Esquire Sunfire's name was formerly Lucian, but the heir of the title of Lord Sunfire sacrificed his name to be called Esquire Sunfire, though this mattered little to the young lad. What mattered more to this young man with brown eyes, a face softly built and seemingly free from the horrors of reality, along with innocent, smooth and short brown hair, was the thing that held him like a princess carried to safety.

The beast that held him towered 2 metres above the ground, clutching Sunfire as gently as it could as a reptilian monster with muscles that bulged with muscles and with claws for hands. It looked around with a blank gaze on those 4 eyes it had that served a predator better than a human being, and a mouth full of fangs and a tongue that ended in a sharp tip. Where one estimated its backbone to be, were a trail of sharp spines led from the monster's hairless, horned scalp to its rear end. The only real signs that this monster used to be a human, and a human girl, were the fact she was wearing clothes and the evidence upon her chest.

Her name was Aqua. And when she halted her running pace and froze, growling softly, did Sunfire realise that something was off.

"Did you hear something, Aqua?" asked Sunfire, glancing around as much as he could from where he was carried. When the young lad sprained an ankle from a poorly conceived leap from one rock to another, Aqua picked him up without a word and just continued moving. He appreciated the gesture, but preferred to get back to Gainsborough and put on some ice. But since they were almost a mile away from Mayflower, it was probably quite rude to suggest it to Aqua. She seemed quite pleased with herself about carrying her brother so far and so quickly, even though her monstrous face couldn't make the appropriate expressions beyond anger and hunger.

Aqua looked down upon her brother and growled, "Roar. In. Dis. Tance." Every growl that tried to sound like a facsimile of a human syllable took about half a second to figure out of how to make the sounds come out from her throat. Considering that her vocal cords were suited for a monster showing dominance rather than for polite conversation, Sunfire was always quite pleased to hear Aqua talk, even as she preferred to growl.

His happiness at Aqua's talking let the actual content of her words bypass him for a moment, and like a boomerang, strike him from behind with an appropriately quick jolt of realisation.

"Is it a monster?"

Aqua nodded, and began to pick up her pace. She would have taken to running on all fours if her brother wasn't in her arms, and her brother always took offence to the idea of riding her like some sort of beast.

[i]"Aqua, you idiot! I'm not going to do that! You're not some sort of mindless monster![/i]

If she could smile at that thought, she would have. She felt foolish for suggesting it, but happy that her brother rejected it out of hand with such a reason.

The two reached the village nearly half a minute later, where the monster, and the bounty hunter maiden with long black hair and armour stood, clearly both of them ready for battle.

"A monster!" gasped Sunfire.

Aqua nodded, though all she did was hold Sunfire closer to her chest and growl a few words. "Let. Her. Han. Dle. This."

Sunfire looked up at Aqua with a look of moral horror. "But what if she—"

Aqua covered Sunfire's both with a spare claw. She wanted to argue, but growling an extended discussion on why protecting her brother was more important than protecting a stranger was tedious. Her brother had his upsides and downsides, but he always saw helping others, no matter how far gone, as his priority. She liked his naivety in some endearing ways, but she believed it was the sort of thing that was going to get him killed.

"Just put me down and help her! I'll be alright!" Sunfire struggled to speak, trying to pull off Aqua's claw off his mouth.

"Hush, Lu," growled Aqua, her eyes focused on the monster. If it attacked, she dodged. If it lunged, she sidestepped. If it spat anything remotely dangerous, she moved. Even for a 2 metre chunk of muscle, scales, fangs and claws, Aqua moved fast.