Torok waves and follows. (The receptionist nods pleasantly to them on their way out.)

"So, the orphanage? Well, dinner first, I guess."

She nods and smiles. "To dinner, then the orphanage. As for your earlier question about whose job it is to be generous, well, it was always mine in our previous world, but if you want to take that job from me I can't exactly stop you, especially right now when you have gems and I don't."

"How about I pay for dinner, then?"

"Oh no, a handsome man I've been flirting with is offering to pay for dinner," she deadpans, smiling at him and blushing slightly, "Whatever shall I do? However shall I cope?"

"Eat dinner, hopefully!"

This exchange has taken them as far as the edge of Market Square, which has gotten busier and more overwhelming with the approach of dinnertime, and it was already fairly busy and overwhelming. Torok shuts up to focus on navigation. Far corner, fat centaur, blue canopy? Well, first they have to get within sight of that far corner...

Dodging through crowds? Sable is surprisingly good at this. She takes Torok's hand, holds tight, and starts weaving through narrow gaps that barely last long enough for the two of them to squeeze past, twisting past people, and generally moving far faster and smoother than she should have any right to in a crowd this dense. She does her best to pull Torok along in her wake through all of this, while trying not to disturb anyone's path if at all possible.

Northwest corner, here they come.

Here is the northwest corner, and the big steaming pot, and the fat centaur! He has a short bristly black beard and a long sleek black tail and glossy brown fur on his horse half and is wearing an apron and one of those drapey horse skirts, leaving his arms and back bare with no shirt under the apron. "Dumplings!" he calls into the bustling throng. "Hot fresh dumplings, come burn your tongue on 'em! Full of good hearty veggies!"

There is a line. It's shortish at the moment, but another person joins it as they approach. On the other hand, it's moving fast: the centaur scoops dumplings out of the pot with a slotted spoon, grabs a bowl made of big folded leaves off a stack of same, dumps 'plings into bowl, hands them to the latest eager customer, and turns smoothly to the next one in line. "Half bowl three gems, full bowl five, what'll it be?"

"Full bowl, thanks!" This bowl gets two scoops of dumplings, which pile up until they nearly threaten to fall out, and the customer goes away happy and by this point Sable and Torok have joined the back of the line.

"Oooh. These look delicious! How hungry are you?"

She lets herself bounce excitedly just a bit.

"Pretty darn hungry. Do you want a full bowl each or are you less hungry than that?"

"It's been a long, busy day. I could put away a whole bowl myself, yeah."

"All right, sounds good." He pulls another ten-gem piece out of his pocket(?).

The centaur, having gone through a few more customers while they were working out their order, finishes serving the person in front of them and turns to Sable and Torok. "Half bowl three gems, full bowl five, I love your hair, what'll it be?"

"Thank you!", she exclaims with a grin. "Two full bowls, please!"

"Coming right up!" He fills one bowl for Sable and one for Torok and accepts Torok's yellow gem in exchange and turns to bellow into the crowd, "Dumplings! Hot fresh dumplings!"

The very full bowl is a little hard to juggle but Torok manages. "All right, now where do we sit down to eat these?"

She looks around curiously. No, none of the seating in Market Square is available, and she can't Manic Pixie a free bench into existence. That only works with gaps in crowds. She hums thoughtfully.

"Oh! We could try Fountain Square? I think the fountain was broad enough to sit on, and it might even be legal to do so."

"Let's find out!"

The dance of the manic pixie through a crowd is much more sedate when carrying a heaping bowl of dumplings she doesn't want to spill, but she still manages to weave a path back to Main St Central. After they escape to Main St, though, she runs into a conundrum. She wants to try a dumpling, but she doesn't want to let go of Torok's hand and has nowhere she can put down the bowl.

She links her arm through Torok's, puts the bowl in that hand, and then uses her now-free hand to poke the dumplings and see if they're cool enough to avoid burning her tongue.

The outside of the dumpling is a basically reasonable although still quite warm temperature. Hazards may yet lurk within. Torok is grinning fondly at her.

She smiles brightly back at him, then picks up a dumpling and blows on it for a minute to cool it a bit further, then pops it into her mouth.

"I could not eat these things while walking without flinging them everywhere," he remarks.

"I'll help, then," she replies with a grin. She plucks another dumpling from her bowl, cools it down a bit, and holds it up to his lips.

...he hesitates a second before taking it, and when he's done munching he says, "That's the last one until we sit down, okay? I'm serious about not wanting to drop these."

She blushes and nods. "Mmkay."

They keep walking to Fountain Square.

At Fountain Square, there are already a handful of people sitting on the edge of the fountain with street food they got from Market Square stalls!

"Well, at least if it's a crime we won't be the only ones getting arrested." He carefully sits down and finds a comfortable way to sit where he can hold his leaf-bowl in his lap.