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ohmyarceus2017-03-11 08:22 pm
indigo_league) wrote in ohmyarceus2017-03-11 08:22 pm
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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...
you know I love your sad veterans
Randel doesn't know this man, but he recognises him all the same. There is something about war veterans that never leaves them. And he has seen scars like that before on men on the battlefield, usually stumbling, screaming, dying. In some ways, this man is too part of the war-damages. And as the only member of section three here, he ought to help, oughtn't he? He has felt somewhat bereft of purpose since arriving here. Back home there was always a new mission, a new problem to tackle, but this land looks like war has never touched it, never damaged it. What purpose can he have in a world like that when each little sliver of meaning he had build for himself was taken from him?
But here, perhaps, a small purpose.
He rises, taking a step in the man's direction. He doesn't near too closely though, not wanting to startle him, and not wanting to startle his dog.]
Sir? It's all right. You are all right.
[You are not there anymore, but that's a lie. The battlefields never leave you.]
that's all I play anymore
I... yes. Yes, I am all right.
[Edward turns in the direction of the man's voice, and for a moment, the man isn't a stranger. The man is Barrow, his friend, the first friend he made after everything changed, and Edward takes a step closer, his arm not holding the stick lifting at the elbow, offered towards his friend.]
I apologize, I... things wandered away from me for a bit there.
[If Barrow is here, everything will be all right. Edward doesn't need to be afraid any longer.]
no subject
Uhm. Are you here by yourself?
[Randel has seen blinded vets before, but few that wander the wilderness. Most stuck to the streets of the city, in small familiar areas. They usually had someone watching their backs. The ones that survived did, at least.]
no subject
[He wishes it didn't. Strangers are less likely to help someone who acts as though he's above them, whether it's deliberate or not.]
[When the man speaks, the tiny smile that had been tickling the corner of Edward's mouth shatters, and his shoulder slouch forward. This is another stranger, no one he knows. The man's hand is too big to be Barrow's, his touch too shy and faint, and he doesn't smell like cigarette smoke. Edward is alone again.]
[The puppy at his leg whines, sensing the change in his master's mood, and rubs his face along Edward's calf.]
I'm afraid so.
[Just because the man isn't who Edward expected is no reason to be rude. He straightens himself back up and turns his face in the man's direction, knowing that he'll see the scars on his face and realize Edward's impediment.]
I was in a hospital recovering when I was suddenly taken here, and presented with a puppy. [A faint line appears between Edward's eyebrows.] I told them I was not ready to be moved, and yet they did it anyway, and dropped me off in the wrong place!