"Yeah, yeah." He finishes eating his own food and pushes his chair away to get up. "I'm ready."

The party picks up and, after saying their goodbyes to the local villagers who are in the inn, they leave.

A little ways further in, a group of people wearing the same weird yellow outfit Wakka does meets up with them. "Alright, Aurochs! To the temple, to pray for victory!" Wakka says as soon as they meet up.

    "Cap'n!" they all say in unison.

Zei is standing back from the rest of the party, a bit, and here's another chance for some tour guiding. "Is blitzball a thing where you're from? I'd guess not but I'm also surprised humans exist anywhere else, so..."

"...no. Is it... gladiatorial in some way?"

"...no, it's an underwater team sport with a ball, gladiatorial?"

"...sport... alright. You've formalized children's games in some way, that makes a kind of sense."

"I am familiar with sport," Oni-Goroshi says. "Oriath is just supremely joyless."

Zei laughs and shakes his head. "I suppose that's a way to put it, yeah. Well, Wakka is the captain of the Besaid team," and he gestures at the people dressed like him, "and after Kilika Temple we're heading to the mainland and the southernmost city there is where the international tournament is held. So they're playing."

"...huh. Alright, that... also makes sense, I guess. You have international... sports? People care that much about it?"

At that Zei's smile turns sadder. "We take our joy wherever we can get it. There's not much in the way of... things to be happy or excited about. Anything we try to build, Sin destroys. We cherish what little we do have."

"...yeah. It's just that usually back home it's, well, plays or gladiators. For entertainment."

"Plays exist, here and there. Mostly musical ones. Luca has a big amphitheater, too. But there's something about team sports like that that lots of people like. I can't say I understand it, but I like it too."

"Well, maybe I'll watch some. Wakka's game, maybe."

"I'm actually a reserve for their team, just in case one of them gets injured or whatever," he admits.

"Well, in that case it's practically my duty."

He grins. "I'll do my best not to disappoint."

    "Hey Zei," one of the team members drops by to say, "you gonna introduce your new friend to us?"

"—right yes. Edmund," he says, gesturing, "and these are Letty, Jassu, Keepa, Datto, and Botta, the Besaid Aurochs."

        "And don't you forget it!" says the one called Botta.

"...a pleasure," Edmund says. "Letty Jassu Keepa Datto Botta, alright. I'm afraid I might forget at some point, I'm used to a very different naming paradigm."

    "And what kinna name is Edomunodo anyway?" asks Letty.

        Botta, the bigger of the lot, wraps an arm around Letty's head and gives him a noogie. "Please ignore 'im, he never learnt his manners."

"It's fine, we grew up together and I took forever to memorise their names, too," Zei confesses.

"Yes, my name is apparently a bit of a tongue-twister. ...admittedly it's a bit odd even where I'm from. Difficult to apply declensions to."

"To apply what now?"

"Um, linguistic construct not found in either of the native languages here - essentially it's like conjugating verbs but you do it to nouns depending on what they're doing in a sentence. But there's not a natural declension for -und, so people get confused and aggravated about it and it's very amusing. Usually they just decline my name as if it were Edmundus, but I've heard some very fun variations."

"...conjugating a noun? Why would you do that?" He sounds delighted and fascinated, though, and the way everyone else rolls their eyes it seems he has just been nerd sniped.

"Means you can say your words in whatever order you want, and you don't have to fuck about with particles! Canis sedet, sedet canis, sedet super canem, canem super sedet. There's different emphases for both, of course."

He is going to have a million questions about this, and ask them all as they continue walking. Or, well, not all of them, just as many of them as he can.

The village has a gate to the north separating it from the jungle. Only one guard is stationed there, though, and as soon as he spies the party he salutes them and opens the gate for them. Once outside, they take a formation, so naturally it's almost subconscious. Zei remains with the rear group, and Lulu falls back with them. Kimahri and Wakka take the head of the group and lead them down the worn paths in the jungle. The blitzball players make up the center of the group, and it's probably because they can't fight at all and are to be protected from... whatever it is the jungle will have to throw at them.

...Edmund will stay with the rear group in case of ambush from the rear? This seems intuitive to him. This is what he will do.