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It was all just a bad dream.

It had to be.

A ghastly, gory, blood-soaked nightmare from which he would wake up, and which would, in time, fade into nothingness. That was what nightmares did, right?

~~~

Corsant wearily rubbed his temples as he walked along. It had been a long night, on the heels of an even longer day. Was it really only yesterday that everything had happened, that he and his father had been involved in the first true battle of Corsant's life? Was it only yesterday morning that he had been aching to put his skills to the test, unwilling to stay back on the sidelines when he realized the scope of the battle they had only come to evaluate?

An involuntary shudder ran through Corsant as he looked back over the previous day's events. It was amazing how different the reality was from the expectation, and how one single day could shatter the priorities of a lifetime.

~~~

How long had sparring been a joy for him? How many hours of his life had he spent testing his skills, first against his siblings and his cousin, then his parents, and even on to inanimate objects? How many times had be boasted of his victory in his youthful scrapping matches, and how many bruises, cuts, and black eyes had he worn with the pride of war wounds?

War wounds...

There had been no unicorns around when the battle was over, or if there were, they were dealing with the truly severe injuries. Life and death cases, such as his father's. Even then, the stallion who had saved Antony's life was an alicorn, rather than a unicorn, and it took all of his diluted healing energy to save Antony's life. Beyond that was simply more than the alicorn's energy and skill could muster. Antony had been incredibly weak, but he was out of danger. Corsant and his mother had helped him back and away from the field of combat; perhaps it was a bit more than they should have allowed Antony yo go, but over the course of the afternoon and evening they managed to make it back to his parents' home territory. Though they had been advised to only move Tony as far as necessary, Tony had sworn up and down he could not rest easy until he was home where he knew he was safe.

So they had pressed on, resting only when necessary. The journey, which would have taken no time at all on wing, took hours, and it was only when the first faint silvers of daylight appeared on the horizon that they made it to the secrure glen. Only then would Antony sleep. Corsant had offered to stay and keep an eye on Tony while Loveless slept, but it was unsurprising when his mother refused his offer. For his own part, there was no way he could sleep right now.

In fact, he doubted he'd ever be able to sleep comfortably ever again.

~~~

Their arrival at his parents' home had robbed Corsant of the one thing that had kept him going all day: a purpose. Now, for the first time since the pre-dawn hours of the previous day, he was at his leisure to think. But for perhaps the first time in his life, that leisure was an anathema, and those thoughts were terrifying. The pain in his body that had been relagated to secondary status by the need to help his parents now burst forth with a throbbing intensity, reminding him with each moment of the battle he's never forget. The smell of blood hung in the air, and he realized that all three of them were still coated in it. Dried blood caked his coat and fresh blood oozed from numerous wounds which, due to his continued physical activity, had refused to even begin to scab over.

Having failed to persuade his mother to let him keep watch, Corsant had headed off to the stream almost without thinking. There would be no Mari, he acknowledged with a pang of consciousness, but for perhaps the first time in his life he would be sure to scrub himself throughly. Scrub away the blood and the dirt, the saliva from where other Kalona's mouths had ripped at his skin. Perhaps if he scrubbed hard enough, he could scrub away the memories.

~~~

The reflection that stared back at him from the water struck home just how horrible the fight had been. Bright red gashes criss-crossed his muzzle and along his cheek, some even arcing down around his neck. Blood oozes from a long, deep cut that ran from the back of his neck around his flank to his chest, probably from a wing spike. More cuts decorated his sides, and a few more graced his legs where he'd been snapped at while kicking, or kicked in turn.

Most dramatic of all the injuries was a patch on his head about the size of an apple where the hair had apparently been ripped out by the roots. The wound had ceased gushing blood, but it was an ugly, lumpen mass. The rest of his hair was matted with blood and spit and dirt, hanging in bedraggled clumps around his face. Watching as his reflection did the same, Corsant raised a wing to touch the bloody mane, murmuring as he did so, "Not quite so handsome now, are you?"

Corsant's injuries were the most dramatic thing about his appearance, there was no denying that. But even more striking (to anyone who knew him) was the expression on his face, which belied the horror he'd experienced far more than any amount of blood. The eyes that stared out of the water were dead, the mouth set in a grim line. There was no glimmer of merriment lurking there, no hint of a smile, no cocky attitude prepared to laugh the whole thing off.

Truth be told, Corsant felt sick to his stomach, and as soon as he was alone he had acknowledged that sickness by violently throwing up, heaving until there was nothing left to come out. By the time he'd reached the water, his conscience was taking the most brutal assault of his life as he reflected on what he had seen and done the day before.

There was no question that once there, he had to fight. The sheer numbers of the Kalona invaders, to say nothing of their brutality, had been such that no fighter with a shred of decency could have stayed out once the conflict was seen. Corsant had dove into the combat with energy and aggression, pouring his years of theoretical knowledge and mock battle practice into action. He had shown no mercy, expecting none in return.

And that was the crux of the matter, here and now. He had taken life. He had taken at least three lives, in fact, and quite probably more. By his horns, his hooves, his teeth, he had killed other Soquili. Even though they were evil Soquili and he felt no guilt in having defended himself and others, knowing that he had killed anyone was a grim reality.

So many Soquili had died that day, been severely injured, crippled. The fighting had been brutal, and nothing he had ever imagined could have prepared him for that reality. Looking back on how enthusiastic he was over fighting, and how much joy he had always taken from his practices was now cast in a new light, and his past enjoyment twisted his stomach. How could he have ever thought this was a game?

Covering his face with a wing, Corsant sank down onto the bank and wept.

As he studied his trembling reflection, Corsant remembered he was here for a reason. Perhaps if he actually went ahead and bathed, washed away the blood and the dirt and the sweat the other leavings of the battlefield, he would feel better. Hadn't that been his plan, to wash away the misery with water and scrubbing? Anything had to be better than lying here with this deadness in his eyes and this ache in his heart.

Having so resolved, Corsant broke away from the eyes of his reflection and stood up. With his wing spikes, he attempted to 'comb' his mane out as well as he could, separating strands which had been fused together with blood. Only occasionally did he wince, when the blood was too tenacious or the offending strands were too close to his new bald patch. He would have liked to comb out his tail as well, but no amount of contorting would make that possible. And really, compared to his mane his tail was a cakewalk. Still, it would have been nice to have Mari there with one of her combing sticks.

Mari.

At the thought of his friend, Corsant abruptly broke off his meager attempts at combing out his hair and stood motionless on the bank. Going back beyond the battle, beyond the original regional scouting, his last conversation with Mariasha hung in his memories like a scarlet letter. He had avoided thinking about it before, finding the thoughts to be too painful and distracting. Now, in this place where they had hung out so many times since they first met as foals, he couldn't help but think about it. As the recollections washed over him, the previous days' combat temporarily shifted to the side. You would think he'd be happier for a respite from the blood.

Yet in it's own way, the memory of their last conversation was worse. With hindsight unclouded by the emotion of the moment, he could now vividly remember the way she had cringed back from his rage. Never before had he shown her that rage; true, he had never felt that rage before, but the crux of the matter was that he had made her fear him. He was more than twice her size and always had been, but their had never been anything but easy camaraderie. How many times had she teased or chastised him, badgering him into bathing or cleaning up, into toning things down, into being more...civil? Not once had it ever seemed to click for either of them that he was bigger and theoretically a LOT more dangerous.

Yet in one moment, he had ruined everything. Yes, he had had good reason to be upset. He still had no idea where Azelle was, and after yesterday he was even more concerned about her safety. Their battle had been ghastly, and who knew how many others were going on around the region? But he never should have lost control of himself like he had!

He floated in the stream until the blood and dirt had completely washed away, leaving him surrounded by clear water only. At that point, he resigned himself to the inevitable, dropping his legs back to stand on the bottom on the stream and seizing a mouthful of cattails from the bank to scrub. As uncomfortable as he knew it would be, he needed to clean out his wounds, rinse them, poultice them, and then let them heal themselves fresh. There was no telling just what sorts of nasty bacteria had been in the mouths of those Kalona, to say nothing of what had been living in the dirt.

Corsant only winced when he ripped the first scab. After that, he was too focused on the act of scrubbing itself, which was tricky business when all he had to work with was cattails and his own mouth. His wings were too large to be even remotely practical for holding, and his hair tail lacked the useful prehensile qualities of the more sinuous Kalona tails, such as the one his mother had. When he'd scrubbed as much of himself as he could reach with his mouth, he switched to using his wings to rub his back and sides. His hind legs were even more awkward, with Corsant having to resort to rubbing up against a downed treed. For that one moment, he was glad to be alone.

But there was only so much time that he could devote to scrubbing, or to thinking about scrubbing. Much as he wanted to muse on how hard it was to reach all parts of his body and get them clean, unwanted thoughts kept forcing themselves back into his consciousness. Sights, smells, and sounds of the battlefield mixed with images of Mari's eyes as she had shrank back from him, looking at him with fear when before she had only ever looked at him with eyes of friendship.

Friendship.

How old was he now? He had to stop and think, to actually count the years. So much of his life had been constant, and and much of it had been sheltered. How much longer had he stayed with their parents than any of his siblings? Why had he never felt the same pull towards independence that they all had, some of them when they were barely of age? Why had his life been dominated by one activity at the expense of all others? Because that was why he had stayed at home, he knew; because home was where he trained. His parents, his cousin; they were his most constant training partners. When Guirien had left, Corsant's routine had been thrown into disarray for the first time in his life. Yet the idea to go away himself had never once crossed his mind.