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

[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.