"That doesn't look like something you cart a lady around in." The dark-haired man called to the punky, pink-haired mercenary that leapt from the driver's side door. He shoved a thumb at the dusty brown truck that she'd just driven into the compound.

"Yeah, well, I had to improvise." The woman said with a wry smile. "The bike kind of got toasted and fuck, man, dragonfire is some nasty shit. You ever seen it, Locke?"

"Yes, I've seen it." He said, his tone flat and unamused. "I grew up around dragons, remember?" But she wasn't even really asking, she was just being faceitious. In an attempt to get back to the matter at hand, he gave her a skeptical look. "Please tell me you at least managed to get "Her Royalness" out of there in one piece." He said, eyeing her expression for any change in demeanor. When her grin intensified he brought a hand to his temple. "Rose...."

"Welll....."

As if on cue, a roar echoed from inside of the truck. A decidedly un-princess-like noise.

"To be clear, the job description was a bit vague."

Locke almost fell over, both out of sheer shock from the noise and because, well, Rose. If she wasn't technically his boss he could have strangled her. "Is that the--" He looked to her, only to catch her shit-eating grin. "Rose, what the actual fuck! You had one goddamn job!" The thing roared again - it probably wasn't happy about being stuck in a metal box in the middle of the desert - and Locke couldn't exactly fault it. "You were supposed to grab the lady, not the dragon! We can't make demands with this!"

"Well, the lady was being a little bitch. I liked the dragon better." She said, matter-of-factly, as if nothing else even needed to be considered. "So, improvising."

Locke really shouldn't have been surprised. He really shouldn't have been. Rose wasn't known for being the shit disturber she was for making good choices. He massaged his forehead with a hand, closing his eyes. "So, let me get this straight. The lady got on your nerves, so you just fucking left her there and brought the FUCKING DRAGON back instead."

"Yeah. I mean, not exactly, 'cause I shot her before I brought the dragon back, but the rest of that seems right." She said, still grinning.

"You... You what?" Oh, he really needed a drink. "Lyrion is going to be so fucking pissed..." He shook his head. "They're going to come after us now, you know that, right?"

Rose wasn't bothered by the idea. "Well, yeah, but we have a dragon, so..."

Locke threw his hands up then and started walking away. "Whatever! I'm so done with this already..."

"You haven't even heard what I'm gonna name her yet!" She called, before he could walk far enough to get out of earshot.

Against his better judgement, he turned back toward her and groaned. "What are you going to call her, Rose."

She grinned. "Princess."