Whiskey.
Liquid blindness. Social lubricant. Truth serum.
(Maybe, come morning, they would forget all this, or might not remember it all for days to come -- or at least until the throbbing headache had passed.)
The horn-headed urchin, the gold-toothed brigand, and the one-armed girl retreated to the Floating Dragon. The name of the establishment, Gloria Wynsee realized, was only too ironic: they were fleeing one so-called dragon and seeking solace in another. Men played cards with stacked decks in dark corners. Women with faulty corsets whispered bad poetry in the ears of inebriated farmers. A half-elf without any teeth slurred a complaint about someone having vomited into the fireplace, sop it up if you will, can't expect to get any business if the air reeks of burning booze-puke, what do any of you know about running a tavern--
--and that had Gloria giggling, barely able to hand the half-emptied bottle of whiskey back to Ailova...
...and then they were upstairs, in a cramped room with stained mattress-ticking and a single candle, and I'm burning up; I have to take this bonnet off -- did she even say that? Her argument with Phor had been quickly forgotten. That had been hours, days, weeks, months ago, hadn't it? She tried to stuff the sweat-damp bonnet on Phor's horned head, and blurted--
"Told you, you ought to hide those pretty things. If I've got to -- to hide my tits, then you've got to hide your horns. Doesn't she, Ailova? Tell her. Tell her she's got to hide those horns so -- so nobody comes to claim them, crush them, and sell them for hartshorn."
More whiskey.