By the time they reached the city, Ember's cart was shaking madly but still holding up, and to her surprise, humans immediately identified the issue and came to offer help. It turned out that consistently helping people day after day made them all the more willing to help in return. And before she knew it, Ember was relieved of her cart while it was being put on another bigger cart and pulled by another human deeper inside the city to get them proper help. And all that without anyone asking anything in return.

Although, at this point, Ember was more distracted by the sight of the city. Broken windows and suspicious marks here and there were testaments of the fighting that happened in the past few weeks. And so were the occasional leftovers of former barricades and repurposed walls right and left. It was a different-looking place than the one she used to know and love back when her late owner was still around. Even local parks were nothing like they used to be.

Then, they finally reach the garage that would handle the reparation. In spite of the non-existent traffic and the complete absence of cars, the place was buzzing with activity, men working on all sorts of odds contraptions that smelled of oil and disgusting grease.

So Ember decided to keep her distance and let Merida handle it, listening in distractedly as she lay down for a nap.

"Never seen anything like it," a man said, "This is obviously a cargo trailer cart intended for a bike, but this is highly customized. I never thought I would see a dog pulling one of those too. Honestly, it's a wonder you were able to make it work for so long. Both tires had been cut with knives, and you kept using them anyway. You also have bullet impacts on the back. And don't get me started on the axle. If it were a month ago and any other clients, I would advise you to buy a new one."

Bullet impacts? Huh? You know, the more I discover about your late owner, the less I wanna know.

Ember ears perked up at the mention, but she dismissed the comment entirely. She just wanted to forget, and knowing her late owner used to have a very different life before she settled down here with her was not helping.

"Given how customized the whole thing is, I'm sure you won't mind that we replace any broken parts with any spare parts we get. We might as well change the wheels for something more suitable for your dog's size and rebalance the whole thing while we are at it. It won't be cheap, however. And it might take a few days. However, you might be better off asking around for a toy cargo trailer instead or in the meantime."

What do you think? Should we ask around, pay for the repair, or both? You would be the one doing the pulling, after all.

'I like this cart and grew used to it. Wheel size felt fine to me. Can we keep the repairs to a minimum?' She responded lazily.

"I think you are underestimating Ember's strength. She can run at speed for hours while pulling our cart." Merida retorted as per Ember's instructions, "What about keeping the repairs to a minimum? Can you restore its functionality and durability while keeping it as it is?"

"It would be slightly cheaper but would take a bit more time. Let's say a whole week to repair the damn thing. Unless you want to pay extra for a rushed job." The man grumbled.

'I don't care about waiting,' Ember said, not waiting for Merida's prompting.

"Then a week it is," Merida concluded. "By the way, if you are amenable, I may also pay in magic. While I specialize in healing, I have a cantrip to repair broken objects, including broken parts. I can fix about half a kilogram of broken materials at a time and use it about forty times an hour before fatigue kick in."

The man's eyes lighted up as she said so, probably counting in his mind how much benefit he could make from previously beyond-repair and worthless broken parts.

"Does your cantrip thingy as any restrictions I should know of?" The man asked.

"Aside from the previously mentioned ones, only two: It can only repair one thing or part at a time. And it is increasingly less efficient on organic materials, the most 'recently dead' it is. Not that the second one should be an issue in this place. Don't you think?"

"It would be a pleasure doing business with you." The man agreed, crunching down to offer Merida an awkward handshake.

★☆★

Even after securing the reparation, Merida and Ember still need a way to return home. And so they ended up following the mechanics' advice and asking around for a free, temporary replacement when a loud bang sounded in the distance.

The humans instantly panicked attention sound. But Ember knew where it came from long before the pillar of smoke started filling the blue sky. It had been from the exact same place that held yesterday's night meeting. And so she instantly knew what had happened and why.

Some people got mad about the decision to accept the deal and decided to ensure everyone knew how strongly they disagreed.

But that was also when it clicked. Ember wanted to be a rescue dog, saving people's lives, and here was a literal fire, with people potentially in need of her help and for Merida's healing. She did not think it twice and grabbed the puppet in her mouth before rushing toward the growing flames. Until a familiar voice got through to her:

This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.

"Ember, please! Ember goddammit! Ember stop! I don't wanna die!"

She stopped as she finally remembered that Merida was critically weak and afraid of fire, as she explained to her repeatedly in the past. And yet, she totally forgot. But she was conflicted cause here was her chance to prove her worth, and she knew she could not do it without her partner.

'Sorry, Merida. I forgot again.' She whined, looking intently between the doll and the fire.

"It's okay. I want to help too. But I can't. Not like this." Merida pleaded in return, obviously mad at herself again, which caused Ember to whine even louder and hide behind her paw in shame.

'Is there really nothing we can do?' Ember asked apologetically once she calmed down.

"There is." Merida sighed, making clear she already regretted that concession, being so conflicted between her urge to make Ember happy and her own need for self-preservation. "Remember that time I taught you how to use a hair dryer? Same as that time, except I will have to get soaking wet on purpose."

Ember remembered that painful memory. Merida whined cause she was so heavy she could not move. And herself, too clumsy to properly follow her directive. It took her a painfully long hour to plug the freaking cord, another half an hour to turn the dryer on, and then, what felt like an eternity to make Merida dry enough for her to move on her own.

'Are you sure?' Ember asked, astonished.

"What can I say? That's the only way you will get me close enough to the fire so I could help anyone. And you are the only one I can't tell to fuck off. So let's get me soaking wet, and let's hopefully save some life, or I'm going to be fucking upset about it. Together?"

'You are the best!' Ember exclaimed before she took the doll back in her mouth and ran to the closest riverbed, before teasing:

'Last chance to chicken out.'

"Fuck you, Ember!" The doll shouted at her, and she plunged the piece of fabric into the water.

'Stop ou Encore?' Ember teased again after pulling the puppet back.

"You are a literal heartless bitch." Merida retorted, already whining. "Let's get to that fire before I start molding."

'Yes, Ma'am!' Ember exclaimed before rushing back to the still-roaring flames.

★☆★

While Ember knew what fire was and how it could hurt once one got too close, no experience had prepared her for the inferno she was currently facing. It was so hot that she felt wrong, even being more than ten meters away from the open flames.

The company building was still burning, although less fiercely than a few minutes before, but the fire had spread to the neighbors' building. And worse, whoever had started the fire used magic to do so, making it hard to extinguish and leaving a trail of burnt-down corpses in their wake. It immediately reminded Ember of the school, only it was ten times worse. And though the pyromaniac had fleed, the devastation was still ongoing this time around.

"Leave me there and send the survivors back to me," Merida said encouragingly.

And Ember gently dropped her on the floor and nodded before going even closer to the uncomfortable heat and start doing her job. She took a deep breath of the scorching hot air and let her senses guide her, activating one cantrip after another to enhance her reading of the situation.

The pyromaniac was an intoxicated messed-up middle-aged man, and his magical signature was so close to that of the fire that they almost felt like one and the same, though she knew the man was long gone from the trail of death he left behind. But now wasn't the time to hunt him down.

Although it was very faint, there were now more people with a magical signature than people without, and she could now track every single one of them as they fought for their lives against the living fire. Some were winning and escaping the inferno, so she could herd them toward Merida, who was ready to heal them as best as she could. Some were struggling, and their fate was still uncertain. And she barked to try to get Humans' attention toward those ones. But some were already dead and did not know it yet.

And then, she spotted what she had been looking for without knowing it. In the inferno was a girl. She had a faint reading on her magical signature, but the kid was still fighting, all alone and isolated. And Ember was uniquely suited to come to her help.

Instinct just kicked in as she entered the building ignoring Merida's distant warning. She weaseled her way through the fire to get to the girl and calm her panicked mind, letting the girl's instinct do the rest as her own Ice Elemental magic stopped flickering in and out of existence and started shielding her firmly from the fire on their way back out.

She was young. No older than six years old. Blond, although it was hard to tell. And she had several degrees burn that she completely ignored, covering them in ice before she started fighting the fire once against, from the outside this time. And Ember did not need magic to know something was wrong with the girl. But she was unresponsive, and her fierce determination to fight the fire was a force of nature in its own right.

So Ember gave up on trying to direct her toward her partner and went to try to help someone else.

Ultimately, she helped only three panicked ones out of the fire. All of them had been similarly equipped to survive the fire once they reigned on their fear. But the other two were not like the little girl. One fled as soon as he got out, ignoring his own burn. While the other collapsed as soon as they escaped the fire, so Ember had to bark for help to get her out of danger.

But when the fire finally died out, she had the satisfaction of a job well done. Five buildings had burned down. Many people lost their lives in the fire, albeit not as many as those the pyromaniac killed himself. But many more lives had been saved, and Ember did her part. She saved a few lives, barked for help here and there, directed badly burned people toward Merida, and even used her innate talent right and left to keep people's minds clear and motivated.

She might still not be the Rescue Dog she dreamed of becoming but at least, for the very first time, she felt on the right track.

★☆★

It turned out that dealing with the fire's aftermath required as much energy as dealing with the fire itself.

Suddenly, survivors sprung back alive as their survival instinct turned off, and they finally had time to contemplate the death of their families and peers. People screamed. People sobbed. One man tried to commit suicide after realizing he had no one left. It was more than Ember and her meager talent could handle.

She did manage to soothe a few people, hitting them so hard that she kicked them to sleep. But many had emotions too strong to be dampened, and Ember knew they had every right to be angry, sad, or utterly terrified. After all, the fire was out, but the threat was not gone.

But more than anything, now was the time to decide what to do with the survivors. They needed new homes. Some required people around to watch over them. And some kids needed adoptive parents, although they did not even get the time to grieve their late ones.

Turn out that ice-maniac little girl was one of them.

And Merida wanted to adopt her. Though not legally or out of kindness, as it was a perfectly logical decision, as she argued so with Ember. The girl had no parents and a very convenient innate talent to fight that pyromaniac. She was also isolated and in need of a home. She also ran away before getting healed once she came to her sense. And everyone seems to have forgotten about her.

Ember knew in her gut it was a bad idea, although she did not know why.

But in the end, she at least agreed to track the girl. If anything, to offer the healing she sorely needed.