[Back home was frightening enough, but at least it was England. It was familiar, if rendered bizarre and unnavigable by his lack of sight. This world, though, with its incessant music and bizarrely friendly people and its complete and total lack of the War, had been enough to terrify Edward into immobility. He had spent three days--or nights? it's impossible to tell--in a Pokemon center, huddled in a corner, until the staff had gently but firmly ejected him.]
[There is one consolation, however: they saw fit to give him a dog. Edward has no idea what he's supposed to do with a dog, considering he can barely take care of himself any longer, and had begged them to take it back. He's already responsible for the deaths of so many of his men, he can't be responsible for an innocent dog wasting away. The people at the center had refused, and the dog had clung so closely to Edward's side that he had, in the end, allowed it to stay.]
[And a good thing, too. When he'd been kicked out of the Pokemon center, the dog had come with him, and its soft, furry presence against his calf is the one source of comfort he has in this bizarre world. The dog also seems strangely adept at keeping Edward on the road, shoving against his leg when he starts to veer off course, and whining when something is across Edward's path and likely to trip him up. At one point, the dog ran off, and Edward had stayed in the center of the road, frozen with fear and indecisiveness, until the dog returned moments later, dragging a large stick. Edward is using that stick to sweep the ground in front of him now, and he and the dog are moving a tiny bit faster.]
[Where are they going? Edward has no idea. He hasn't had any idea where he's going since the gas invaded his vision and then sealed it away forever.]
[He and the dog are making their painstaking way down a road when Edward hears a horrible shriek, and he freezes. For a moment, he's back on the front, stuck in the mud and horror, and someone in No Man's Land is hurt, one of his men, and he needs to go up there and retrieve him, but he can't, he can't see, he can't do it anymore, but they need him, and...]
I can't.
[Edward doesn't even hear the other man's voice, too lost in his own memories, and his own voice comes out like a plea, or a desperate prayer.]
have you another sad veteran
[Back home was frightening enough, but at least it was England. It was familiar, if rendered bizarre and unnavigable by his lack of sight. This world, though, with its incessant music and bizarrely friendly people and its complete and total lack of the War, had been enough to terrify Edward into immobility. He had spent three days--or nights? it's impossible to tell--in a Pokemon center, huddled in a corner, until the staff had gently but firmly ejected him.]
[There is one consolation, however: they saw fit to give him a dog. Edward has no idea what he's supposed to do with a dog, considering he can barely take care of himself any longer, and had begged them to take it back. He's already responsible for the deaths of so many of his men, he can't be responsible for an innocent dog wasting away. The people at the center had refused, and the dog had clung so closely to Edward's side that he had, in the end, allowed it to stay.]
[And a good thing, too. When he'd been kicked out of the Pokemon center, the dog had come with him, and its soft, furry presence against his calf is the one source of comfort he has in this bizarre world. The dog also seems strangely adept at keeping Edward on the road, shoving against his leg when he starts to veer off course, and whining when something is across Edward's path and likely to trip him up. At one point, the dog ran off, and Edward had stayed in the center of the road, frozen with fear and indecisiveness, until the dog returned moments later, dragging a large stick. Edward is using that stick to sweep the ground in front of him now, and he and the dog are moving a tiny bit faster.]
[Where are they going? Edward has no idea. He hasn't had any idea where he's going since the gas invaded his vision and then sealed it away forever.]
[He and the dog are making their painstaking way down a road when Edward hears a horrible shriek, and he freezes. For a moment, he's back on the front, stuck in the mud and horror, and someone in No Man's Land is hurt, one of his men, and he needs to go up there and retrieve him, but he can't, he can't see, he can't do it anymore, but they need him, and...]
I can't.
[Edward doesn't even hear the other man's voice, too lost in his own memories, and his own voice comes out like a plea, or a desperate prayer.]
I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, I can't help you...