Poor Sydney. ;___; It's one thing to watch your father die if you've been the shunted-aside bastard he's used for his own purposes to the point where you're actually relieved when he stabs you because you've been wanting to die to get out from under the burden he dumped on you because you were convenient. But it's something totally else when he's someone you've grown up beside, loved, and still can't stop foreseeing the future of...
also, frog bonding! entirely distinct from frog bondage, which, er, no. XD
You know, with a few strategic character-renamings, I could really see this series as an origfic novel... the personalities are the same, but so many of the particular details are different that I think it'd work as an 'inspired by' rather than anything legally actionable...