OOM: A Gift of Tea

Baze has been waiting for this day--the seventh of the second month--for weeks.

He's been keeping a secret from Chirrut: when they visited the temple for the last time after it fell, Baze retrieved his stash of sapir tea from its hiding place--behind a brick in the wall of a closet in the training hall, untouched in the raid.

Now, Baze has woken up early, before Chirrut, to prepare the tea. The larger Jedhan waits the requisite thirty seconds for their tap water to turn from red to black to something approximating clear, and then fills the kettle. Carefully separating the proper amount of tea leaves from what remains of the block, he fills the pot's strainer with sapir. The process is meditative, and silent--save the whistling of the kettle, which Baze removes from the heat as soon as possible. He pours the water into the pot, encouraged by the scent of green and growing things--a scent he hasn't smelled in far, far too long.

He allows the tea to steep for a few minutes, and then crosses to his sleeping friend, only to gently shake him awake. It's been years since Chirrut has had his tea, and Baze wants it to be the first thing he has upon waking.

"Happy birthday, Chirrut," Baze says with a soft, pleased smile, pressing the cup of precious sapir into his friend's hand.

OOM: The Temple

This is a terrible idea.

Baze can't remember if the thought to visit the Temple of the Kyber years after it fell was his or Chirrut's, but it's already terrible. They scale the outer wall at night--which makes no difference to Chirrut, but it certainly does to Baze--in order to avoid the attention of the stormtroopers.

Baze notices the lack of herbs burning in the winter braziers out in the courtyard as he trails Chirrut's unerring steps. Shadows and quiet suffuse the temple, a place previously filled with light and life.

Blaster fire and dried blood mark the steps of the entrance, and Baze's heart shatters in his chest. There's a hole there, a hole filled with ground glass.

He licks abruptly dry lips. "Well," he says, soft in the darkness, "we're here."