Fire is a deep ice blue furred male Ly'xian, who stands barely 4' 6"; however, by the force of his personality alone, he often seems bigger then his "Little Brother" Orn -- a massive example of a S'scal, who stand a full 5' taller.  He acts and dresses the part of a Swashbuckling Airship Captain -- in fact he has an outfit for EVERY occasion and loves to show this off as often as he can.  If his outfits are armoured, it is well hidden.  His only visible weapon is a massive Blunderbuss, which is longer then he is tall.

 

Outside of his outfits and personality, his most striking feature is his eyes.  His right is a rare, but Ly'xian, ice blue.  It's the left one that is most remarkable, being red/yellow, like the dragons in the tales of old.

 

The only thing that could tarnish his appearance is the ship he captains -- The Sapphire Rose.  It's a twin ballooned, Schooner class Air Ship by size, but otherwise it looks like an old hunk of junk.  For weapons, it has only one, an archaic ballista mounted on the foredeck; and that looks as if it would rip itself free if ever fired.

 

Fire's love for his "Little Brother" is very apparent and he will often attack those who threaten the massive S'scal; which usually ends up with Orn rescuing Fire from the ensuing conflict before he gets hurt.

 

Fire is a good man, with a strong moral compass; however, he's a touch crazy and seems to have no fear.  He has often taken risks that no other sane captain would even think of trying, let alone with such a junk pile of a ship.

 

And that's where things get complicated.  The Sapphire Rose, beyond the shabby looking exterior and cargo holds, is a fine ship, with heavily reinforced hull and struts; not to mention an engine sized for a much larger class of ship.  She's been rigged specifically so that the brothers can run the entire ship between them, including firing the very functional ballista from the cockpit.  She's also surprisingly fast and nimble, most likely due to the twin catamaran balloons she's sporting -- something not normally seen on a Schooner class ship.

 

Then there are the dogs.  The brothers seem to collect strays from every port; everything from small runts, to massive hounds.  But like the ship, they are more then they seem, having been trained into the de facto security system for the ship.  Once set to guard, they'll tear apart anything that boards The Rose.

 

Both Fire and Orn are orphans.  Fire's first clear memories are of the Sisters tending to his wounds and that of a little newt of a S'scal, laying in the bed next to him.  He also remembered the Sisters telling him that this was his "Little Brother" and that he must always keep him safe.  That was to be his burden in the years to come.  They were the only non-human kids at the orphanage and so they were often targeted.  In the beginning, it was Fire's claws and lightening fast reflexes that kept other off them, but only as long as they weren't so totally outnumbered that it made that moot.  It would take a few years for Orn to have his growth spurts, but when he did, the others finally left them be.  Then they were just outcasts to be ignored, which hurt more then the physical wounds.  But that just lead them into exploring the world outside of the orphanage.

 

That's when they found "The Graveyard."  As is often the case, the orphanage was built in an area of little means, far from the centre of port and near the dump.  It was in the Graveyard, as the brothers called the dump, that they saw their first airship.  Sure it was completely wrecked, but for some reason they were drawn to it.  They would go on to explore the entire place and find many others, all gutted skeletons.  When they asked the Sisters about them, they were beaten and told to never go back there, as they were corpses left over from the last war -- dangerous and deadly things -- which only made them want to explore more, only now it was in secret.

 

It was during one of their many forays that Orn had an epiphany.  It lead them to the wreckage that would become their Rose.  It was a massive ironclad corvette, with the nameplate "The Sapphire Rose" -- maybe that was where the Sisters got his name from?  Most of the nose was missing and there were death-head markers painted on the hull -- declaring the ship a plague ship or something worse -- but Orn had to go within and Fire wanted to explore his namesake, so in they went.  There, within the aft bowels, they found what had drawn him in.  It was an oddly shaped piece of armour, worn by an unrecognisable corpse, about 6' tall and pinned under a spar.  As soon as Orn touched the armour, it crawled up his arm and started to grow -- within the day, the mesh armour would fully cover his body.  As the corpse sagged and crumbled away, no longer supported by the armoured mesh, the shard sword was revealed and Orn retrieved it.

 

Since they were already inside, they continued to explore the wreck.  They found the massive Shard engine was still there and mostly intact; it was even making odd noises until Orn, with another epiphany, touched it with his new sword.  There was a flash and the Shard was silent and glowed normally.  Little did the brothers know, but those death-heads were a dire warning that the ship was leaking deadly Shard energies and even their brief exposure would change them, causing Fire's growth to stunt and Orn's to accelerate.

 

Now that they had a working engine, they had a new home away from the orphanage.  Soon after, they would hatch a plan to rebuild the ship so they could see the world!

 

This would take years, since the young boys didn't have the skills, strength or means to actually rebuild an entire corvette.  They decided to make a much smaller ship, one without all the armour and war gear, as they wanted to explore more then anything, and so began their study of everything Airship related.

 

Soon the other kids at the orphanage noticed that they were skipping out almost every day, and called them on it.  To stop them from going to the Sisters, they swore them to secrecy and showed them their new "clubhouse".  They promised to share it with them, as long as they were still at the orphanage, but membership also required that they help to improve the place, and that they agreed that the ship was the brothers.  This gave them a much larger workforce to help rebuild the ship.  The others would come and go as they were adopted, but the brother, being non-humans in an all human town, never were.

 

After years of work, they finally finished.  They decided to keep the name of the corvette and affixed the old nameplate to their new Schooner.  True to their dreams they took flight and never looked back; it wasn't like the Sisters would miss having to feed and clothe them.

 

Their very first haul was the iron cladding and other items that they had stripped off the original Rose.  Orn had also accumulated and repaired a small fortune in Shards from throughout the Graveyard.  It wasn't a very long trip, in fact the maiden voyage was from the Graveyard to the port towns docks.  They made enough to get them a real balloon and supplies to keep them for a few months.  The brothers spent the next few years travelling and exploring -- when times were tight, they ran cargo -- which gave them plenty of time to hone their skills and the augment the Rose to her current state.  They had learned the hard way that when you had a pretty bauble others would want to steal it.  For that reason they purposefully kept her public faces marred and ugly.  The Rose is a well maintained and well kept airship; however, she does have her own quirks and personality, which sometimes causes the brothers no end of grief.

 

The Dragon Knight's corpse was Fire's father, Fire Storm, and the Rose, as the corvette, was his flag ship named after his son -- so the Sisters gave Fire his own name.  The Rose was wrecked when Orns father crashed his own corvette into her, to end their dramatic battle over the port.  Both sides lost all hands with the only survivors being the young brothers.  The traumatic events of the battle and the crash, caused a form of amnesia; which blocked everything before they woke in the care of the Sisters.