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"Hey, Shorty! When's yer girlfriend comin' back?" Haven't seen her in a while!" The drunken patron snickers as he waves his mug toward the bartender.

Shorty hobbles toward the dwarf, pouring more fresh brew into the cup. "Cut out the nonsense, boy. I have no need for women in my life."

"Sure, sure," says the dwarf, chugging his drink down and slamming the mug on the table. Froth covers his beard, dripping onto the bar as a sign of appreciation only one mountain folk can provide. Now, I ain't one to be mixing with the goblin folk, but they've been pretty popular lately, comin' in from their little mounds out of town and looking for work here in the city. I hear a goblin gal will do anything to make ends meet, and the taller kinds?" He whistles, "They even put this town to shame."

"This town puts this town to shame," Shorty snaps back, wiping the table and taking the mug. "And you've been here entirely too long.

"Bah, can't a dwarf have his alcohol?" the patron burps, slapping the bar to produce jewels and ingots worth the price of his tab and then some.

"When my patrons begin to say things they'll regret, that's when they've had enough," Shorty responds.

"By my father's beard, you're smitten with the gal, aren't you? Looking to enjoy the spoils of wild delights in her bush, right?"

Shorty places the mug down, gripping the back counter. He takes a deep breath and closes his eyes.

"There's nothing wrong with it," the dwarf says, cackling as he looks toward the others. "Ain't that right, boys? It's a cosmopolitan city, and Anteronia serves all kinds. Or, maybe you'd prefer it if she had a brother? I ain't judging. I hear they can be pretty enthusiastic little holes too."

Shorty huffs and spins around, hopping up onto the bar. He grabs the dwarf by the beard and tugs him upward, pressing his nose against the nose.

"This is a good pub. A place of respite against the woes of yer life. You want to break the sanctity of this church by forcin' me to talk about what I don't want to talk about? This is a place to break bread with other sorry souls, not to pry into the affairs of others. Do I make myself clear?"

The air in the pub changes for a time, a tense silence that pulls over the place like an Unseelie cloak.

The dwarf gulps, tapping his fingers on the bar. "You make a good point, Shorty. I don't want any trouble, and I'll... I'll get gone now."

"You best be, lest you pass out somewhere on the street where the monsters take ya."

The dwarf's barstool screeches as he waddles away.

When the doors open and Robin steps through, she gracefully spins out of the way as he stumbles through and lands face-first in a puddle, coughing and sputtering and running his hands through his matted beard.

"Well, it seems like a lively night, huh?"

Shorty doesn't respond. Instead, he gets to clean the mug.

Robin hops up to a seat at the bar, her stool squeaking back and forth. "Aren't you gonna ask me where I've been this whole time?"

"Two months," the red-headed bartender says, placing a glass in front of her.

"Excuse me?"

"That's how long you said you'd be away.."

"That's only if you got what I wanted."

He uncorks a bottle, pouring sweet wine into her glass.

Her ears perk up. "You got it!?"

"It was at no small cost," Shorty admitted.

"I must know all the lurid details," Robin says, crossing one leg over the other and swirling her drink. "As I'm sure they are quite lurid." She sips her drink, keeping an eye on him.

"Out in the open? Are you daft? I'll tell you later in the cobbler's place.

"I don't need new shoes."

"These shoes aren't for you."

"Now, you have my attention. Mind if I take my drink with me?"

"You good to pay?"

"Put it on our tab. However long this will offset you," she says, swiping the bottle.

With a grunt, the tender marches on to the back, opening the door for his associate and then looking over his shoulder.

The faces that were all glancing with curiosity immediately snap back to their drinks.

--

Over at the cobbler's, Shorty leads Robin to a room in the back, where various leatherworking equipment sits ready for use. The smell of the tanned hides that make up his craft suffuses every pore of the wooden walls and floors, and Shorty breathes deeply of it. Robin's nose wrinkles.

"Under most circumstances, I wouldn't associate with her lot," Shorty admits, approaching a shoebox made for folk of their stature. "But since you were so persuasive, I suppose I had no choice."

She frowns, looking at the box. "And what exactly did you do?"

"Can't spy on someone if they know you're lookin' at them." He says, handing the box to the hobgoblin gal.

"No, I suppose I can't." She admits, pulling the box open. "Mmm, these look nowhere near as good as the last pair you made me."

"They aren't supposed to look good. They're supposed to be inconspicuous," he offers. "These," he says, producing another box, an elegant wooden construction. "Are supposed to look good. Offer your enemies gifts, and they'll give you more than you ever would have gotten."

Robin takes the box and props open the lid, smiling wide as she looks at what's inside. "Ah, foot wrappings fit perfectly for a reptilian lady like her. Perfect."

"You'll be able to know what she's doing when you wear your shoes, just as if you took a walk in hers."

"However, did you convince her to let you make these for her? Surely, a wizard would know when something is cursed."

"I estimated them, but they should fit nice enough the way they are built."

"You didn't actually see her, Shorty?"

He sighs. "There's no way you're getting me to set foot in the trap-laden den of a kobold, let alone the tower of a kobold wizard."