[ Sylvain needs a moment here, staring at Hilda with a slow, careful blink. ]

...Do I want to know why Alucard has exposed bone on his finger? That sounds... painful? Maybe you should have sent him to a healer rather than making him a pretty trinket to hide it?

[ he's probably gonna get smacked for that suggestion, but he's honestly a little grossed out right now. Bones are supposed to be on the inside, after all, and he knows how bad it is when they are not. ]

Anyway, we know this place somehow has a way of messing with time - our own memories of home are proof enough of that. But yeah, the reports of those who've left and returned aside... maybe we're just somehow outside of time here? I mean, if we're returned to the moment we left, that would be pretty weird if we showed back up like, twenty years older than when we left.