisions.
Then I mumble it.
“Why do I keep doing this?”
He squints. “Drinking?”
“No. Sleeping with random idiots who smile pretty and talk like they’re not full of swamp water.”
He shrugs. “You’re a whore.”
I open my mouth to argue. Close it. Think.
“...Fair.”
I take another sip. It doesn’t get better.
“But,” I say, swirling the cup like it’s a glass of overpriced Toemachan brandy, “why do I keep choosing obviously terrible ones? Like not even ‘fun for a night’ bad. I an 'this one’s going to steal my boots and cry about his ex mid-thrust' bad.”
He grins under his beard. “At least I paid you.”
I glare into my cup. “You paid in wooden tokens from a pirate-thed tavern in Seebulba.”
“Still currency,” he says, smug.
I grunt.
And drink.
I slam the cup down with unnecessary drama. “Ok. Let’s number them. Number one: Greg.”
“The demon?” the dwarf asks, raising a brow without looking up from his mug.
I nod. “Greg.”
He snorts into his ale. “He once tried to trade you for a goat.”
I wince. “That was a joke.”
He gives a flat look. “He brought the goat.”
I groan. “I hate when you’re right.”
“Two,” I mutter, dragging the word like it owes money. “Sir Odran.”
The dwarf coughs into his drink, nearly chokes. “The paladin? The one who chained you to a fountain and then wrote you poetry about your ‘warrior’s thighs’?”
“Don’t remind .” I bury my face in my hands. “He’s so stupid. Like aggressively stupid. His abs have more strategic insight than his brain.”
The dwarf nods sagely. “But he looks good holding a sword.”
“Exactly!” I shoot him a finger. “That’s the problem. He draws his blade and my legs just—bloom open like cursed lilies.”
He shakes his head. “You're a nace.”
“He is the nace. I’m just weak for pretty morons.”
He leans back, steepling his stubby fingers. “So. Greg the goat-broker. Odran the ornantal idiot. Who’s number three?”
I hesitate. Long enough for regret to start whispering under the floorboards. “Bollo.”
The dwarf grins. “Ah. The bull-man.”
I sigh like soone recounting war cris and great sex. “He had this thing he did with his hips—”
“Say no more.”
“—and he used to nuzzle after. Like so oversized pillow with a six-foot dick and emotional support issues.”
“Didn’t he get married?”
I nod, mournful. “To a milkmaid. They have a calf now. I saw them. All… dostic. Like a walking painting of things I can’t have.”
“You’d eat the wallpaper within a week,” the dwarf says flatly.
“Yeah,” I admit. “But I’d look great doing it.”
The dwarf shrugs, drains his mug in one go, and wipes his mouth on the back of his hand. “Wanna go upstairs?”
I blink. “That was subtle.”
“I’ve got coin.”
I sigh. Loud and theatrical. “Fine.”
He raises a brow. I cut him off with a finger pointed like a dagger.
“But no foot job this ti.”
He looks vaguely wounded. “It was culturally significant.”
“It was weird,” I say, standing. “And I got a cramp in my arch. I’m not flexing like that again unless there’s gold leaf involved.”
He stands too, groaning slightly as his back pops. “I’ll throw in a honey cake.”
I pause.
“…One with dates?”
“Two.”
I nod solemnly. “Deal.”
We head up the stairs like condemned prisoners, except one of us is already half-hard and the other is just tired of thinking.
***
The ceiling had a crack shaped like a rude gesture. I lay there, naked, sweaty, sprawled across scratchy linen like a well-used deity, and seriously considering theft of at least one pillow. Maybe the blanket too.
The dwarf sits at the edge of the bed, bare-assed and hairy, stuffing tobacco into his pipe with all the ceremony of a monk lighting incense. He strikes the match. Puff. Slow exhale. That musky, spicy scent coils through the air.
“You’re my favorite harlot,” he says, “you know that.”
I stretch like a cat with no sha. “Pleasure doing business with ,” I purr, swiping the pipe and taking a drag. Burns like bad karma. Perfect.
He chuckles, rough and warm. “But seriously, girl.” Another puff. “Stick to that reptile of yours.”
I blink. “You an the actual dragon?”
He nods, dead serious now. “He’s a keeper.”
I exhale a ribbon of smoke and stare at the ceiling crack again.
“…That’s the most romantic thing anyone’s said to all month.”
He snorts. “Gods help you if that’s your bar.”
“It is,” I say, passing the pipe back. “Sowhere between ‘nice tits’ and ‘I’ll pay extra if you pretend to be my dead wife.’”
He coughs. “That last one real?”
“Real enough,” I mutter, rolling onto my side, letting the sheet drape just so. “He tipped well. And cried after.”
“n are a tragedy.”
“You’re included.”
“I'm the comic relief,” he says smugly.
I grin. “You’re the punchline.”
He puffs, unfazed. “Still. That dragon of yours. I’ve seen the way he looks at you when you’re not looking.”
I freeze, just for a breath. Then scoff. “He looks at everyone like they’re a badly written tax law.”
“Nah,” he says. “He looks at you like he’s already morized every line and still can’t make sense of it.”
I hate how quiet that makes .
He keeps talking. “You make him nervous. That’s rare for creatures with a death toll.”
I reach for the cup of half-warm ale, sip, then say too casually, “He still thinks I’m gonna leave.”
“Well,” the dwarf says, tamping down the pipe with a calloused thumb, “aren’t you?”
I don’t answer. Because I don’t know. Because it’s complicated. Because my answer changes every godsdamn morning.
He nods like that silence says everything.
We sit there, him smoking, pretending not to care, while the room fills with pipe smoke and the echo of things I won’t say.
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