OOM: All the colors of the rainbow

[iprotectyou]

It's a younger Baze and a even younger Chirrut that rest in the Temple of the Kyber today, with Baze reading aloud from a Jedi text. The air is freezing cold as they recline on woven mats, leading the two acolytes to shiver profusely.

Baze finishes the scroll he was reading and rolls it up, nudging Chirrut in the leg with a foot. "Hey, Chirrut," Baze says. "Are you even paying attention?"

Comments

[idontneedluck]

If Chirrut had more distance to cover, he might have calmed down in time. If his stick hadn't been at hand, the results might have been less dramatic.

The Force is not with Chirrut's target today.

The older acolytes look up at Chirrut's approach with something like confusion and amusement, but that changes when Chirrut goes on the attack. The stick in his hand blurs into whistling speed, landing with a heavy crack across the offending boy's ribs.
"She," Chirrut howls, his whirling step hooking behind the boy's foot and dropping him to the ground, "is a beautiful," the end of the stick thuds into the boy's gut, making him retch, "FLOWER."

That's about as far as he gets before the rest of the boys - older, far more skilled, and now over their surprise, come to their fellow's rescue.

[iprotectyou]

It'd be funny if Chirrut weren't getting his ass handed to him. Baze has no choice but to join in, launching himself at the nearest boy to attack his friend. Baze throws out punches and kicks when he can, getting lost in the throng of flailing arms and legs.

The older boys are mean, and fight dirty, and Baze finds himself easily overwhelmed by them.

[idontneedluck]

This attack, while stemming from good intentions and righteous defense of others, is not one of those Force-sent paths Chirrut has found himself on before. There's no clarity, none of the focused calm that comes from surrender to the power of the Force.

This is all rage and strikes that fail to connect and blows that arc fire and brilliant pain all at once and the feeling of losing ground with every breath. This is losing track of your target while no one else seems to have developed that particular problem. This is the taste of blood (red) in your mouth and pain (red) that has no reward and...

He hears a voice not his own, not the voice of one of those he attacked, and his heart sinks (down into the depths, down into blue). Baze, his Baze (brown, brown like the skin of the few strong stubborn trees this moon can produce), being hurt (red) and only because of his temper (red, red, red).

He turns, fumbling his step, reaching out to grab, guard, shield... but a kick comes out of the colorless void that is the world to catch him full alongside the head, ending his efforts short of that goal.

Baze, what color is the opposite of yellow?

[iprotectyou]

Baze wakes up in the evening, groaning as he turns over in one of the infirmary beds. One of his eyes is swollen shut, and as he runs his tongue across his teeth, it catches, revealing that one of them is chipped. He notes with satisfaction the other boys in the beds, until his gaze falls on Chirrut.

Oh, Chirrut.

With a grunt, Baze swings his feet around, sitting up as he sets them on the floor. He climbs out of bed, padding over to his friend. With a gentle hand, he shakes his shoulder. "Chirrut," he whispers. "Hey, Chirrut."

[idontneedluck]

There's a hand, on his shoulder, and a voice in his ear, and it's a combination he knows to answer out of habit now.

This is the first itme he's instantly regretted that decision, his groan coming out as more of a gasp as his various injuries make themselves known. There is a livid bruise spread down the side of his head. His chest is taped thoroughly to protect cracked ribs. His hands are battered and scraped where missed blows resulted in him driving his hands into or against more immovable objects. His feet, he decides, are fine.

He likes his feet, at the moment.

[iprotectyou]

"We are in so much kriffing trouble," Baze whispers, settling himself on the bed next to Chirrut's knee. Baze closes his good eye, rubbing the back of his sore head. "What made you go on the warpath?"

[idontneedluck]

"Baze?" His voice reverberates in his head unpleasantly. Chirrut scrunches his face against the sensation. "You are alright? I..."

The grimace deepens, twists into something like shame, something like regret, something like feeling it wasn't enough, he wasn't good enough today.

"We defend the Kyber crystals, they... they are so pure, and... I am different, they say, less than... them, I know it, and I must prove them wrong. She is not similar, but not... different, she has no fault but... arbitrary judgments. It wasn't fair." He mutters, the fierce protective rage still there, even if he can't do anything about it.

[iprotectyou]

Baze listens, swallowing thickly. He takes his friend's hand. "I know, Chirrut," he says quietly. "I know."

He sighs, and flops back on his back, laying across Chirrut's legs. "It isn't fair. Judgment rarely is. But you know," Baze says, staring at the ceiling, "she can probably protect herself."

[idontneedluck]

"Probably." Chirrut agrees, musing.

After a silence broken only by the snores of one the older boys (a broken nose that is refusing to set well despite all attempts), Chirrut slowly smiles, despite how the edges catch against his bruise and tug.

"But she can learn how to do so better."

Chirrut Imwe may be plotting to get the new initiate a stick of her very own.