OOM/IM: The Letters

[iprotectyou]

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single Baze in possession of tastebuds, must be in want of tea. He ambles up to the bar after morning forms, sweaty and tired but content, his now twice-as-heavy--thanks to Ibani's cortosis core--staff slung across his shoulders. He leans it across the counter, and pats the bar.

Bar provides a cup of tea--oolong and almond--and a datapad.

Curious, Baze picks up the pad and tests the tea, making an appreciative hum at the taste. He reads the first couple of lines.

Then he drops the cup.

He needs to find Chirrut.

Comments

[idontneedluck]

Chirrut is in their rooms, half-clothed after his shower. He's stretching lazily, almost ready to continue dressing and follow Baze downstairs for breakfast. There's a patch of warm sunlight in the middle of the room.

And a Chirrut 'stretching' in the middle of it.

We swear he's not part feline.

[iprotectyou]

Baze bursts into the room, flinging the door back so quickly it bangs against the wall. "Chirrut!" the larger man says, brandishing the datapad and uncaring that he just scared the shit out of his friend. "You have to read this. The orphans sent us letters!"

[idontneedluck]

"What?" Chirrut, on his feet and panting from the adrenaline, tilts his head like a lost dog. "What orph... our orphans?" He demands, catching on. "What about Kaya? Where are they?"

[iprotectyou]

Baze books it to the nightstands near their beds, which hold Chirrut's reader. The larger man leans his staff against their beds and scoops up the reader, slotting the datapad inside. "I'm not sure. I only read the first couple of lines before I realized what it was. Here, I have your reader situated, so you can figure out what happened to Kaya and the rest of them yourself."

He crosses to Chirrut, and plops the reader cum datapad into his hands.

[idontneedluck]

Chirrut grasps it, his fingers fumbling over the screen for a moment before he gets his bearings. He has to cough, hard, to clear his throat, and he leans against his friend as he starts to read.

"Dear Guardian Imwe and Guardian Malbus,
Kaya said I had to write that, even though you've been Uncle Chirrut and Uncle Baze since always. I.."

Chirrut coughs, hard - he remembers the weight of this boy, the soft petal feel of the boy's fingertips against his face.

[iprotectyou]

Baze wraps his powerful arms around Chirrut, and guides him to the still-pushed-together beds. The larger man rubs the smaller one's bare shoulders, kneading and squeezing, and leans Baze's cheek against Chirrut's head.

"Whenever you're ready," Baze murmurs, non-committal. "Or I can read it."

[idontneedluck]

Chirrut leans back, grounding himself to the here and now.

"I think we'll be landing at our new home soon. We have been learning neat things like how to build a fire. Do you know how to build a fire?"

Chirrut pauses.

"Force, they're going to set fire to the ship."

[iprotectyou]

Baze laughs, long and loud. He laughs until he finds himself crying, as abrupt as a Jedhan thunderstorm and just as wet, just as bitter.

"T-They got away," he says, once he can speak again, and even then his voice is shaky. "They're alive."

[idontneedluck]

"They're alive." Chirrut echos, shifting so he can wrap an arm around Baze's shoulders and hang on. "The plan worked. It worked."

[iprotectyou]

Baze is abruptly reminded--with a pain so sharp it's almost physical, crushing his chest with the weight of it--that not all of them made it out alive. Killi Gimm, one of the eldest of the Disciples of the Whills and Chirrut's teacher, remained behind on Jedha when the orphans flew off with Kaya and Denic. Killi was weak and frail, with a hacking cough that rattled her frame.

He realizes, for the first time, that she's unequivocally dead. He acknowledges, for the first time, that everyone he loved from NiJedha is gone--save the orphans who fled, and thank the Force for that. Baze still wishes Killi could have died on her own terms--and not been vaporized by the Death Star. She would have appreciated that.

All is as the Force wills.

He finds himself crying again in earnest, sobs racking his shoulders just like Killi's cough racked hers. He can't wrap his head around why the Force would want to take her, a woman so kind and self-sacrificing and powerfully brave, and make her struggle--before ultimately killing her. Baze wipes his snotty nose on the back of his sleeve.

"K-Killi," he says, and that's all he can say--until, unless... "She's with the Force."

And there she can find some measure of peace. Right?

[idontneedluck]

Killi Gimm - she had been braver than many, since she accomplished what so few managed in those dark days. She stayed true to her self, despite the growing darkness, despite illness, despite her sister and the children leaving.

He was supposed to visit her that afternoon, the day it all fell apart.

He hopes, so belatedly, that she hadn't been left waiting.

He clings to Baze now, his arms tight around Baze's shoulders, mourning with his friend - the loss of NiJedha is still so big it feels almost numbing - the lost of individuals is more sharply agonizing.

[iprotectyou]

Baze's tears taper off eventually. Sooner than he'd like, really--Baze's heart is a vast well of grief, and he will be mourning NiJedha for the rest of his life--but the tears no longer come to him.

He feels stuffed up and claggy. He feels raw and distended. He feels--he feels--everything and nothing, a crushing, overwhelming numbness.

He feels lighter, despite it all.

"We should read the rest of the letter," Baze says, his voice a rough croak. "And I should make us some tea."

[idontneedluck]

"Tea first, I think we'll need it." Chirrut agrees, leaning back against the wall. He just... misses them. He misses the weight of the children when he'd carry them, he misses their cheerful voices, he misses tea with the sisters. He misses the markets with their noise and bustle, Force, he misses the smell of it, even in the latter days.

"Tea... would be good."

[iprotectyou]

Baze releases his friend, and levers himself off the bed. Still sniffling, he fills the kettle with water from the tap in the fresher, and crosses the main room to the hotplate resting on the side table. Flicking on the little device, Baze sets the kettle on the now-heating surface. Next, he scoops sapir into a pot, and retrieves two clean mugs.

While the water boils, he listens. The sounds of NiJedha before the Empire came--people laughing, praying, living--soothe Baze, loosening the bands of grief around his heart. He can hear the bustle of the market, people conducting their business and hawking their wares. In the distance, the morning bells of the Temple of the Kyber are ringing, loud and clear. Fresh tears well in Baze's eyes, and he leans against the table, his joints feeling like water.

Then the kettle whistles, and Baze finishes preparing the tea. He returns to his friend with the steeping pot and the two mugs, all of which he sets on the nightstand, next to the romance novels.

"The bells," Baze says, weakly. "I'd almost forgotten the sound of them."

[idontneedluck]

"They were gorgeous." Chirrut sighs, leaning against his friend. "They took them, you know. The Imperials. I heard them rolling past the prison compound." He wondered for a long time after his imprisonment if he'd really heard it, or if had been some sort of fever delusion.

But it never faded, like hallucination.

[iprotectyou]

"Bastards," Baze hisses, his nails biting into his palms. He would spit, but not here. He's not about to defile the temple room over a transgression committed nineteen years ago.

Baze forces himself to relax, and loops an arm around his friend. "We don't ever have to think on the Empire again. It's all behind us, now. We're in heaven."

[idontneedluck]

Chirrut settles in Baze's hold, picking up the letter again.

"When do you think they'll find out? About NiJedha - they'll probably assume we were still on planet at the time." He asks, sadly tracing the edges of the pad.

[iprotectyou]

Baze can't help the hitch in his breathing. He tries to contain the sound, but it escapes him before he gets a handle on it. He'd like to busy his hands with pouring tea, but the sapir hasn't finished steeping yet. He cuddles up to Chirrut instead, seeking comfort.

"I don't know," Baze says, his words choked. It's the first time Chirrut has willingly brought up the city to Baze, and he doesn't know how to deal with the unexpected wellspring of grief. "I doubt the Empire would be bragging about it. They might have wanted to cover up the 'test' of their weapon. And news travels slow, especially if our orphans didn't have access to a holonet. So... six months?"

The possibility that they might get another letter settles like a stone in Baze's chest. He almost doesn't want one.

[idontneedluck]

"I suppose it would be wrong to write back." Chirrut muses, wistfully. He loves heaven, he truly does, he loves the freedom from fear and the joy of hearing prayers from Baze's mouth again. He loves freedom from hunger, and the ridiculous amount of choice. He loves his tea trees, and Baze's brewery.

But he can long to reach out to these lost Jedhans.

[iprotectyou]

Baze settles against the wall, chewing on Chirrut's words. "Yes," the larger man says eventually. "Yes, it would be. Very much so. They'd think it some horrible joke--and even if we did convince them it was real, I wouldn't want to get a letter from the dead, would you?"

He turns to the now-steeped tea, and pours the steaming beverage into the two mugs. After pressing one of the cups into his friend's hand, Baze wraps his free hand around Chirrut's shoulders. "I'm ready to finish the letter. Are you?"

[idontneedluck]

Chirrut keeps a sulky reply that he wouldn't mind a letter from the dead so much to himself - it's a bit of a lie, anyway.

"Yes, I am... let's see what trouble they've gotten themselves into."

[iprotectyou]

Chirrut's reading voice is as soothing to Baze as the sounds of the dead city, and he soon forgets that he has tea in his hands. Baze finds himself laughing to tears at the prank Althin pulled on his shipmates, and proudly recounted in his letter. The larger man sobers at news of Kaya, the matriarch, and her selfless devotion to the children. Denic, the pilot of the ark and Baze's dear friend, gets a cheer when Althin explains how she taught the orphans to navigate the stars.

The letter is long, and thorough, mentioning something about every single orphan that fled Jedha eight months ago. Baze wonders when the missive was written, and how long it took to write. He curls his toes at the end of the beds, leaning against his friend.

"They're doing well," Baze says, beaming. "They're alive and well. We're not the only ones."

[idontneedluck]

"They're thriving." Chirrut agrees, his fingers rereading the farewell over and over. "They're thriving, and they're self, well out of the Empire's focus."

They're all safe now, despite how the war rages on.