Leandro's brow was frozen into a frown as he observed Niala panting and stumbling in a snaking line as she completed her fifth lap.

  He shook his head, speaking with the tone a mother uses when talking about her son-in-law. “Pitiful.”

  Niala dragged her eyes up at Leandro with a desperate glance, finding only a cold stare, and forced herself forward for a few more steps.

  David sprinted past her, close to Leandro. “She's improved a lot. Couldn't do three laps without collapsing.”

  The veteran called out to David, “If you can talk, you are not out of breath enough. Faster, boy!”

  David threw his head back in exasperation before dragging it forward, eyes forward, and focused on his body, pushing for it to accelerate.

  Leandro nodded at the boy's appropriate effort and brought his attention back to the catkin. Ears drooping, soaked in sweat, tongue lolling out of her mouth, she kept taking one more step.

  He watched her go as she kept taking another step, balancing at the edge of consciousness. For one more lap. For two more laps. For three... and then, what he'd been waiting for, happened; she tripped and fell forward, flat on the ground, lying motionless. He made a curt nod, the catkin having finally reached her limit. He lifted a foot in her direction before coming to a stop, his eyes widening with a twinge of surprise. Niala twitched, groaned like a rusted iron gate, and dragged herself onto all four, onto one knee, onto her feet, and took another step.

  One of his eyebrows rose without his consent. If the girl had that kind of will, to push herself beyond exhaustion... a diamond in the rough, perhaps? He stepped back and resolved to wait.

  She sent him another begging glance. He gave her the same impassive shake of the head as the last ten times. She swallowed and kept going, one struggling step at a time.

  Indomitable temperament or not, she had to meet her wall before she could start pushing it back.

  A wall she met eleven laps later, as she sprawled to the ground, and didn't manage to get up that time, but, to Leandro's secret astonishment, she had still tried.

  A wide, hungry grin splayed over his face. Finding putty and moulding it into a piece of physical art was his true calling, and a putty with the kind of drive that the little catkin was displaying only came around so often.

  He changed his focus to David, who had stopped by his prone girlfriend to give her some water to drink. The only thing she seemed to have been lacking was proper motivation, but that issue seemed to have resolved itself.

  This was going to be fun.

  This is the literal blood pits. Niala thought, as she finished her twentieth lap, somehow managing to maintain a spirited jog along the way.

  Leandro has been torturing her for three weeks now. Five days a week of sweat, aches, and exhaustion.

  But! She was doing better! Nowhere what David had, but she was improving! And her demon trainer had even, sometimes, looked at her with something resembling respect!

  She looked at David, who had transitioned to curling up buckets of rocks, her eyes catching his bulging biceps, tensing chest, square shoulders, his soaked, too-tight shirt clinging to his body like a second skin, leaving nothing to the imagination...

  She squealed as she tripped and fell on the grassy side of the path, having deviated toward David in a straight line.

  The two men stopped and looked at her.

  David spoke with amused concern. “Are you ok, Niala?”

  She buried her face into the grass, feeling her cheeks flushing red.

  Stupid sexy distracting David!

  The days flew by, filled with training, and whatever time remained for their lives.

  Early Autumn turned into High Autumn, and Niala began losing most of her pudge, filling the empty space with muscle mass. Which was, as far as she was concerned, utter oxshit. She hadn't been fat, at all! She just had a cute and cozy layer, which David had seemed to like just fine, but, in her inner thoughts of inner thoughts, she had dreamed of what an athletic and svelte Niala would look like.

  Except, that had been a lie! Her body shape hadn't changed at all! Her round butt was still round! Her hips were still wide! Her belly was... well, her belly had started flattening out, but still!

  And when she'd brought this up to David, that idiot?

  “I know! It's amazing! I was dreading the day you'd slim down!”

  She had punched him in the guts and stormed off.

  But... well... she had noticed how his gaze lingered on her for longer than before, and how much more touchy-grabby he was getting, and maybe it ought to make her feel objectified, but it instead made her feel attractive and desired.

  And, to be honest, she was doing the same thing to him anyway...

  Maybe, just maybe, the whole training thing wasn't that bad.

  Or it wouldn't be that bad if she didn't have a muscle maniac as a coach!

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  The trees had traded their greens for the colours of sunset, the nights growing colder, and Winter being something on the horizon, instead of an afterthought, when Leandro had judged David's progress satisfactory to move on to the next step of his training; his imbuements.

  David had sent a quick prayer to all the saints he could think of, expressing his joy at being done with strength training, to which Leandro had barked a laugh, clasping a bear-sized mitt on his shoulder and informing the boy in very clear terms that strength training would never be over.

  They just had new kinds of exercises to add on top, now!

  Niala tried to console her dejected boyfriend, who had now understood that the light at the end of the tunnel had been a demon's fiery mane, and not the promised sun.

  Leandro had asked if they knew of any secluded place they could train David's abilities in secret, and both of his pupils had suggested the same place: the moon chapel.

  Roughly two bells away at a jog, David had said they could get there in fifteen minutes if they boosted. Leandro had shaken his head, asking why they would give up four full good bells of running, getting to and back from that place.

  It had been David's time to console Niala.

  And on the day they all met up, Leandro had brought out three yokes, buckets, weights and iron bars of all sizes and shapes. David had begun unfurling a cargo cloth to bring all of that equipment over, and Leandro had stopped him, asking the boy why they would give up four full good bells of running and strength training. David and Niala attempted to console each other, their failure to do so celebrated by Leandro's booming laugh.

  Panting and exhausted, David and Niala stumbled into the chapel's clearing, followed by Leandro, who observed the area and deemed it an appropriate location.

  Before he could begin giving out instructions, David asked if they could do something that he had meant to do, but had never gotten around to.

  Niala's ears perked up once she realized what he meant, as the courier unrolled a cargo cloth and retrieved Anaakendi's large, intricate tome, still mana-locked to her mana.

  They had asked the incarnate Anaakendi to try and unlock it, but they'd found out that becoming an incarnation apparently also changed someone's mana signature, and so, they still needed one of her bones.

  Given the way the bones had been flung all over the place following Niala's explosion and Anaakendi's whirlwind reformation, they resolved to throwing bones at the tome until something clicked.

  Luckily, they found one within two bells, and, David, just about as excited by the prospect of finally reading the tome as Niala's wiggling ears seemed to indicate she was, came to lift the cover, only for Leandro to put his hand on top, keeping it shut.

  “Time for training, friends. You can read once you cannot move your legs anymore.” He said, smiling.

  They swallowed their spit.

  While Niala ran laps around the clearing with an unladen yoke, Leandro had David attempt to activate his imbuements while only generating the faintest of glows, something he kept failing to achieve, each aborted attempt earning him a whack from Leandro's stick.

  The veteran circled his trainee, eyes focusing on minute details only he could discern, as David kept cycling his mana.

  “Boy, your training is nonexistent, and it shows. You are not even trying to control your imbuements, you are simply throwing a lake's worth of mana at them, brute forcing your way in.” Leandro said, whacking David as he failed to control his mana output once more.

  The young man glared at his tormentor. “I have a lot of mana. It wants to get out all at once.”

  Leandro quirked an eyebrow and turned to face him. “If your mana is in control, maybe I ought to train it and not its puppet?” He asked in mockery.

  David narrowed his eyes at the big man before looking straight ahead, making another attempt, and receiving another whack. “Ow! Leandro! I'm saying I don't know how!”

  Leandro slapped David on the shoulder, grinning. “Ah! Then this should be perfect for you, boy! There is no how! Every Azure Guard has a different relationship with their mana, and each must learn to tame it in their own way!”

  David blinked as the large man put a hand on his own chest. “My mana, it is a great white bear. It slumbers, it guards its territory, and, when something draws its ire, it rears up on its two legs and lets out a deafening roar of challenge! At first, it had refused to stir, content to laze about, but with enough prodding, I made it pay attention!”

  “Why haven't I heard about mana animals before?” David asked, eyeing Leandro with suspicion.

  “Because it is both a deeply personal thing, and only those who lead their mana regularly will ever develop the inner sense needed to even perceive its form, such as Azure Guards, or imbuers,” Leandro explained, before leaning in. “Now, boy, tell me about yours.”

  David met the veteran's gaze, then closed his eyes and sought out his mana's manifestation. Felt for its shape, its... will?

  But all he could see and feel was the dark, glittering water, in the shape of an endless sea, with his mind a mote of light floating above the mirror-clear surface. If he looked down, he could see his reflection; another mote of light staring back at him.

  He opened his eyes and looked back at Leandro, shoulders slumping. “All I can feel is the vast ocean and dark water, the same I've always seen.”

  Leandro tilted his head. “A vast ocean? No... solid land?”

  David shook his head. “No, nothing but water, as far as I can perceive, and even past that, I think.”

  The veteran grabbed his chin. “Hmm, there is always a bit of land, surrounded by water, and your mana's will should inhabit that land.”

  “Everyone has water?” David asked.

  “Of course, boy. That water you perceive is the mana around you. It is the world's mana, upon which our selves, the islands, exist. This is something you would have learned, had you continued your studies into the nature of mana.” Leandro explained.

  “But... that doesn't make any sense! Does that mean I don't exist?” David asked, throwing a hand.

  “Clearly, you do, but we are missing something...” Leandro's eyes narrowed. “You are a special case, boy. There are clearly more secrets within you yet. This does, however, derail my plans somewhat.” He said, crossing his arms, thinking.

  David relaxed his stance, earning him a whack, uttering a yelp of surprise. He gave Leandro a stink-eye.

  “I did not tell you to stop trying, boy.” Leandro intoned, not looking at him.

  Sighing, David resumed his attempts, growing more frustrated with every resulting whack.

  Over the bells, David pulled and released his mana hundreds of times, without pause. Even when he began to feel a slight sluggishness, as if his mana was resisting his call, he kept at the exercise.

  Call on his mana, restrict it, force it into a narrow channel, only for it to splash everywhere and trigger all of his imbuements at once. Whack!

  Try again.

  As time and David's patience wore on, something caught, and on the razor-flat surface the smallest, most minuscule of ripple, barely a hair's breadth in height, pulsed outward, all the way to the horizon, and further out.

  Back at Niala's house, while he was cleaning the bathtub, Jordo's mana sensor pinged.

  Intrigued, the golem rose and turned to face the source. He reviewed his internal logs and saw the small deviation in ambient mana, recognizing his new master's mana signature.

  Its ruby eye pulsed, a dormant sub-routine waking up as several parameters had been met, and some of his locked memories were made available.

  “Oh... I see... I... must... k...” He looked back down at the half-cleaned bathtub. “I must keep this house as clean as possible! Sir and Madam deserve the best that this poor Jordo can offer!” He declared with enthusiasm, scrubbing with even greater vigour.