Egaran Stars - 53. Reinard- The Taverna

The fox stared at the meatball suspiciously, nose quivering at the scent of the cooked meat. He had no idea what this keftedes arni was, and Galen wouldn’t tell him. The table of the taverna was loaded with various fruits and vegetables that looked a lot safer, but Galen had insisted he try one of everything, if only for the reason that he was new to Egaran food. Reinard just knew he’d be eating Cnidarian balls at some point, though he would never say that to Galen.

The tiger was enjoying the meal, dipping vegetable sticks into yogurt, sucking on bright coloured fruits. If it weren’t for the meat in front of Reinard, there wouldn’t be any meat on the table. Galen had targeted that first, eating nearly all of it in a fit of hunger induced passion not five minutes ago. Apparently fucking someone a dozen times in a day made tigers hungry.

“Just eat it,” Galen sighed, casting a withering gaze at the Faro. “It’s not poison, it’s not testicles, it’s not even from Egara.”

Reinard pushed the ball around, grimacing.

“I don’t trust it.”

“Eat it or you’re going hungry. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but there isn’t exactly a Faro fast food around here. It’s the keftedes or nothing.”

“That’s because you’re eating it all yourself,” Reinard grumbled, reaching for a glass of dark wine.

The liquid was almost empty already, the fox swaying just a bit in his chair. Galen had warned the server not to give him a lot of the wine, but even just a quarter of the glass had him feeling weird. Like he had eaten Nepáta, but also inhaled it too.

“Come on, you’re drunk, you won’t even notice the taste. It’s just meat. You can think of it like my dick. I know you’ve been wanting to bite that off.”

“No, I’m starting to like that where it is,” Reinard muttered.

Grumbling quietly, the Faro stabbed into the ball with his fork, raising it to his mouth. He just knew Galen wasn’t going to let up until he tried it.

Tongue flicking out to test the sauce on the meatball, Reinard blinked in surprise as a savoury sweetness washed over his mouth. His tongue wrapped around the ball, licking every last inch eagerly.

“Fuck, now why can’t you do that to my balls?” Galen pouted.

Reinard bit down hard, looking the tiger in the eye as the meatball burst in half in his mouth. He snickered as Galen flinched, licking up a bit of the juice that was dripping down his chin. Peppers and seasonings packed the ball, releasing into his mouth in a rush that drove the origin of the meat from his mind. The fox’s stomach gurgled, and he ate the other half eagerly, realizing with mild despair that there were no more meatballs left.

“Oh stars… are you Galen?”

Reinard looked up in shock as a young orange tiger approached them. The Faro tried to sink into his seat, to avoid her notice, but she seemed to only have eyes for the Egaro across from him.

“I saw you take Iason on… it was amazing! Can I have your autograph?” the tiger pleaded, holding out a tablet.

“I… uh… yeah, sure,” Galen said. “I never thought I’d… I mean… you watched the video?”

“Stars yes, Iason is my favourite tiger, but seeing you fuck his ass… My mitéra always said someone needed to take his hole.”

Galen drew over the tablet with a pen, a slow, almost nervous, smile spreading over his face.

“Well I’m not sure when I’ll be doing my next video, but I’ll try to make sure I get inside him regularly then,” he said.

“That sounds awesome…” the tigress beamed. “Um, I’m sorry for disturbing your meal…”

She hurried away, Galen craning his neck he watched his first fan approaching a tiger that looked nothing like her. Handing the tablet to the dark furred tiger, she took a chip from him before bouncing away.

“Uh… what… what just happened?”

Reinard looked over at the exchange and let out a laugh.

“Congratulations, people are already scalping for your merchandise. She probably never even watched the video.”

“But why?”

“Money,” Reinard shrugged. “That tiger’s betting that you’re going to be big. And now he has your first ever autograph. It’s a risky bet, honestly, but if it works, he could make hundreds off bragging rights, he could make people pay to see the famous first autograph… It’s not that uncommon of a practice; I did it once.”

The Faro felt the tiger’s scowl, and he shrugged, nibbling at a strange fruit.

“Hey, you try going two weeks without food because you’re being tracked through your currency card.”

“That’s a thing?” Galen frowned.

“Fuck if I know, but Segal said it was, and I was seven at the time. Who was I to argue?”

“I think your clan was just a bunch of scammers…”

Reinard sighed, staring at the tiger.

“You don’t get it. We were literally being hunted down. Morality means nothing when you’re on the wrong end of a spike. Yes, we were scammers. I was a scammer. I make no apologies for it because it kept me alive. How do you think I got the fucking tickets for that movie? Fuck, when I met Themis, I was in the theater illegally. I’ll tell you what, when you watch your segal get blown up by a car bomb, then you can talk to me about what’s right and wrong, okay?”

He stood up, waving at a waiter, and let out a low growl as his hand was ignored.

“They can’t see you-”

“I know,” Reinard snapped, his fur puffing out.

He waved again, the tigress finally catching his hand. She came over with a smile and a bottle of wine.

“No, no more wine, I think I’ve had enough… Where do I pay-”

“Reinard, I can get this,” Galen frowned.

“No. I finally got a job, I finally got paid, I’m paying for this meal,” the Faro scowled at the tiger.

“Of course. We can handle that up front,” the tigress said with a smile, leading the fox away.