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Sydney was shuffling towards the centre, a rather upset and dishevelled Delta in her arms. Every few steps or so Delta would look up at Sydney before burrying her head and beak in the woman's arms as if she were hiding. Definately not the typical behvaior of the little princess.

Sydney was taller than Syrenrei, and more well-built, but held a striking resemblence. Both had the same stark white hair and bright blue eyes, although Sydney had shorter bangs, half of which were brown, and there was a locket of hair beside the white bangs dyed a vibrant red. Tribal-looking tatoos of swirls and points were on the right side of her torso. Perhaps the most interesting thing of her person, though, was her left arm which was mechanical from slightly above the elbow down. Unlike Orian's it was notably distorted and bulkier, and it seemed to be solid metal with an absence of any real complexity. It was rather amazing such a simple prosthetic even functioned.

She blinked a few times at this rather.. courteous greeting. Well, he certainly seemed a bit nicer than some of the other finks that inhabited this island with her sister. As Delta reached out to rub her head against the metallic arm, Sydney nodded in greeting.

"I am Sydney, Syrenrei's sister. Actually, there is something you can do for me. Her. Well, us. I was told you're the man on the island without an Aerandir as of yet?" She didn't know this would be a sore point with him, but even if she had, it is doubtful she'd be less blunt.

"I," Sydney started, only to be interrupted by a squawk from Delta, "I mean WE would like you to help us. Syrenrei is uh... sick. She's in a hospital at the moment and I need to attend to her so she doesn't have one of her many moments of stupidity and tries to climb out her window. Can you take care of her highness?"

Not that she wasn't royalty, but the tone of Sydney's voice made the gryphon glare at her. She made her sound like an overgrown poodle... indeed! One of these days Sydney would see her true glory and be very, very humbled.

"Oh, the stupid woman will be fine as long as she has me to smack sense into her. The doctors said about another week and she'll be ready to come back, give or take a few days. She just has... something bad in the system that has to work its way out." She really didn't want to elaborate... the poor man would probably gossip and everyone would worry, and then Sy would pummel her when she was better. Sy had sworn her to secrecy... which meant Sydney had to be careful not to be caught telling the truth.

Delta eyed Sydney a moment and then jumped over into Orian's arms rather gracefully. Maybe Orian would worship her during this "vacation" with... fish. Yes, fish might help her get her mind off things.

Sydney just stared at Orian a moment. It was rather amusing to have him admit that Sy might need some sense smacked into her, because he seemed the same sort as Sy herself. Chuckling inwardly she waved a hand of dismissal.

"You don't worry about THAT piece of work. I got the easier one to manage."

Delta squawked angrily, flapping her wings a little for emphasis... but Sydney just laughed. With her legs out of view she looked more like an angry piece of poultry than anything intimidating.

"If you don't need anything, I'll be taking off."

Sydney nodded, waiting for them to start to disappear towards the center before her body started to shrink and her bones grew hollow. After another moment her face elongated and bone thrust forth to make a shiny beak and feathers erupted from her body. Her legs shriveled as they shrank and grew claws, becoming talons. Arms stretched outwards and up as the feathers stretched out behind her into wings.

A large red-tailed hawk took off from where Sydney had stood.

As was usually the case with Ieyasu these days, his approach could be heard before he was seen. Osusuki was never the quietest of gryphons, and just now was no exception. Happily, he paraded along in front of Ieyasu, giving a cheerful trumpet every once in a while.

With a grin, Ieyasu shook his head at the Aerandir. They'd already been out for a good long while today. A short rest back at the house, and Osu was back to being full of energy again. Ieyasu simply had no idea how the gryphon managed it. But, anyway. He'd brought the bottle that Alyosha had left on the porch, figuring that they'd be able to find a use for it.

Pausing on the path, the youko stopped to gaze along the beach. The sun was low in the sky, the shadows long. He could smell woodsmoke in the air, and see a few licks of flame on the beach not far away. Well, at least it wasn't hard to find him.
"See the fire over there?" Ieyasu pointed in the direction of the flames. "That's where we're going. Come on."
Stepping onto the sand, he started off along the beach, approaching the bonfire.

Osusuki bounced onto the sand, sending a little cloud into the air. Happily, he bounded along after Ieyasu, leaving a trail of indents in the sand. This was exciting!

Spotting Alyosha near the fire, Ieyasu grinned and raised a hand to return the greeting. Once he was close enough, he sat down in the sand, stretching his long legs out casually.

"Not bad; not bad at all. Not been up to much really. Yourself?" He sat the bottle down next to him before leaning back on his hands. The sun was still pleasantly warm, even though the shadows were lengthening. He could feel the heat from the fire from here too.

Wow... there was a *big* fire here. Osusuki tilted his head at the crackling flames for a moment, watching them almost curiously. It was much bigger than the little cookfire that Ieyasu used, and much, much, much bigger than the little fire he had caused out in the front garden. It was pretty too; all shades of orange and red and yellow. But, first things first. There was someone here he hadn't seen for a while. He wanted to go and say hello! Trotting up to Alyosha, he chirrupped happily, circling around the dark haired man's back only to reappear on his other side with another little chirp.