I pushed my mana and spirit to its limits, and just a bit beyond that; I knew there was no time for hesitation. I was just Rilu now, but I still had my pride. There was still something I could do. Something that didn't involve leaving someone for death. I knew I should have carried him out before it was too late. Why couldn't I bring myself to swallow what little remained of my pride in exchange for a life?

Why did it still hurt so much to serve others? Why did I think it to be serving, and not altruism? Why did I not see a difference?

I heard Leaf begin to cough. I threw my head back and saw him swaying, covering his mouth. His eyes watering from the meager amount of ash in the air. He wouldn't make it five minutes in the worst of it.

Why did I want to do this for someone I had barely spoken to?

The cough turned to a fit. My lungs didn't even feel tight. I could handle this much. Really, any Dragon above the age of ten probably could, and even an infant would perform better.

Why should I do something for someone so weak?

But it didn't matter now, I had made my choice. No hesitation. I could figure out how to get back on track later. I closed my eyes and recited my understanding of my Imprint in my head. I knew that I was approaching

Imprints were based on a Class once one was achieved. Before then, one's Imprint was indistinct, isolated, and filled with potential. A Class provided a method for growth by making it receptive to Records from the Akashic. Elementary. I imagined it like a filter, a drain with a small connection to every other pool in the universe.

It felt inane to be meditating like this while someone was already having trouble breathing from the contamination in the air beside me, but I let my mind drown out my senses. All there was in my head was that drain.

Next, the container. The shape of my Imprint. The shape of my Skill, specifically. I didn't know about that, I always imagined my Imprint to be a flame. Which didn't fit at all with my concept of a flame. I eventually settled on firewood. I would have to ask Leaf for ideas later. He never seemed opposed to sharing them, whether or not he was asked.

Ah, this wasn't going to work.

I had tried meditation like this many times before, but it was all too disjointed to fit together. Nothing had changed. I knew I needed an Image, one compatible with the Records that would allow me to grow, one compatible with my Skill, and one compatible with my Tree. All at the same time.

That simply wasn't going to happen. Because my Skill kept showing how perfect it was for my Class, but it just didn't fit my Tree at all. The precision of my first evolution, Enchant. The explosive force of my second, Burst. The utility of my third, Transfer. All intended for absolute dominance in single combat. And completely irrelevant to the fiber of my soul that sang with calm, steady momentum. My Tree, Power. Something was missing.

And I was about to confuse it even further, tearing the image of my Skill in twain.

But I figured that I'd find something, and I could always worry about it another time. So, I embraced the power and gave it purpose. I reached for the Power to Protect, and it felt so frustratingly right.

And, like that, it was broken. I couldn't feel a tangible change, but I could have sworn some part of my existence became smaller and flimsier in the midst of my (hopefully) bubbling awakening, bursting at the seams with something trying to escape. That was probably just my expectations.

But... I believed it was true. If I could feel my Imprint for just a moment, it would mean I had succeeded. That my makeshift, hasty meditation had allowed me to push my Skill over the edge.

And I had to believe, because that's everything that this was predicated on. I may have fallen down, limited myself to unfulfilled pride. But maybe it could mean something if I could keep something safe with it. If I could allow someone to remain in this universe long enough to reach for the same opportunities that I squandered.

At least, in that moment, so I believed.

No hesitation.

I held fast and waited, and seized the moment of awakening. This would be... a difficult task. However, at least for now, I had something to believe in.

-

I watched between coughs and through tears as Rilu slammed his eyes shut and tensed his face, obviously focusing hard on something. I didn't even see him turn around to face me. I would be impressed, but it could have just been my current state of 'I am quite literally dying on the ground, the air is getting warmer, and my vision is blurring and blackening'.

His breaths got stronger, but he seemed to be doing fine for himself. That was good to see, though not unexpected.

In a few seconds, at a point where I could pierce the veil of embered smoke and my own tears, I saw his eyes shoot open. They glowed subtly, and I felt power whirring around me.

"Stand back," he stated calmly. At least in his expression, voice, tone, and inflection, he seemed utterly focused. But his voice was a song. Not physically, not even in the impression. But in the way I understood it. The two words were laced with momentous power which I could feel energizing me. The electricity running through my Imprint died without fanfare half a moment after I felt it, but the impression of a world humming with power held strong.

Almost subconsciously, I stumbled backward at the command, keeping within Rilu's sight and slightly to the left of him. We were only a few feet away from one another when I could feel that my current position would have to do.

My attention was pulled away as the power built, and in more than just his voice. Reality twisted and warped, replacing empty space with a stone plaque bathed in golden light, reflecting back on the darkened mirror that was the flats. I could read the words on it, they appeared as English to me, but I looked away.

He would show me when he was ready to.

He didn't look either, it seemed. He just drew what appeared to be a metallic quarterstaff inscribed with glowing white runes from his satchel, eyes blazing.

The runes became rougher and were dyed the same orange red of his eyes. I hadn't seen any sort of feature like that on the other items- I wondered what made this one different.

And then my clarity left me, and I was reduced to coughing again. Holding my eyes shut and breathing into my shirt, fanning it out between breaths as the smoky air changed into something more akin to dense fog.

A dense fog that was searing, irritating, and pitch-black, that is.

Then, something seemed to shift in the power I felt through my Imprint. I could tell that the transition was ending. A backflow of the retreating aura of power began, rumbling toward Rilu as an empty pressure descended over the area. I couldn't help but open my teary eyes back up to see what had happened.

The red-orange of the runes went into overdrive, showing like a torch amidst the smoke, replicating the embers I had seen far off before my vision was obscured.

The torch seemed to extinguish, snuffed out by its surroundings, and the pressure mounted. Circuits of now crimson light wove across the ground, disappearing into the black, radiating a sort of temperature entirely different from the warm air around me.

It felt as if the world itself was on the edge of spontaneously combusting. Orange began to bubble below the surface around me, first in indistinct veins following the magic web, gradually refining themselves to follow that path better.

The circuits readjusted themselves, and where the blood-red fled, the orange followed beneath the surface. It leaned back and forth as it wove again. Avoiding me. Something was going to happen, likely explosive in nature, so I curled up into a ball. That was the last I actually saw. I wouldn't have seen much more either way, as when I closed my eyes as I did this, they hurt far too much to open again.

The heated salt beneath me got into my clothes and the salt made me twitch as I coughed and gasped for clean air.

And then, as trite as it is to say, it all went white.

-

The heat was unbearable. I felt as if my skin was going to melt off. This was a different kind of hotness to the lethargic burn of the flats in midday, this was sharper and more corrosive. It tore the edges of my body apart, even if I was away from the worst of it. And the pressure. Oh, god, the pressure, it felt like what I imagine bombs going off in every direction would feel like. I felt like I was in a superheated trash compactor.

I was being crushed and burned alive. I could feel my skin flake and scab, and I suddenly felt a hundred years older. My thoughts were slow and full of pain. I'm pretty sure I got a migraine at some point. My heartbeat slowed and my sweat only served to steam me.

And then it stopped.

Out of nowhere, all of the pressure and burning just went away. It left me dry and singed. I couldn't open my eyes once more, but my coughs begin to result in more and more air flowing into my lungs. I felt like death, a cocktail of numerous life-threatening injuries and unfathomable pain, but it was beginning to pass. Probably. Hopefully.

I felt cool water pour over me, and god, it was horrible. I needed it so bad, but it only served to increase my sensitivity to the pain I was in. The sudden chill invaded my body, and, contrary to what I had believed up until this point, hot and cold were not mutually exclusive feelings by any means.

Well, I suppose that I know what being bathed in acid feels like now. Zero out of ten, would not recommend.

In spite of the pain, the water was still better for me in the end. To stop my skin from cracking and whatnot. I didn't actually know what would happen, but I had seen enough in movies...

And my mind was wandering again. Oh well, maybe that was a sign I was doing better. I tried to speak, to tell Rilu I was alright, but the words seemed spoken through a hollow tunnel, not escaping their state as small gusts of air from my fried lungs. My ears were still ringing and burnt all around, and I couldn't produce the air for so much as a whisper. So, it was just wheezing and coughs, while I was deprived of every sense except something I could only describe as agony.

I don't know how long I was out after that.

The only sense of time I had was the water coming back once in a while, but even that seemed to stop after a bit. Something was wrong, I knew it, but I was still battered and broken.

Eventually, I did get some bandages, probably when Rilu had the time to dedicate to it. He had to have been keeping the smoke out somehow. Maybe that was why the water was taking so long.

But that began to seem less right after feeling sympathy projected at me through my Imprint. It was difficult to be precise without hearing the words themselves I had found (no automatic telepathy here), but I could get the gist. I'm sure that the words were spoken, since I couldn't sense intent otherwise.

And the gist became a bit clearer when I felt the canteen enter one of my hands.

Somehow, for one reason or another, Rilu couldn't use it. He couldn't make more water with it, and I'd need to attune to it on my own. Maybe he needed to use a different Catalyst to keep out the smoke, maybe he couldn't focus anymore. I didn't know.

What I did know is that I would die if I couldn't figure this out.

It was possible if he had given it to me. It had to be.

And even if it was a vain hope, it wasn't like I was supposed to have lasted this long regardless. I only had because I had given it everything I had.

If I stopped here, when I actually had the chance to do something, what would that make me?

So I would try my best. That was all that I could do, and that was all that I had been doing.

I felt for the ever more distant existential boundary that was my Imprint. It felt chaotic and going against how it should be functioning. In trying to control it, I must have messed something up, rather than my previous assumption of just being more used to its existence and growing blind to it. But I did have an idea.

Contrary to what my dry lips, scorched hair, and nearly melted skin wanted, I began to imagine a flame.

Even imagining the heat made my head feel light, but I used the same fire to push through.

It was warm, but it wasn't a sharp or oppressive or painful heat. It was the heat of an engine, an invigorating fire that was my drive forward. I felt the heat, I felt the intensity, and I grabbed the best parts of it...

And it still felt wrong. I was missing something, and I had at most ten minutes before I passed out. For the last time. Being on the brink of death so often has to be bad for my health.

Er, mental health. I didn't think there was much room for debate on near-death being bad for physical health, bar maybe some fringe schools of philosophy.

And my thoughts were wandering again.

I mentally slapped my cheeks (I couldn't move my arms well enough to do it physically) to pull myself back together, if I didn't figure this out, I was going to die. Once again on the edge, held against my will on the brink of oblivion.

However, this time, I was in control.

I just needed to keep pushing. Keep going. I had to keep on fighting.

I thought back to every tiny detail I had seen mentioned, the process of Attunement. For me, the first step was finding my Imprint and shaping it, that was my only lead, the only advantage I could perceive that I had.

The shape of my Imprint was unimportant. It didn't matter if it were shaped like a flame or a world or a literal piece of garbage. What got me closer, as I felt it, was always behavior. How I imagined it moving and twisting and changing. How I imagined its trajectory and energy.

The flame I envisioned my Imprint as... Constantly in flux, constantly in motion, swirling and crackling. It was something, but there was a focus it was missing. It was chaotic, but between all of it was something that my mind, or maybe my Skill, kept leading me toward. The process involved connecting to a Catalyst.

I tried working backward. I had heard to connect to a Catalyst you need to keep feeling it, able to push it around. Connection was about compatibility.

I don't know how it came to me. I think it was my skill, but my thoughts wandered to the word 'resonance', and it seemed to all click. I thought back to the rhythm that shook my soul as Rilu spoke as the air was filled with his power.

My Imprint could interact with other Imprints. I didn't have a shape I could identify yet, but when I tried to oscillate that strange boundary of existence in the same way I had felt as Rilu did it, I could begin to feel the world around me a bit, and a strong disturbance around the canteen.

I could feel how the Imprint of the Catalyst ebbed and flowed, shifting and moving. And I could feel where it warped, and from that learn the properties of my own. With my will, I began to shift it.

I didn't have the hang of it at all, and it was immensely unstable, but the clarity I felt as I first sought it had returned. And, just for a moment, I managed to hit the right frequency around the disturbance, frantically looking for a key to the lock.

And it filled up halfway. With no fanfare, mind you. No sound effects for a successful attunement. Still, even without that, I would have jumped for joy if I were capable of jumping at that point.

Instead, I made a small whimper and what I hoped was a distinctly triumphant twitch in my fetal position.

A bit pathetic, but if I had water, I would survive. And that was what mattered/ Because here I had won.

At least for now.

I managed to move my arm enough that I could begin to drink, and refilling it was only easier the second time. It still took time, though. I would imagine people normally didn't actively attune like this, since they lack Visualization's properties. So, there was a bit more time required, though as people sometimes apparently needed months to Attune to a Catalyst, I couldn't complain about that.

That was the beginning of my cycle of restless sleep and waking dreams, of mind-melting heat and ever-necessary water that only made me further realize my own pain.

It was funny. Living on lately had become the hardest thing I'd ever done.

But, fuck, I hadn't given up just yet. I had kept the promise I made to myself. And that was enough.

The first words I had spoken since the explosions wormed their way out of my lungs in one of my myriad fleeting moments of awakedness.