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Oduin nodded. "Mostly within Sauti, a little bit into Tale and Zena. But now that I'm... you know, a professional," he said with a hint of sarcasm in his voice. "I thought it'd be a good excuse to expand the circle."

They took a few turns and poked their heads into a couple of streets that didn't seem likely before the smells and sounds of a festival hit them. It was hard to place what exactly the foods were, but the smell of a dozen different spices floated in the air, and there was a lightness to the chatter that spoke of people having a good time. It was just a couple streets over.

Oduin pointed. "We found it!" he declared, picking up the pace. "I don't know about you, but I'm peckish." (He was always peckish.) "And I could do with some games."

"Oh, professional swordsman, I guess," Oduin said with a wide-eyed shrug, pushing some of that wild hair out of his face again. "But technically... 'swordsman' isn't a profession. It just means you know how to use one. You still have to go out and find a job."

It wasn't as simple as the lumber-hauling he'd grown up doing, but his parents had insisted that picking some sort of battle-oriented profession would open up doors. They weren't wrong, necessarily. Jobs in city guards and militias and protection services did pay significantly better.

They rounded a corner to find an entire row of food stalls, and Oduin raised his free hand up to gesture widely at the scene before them. "Look at that! And you thought you weren't going to come! Crazy." He shook his head.

"Well, okay, you can pay for the first skewers, but as the more gainfully employed one, I believe I have an obligation to treat you to some fine festival food. You get to pick."

"Yea, basically," he said. "For the most part, it's pretty easy, you just have to look like you could scare them away. Like-" he paused and replaced his usual grin with a blank expression, topped with a mild frown. "That's my Resting Bodyguard Face." He chuckled. Good thing these positions didn't involve much talking, or people would see through him in a second.

"Wellllll, I'd say more of a volunteer friend?" Oduin suggested, even as Koray pulled the little frog-shaped purse out of his bag. "So really, no pay necessary. Especially now that I know you and I both like frogs."

What a cute kid. Koray reminded Oduin a bit of his younger brother - if... Toskr had been cute, anyway. He didn't remember Toskr ever being this pure and gentle, even as a toddler. So... maybe they weren't similar at all.

"Okay, how about you buy the skewers and I'll..." he scanned around. "I'll pay for that game over there." He pointed at a booth with little targets lined up, some fake bows and arrows, and stuffed animals ranging from small to massive hanging up as prizes.

"Mmm! Thanks, Koray!" he said with characteristic enthusiasm, ripping a chunk off the skewer. He was peering around at some of the other stalls, making mental notes of which ones might be worth checking out. The good news was that Koray seemed to have mostly forgotten about his rough day, and Oduin was quite sure that spending some time here would make everything better again.

"Sure, let's go play some games," he said, enjoying the ambiance. The celebration was supposed to be about the harvest and food and being grateful - all of which was, indeed, part of this festival - but that didn't mean they couldn't also have some entertainment to go with it.

They arrived at the target-shooting booth, and Oduin nodded encouragingly, thoroughly won over by Koray's optimism. "Go for it, big man, show us how it's done," he said, clapping the boy on the shoulder as he handed over some change to the Oban running the stall.

Oh, no. That wasn't the intended outcome of the game at all. It was quite odd... Koray's formed seemed to suggest that he should have at least hit one of them. Oduin watched, mildly perplexed, as the boy missed all five of his shots. Well that seemed...odd. But he didn't have much time to dwell on it, as Koray set the bow down, looking dejected.

"Don't worry about it, Koray! It's just about having fun, you know?" he said, stuffing another coin in the stall guy's hand and picking up the bow and arrow. It was made of wood, and the tips of the arrows weren't pointed. Instead, they were covered in chalk so they left a mark on the targets wherever they hit.

Oduin lifted the crudely made toy and fired his first arrow. These things weren't exactly sighted properly and didn't fly straight, so that first shot veered off to the right. "See, these things aren't that easy to shoot, either," he said reassuringly. Taking a little more care, he aimed his next one a bit more to the right. It thumped into the target, low. His next three shots hit, the last one smacking into the target just to the right of the center.

"Hey, do we get anything for that?" he asked the man excitedly. The guy gestured to the medium-sized toys. "Oh, give me that one." Oduin waved to a bird-shaped creature near the edge. The man fetched it off the rack and tossed it at him. Oduin snatched it out of the air with one hand, and then presented it to Koray.

"I know you wanted to win me something, but I actually don't have a lot of luggage space for toys. This one is Suhurama, though. It's a sacred bird in Sauti, very fiery and shiny. I think it suits you," he said.

Oduin smiled as Koray clutched the stuffed bird to his chest, glad that he seemed to like it. Of course, the thing was a festival prize, so it wasn't necessarily the most lifelike of Suhurama. But there was at least some nice stitching in shiny gold thread to help it catch the light and gleam.

"Of course!" he said. "Being fiery and shiny isn't just about winning things. It's a state of being. Winning is just a perk. These festival games are kind of rigged anyway. The majority of it is just luck."

He steered Koray discreetly away from the stall, in the hopes that the boy would forget about his own missed shots.

"You know what, some ice sounds perfect, that would be lovely!" As long as it was food, Oduin would most likely eat it. "That sounds like a great trade."

Oduin was perfectly happy to follow and Koray led him over to a wall and sat him down. And then, like a cherry on top, the boy put the little stuffed bird in his lap. What a sweet child!

By the time Koray came back, Oduin had moved the bird and sat it atop his head so it looked like it was riding on his shoulders. He took the melon-flavored dessert from Koray and took a first bite as the boy popped up onto the wall and began pulling things out of his bag.

"Thanks, Koray," he said between bites of the ice. "This is great."

He leaned over to peer at the cloth that had appeared. It certainly wasn't typical festival-going stuff, but it had a very nice-looking pattern sewn into that looked rather intricate. Embroidery was an activity for hands more agile than his. "What is it?"