[It's still very strange to swim inside, in Koby's opinion, but when the party ramps up (right on schedule, he notes, jotting it down into the ongoing calendar he's keeping before heading downstairs), he's there, of course. The cycles of Saltburnt mean that there'll likely be new, confused, fearful arrivals, and Koby can't resist the urge to help out. If you're one of those, he'll be there, smiling and gently earnest as he guides you away from the crowd and squeezes your shoulder, reassuring:] It's all right, I know. It's a lot. It's a lot, isn't it? Just focus on breathing, you'll be okay. It'll be all right.

[Despite it being a pool party, and Koby being an adept swimmer (unlike some people; looking at you, Luffy, if you get too close to the water be prepared to be dragged back to a safe voyeur-chair), he's wearing cut-offs and a loose button-down, rather than any appropriate swim attire. He's used to swimming in the godawful-early parts of the morning, without an audience, so he'll stay put in his lounge chair, reading placidly (some biography of Abraham Lincoln he's definitely read twice before) and periodically glancing up over his glasses at any shirtless guy who walks by. Feel free to catch him thirsting, he's not subtle. Bracelet-wise, he'd agonized for a while over which color was appropriate, hovering his hand over green and purple for a while before just snatching a pink one and retreating to his chair. Everything here is complicated, right? Don't ask him about it, though, he'll die and/or unconvincingly lie about it matching his hair.

Eventually, though, Koby stands up -- to refill a drink, to go say hi to someone, something, and something happens. Maybe he swerves to avoid one of Portia's oblivious, spraytanned friends, maybe he slips in a puddle of pool water, maybe one of the aforementioned friends decides to hipcheck him, who knows. However it happens, he loses his footing and topples, fully clothed, into the pool with a terrific splash.

Bursting out of the water, gasping, Koby glares (squints, his glasses are at the bottom of the pool now) up at the women, treading water for a moment before swimming over to the shallow end. His shirt is sodden, clinging, white fabric made translucent, and as soon as his feet touch the smooth tile, Koby is standing upright and peeling it off. And -- yes, he tends towards baggier clothes, and gives the impression of being very small and breakable, but he works out every damn morning and it's started to show. If you aren't one of the people who regularly sees him shirtless, it may come as somewhat of a shock that doe-eyed, crybaby, library-nerd Koby has abs.

Heedless of his own swole era hard-launch, Koby sloshes to the side of the pool, dumping his shirt there and looking up at the nearest person with a put-upon, grim smile.] Hi. Can you see my glasses from up there? Just point me in the right direction and it'll get them. They're purple, they should be easy to see.

[Festivals should be joyous affairs, should be carefree and celebratory and a chance to relax after a long, hot summer. But the change in leaves, in scenery sends sparks of panic down Koby's spine, remembering not the market days in the village of his childhood, nor the festivals in the many ports Alvida's ship had passed through (viewed through a porthole, round and barred, from the dank, chilly, loneliness of the hold).

Instead, he thinks of the village, of the stop in-between then and now, and how when they'd arrived, it had also been harvest time. And then the weather had turned, colder and colder and colder, and everything had been ice and snow and desperate, mindless, all-consuming hunger. For a boy used to mild, tropical climates, the endless devastation of a snowy winter remains alien, strange. What will Saltburnt bring when it's too cold to go outside? What if the bone-deep hunger for (meat, flesh, blood) returns?

It's that thought in the back of Koby's mind when he attends the various festival events -- the scavenger hunt especially takes his attention, the need to be good at everything rearing it's head once more. He takes it intensely seriously, of course, and if distracted will be visibly impatient for whoever he's talking to just get on with it.

The maze, too, is approached and challenged, Koby certain that his newfound ability to sense people will help -- he'll just fixate on someone's presence outside the maze and follow that to the end. Except once he's in, too close to nightfall, having been distracted by some dumb festival game, it's like that carefully-honed sense, practiced daily, flexed again and again like a newfound muscle is just: gone. Completely gone. Like it was never there.

Having relied too heavily on this solution, Koby hadn't fully scoped out the maze externally like he should've, hadn't made careful notes or kept an eye on who (if anyone) had made it out successfully, so he could grill them for tips. Instead he's stuck making educated guesses as night falls, gnawing his lower lip bloody, fidgeting and picking at his nails the way he hasn't done in a long, long time. If he stumbles into anyone, he offers a pained, glassy-eyed, near-panicked look, jerking his chin up towards the sky.] The sky is all -- off. I've been trying to orient myself with the stars, but they're wrong. [A laugh, high, shaky, a little unhinged.] I didn't know they could do that. I didn't know they could change the stars.

[feel free to wildcard anything with koby -- also definitely open to confessing secrets, handfasting, the festival at the end of the week, etc. permissions, ping me at ceedawkes for any other ideas!