If Memory Serves (2,506 words)
A/N: took a few liberties with today’s prompt. the adventure in this one is mostly in the past, but trying to talk about yourself is an adventure of its own, really. crossposted to ao3. @bastionbabble
There's a chill in the air tonight, but no one is cold. Every so often, if there's enough spare wood, Rucks and the Kid build a campfire near the Monument, and tonight is one of those nights. Whenever they make a fire, there's an unspoken seating arrangement: Zulf, Zia, Kid, Rucks. No specific reasoning for it beyond personal comfort levels and warmth. Zulf doesn't really like being leaned on or boxed in, so he sits on the outside edge. The same goes for Rucks. Zia and the Kid are both warm and affectionate, so they gravitate to the center of the row. It all just makes sense. Any other arrangement would make at least one person cold or uncomfortable (or both).
Nobody's said anything for a while, but not in a bad way; aside from the fire crackling and popping every so often, there's a comfortable silence settled over the area. The Kid finds himself staring at the fire. Rucks or Zia would probably say something about the way the flames dance or how the embers float off into the sky, but he's just glad it's warm. Rucks makes the face he always makes when he has something poignant and meaningful to say, opens his mouth to speak (probably to say something about flames or embers or plumes of smoke), but Zulf talks first. "You know, it's funny. This kind of reminds me of my time in the Wild." This is new information for everyone; Zia is so surprised by it that she jerks upright from her original position of leaning against Zulf's shoulder to stare at him incredulously.
No one says anything right away, and Zulf glances from face to face with a vaguely worried expression. "...What? Did I not mention that before?" Zia smacks his arm lightly. "No! No, you didn't! All these times you've passed on telling stories, too! You've been holding out on us, Zulf!" They've all been talking about themselves once in a while for weeks now, and Zulf would always shrug off his turn with an assurance that his life hasn't been very eventful. None of them fully believed that, but it also wasn't their business to pry, so they left it be. Zulf snorts. "I haven't been 'holding out' on you, it just didn't seem relevant. Or very interesting."
Zia groans and smacks his arm again (if she's not careful she might actually hurt him at this rate). "Zulf! How could that not be interesting?" He shrugs, rubbing his arm. "Well, I think it's settled. You need to tell us all about the Wild! Right, Rucks? Kid?" The Kid nods enthusiastically, and Rucks grunts, which is basically his form of nodding enthusiastically. "That settles it for sure, then. Tell us all about the Wild, Zulf." Of all the people who could have casually mentioned themselves and the Wild in the same sentence, Zulf was the last person the Kid would have expected. He can already tell that this is going to be an extremely memorable story.
Zulf groans sarcastically, leaning back to stretch. "Alright, you asked for it. I'm not really sure where to start, though." He pauses, collects his thoughts. "I guess I should probably start with be why I was there in the first place. Shouldn't I?" Zia nods patiently, but there's a certain tension to her expression that says his lack of immediate explanation is slowly killing her inside. He seems to notice it to some extent or another. "To cut to the point, when I took up the job as ambassador, I was still at the Terminals. You've got to get from there to Caelondia somehow, don't you? Crossing through the Wild was really the only option."
The fire's died down somewhat. Rucks adds some more wood while Zulf thinks. "It wasn't easy. You've had an easier time of it than I had, I think, Kid." That makes sense. The Kid served on the Walls, he has military training, he's used to this kind of thing. Zulf is... decidedly not so predisposed to surviving nature. "I think the worst part was probably trying to navigate. No one could give me a clear idea of where Caelondia even was, aside from just..." He gestures vaguely westward, then shrugs. "Not the best directions. Plus, keeping track of where you are and where you need to go while the local flora and fauna are trying to kill you is about as difficult as you would expect." The Kid nods. He can relate.
Something about that last part catches Zia's attention. "Wait, hold on, slow down. You weren't in danger, were you?" Zulf blinks. "...Yes? It's the Wild, Zia; everything is pretty much constantly in the process of trying to kill you. Right, Kid?" The Kid nods again, and Zia's face folds up the way it does when the Kid comes back to the Bastion more than a little worse for wear. The fact that she's apparently assigning the same level of concern to this is a bit worrying. "Well, alright, good point. But you were okay, weren't you? I mean, clearly you were okay enough, you're not dead or anything, but—you know what I mean." It's a valid question, and she isn't the only one wondering. The idea of Zulf travelling through the Wild in the first place is odd enough to the Kid without considering the possibility of him getting to Caelondia largely unscathed.
Zulf just shrugs. "I'm not really sure how to answer that. What counts as 'okay', in a place like the Wild? I didn't die, but I also definitely didn't just waltz through the brush with no troubles and show up to Caelondia as trim and fit as when I left the Terminals." He happens to lock eyes with Zia, but something about the way she's looking at him makes him look away. He glances down at his hands, like he doesn't really know where else to look. "I had to deal with the same kinds of things as the Kid has, but with... decidedly less of an advantage. None of us knew what to expect. A few people thought the stories people tell of what's out there in the Wild were all just precautionary tales or propaganda. I wasn't expecting it to be as bad as it was."
Rucks hasn't said anything for a while. The Kid glances his way to see how he's reacting to all this, but it looks like he fell asleep at some point. Zulf is too busy telling his tale to have noticed, and Zia is busy watching Zulf. Might as well just leave him be. He'll probably manage to get the information from Zulf later, somehow. He always does. When the Kid turns his attention back to the conversation, the focus of Zulf's dialogue has changed. "There's all kinds of... well, wild things out in the Wild. Most of them, I don't even know the names for. I'm not really sure where to start. Again." The Kid perks up. Maybe he can make himself useful here. "I've probably seen a lot of the same things as you, Zulf. Maybe I'll know the names of some of the stuff you had to deal with. The really nasty critters especially. I think they like me." Zulf laughs in that odd way that only he does, where it's more of a quiet exhale through the nose than an actual laugh. No one else the Kid knows (or knew, rather) did that; maybe it's an Ura thing. But then wouldn't Zia do it too?... He's getting distracted again. He really ought to pay attention to what Zulf is saying so he can try to be helpful.
"Well, one of the things I saw the most often was this... I don't even know how to describe it, really. It was like..." Zulf gestures vaguely, searching for the right words. "Some kind of tall, towering thing, but it was composed of more than one part? It looked like it was made of a stack of these green lumps with little spikes. I don't think I even know the right words in this language to describe the head. All I can think of is words that would be less than polite to say. It kind of looked like a flower, but with spiky parts between the petals."
Now that the hard part is out of the way, Zulf takes a breath. "Does that sound familiar, Kid?" The Kid squints at the fire, rubbing his chin the way Rucks does sometimes. "I think so, yeah. Did it scream real loud and catch your feet with little spiky things that come up from the ground?" Zia glances silently between the two of them while Zulf thinks, and her expression is somewhere between fascinated and horrified. The Kid can only imagine what this all must sound like from her perspective. "I do remember a lot of that happening, yes. So? Do you know what it was, Kid?"
The Kid nods proudly, leaning forward to mimic the pose Rucks always takes on while explaining things. "Well," he drawls, putting on a ridiculously exaggerated imitation of Rucks' voice, "I reckon that would've been a bootlicker, fella." Zia covers her mouth to keep from laughing out loud, and Zulf does that little exhale-laugh thing again. Does he even have a regular laugh? "A bootlicker, hmm? What a name. How did the pioneer Caelondians even come up with something like that?" The Kid shrugs.
"Well, that's definitely not what I would have called it. Maybe it's a cultural difference." Zia bumps against Zulf affectionately (maybe with a bit too much force, judging by how he sways with the impact). "Yeah? What would you have called it, then?" Apparently Zulf wasn't expecting anyone to ask about that. He clears his throat uncomfortably, looks away from them both. The Kid isn't sure what kind of answer to prepare himself for now. Zulf covers his mouth with his hand and mutters a short phrase that the Kid can't understand. Judging by how uneasy he looks all of a sudden, it was probably some sort of Ura profanity or some other less than polite phrase. The Kid wishes he spoke enough of the Ura tongue to understand; it would probably be pretty funny if he did.
Zia looks just as confused as he feels, but she's close enough to swat at Zulf's arm playfully. "What are you hiding for? Did you say something vulgar?" Zulf keeps his mouth covered, but his frown is practically audible. "Come on, Zulf, don't be a grump about it. What did you say? Tell us, tell us! We want to know, right, Kid?" The Kid nods enthusiastically; crude words are the best kinds of words to learn. Zulf just hums angrily from behind his hand, shaking his head. Apparently he's not interested in sharing the less polite aspects of his culture with them. Zia laughs and elbows him in the ribs a few times, earning herself the closest thing to a friendly glare the Kid has ever seen.
He doesn't look like he's going to budge on the topic, though, so Zia eventually gives up and shuffles back to her spot a bit further away. "Fine, have it your way, you grump. We'll just have to find other sources for vulgarities." Zulf groans sarcastically and lowers his hand, rolling his eyes. "Your disappointment is noted. Anyway, back to what we were talking about prior to this little tangent. Apparently the tall, screaming thing was a... what did you call it, Kid? A bootlicker?" The Kid nods. "Right. So, that's one mystery solved. Should we try another? I know you'll know this one."
A light breeze picks up, ruffling Zulf and the Kid's hair. "I only saw one or two of this animal while I was out in the Wild—which was probably for the best, really, given how tough they look. They had..." He grasps for words again. This must be more difficult than he's letting on. "...Kind of like masks, I suppose, made out of some kind of stony material. I doubt you could do any damage to that kind of protective piece. I didn't really get to see anything other than the front, what with the way they were jumping around all the time. I think they were trying to land on me, maybe? It wasn't very clear. If I was a bit slower back then, I'm really not sure what would have happened." Something about his tone makes it sound like he tries not to think about it very much. The Kid can understand why.
Zulf sighs. "That wasn't the best explanation, I know, but I'm almost certain you've dealt with those before, Kid. Did I say enough to be helpful?" Compared to his description of the bootlicker, this is practically nothing to work with, but the Kid knows what he means. "Sounds crystal clear to me. Lunkheads, without a doubt. I hate those things. You probably didn't notice, but you can only hit them in the back, on account of that shell... mask... thing you saw. I think Rucks told me once that that's part of the egg they hatch from, or something like that. He might have been making things up." Rucks stirs for a second, grumbles something about keeping an eye on the fire without actually waking up. He must have heard his name.
Once he's still again, Zulf drags his hands through his hair. "...Lunkhead? Lunkhead. Again, what a name. Who made these decisions, is what I want to know. Probably someone with too much time on their hands. I can just imagine some Caelondian general sitting at a campfire just like this one, trying to choose a name for this horrible masked monster their troops ran into in the Wild that day. The 'head' part is obvious enough, what with the masks, but what's a 'lunk'? Is it just some colloquial term or figure of speech I've never heard before?" The Kid shrugs. "I always thought it had to do with the word lunker." Zulf just stares blankly at him. "...Which means, uh. Like a really big version of an animal. If you saw a pecker the size of a person, that would be a lunker of a pecker."
Zulf keeps staring for a while. He looks like he's trying to come to terms with some secret of the universe. Once he's done dealing with his revelation, he squints at the Kid suspiciously. "...I’ve never heard that word before. Are you sure it's an actual word? You're not just making that up, are you?" The Kid shakes his head, lifts his hands up subconsciously. "It's all true, I swear. If I was gonna make something up, I'd give it a better name than lunker." Zulf still doesn't look convinced. He turns to Zia, who just shrugs. "I've never heard it before either, but it does sound like the kind of thing people would say in Caelondia. Maybe it's a Marshal thing?"
