Asmodeus had only just finished signing up to the fights when his stomach made a rumbling, echoing gurgle of displeasure. His tiny ears perked, eyes growing wide as he considered how disastrous it would be to have his first ever spar on an empty stomach. Slowly at first he backed out of the cluster of wolves and assured himself that no one had paid attention to the dull roar of his hunger. By the time his back paws had broke from the crowd he was already turning, beginning a gallop towards the bag his mother had brought that had their snacks.

Seeing as the fighters would be taking turns anyways Asmodeus plopped himself down in the grass to watch, multiple paw-fulls of snacks gathered in his arms. His front shoulders wiggled excitedly back and forth as he nibbled, ears perked forward to hear for when his name was to be called. Would the pup he was chosen to fight become his bestest friend? Oh man, that'd be so great. Deus didn't know much of the world yet but he did know he needed more friends.

"Speech"

With the formalities done and the spars about to begin, the gathering began clearing out. Completely unphased by her unorthodox entrance into the crowd, Aoife began to bounce her way out - much to the resigned displeasure of the little swift in her sling. There was so many wolves to meet and so little time before the festival was over that she couldn't fathom wasting time sitting around waiting for her turn to fight when she could be meeting new friends. She'd be back before then! She just wanted to take a look around. She was bouncing back towards the market stalls to find someone to bother when - record scratch - who was that kid there with all the snacks? Distracted midbounce, she landed wrong and tumbled, twisting and flailing in a cloud of dust accompanied by the distressed squawk of the bird, who was smart enough to tuck down deep into the sling to hide itself, and luckily who Aoife did not accidentally land on. Flailing back to her feet and feet slipping skittering back the way she came before her momentum had really released its hold on her tiny self, she slammed herself down onto the ground in front of the boy, face to face with him and beaming, covered in dust and with her quilled mohawk sticking out every which way. "Hi! Are you going to be in the fights? Me 'n my brother are. He's lots bigger'n me though like you are. Where are you from? What's your name? I'm Aoife Adravendi."

A small, spiky little thing came crashing over towards him and Deus did not waste time in throwing his paws atop his poorly rationed snacks in defense. It took hardly a moment for her to throw herself down before his face and begin a rapid speech, his startle giving way to a distracted excitement that easily mirrored hers. Manners always came first and so now they bubbled out of him before he could consider their accuracy. "Hi little ma'am! I'm Asmodeus Nightingale Abraxas!" The full name he'd been given was still a bit of a mouthful for him and his tongue tripped over the way the words sounded when mushed together. "I'm gonna be in the fights too! So is my dad he's over there, with my sister who's over there!" His paw moved so fast to gesture towards the members of his family that a chunk from his snacks was thrown along with it, though Deus hardly noticed it.

"I don't know if my sister's gonna join, she's small like you but feisty when she bites my butt it hurts so I think she could win. She's tired a lot though so she might just nap, but I hope she stays awake long enough to watch me!" The words came so easily, excitement peeling his lips into a wide welcoming grin. He never got to meet pups his own age and he wasn't sure when he'd get to see her again, what if he forgot to say something important and he never got the chance to do it again? The solution obviously was to offer more information then she had, to be sure he wasn't shorting her on the conversation.

"Speech"

Her excitement infecting him roused her even more, and with her mohawk standing on end she bounced in place, then spun once to expend some of that rising energy. "Oh I hope she can watch! I'm super super super excited! It's ok if you win but I'm gonna try real hard to win cuz..." She paused, a little flustered that she didn't really have a real reason to want to win. "Well, cuz I wanna win. An' if I don't that's ok cuz I'll work real hard and get better an' then next time I'll win!" She flopped back down, her tail wagging hard in the dust. "But I decided what I'm gonna be when I grow up. I'm gonna be a good fighter too but I wanna make music too. An' I'll make up music and go 'round and ever'one will come to listen to it. Maybe I'll write a song about you! Because you're my best friend! And best friends do things like that." She didn't know if best friends did things like that, but just like her impulsive decision that he was her best friend, she decided that yes, best friends wrote songs for each other. She wriggled. "What you gonna be when you grow up?"

As he fueled Aoife's energy, hers then came back to bolster his own. Deus was nearly shaking with excitement, unable to keep his eyes on one place for long between her mohawk, funny paws, and how her eyes lit up when she talked. "Oh no no, I think i you are gonna win." He argued back. "Wanting to win is the absolutest most importantest part of fighting and there's no way I want it as much as you do."

Each time she rose then flopped he mirrored her movements, an equally enthused tail wag flattening the grass behind him and his pawful of snacks forgotten to tumble into the grass. "Best friends! Yes! Oh, I want to see your music can you make some right now? Sometimes my mama sings to me do you know how to sing because I bet it'd sound sooo nice. We should go right now and ask those nice nomads if we can borrow one of their instruments and I can be your backup dancer or your bodyguard!"

The oversized boy stood once more, entire form vibrating with excitement and gaze darting wildly across the basin for the nearest maker-of-music. "And, and, one day I'm gonna have a pouch like momma - hers is for herbs and boring stuff but mine will have lots of snacks and toys in it - and then I can carry you in it and when we reach the audience you can pop out like BAM!" Asmodeus' young body lifted as he jumped in place, all four limbs splaying so that when he landed, he was striking a flamboyant pose.

Aoife wriggled quite happily in ecstatic jubilation that her new best friend thought she could win the tournament. "If I do you have to keep sparring with me though!" she told him firmly. "So that we both get a chance to win! An' we'll both get to be the best cuz we'll have been practicing so much!"

Gulp! He wanted to hear her music right now? But she didn't have any musics yet! She'd only just learned about music like... yesterday! Of course she didn't have the best sense of time so yesterday could have been anywhere from actually yesterday to a month ago, but still! "Uuuuh..." she managed, then when he changed the subject she grasped eagerly onto the merciful respite. "Oh cool! Yeah! I can be like... BAM." Like him she struck a flamboyant pose. "And then you can be like... WHAM!" She struck another pose, with her chest puffed out to make her bigger and a Super Duper Serious Face on.

Deus was easily distracted by his own ramblings, the fight on the horizon mostly forgotten and the image of he and his new best friend at the forefront of his mind. It sounded like the best idea in the entire universe to him, and as she copied his posing Deus knew that she must be thinking the same. "Oh I bet you can shake your quills and make the music even cooler! Nobody else can do that they'll be so jealous, you'll get to play two musics at a time!"

He was lost in his imagination, already wondering which family member he could beg to teach him to dance. If Aoife was going to be a famous maker of music, Deus knew he had to have the dancing skills to make her look good. Or the bodyguard skills, he hadn't quite decided yet. Either way he was unshakably invested now. "Where do you live? I hope it's close to me it feels like we walked forever to get here, but we're gonna need to practice a LOT if we wanna be good singer-dancer-fighters."

Her eyes brightened. Oooooo she could use her quills for music stuff. "Mebbe I can make something outta them," she mused aloud, ruffling through them with one dextrous, clawed paw until she could snatch out a loose one. It stung a bit, but she presented it to Deus proudly. "See, they come out if I want 'em to! An' if some'un smacks me on the head they get stuck in them sometimes. Here you can have it, I've got lots!" She giggled, shaking her head vigorously so the quills clattered in her mohawk.

He asked where she was from, pointing out that they needed to be able to get together a lot to be able to practice. Oh... that was a good point. What if he was from way on the other side of the world??? "I live in Valhalla, in the Ver'cona Plains and Drood Moor," she told him, catching at her lip in her teeth in concern. Did he know where those were?

Asmodeus couldn't contain his shock as she yanked out a quill, his eyes widening like she'd yanked out a tooth. Didn't that hurt??? Aoife must have been a very strong wolf to be able to do that to herself. He carefully took her offered quill in his paws, staring down at it in awe. "Thank you." Truly now they were best friends, only a best friend would rip off a part of her body and hand it to another. The concept of losing his puppy teeth had been explained to him already, but those would only grow back once. He only hoped that this was a puppy-quill and that it, too would grow back otherwise he'd never be able to forgive himself for keeping it. "I'll keep it forever." Deus swore. It was the least he could do after receiving such a treasured gift.

His attention was able to be brought away from the prize as she answered where she lived, and Deus tucked the quill gently into his snack-pouch for safe keeping. "I live in wolfpaw lake and crying ravine, I dunno how far away that is from you." While he'd been taken on trips outside the territory, they mostly went north or east from Aerie and in doing so skipped over the western Valhalla lands entirely. "I'mma ask my mom maybe she will take me to visit you! She's nice, and she likes to go out to pick flowers all the time anyways. Maybe if there are good flowers by you, that will convince her!"