Angela walked around the Cirque du Chânce, her off-key singing drawing looks from those she passed.

“Beee-be-deep-deep-deep, Iiiii’m so hungry ’cause I don’t eat meat….”

Yep. A whole morning of wandering around the city and finding no places to eat had taken her mind. She was officially insane. On the bright side, she’d learned a hell of a lot about Palmyrian cooking. What she didn’t know was Jack-all about the nutrient profile of the various fruits and vegetables. How was she supposed to work out a balanced diet if she didn’t know what was in these plants? If only she could find a place specializing in vegetarian stuff, she could deconstruct the menu. If not, she was going to spend a lot of time feeling like crap until she got her diet sorted.

She halted her march.

“Why, hello,” she said, her eyes widening as she caught sight of a tavern on the inner edge of the Cirque, less than a block away. It was small enough that it would be easy to miss, and while it appeared to have indoor seating, there was also a street-facing window for walk-up orders. Only one patron was currently picking up their lunch, a ram-headed fellow who leaned comfortably on the counter as they chatted with the person handing them a package of food—someone who just happened to be an antelope beastkin.

There were no guarantees that an herbivore-associated beastkin ordering food from another herbivore beastkin meant that the restaurant was vegetarian—hell, there were no guarantees that herbivore-headed beastkin were vegetarians at all—but there was at least a chance, and she’d take any chance she could get.

“OW!” she shouted as the Tome-notice rock hit her in the temple, her outburst causing several people nearby to scowl. One of them, upon making eye contact, even went so far as to shove her out of the way for blocking his path.

Luck +1

I hope you realize that you’re only getting these increases because your Luck was so hideous to begin with. Past this you’re within a standard deviation of the mean, though, so don’t get used to it.

“Dick…” she muttered under her breath, directing her comment in the general direction of the shover as she rubbed the side of her head. As nice as it was to get a Luck bump, she really needed to get her Renown up. Not only did people feel free to treat her like crap when she was out in public, her normal personality had also almost gotten Mark killed. A higher Renown would go a long way towards smoothing over those kinds of situations.

Of couse, not pissing people off is a good idea, too.

In the meantime… lunch. And given that she’d gotten a Luck bump immediately after spotting that restaurant, she was feeling pretty good about the likelihood of getting her first proper meal in nearly two weeks.

With her stomach growling, Angela looked both ways for any passing carts—crosswalks weren’t exactly a thing on the Cirque, given how rarely the streets lined up on opposite sides—and darted across to the tavern.

From the outside, it looked nice. Not fancy or anything, but well cared for, with a blue and teal painted wood exterior and a round polished wooden plaque over the door. It was a carving of a horse’s head and looked similar to ones she’d seen on some art installations around the city. Above the carving, a sign proclaimed the restaurant as The Beasts’ Feasts.

She grinned. “Fuck, yeah…”

Who didn’t want to sit in a fantasy world tavern at some point in their life?

A light shove was all the well-oiled door needed to swing open, and a bell rang over her head as she stepped inside.

The interior was of modest size. Little more than a long rectangle, it had a bar on the right side that ran half the length of the room and six 4-person booths lining the opposite wall. The rest of the place held a hodgepodge of tables in various shapes and sizes; as though they’d been bought at a series of garage sales. In contrast, the chairs were uniform in appearance. Large and sturdy, if simply constructed. The reason for that was apparent, as the place was about three-quarters full of exclusively beastkin—some of whom definitely skewed to the larger side. The walls were dark wood, and about half of them were carved in an impressive bas relief that stretched from the front of the restaurant to the back before petering out, as though the work had been abandoned or was still unfinished. The rear wall was somewhat different, made predominantly of a plain white stucco and hosting a rectangular opening into the kitchen, with a swinging door nearby that permitted entry.

Angela looked at the beastkin behind the counter. There was enough similarity to a human in his face to tell that he was male, but she revisited her initial guess at him being an antelope beastkin. Between the white bands under his neck and the stubby, 2-pointed horns atop his head, he looked closer to a pronghorn than a true antelope.

He also looked confused by her presence.

Since they were already looking straight at each other, Angela inspected him.

Name: Unknown

Species: Beastkin (pronghorn)

Renown: Level 19 Restaurateur (class unknown)

Base Stat Average: 20.1

“Something I can help you with?” he asked. It sounded like he expected a request for directions, not a meal. He glanced at the other patrons, most of whom were watching Angela with great curiosity.

Well, better to go down in a flaming ball of confidence.

“Yeah!” Angela said. “I haven’t eaten all day, and I’m starving. What have you got?” She noted that several of the current customers had carnivore-inspired lineages and hastily added, “Vegetarian, specifically.”

There was a hint of a quirky smile that the man quickly smoothed over before gesturing to an empty seat at the bar next to a guy with a full-on goat head. “Never let it be said that Barnaby Tsööviw turned down a paying customer. Have a seat.”

Angela plunked down at the barstool, somewhat concerned by the chuckles that sounded through the room when she’d asked for food. Remembering her experience at the clothing store, she winced. “Oh, shoot. I don’t work for any of the Families. Can I still eat here?”

Barnaby looked genuinely surprised. “You’re not affiliated with a Family?” When she shook her head, he nodded to her. “That makes you a rare one. Not many of us kickin’ around the city.”

“Wait, you don’t work for a Family either?” Angela asked. “What about that sign above your door?”

“We’re under the protection of House Equus, but they don’t own us.”

“How does that work?” she asked. As an afterthought, she added, “I’m new to the city.”

“Is that so?” he said. Then he chuckled. “All the Families like to boast how they haven’t ‘lost sight of their roots.’ Equus started as horse traders, so they figure that letting a beastkin restaurant operate under their banner’s protection shows how much they still care for the livestock.”

“Because they think beastkin are no less animal than horses!” the goat dude next to her shouted. He turned to the restaurant. “What do you say, folks? Are we a bunch of horses?”

“Neigh!” the bar yelled in unison, laughing afterwards. It had the feel of an oft-used joke, but nobody seemed to mind.

Barnaby chuckled and picked up a rag to wipe down the counter. “Whatever Equus’ motivations, that protection does stop the other Houses from shaking us down for being independent. I guess that makes us pseudo-members of Equus, but I don’t count towards their tallies and I still pay all the gods-forsaken ‘independence taxes,’ so it’s not a walk in the park. It ain’t easy to make it on your own in Palmyre.”

“That sucks,” Angela said, frowning. “Extra taxes for not being owned by another company? That doesn’t seem fair.”

“If you can find me a life that’s fair, I’ll gladly live it,” Barnaby said. “Given your Renown, I’m guessin’ you knew that already. I mean, you’re a—”

He stopped abruptly, his rag frozen on the counter. Leaning forward, he sniffed at her. Then his eyes went wide.

“Yer a druid!” he shouted.

Much to Angela’s surprise, all the noise in the restaurant ceased, just for a moment, before there was a resounding cheer of approval and a chorus of mugs banging on tables. It only lasted a few seconds, but Angela was blushing by the time they stopped.

“Thanks?” she said awkwardly.

“You’ll get used to it,” Barnaby said, much more animated than before. “You know as well as any of us how beastkin get treated, and with Palmyre being mostly human, it’s worse here than most. Don’t know any beastkin who’s gotten grief from a druid, though. Folks around here appreciate that. Heck, most any of us have either had our asses pulled out of the fire by a druid or know someone who has.”

“Sometimes literally,” the goat-man next to her added. He turned to a donkey beastkin at the end of the bar. “Hey Jenny, didn’t a druid pay off your husband's gambling debt?”

The woman nodded, her large ears flopping. “Aye, he did. And then that ass went and ran up his tab again, so you save your goodwill for someone who deserves it!” Her comment was met with another round of laughter before everyone returned to their meals.

Angela turned her attention back to Barnaby. “About food…”

He knocked on the bar and pointed at her. “Right! Normally, if a non-beastkin wanders in here looking for a bite to eat, we give them something repulsive like cud. Makes sure they won’t come back.”

“I like cud!” a minotaur at the back shouted.

“So do I, but I ain’t eatin’ yours now, am I?” Barnaby barked back at him.

He turned back to Angela. “That policy is for the regular folk, though. Otherwise, we’d become a novelty for the rich every time we spun back to this side of the Circle. You know how the Circle works?”

She grimaced. “Yeah. We discovered that tidbit one morning when we woke up and our house had moved.”

“Oh, you’re a spinner too?” he asked, pouring her a glass of some kind of light beer that most of the other customers were drinking. “Inner or Outer?”

“Outer,” she said.

“Well, you make sure to drop by next time we’re neighbours and you’re in the city. I know how much you druids hate being in towns. Speaking of which, I should get your meal going. Any druid is a friend of ours, so we’ll skip the cud today, yeah?”

Angela nodded in fast agreement, causing Barnaby to chuckle. He turned towards the back and shouted, “Aye! We need a plate of food that a…” he turned to her. “Human?”

It took her a moment to follow his meaning. “Oh! Yes. Vegetarian, please, and I’m definitely a human. For now, anyway.”

Barnaby turned back to the kitchen. “…that a human can stomach!” He looked back at Angela. “For now? You planning on Evolving.”

“Don’t all humans?” she asked. “Who wouldn’t want a longer life?”

He shrugged. “Depends on the life you’re living, I imagine. Can’t say everyone in Palmyre wants a double helping of what they’re currently being served.” He looked at her levelly, his tone going cautious. “Of course, there’s some folks who follow Ennàd that’d say it’s your duty to Evolve. That it’s Ennàd’s natural order, and all that.”

“Yeah, well, sometimes Ennàd’s natural order sucks, but it is what it is,” she said.

The restaurant went quiet.

Oh crap, they’re probably all followers of Ennàd.

“What do you mean by that?” Barnaby asked, his tone even.

She hesitated. There was no way to tell what was the right answer in this scenario.

Eh. Easier to stick with the truth than keep track of a lie.

She shifted in her seat so that while she was mainly addressing Barnaby, she included the rest of the patrons as well.

“Let’s be honest,” she said, “a lot of the time, the natural order is crap on a stick. Things hunt. Things get hunted. You get bitten by stuff, you die. You fall off cliffs. Just because nature is amoral doesn’t mean it’s fun. But there’s nothing wrong with an individual plant or animal doing everything it can to survive—that’s what a balanced ecosystem is. It’s only when something comes along and tries to break the ecosystem for its own advantage that people—well, druids, I guess—need to step in and stop it from happening.” She shrugged. “Or at least that’s my take, anyway.”

Barnaby raised an eyebrow. “So, you aren’t gonna start ranting at us about how the fact that humans can’t Evolve into beastkin means we’re somehow violating the natural order?”

“What?” Angela said, pulling her head back. “Why the fuck would I do that? You’re beastkin. I’m a squooshy blob of meat with no natural offensive or defensive capabilities whatsoever. If one of us is violating the natural order, it’s me.”

The room burst out in laughter, their mirth masking the appearance of a smooth piece of river rock that bounced off her head and onto the table in front of her.

Charisma +1

Looks like you found your audience.

“And that’s why we like druids more than priests!” another patron roared to a renewed clinking of glasses.

Angela shook her head and looked at Barnaby. “Okay, you guys seem really easygoing. Is it always like this in here?”

The goat-man answered before Barnaby could. “Here, yes. Out there, not so much.” He gestured to the front window. “Most of the city sees us as the lowest of the low, but here we are equals. In here”—he tapped the counter with a heavy fingernail—“we raise our eyes and smile.” He waved dismissively at the window. “Out there is nothing but sadness and work.”

“The beer doesn’t hurt, either,” the donkey-woman said, winking at Angela.

Angela smiled, but the conversation abruptly halted as another pronghorn-type beastkin, a woman, appeared with a steaming plate of food and a set of wooden cutlery, plunking it down in front of her. Her mouth watered.

She grabbed the cutlery. Most of the stuff on her plate was barely recognizable, but she didn’t care. All pretext of conversation was abandoned, and she dove into the meal with the gusto of a woman who hadn’t seen a proper meal in ages. Every bite of it was a joy to be savoured, with the possible exception of the tubers that looked suspiciously like the ones she’d foraged on her way to Palmyre, though these ones tasted a hell of a lot better.

“Enjoying the meal?” Barnaby asked, raising an eyebrow as he watched her plow back the food.

Angela didn’t even slow down. She simply gave the thumbs up and hoped it wasn’t an obscene gesture on Arenia.

God, it’s good to have real food again.