In the middle of the battlefield, a figure began to move little by little, for the cold of the night—cold enough to nearly freeze his legs—was beginning to fade. The rays of sunlight broke over the desert as blood fed every small dune of sand around him. He had been the last man standing—no, the last monster standing. He would never forget it. He was an atrocity, an abomination of nature that should never have existed.
With sorrow, he slowly moved his arms, one after the other, dragging himself through the sand and blood—blood that had frozen under the desert winds where his family had lived for generations. And so he crawled toward the small oasis that lay before the entrance to the city, used by merchants and travelers. After all, he needed to wash the blood off and drink some water before beginning his journey home.
With the little strength he managed to recover, he straightened himself slightly and stood on both legs. Taking a wolf-skin blanket from one of the corpses around him, he tried to cover himself in the most instinctive way he could, because nothing mattered anymore. He had lost all motivation and fought only by inertia—but he had to return home to protect his family.
He walked and walked, stumbling over rags here and there. He walked and walked, wrapping himself in more and more garments abandoned on the battlefield. He walked and walked, cutting away whatever parts got in his way without even looking at what he was cutting. He simply walked across the cold sand, ignoring each and every corpse around him, ashamed to admit that every one of them had died by his hands. Trying to soothe himself, he only walked and walked.
With dry lips and blood covering his body, he could only wish he had never taken part in this war. Falling to his knees, the fierce Calcu cried for every life he had taken. After all, he was not made for war. He was not like his brother. He was not like his father. He was not what the other members of his species believed a Calcu prince should be. He was a sensitive soul who wished to help others, drawn to literature and art. But among the Calcu, a prince who showed interest in such pastimes was no better than filth—and even those condemned to exile openly expressed disgust for a man so capable, so tall, so strong, who rejected all those gifts for hobbies worthless in Calcu culture.
With tears clouding his vision until he could no longer see, he crawled toward the small oasis—the oasis he was meant to protect, the oasis he had been sent to die for. He knew it. His father, the king, had sent him because he was the strongest of their kind, yet despised him for being everything the king himself could never be. Though his father had once been the mightiest of the Calcu, that changed when his firstborn was born. Calcu grew exceptionally fast and incredibly powerful since they lived only twelve years. At six months old, his son had already killed a cerberus with his bare hands. But as the years passed, it became clear that this promising child was a complete disappointment. And so, hoping to see him die, the king sent him to the front lines to protect an oasis not worth protecting—accompanied by the elven princess, to justify the act of war and place the second son as heir to the throne. All for a useless oasis to which he now crawled in his moment of weakness.
When he touched the water and wiped away his tears, he finally saw the reflection—one he despised. Though he was not even three years old, the Calcu developed at such a pace that he already stood nearly two and a half meters tall, with grayish skin, tiny eyes like grapes, thick and prominent eyebrows, a small, almost ridiculous forehead, and a skull that looked like it housed a pebble-sized brain. He was hideous. He didn't want to look because he knew that this appearance was what his beloved despised most about him.
But surprise filled his eyes when he saw a charming figure—one out of a dream, one that seemed to enthrall the world and distort it so that only he could be seen. But he was no longer himself. His hair, once sickly green, had turned a fiery red. His previously insignificant ears were now long, almost elven. His nose, once like a gorilla's with great gaping nostrils, was now delicate and slightly upturned—not too small, not too large. His eyes, once so tiny they disappeared under the shadow of his brows, were now two immense, deep blue orbs. His beard was gone. His massive, muscular body had vanished. Though still tall by elven standards, he was no longer a two-and-a-half-meter man. He was not even a man.
The figure staring back at him was a woman—about 300 to 600 years old by elven standards, 70 to 120 by dwarven standards, and 20 to 25 by human standards. The confused reflection was that of a beautiful woman, capable of enchanting any being—man or woman, dwarf or elf, monster or demon. Any creature would fall entranced by the flutter of her eyelashes. And yet, even as this reflection fulfilled a secret desire he had buried deep within his heart, he wept with hatred for himself.