charmingly antiquated wrote this beautiful little fantasy story about a chosen one who fell into a magical world. But instead of being happy to go home after saving the world, they are furious to be sent back to a world they never missed. They’re stripped of their magic, and sent back with nothing but scars and PTSD:
Source: charmingly antiquated
There was a series of books I read where the main character was taken to a “counter Earth”, where he was trained to be an elite warrior and ride giant war birds … and after he did the bidding of the alien masters of that world, they dumped him back on Earth. He was furious, and sought ways to get back.
There are also Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Mars novels, from the early 20th Century, in which the protagonist is taken to Mars somehow, makes great friends and finds a woman to love, then is sent back to Earth … and manages to get himself back there again.
This was the basis of a series of stories I told myself throughout my 20s. It started with being infuriated at the end of The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe by the conceit that you’d have lived (I think about) 20 years as the ruler of a country and were an adult and then boom one day, back in your 12 year old body and people laugh when you unthinkingly give orders. The PTSD aspect was big for me as I was in the military and was seeing first hand what that “we change you from peace to war but do NOT change you back”
C.S. Lewis fought in World War I. At the age of nineteen. You understand the story as he wrote it; I just read it as an interesting story.
It may be hollow coming from the likes of me, but: I am grateful for your service… and the magic is still there.
This sounds a lot like the Wayward Children books by Seanan McGuire.