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When the Kid is recovered, the first thing he does is bring Zia to the Scrap Yard and set her to smashing junk with his hammer. She can barely lift it at first, but once he shows her the trick of putting the full force of her weight in the swing it gets easier. It’s hard work, but somehow Zia doesn’t mind. It always seemed her hands were quicker at doing than her mind was at thinking. He has her practice like that until the motion is engraved into her muscles. It's only when he's satisfied that she's gotten used to the weight of it that he brings her to the armory.
The thing is, the wilds are still dangerous. They will still need to stop to forage for food and supplies, and there are still beasts out there that care nothing for a human life.
Zia is softhearted. She can't bear the thought of having to kill baby squirts or peckers like the ones they're fostering on the Bastion. But it's not fair to put the whole burden on the Kid. He didn't like killing any more than she did, but he did it anyway, because Rucks was old, because Zulf was too swamped in grief, because Zia never learned. Because he was the only one who could.
The Arsenal is warm and dark and smells of gunpowder, thick and pungent. The Kid moves through it with the quiet assurance with which he does everything. The only place it fails him is in conversation, where he turns halting and shy, words seeming to catch in his throat like pebbles. Zia is patient, lets him work his way through it. They have all the time in the world, now.
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The Kid teaches her how to how to stand so the recoil of the Scrap Musket doesn't knock her off her feet. She learns how to steady her hands so she can aim true with an Army Carbine or a set of Dueling Pistols. How to strike quickly and without hesitation with a Brusher’s Pike. She practices reloading the Fang Repeater until the motion is smooth and automatic.
One day they even anchor the Bastion in the wastelands and the Kid, with infinite caution, shows her how to use the Fire Bellows and the Galleon Mortar.
The only thing in the armory they don’t touch is the cannon Rucks made using the power of the Calamity. Zia doesn’t ask to learn it and the Kid doesn’t offer to teach her. There’s something in his eyes when he looks at it that makes him go quiet deep inside. She doesn’t ask how many Ura he killed with it. He doesn’t offer to tell her.
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As much as she can, she tries to teach him in return. At night, under the open sky with a fire crackling between them, she plucks out chords on her harp-guitar and coaxes him to sing along. He has a nice voice for it when he forgets to be self-conscious, low and slightly rough. Rucks joins them sometimes, croaking out an old Cael song or two.
Zulf sits just out of range of the fire with his smoking pipe, face shadowed. He’s still angry, but whether at the Kid or at himself, Zia doesn’t know.
She’s not sure Zulf knows either.
The Kid, not one for confrontation, treats Zulf with the same silent courtesy he always has.
One night, she asks Zulf to teach her the Ura language. He is silent for a long moment. She doesn’t say anything or try to persuade him, just waits. It’s his decision, in the end.
“I don’t want to be the last,” he says finally, voice low and stricken. “I don’t want the language to die with me.” He bows his head and she takes his hand. “I would be happy to teach you.”
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Zia still doesn’t know who was right or wrong in the war between Ura and Caelondia. If there even was a right or wrong. She and Zulf both learned, painfully, that it wasn’t as simple as it seemed.
But it’s still her heritage. Her people. She still wants to face that. She still wants to learn.
Maybe that’s why she chooses an Ura machete, in the end. She goes out into the wilds with the weapon of her ancestors strapped to her hip, a Breaker’s bow on her back, and a song on her lips.
They sail on.
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