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The Kid reminds him of himself in his youth, and the thought both warms and terrifies him.
He’s the veteran of a bloody war and one of the mechanisms of his world’s destruction; there’s so much blood on his hands that it’s dyed even his tanned skin red.
The Kid reminds him of him in his youth, and Rucks doesn’t know what he can do to prevent the Calamity from happening again somehow, or if the pressure of the world itself has already been enough to prevent his story from repeating.
They never wanted to fight another war like that, they’d said (he told himself); no more lost friends at the ends of zulwood blades or by poisoned crossbow bolts. He’d been doing the people of Caelondia a service, he’d told himself. It had been for a noble cause, he’d told himself.
He wondered where along the way he’d lost the clear-eyed look the Kid gave him whenever their eyes met, the honesty with which he viewed the world despite his place in it and what he’d done to get there.
He fears seeing that gaze tarnish, blur, and the worst part of him wishes it would so he wouldn’t have to face the memories of the lives they could have had, the consequences of his choices, of their reality and lives now.
But, he supposes, that’s the guilt speaking.