Painful Eternity

by Queen of the Faeries1

A seven-piece installment on the pain of the first Dragoons. We overlook them so easily. But with their shades trapped between life and death for a painful eternity, each for a personal reason, how it is possible for them not to know pain?

1. Prologue

Disclaimer: Nothing in here belongs to me. The Original Dragoons do not belong to me. Legend of Dragoon does not belong to me. I have nothing. Get it?

Author's Note: This is a seven-piece installment on each of the Original Dragoons. The timeline might be a little bit skewed. By this I mean that not only will these events take place at different points in time, but the order that I post them is not necessarily the order they happen in.

In all honesty, how many of us can remember our ancestors and what happened to them?

How many of us truly understand their pain?

There is a place between life and death, a realm trapped between different realities. Shades that linger and desperately cling to the world of the living find themselves in this half-realm, stuck. They can see life but cannot join it. They can feel death but will not join it. Trapping themselves in this place without time or companionship, completely and utterly alone, they have only their memories to hold on to, memories that make pain resurface and make death seem like a release.

This half-realm is where the Original Dragoons are trapped, by their own pain and fear.

But those that have had a taste of death before fear it all the more. Seeing bodies riddled with wounds, writhing so the battlefield looks like a mass of convulsing snakes, smelling the stench of blood and fear, these things worm into the unconsciousness and keep the shade from seeking the nothingness that is death. Having had courage and valor infused into their blood, they do not want to know the emptiness.

So they prefer to lock themselves into the place between life and death.

Each of them has their own personal reason for not wanting to face death. They hold onto that reason to keep from being dragged into it. They would rather face their own pain than to reach into that unknown where all shades must inevitably be drawn.

But the half-realm cannot protect them for all their painful eternity. They must reach their own conclusions about what to do, where to go. If they can conquer their own pain and find the path, then finally they will be free.