Quatre rubbed the back of his arm across his forehead and lent against the handle on his shovel, sweating in the burning summer heat. Before him stood Wufei, stripped to the waist and diligently digging. Captain Yuy and his second, Lieutenant Barton were scouting on ahead to their designated camping point, leaving the other two to examine the remains of their preys victims.

Quatre has stripped his jacket and undone his shirt some time ago and was now removing said shirt and stretching his aching muscles. He had not joined the military for this. He was covered in dirt, his lungs and hair were full of dust and his eyes had become blurry in the intense sunlight.

"Why are we doing this?" Quatre questioned, throwing his shirt onto the back of his horse and retrieving his canteen.

"I told you, because Captain Yuy told us to." And because Yuy is to damned lazy to do it for himself.

"But what does he want the bodies for?" Quatre asked, unscrewing the lid of his canteen and taking a long, welcome drink.

"Because he wants you to examine them." Wufei blinked and raised one hand to slowly wipe away the water Quatre had just spat in his face. The blond cadet was staring at Wufei with his mouth open and his eyes wide, a look of horror of his face.

"You have to be kidding!"

"I don’t kid." Wufei replied coldly, resuming his digging. "Now hurry up and get digging or we wont get to the camp in time to eat." Quatre continued to stare at his superior in revulsion even as he began to dig, unenthusiastically.

*****

Quatre held s piece of cloth over his mouth and nose as he reluctantly examined the final corpse. This one had had it’s head and legs severed and judging by the decomposition of the legs he had been legless quite a while before he had become headless. His shaking fingers probed the wound, amazed at the tiny amount of blood on the mans clothing. He was certain a blade had done this but the wound was totally cauterised, as though the blade had been red hot when it inflicted these injuries.

The pain must have been agonising, he thought, moving away from the last body and allowing Wufei to haul it onto the back of the cart, ready to be taken back to the local village where their families could bury them properly. Thirty six men dead, all within at least a fifteen minute time span. Quatre shook his head in dismay and stared at his blood soaked hands. Yes, he was a field medic but he had been trained to deal with the injuries of the living, not the dead.

He turned to look at Wufei for instructions as the Chinese tracker pulled himself up onto the borrowed cart.

"Go ahead to the camp site, tell the others I will join you all soon." Quatre nodded and watched as Wufei manoeuvred the cart out of sight through the forest, towing his horse, Nataku, behind him. Quatre watched until he was out of sight and toppled forward, leaning against a tree, shaking. He had thought he was ready for the field. He had been wrong. Very, very wrong.

He took a hold of the reigns of his horse, a nondescript brown mare and made his way through the forest. He walked alone for a while until he heard the sound of rushing water and his heart leapt. Water meant he could finally wash the blood and dirt from his skin and clothes.

He emerged from the undergrowth to be greeted with the sight of a rushing river, cutting it’s way across the countryside like a giant snake. He quickly tethered his horse and removed his clothes from her back, rushing to the side of the river. He plunged his hands into the slow moving, cool water and splashed his face, sighing in contentment.

He glanced around and, seeing no one around, stripped himself of his clothes and sank into the cold water, washing the dirt and death from his skin. Nothing had ever felt so good in his entire life!

He was so wrapped up in the luxurious feeling of cleanliness that he did not notice the figure watching him from the shadows, eyes trained on him warily. He did not notice the clothes drying on the bank a few feet away or the pack which lay beside them. All the young blond cadet could notice was the feeling of the water, carrying away the strain in his muscles like massaging fingers on his sore skin.

He did notice, however, when something behind him snorted loudly and he turned to see a large set of teeth snapping at him. He cried out loudly, took a step back, slipped on a rock and plunged fully into the icy depths. Arms flailing he made a desperate grab for anything solid to pull himself up with, his fingers scratching at the bank. Realising this was not going to work he flung his arms directly upwards in the hopes of grabbing an over hanging branch or something similar. What he grabbed turned out to be a horses neck.

Much to his surprise the horse began to back up, pulling him from the water until he was laying on the bank, panting for breath. Brushing his soaking hair from his eyes he examined the horse which was peering at him in a concerned way. The horse was a big, sturdy brute the colour of sand with a pair of the biggest, brown eyed Quatre had ever seen.

He absently patted the creatures neck, looking around for his clothes and horse. With a yell he saw his clothes beginning to drift downstream with the current. He realised to late that his frantic thrashing and scrambling at the bank had, in fact, pulled his belongings into the water.

He ran back to the bank, mindless of his naked state and began to hastily pull his dripping wet clothes from the rivers soggy clutches. He sat back on the sun warmed grass and stared at the array of wet clothes in front of him.

"Great. Now what do I do? Captain Yuy is just looking for an excuse to send me back! This will seal it for sure! Why am I such a klutz!?"

<Do not worry, Quatre. You can dry your clothes in the sun and no one will know.>

"Yeah, but I’ll be late meeting the others and....Who said that!?" Quatre leapt to his feet, twirling through three hundred and sixty degrees, eying the woods nervously. "Who’s there?!"

<There is no one in the wood.> Came the voice again and Quatre realised that he hadn’t so much heard the voice as sensed it. Blinking slowly he turned to look at the horse.

"Are you....Talking to me? No! That’s crazy! Horses can’t talk!"

<This one can.> Came that same voice as the horse took a few steps closer, stretching out its neck towards Quatre and nuzzling him. Quatre stared and then did the only thing he could think of. He screamed, very loudly, and ran.

*****

From the shadows a figure emerged, trotting across the grass and scooping up his clothes, his braid trailing out behind him. He eyed the horse who was staring after the retreating bare butt of the soldier.

"That went well." He quipped, pulling his shirt on against a sudden chill wind. The horse gave him a cold look. Duo grinned broadly and crouched down beside the soldiers belongings, going through them carefully. The horse nipped his braid, tugging gently and giving him a reprimanding look.

"Don’t worry, I wont steal to much, just a little money, he wont miss it." He pulled a small cloth purse from the pack and threw it into the air to test its weight. He grinned. "This’ll feed me for a month! Thank him for me Unicorn?" The horse snorted and Duo rolled his eyes, stuffing the boys clothes into the pack and slinging it onto the sand coloured horses back.

"Do you think he’ll want his horse?" The new horse snorted indignantly. "Thats great! I can sell it and buy myself some new clothes!" The sandy horse snorted again and took a step closer to Duo, stretching out it’s neck to be petted. Duo smiled.

"You might wanna go after him, before someone sees him. See you around Unicorn." The horse whinnied quietly and trotted off into the forest. Duo smiled and untethered the brown mare, disappearing down the path, following the river.

*****

Quatre continued to run through the forest for all he was worth until a thought struck him, well two thoughts in fact. One, he was totally naked and running through a forest and two, how on earth could a horse have spoken to him? It was crazy!

He stopped running and lent against a tree to catch his breath. Now that he thought about it, he wasn’t sure he had heard the horse talking to him. He could have just imagined it, like wakening from a dream, it seemed to insane.

He laughed quietly to himself and ran his fingers through his quickly drying hair. Stupid Quatre, you must have really freaked that horse out. He turned, shaking his head again at his own stupidity and intent on retrieving his clothes until he saw the horse, trotting towards him through the woods with his pack tied haphazardly to his back. Suddenly he wasn’t so sure he had imagined it.

"I didn’t imagine it did I?" Quatre asked, staring at the horse. "Did you really speak to me?" It snorted and shook it’s head. Quatre breathed a sighed of relief and chose not to question how the horse had understood him.

<In order for me to speak, I would need a voice.> Quatre blinked and stared, he continued to stare blankly at the horse for a long time. After a while it began to paw the ground nervously and wonder if the boy had died or something, he didn’t appear to be breathing.

"How..." Quatre said finally, eyes still unfocused. "How..."

<I am a Unicorn. I can speak to humans who have a small amount of magic in them. Like you.> Quatre just blinked. Yes, he knew Unicorns and such existed, after all they were hunting an ‘and such’ themselves but the idea that this creature was actually talking to him was just ludicrous!

The horse snorted again, blowing his bangs away from his face.

A new thought occurred to Quatre. This animal was a Unicorn, a powerful magical being. If this creature chose to help Quatre, then Captain Yuy would have a good reason for keeping him with the group, and even if he was sent back, all the other groups would be pawing to have him join them. Quatre grinned causing the Unicorn to snort again, he appeared to like doing that.

Quatre opened his mouth to mention this revelation to the horse but then realised he had no way of actually saying it.

<Don’t worry. I understand.> Came that voice, a hint of humour in it. <I will come with you.> Quatre grinned. Another thought struck him as they seemed to be doing a lot recently.

"What...Well I mean....Do you have a name?" The Unicorn seemed to consider this for a moment.

<No.> It decided. <Not one a human could pronounce anyway.>

"You should have a name." Quatre informed the animal as they began to make their way through the forest, side by side. "Otherwise I won’t have anything to call you. I can’t just call you horse."

"You should give me a name." The horse informed him, tossing its head slightly. Quatre pondered this for a moment then opened his mouth to speak. Before the words even touched his lips a forceful ‘NO!’ intruded into his mind. Quatre frowned again and studied the ground as he walked.

"I have it! Sandrock!" The horse gave him a puzzled look.

<Sandrock?>

"Yeah. Because you are the colour of sand and as sturdy as a rock." Quatre beamed. For a moment the Unicorn turned this name round and round in his head and decided, after a long internal debate, that he liked it. He snorted. Again.

<Quatre?>

"Hmm?" Quatre looked back at the horse, as they stepped out onto the path leading through the forest. Quatre smiled sheepishly, having only just realised he had been silent for quite a while. "Yes?"

<Erm...You are still.....Naked.>

"So?"

<There are...> The horse gestured behind them. Quatre turned to see a family, who had been traveling the path but who had stopped dead when they had seen Quatre. The blond young man looked down and back up again, closing his eyes.

"Oh....Damn."

"Winner!" Quatre’s eyes snapped open, wide as saucers. He turned very slowly to see Wufei riding towards him on Nataku looking totally horrified.

"Oh. My day just gets better and better."