Valetni turned away from the gruesome sight. He was not a squeamish man, not by any means, but the feeding habits of that damned bird were, to put it lightly, inelegant. Beside him, Riley looked as if he were about to be sick at any moment.<br/><br/>"You throw up here, and you'll be the one cleaning up." Valetni warned the gangly boy.<br/><br/>"Yes sir." The boy replied miserably, visibly choking down his rising bile.<br/><br/>"Attaboy." Valetni murmured, turning his attention back to the Gryphon. What an anatomical curiosity that it was, what Valetni wouldn't have given for the chance to get that one on his dissection table. It seemed impossibly that a creature of that size and build would be capable of flight, indeed, it seemed as if the balance was all wrong for flight, and as impressively developed as those flight muscles were, they did not seem capable of getting the creature off the ground, let alone sustaining it in flight for any meaningful amount of time. Yes, Valetni was definitely looking forward to unlocking the mystery of such a creature.<br/><br/>He diverted his attention from the gryphon, lest it see his gaze and perhaps somehow divine his meaning, or worse, mistake it for something else entirely. He gave a small shudder at that, he had overheard the whispered gossip regarding the beast and Brother Al. He shook his head, best not to listen to such hearsay in the absence of empirical evidence.<br/><br/>"Do you still have my To-Do List?" He inquired of Riley after a few moments.<br/><br/>"Yes sir, I've been keeping very good care of it, would you like it back now?" The boy, nearly a man, said. He let his utensils drop to the plate with a clatter as he frantically began searching his person for the object in question.<br/><br/>"Keep it for now, boy," Valetni waved him off his mad search. "It is enough that I know that you have it."<br/><br/>"Yes sir, of course sir." The boy nearly beamed with pride at Valetni's off the cuff remark. Valetni took another sip of juice, making a face at that. This Juice was fine, by the standards of juice, but it made a man miss the roasted coffee beans of his homelands. Yes, a bitter cup of coffee right now would be just the thing, that was the stuff a man needed to face the day, not some pressed fruit.