She hears footsteps first, moving quickly, and she tenses briefly, finding herself actually worried. And not for herself, but for the little toad (displeasure again at this), frog. She would get a tiny little helpless thing (more displeasure, though Syrena doesn’t know why), and she was hardly equipped for protecting anything. But then the voice that calls to her is familiar, and a familiar white bird lands nearby. She relaxes, looking up to find Kaida coming toward her coving in sweat like she must have been running through this freezing wasteland.

Fine, it wasn’t a wasteland. It was beautiful, actually, but it was still cold. The little toad eyes Khairi, and soon the little toad is neither little nor a toad. She looks like Khairi, white and tall, standing stark against the rocks of the Steppe. The coloring isn’t quite right, her eyes staying purple where Khairi’s are red, but still, she’s close. She coo’s back at the vulture. A hello? Or a look I can do it too,? Syrena has no idea, but hopes it’s the former for the toad’s sake.

“Uh…” she says, staring at the toad that’s not a toad and is now apparently a vulture. “I think. Do companion’s shapeshift? Or is mine broken?” She’s largely asking Kiada, but anger hits her from the vulture and she glares back. In a moment the creature isn’t a vulture, but a snake. Sort of. Her skin is scaled and gray, not unlike Syrena’s. But though her lower half is snake-like, she has five heads and a weird combination of fins and spikes atop their heads. The eyes are still purple.

“Stick to that, whatever that is,” she tells the hydra, and there’s a mixture of annoyance and pleasure from the creature. Annoyance because Syrena should know the word for her and does not, but pleasure at finding something that pleased her bonded. At least, Syrena thinks this is the case, but there’s a jumble of emotions now and she’s never even been able to read her own. It’s strange to read someone else’s.

She turns back to Kiada, wondering what the girl knows. Hopefully more than Syrena. The hydra slithers over toward Khairi, if he lets her, investigating, Her form seems to flicker between vulture and hydra for the moment, unable to stay in one. “ A name….um…” again she pauses, thinking of her sisters.

Her eyes find the vulture/hydra thing as she says, “Aglaope?” which is just the first name she can think of. Her companion, currently a hydra, swings all five heads in an unhappy no. So Syrena tries again. “Thelxiepeia?” The hydra stops moving, all five heads and all ten eyes staring at her. It’s mildly concerning, actually, but Syrena thinks she’s on the right track now. “Thea?” she says, as a nickname. This time, all five heads nod before turning back to try and investigate Khairi more.


les words "chat chat"

Syrena

let the water take me