Stryx Pride raffle entries:

"Lolli can has cheeseburger?"

“No, Lolli,” the underpaid thermopolium worker sighed, “you cannot has-- blah, have, cheeseburger.”

Seventh time was, unfortunately, not the charm. She’d get ‘em next time.

The chiro stepped aside to let the next customer order. The dinner crowd was already starting to form on the fringes of the Piazza del Sol, the city’s most popular street food destination. For the typical Sol home-renter who couldn’t afford a kitchen, the piazza’s many thermopolia and popinae provided cheap, tasty food in every Wyveran cuisine. It was said you could go an entire year and not try every item on offer here. Quincenturiae was the local favourite, serving up beef burgers and honey-drizzled cheese blocks, sometimes under the same buns. No other food had ever captured her fancy quite like this combination did. She would have this mythic ‘cheeseburger’, no matter the cost.

A woman waddled up to the counter and held up two fingers. “Five isicia omentatae, please,” she said. “And a diet wine.”

“For 30 bobs extra, you can get that in a superba size.”

“Mmm-hmm. Superba size me.”

Lolli licked her lips as the cook set to work in the back: Scooping the patty meat out of its dolium, laying them out on the hot stone grill, and the heavenly smell and sizzle that ensued. Now char the buns, add a splash of garum, and fill the amphora of sweet passum to wash it all down…

“Oi, what’re you still doing here? Shoo!”

Pesky cashier. Lolli swiped her wing at him before scuttling off into the shadows. Wasn’t her fault she didn’t have any concept of money. Clearly, everyone else in the city was in the wrong.

As her eyes adjusted to the dimness, Lolli realised that she’d wandered into a popina, a small bar off from the main thoroughfare where the city’s more… unsavoury citizens were prone to gather. 

Gamblers and grifters rolled bones and told jokes that would’ve made the average patrician’s ears wilt. Glasses clinked, the floor was sticky with cheap wine, and elves sang shanties in their growly native tongues. A ragged human tried to touch her tail. She smacked him with a faceful of fluff.

One of the elves at the bar flicked his ear up as Lolli approached. “Bit too clean for this dive, aren’t ya?” he asked.

“Shut up, Luci,” his pal snapped. “What if she’s Espee, huh? You tryin’ to get us busted?”

“Calm yer hackles, Caz, I haven’t even brought up the slab-- oh, skorp.”

“You dunderwhelp.”

“Cheeseburger?” Lolli said.

“Ehh? Cheese what-now?”

“Can I has cheeseburger, please?”

The two elves blinked at each other, then the stern-looking one, Cazierius, pulled his friend in close and started talking in hushed whispers. Lolli caught a few keywords, like ‘slab’, ‘buyer’, ‘runner’, and ‘total fluffhead’. Actually, she could hear their entire conversation perfectly, being a chiro and all; she just didn’t care enough to listen to all of it.

“...Cheeseburger? What’s a ‘burger’?”

“I think it’s that fad food from Quincenturiae. Beef in a bun, dumbest thing I’ve ever heard…”

At last, they seemed to come to a consensus. Cazierius took the lead.

“Listen, uhh…”

“Lolli.”

“Lori, whatever. We’ve got this friend up on Via del Aeolus, he needs his ‘prescription’ very much. If you can give this to him, and bring us the slip he gives you, we’ll treat you to that cheeseburger.”

Luciranus rummaged around in his shoulder bag and pulled out a bundle of black-- Bricks? Chocolate?-- wrapped in brown paper. A few nearby patrons’ eyes lit up, but Cazierius flashed his fangs at them.

“He’ll be the nice gentleman in the red-and-white onesie…”

“I think they prefer the term ‘toga’.”

“...standing in front of the thermae. Swap the packages, don’t talk to no Espees, and come right back here. Sounds easy enough, aye?”

For cheeseburger, she would do anything, even participate in this extremely-obvious drug deal.