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After he gets back, after the choice, he sleeps for what feels like a week.
It’s not actually that long, but it’s at least a full day, and for weeks afterwards one’d still be likely to find him curled up in a patch of sunlight or shade, taking a nap.
He’s just exhausted, the kind of bone-deep ache that comes from finally putting down a heavy burden after carrying it for far too long, and, for once, most of his sleep is dreamless, the rest of the truly tuckered-out.
He can’t slack around forever, though (doesn’t really want to, either); he’s not about to let Rucks or Zia out on the skyway if he has a say in the matter.
He tunes up his guns, polishes scratches out of his blades, hefts his trusty hammer and shield, and flies again on the wind.
There’s bits of former civilization out here, parts of Caelondia that have drifted off or pockets that attempted to beat off the Wild way back when; the Kid scavenges them shamelessly, brings back vineapples, pots and pans, books, cloth, thread and needles, waterstone, tools, metal, pieces to repair and upgrade weapons with, raw materials--the list goes on. He hunts for the Bastion, and in return, its occupants outfit and care for him.
He teaches Zia weaponry, shows her how to aim and fire a pistol, conscious of the knockback--she’s not strong enough yet to draw a bow to full, but she can handle guns, the repeater, and becomes a fair shot with the mortar after her first try knocks her off her feet.
Rucks uses a carbine, too old to wield the hammer anymore, and the look in his eyes is one of mingled nostalgia and regret when the Kid presents him one, restored from its outpost-scavenged state. He’d picked up the knack of it again quickly, said he guess he’d never really lost it, huh? and there’s the echoes of battles fought long ago in his voice that make the Kid ache for lost comrades he’s never had.
(None of them use the Cannon. They’ve all had enough of the Calamity.)
Zia and Rucks find things washed up on the Bastion sometimes, like beach glass on the shores of the sea Zia’s read about, and they get added to the lost-and-found--sometimes they’re the memories of things, coming back in bits and pieces, and that’s when the fragments come in handy, the bits of rock humming with the impression of a world that was.
Not everything that washes ashore is benign, though, and the Kid still remembers the time he’d come back on the skyway to find some structural damage, Zia bandaging up the pets, and Rucks with the mouth of his carbine still smoking.
“Uh.”
“Lunkheads,” Rucks had said, and the Kid had just accepted it and moved on.
(He’d done the repairs and even built an oven for baking bread while he was at it. The Bastion had flexed and purred underneath his feet just like a mechanical cat at the new structural addition and rewarded him with an extra bedroll, appearing in the middle of the pile of blankets he’d been using as a bed since Zulf was still… using his.)
And all of them… all of them took care of Zulf while he slept and healed.
He guessed it was an apology and selfishness all in one.