Work Text:
He tries to not think of anything as he reaches the end of the Terminals.
The weight of the Battering Ram in his hands is tremendous; he thinks on that instead of what the end of his journey entails. On the cold. The way the small wounds that the Ura’s crossbolts leave burn at every movement. How the rocks that the Calamity’s sown jut from frozen turf like obscenities. How they're nothing against the Ram. How he’s chased the last of these people back to their dens, fighting cornered, for the Bastion’s survival.
How many he’s killed. (No, that doesn’t help.)
He’s come for a fight but in the end there’s no resolution, just a too-familiar body lying in the snow, turning driven white red, aggressors flash-stepped away.
Zulf’s alive, and the Kid’s not sure if that’s a blessing or a curse at this point, but the snow’s not getting any warmer.
He’s tired.
He sets down the Ram.
Zulf’s never been a burden, for all that he’s weighted heavy with a grief-filled soul; the Kid hefts him over his shoulder as gently as he can, hears the gong of gates opening for him. He doesn’t need to look to know that this is a final stand. (He feels like it’s fitting, having brought ruin in the wake of loss.)
The Shard hums quiet in his pack, sings with muted voices in the language of Squirts and Windbags; he has his prize and his comrade and it’s time to go home. (He spares a moment to wish that Zulf were awake, that he could ask him whether or not this was what he wanted and if his home was his as well, but the choice is in the Kid’s hands, and he has the option of leaving him broken and beaten in the snow of a people that have forsaken him, or taking him back to the Bastion that he’s forsaken.
It’s not that great of a choice, but he’s made it.)
There’s Ura, more Ura than he’d seen before, maybe all that’s left of them. Militia, assembled on both sides of the path to the skyway; it’s a gauntlet and as the first bolt hits, the Kid grits his teeth and thinks of home.
There’s stolen moments of peace that the Kid cradles close: before Zulf finished the journal, when there’d been companionable evenings around a campfire, Zia singing or Rucks telling stories, the Kid wedged between Zulf and Zia until he’d courted heat exhaustion, the Squirt flitting around the circle of light, the Bastion humming underneath them like a sleeping storm.
His first sight of Zulf is in the Hanging Gardens, the taste of ash heavy in the back of his mouth, and he remembers all-too-well the mingled thrill of seeing another living person and the bolt of despair that had gone through him at the expression on his face.
Please, we have to go.
That had been all he could offer, a promise of life amongst the ruins of too many.
It had been enough to keep him going, knowing that there were two people waiting back at the Bastion for him, for the Cores, and with Zia, that had made three.
He remembers Zulf briefing him about where he would fly the next time, the locations colored in by Rucks’ voice, and that had been good; that, even flying into the unknown, he would have a glimmer of knowledge to rely on.
(He can’t feel his feet anymore, but he can see them move, mechanically slogging through the snow; he can’t tell if the warmth staining his clothes red is his or Zulf’s anymore. He can’t duck, can’t try to avoid the hits, because that would further expose Zulf, and he can’t do that after everything that’s happened.)
Watching Zulf write, the curve of his hands, fingers, as he held the pen, somehow managing to make Caelondia’s bulky, solid letters graceful. The Kid had watched him a lot in those days, observed the cut of his clothes, the color of his skin, the soft, wet blackness of his eyes, the fall of his hair.
(He’d wondered what it would feel like. Still wonders, he supposes; he never really had occasion to touch it.)
(He thinks the bolts are falling slower, but maybe it’s just a trick of his mind. He keeps moving anyway, puts one foot in front of the other.)
He looks so different, but he’s just as human as him--We’ve all lost someone, he’d said.
(There’s no bolts now, but there’s a dull, roaring throb in the Kid’s ears, a curious distance to sounds; black and red flicker at the edge of his vision but he keeps moving.)
Zulf had lost his faith, his sanctuary, his fiancée, to the Calamity. And now, he’s lost his last choice.
Maybe. If the Kid can get back to the Bastion at all. He’s still unsure on that last one.
(The last bolt nearly strikes him down, sends him to one knee in the snow, a buzzing added to the roar; he pushes through the noise, struggles unevenly to his feet and just stands for a moment, breath billowing clouds around him as his head stops swimming, then starts moving again, one foot in front of another. Steady like Pith.)
Where was he… he’d lost his train of thought.
Oh, right--that he had to get back to the Bastion. That there were people waiting for him. He’s got one last job to finish, and then he can rest.
(He doesn’t even notice the Ura flanking the skyway jump, standing aside but still ready; the Kid only has eyes for the way home.)
It’s going to be a pain flying with two people.
But he’ll manage; he always has.
The Kid soars.