Wearying himself is a good strategy for getting back to sleeping normally, the owl thinks as he rides the air above the Gross Tar. The owl in question is an odd sight when the sun is still out, pouch around its neck carrying the CiD. There's no portion of the water's surface that doesn't go looked at, nor the bank, as he picks himself up, flapping to ascend higher. His mind is buzzing away, refusing to let him go a minute without one thing or another popping to mind. Most significantly, his brother. He's been thinking a lot about home, about his usual task of chasing and chasing lately.

Keen eyes snap to and zero in on a strange lump further ahead next to the river, however, and the owl's round yellow eyes blink. As though incredulous. Then, its head turns as though it has caught a scent, not even a hoot or trill escaping it. It drifts languidly off and up over the bank toward the buildings further away, dipping down and down further on. For all intents and purposes, the owl is gone as fast as it had appeared, not even a speck of white visible now in the sky.

But it's not very long before Hawa slouches his way toward where he'd spotted the mermaid and something else, ground crunching under booted feet. His nose wrinkles. He can smell it, even from here--he's good at filtering out scents of creatures not human once he gets used to them, but the new ones always hit him like a smack to the face.

Once he's close enough to be heard (though still a fair distance away), he remarks, "Gotten yourself a new friend, mermaid?"