Orian's backstory: meeting new people

(We placed Orian’s home right on the other side of the mountains from Malfa, which makes going to the city a lot of trouble to go through just because somebody called pest control. It occurred to me that maybe he met the Erling bad boy outside of Malfa, and came to town with him. It could have happened like this:)
Orian isn’t yet a monster hunter, but just a monster tracker, in apprenticeship to a real monster hunter. Orian and his mentor answer a call from an old friend of the mentor’s to hunt monsters in the lowland country along the spur of the eastern coast. In the course of this, they meet Erling Sattr (a.k.a. Saturday), the black sheep of his house. Saturday is with a Maveren ship that’s stopping off at a lowland village to take on water before going down the Ottiskil Straits.
Saturday and the two older monster-hunters get to talking, and Orian overhears them have some kind of joking conversation about “good snake-hunting” in Malfa soon, “much bigger than last time.” The senior monster-hunters laugh off Saturday’s joking invitation to the city, but Orian is excited, and shows up later at Saturday’s ship saying “I’m available for snake-hunting!”
Saturday seems amused for some reason, but takes Orian on board for the run down the Straits, which is extremely thrilling and makes a big impression on Orian. I’m imagining attacks by winged monsters (Orian gets a hit in on one!), and a windstorm that smells like meat for some reason, and a giant humanish face that watches them from under the ocean, and of course lots of rocks, and water that moves very fast.
When they get to Malfa, Orian asks Saturday about the giant snake, and Saturday keeps being amused and putting Orian off while he rushes around doing other things. It turns out that Saturday had been planning a big party even before he went up the Straits, and he’s gotten back just in time for his own bash. Orian has been kicking around for a couple of days until Saturday finally says, tell you what, come to the party tonight and we’ll talk snakes.