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shih-coulda-had-it · 7 years

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The Ninth Child

or, a loose adaptation of the Chinese fairy tale, The Butterfly Lovers.

Summary: Chirrut Îmwe, accosted by disapproving parents and an existential despair at home, enters the Temple. *Songs link to Youtube.

AO3 LINK

A/N: This is my fic for the @dailyspiritassassin‘s fanworks exchange! My giftee was @bottombobbysinger, and the prompt I chose (perhaps a little ambitiously) was “Disney-style spiritassassin.” Much thanks to @zhenzidan for the beta!

Quite frankly, Orson Krennic didn’t like people. He didn’t like people-feelings, especially the ones called sentimentalism, nostalgia, and affection. The supposed foundations of marriage.

Marriage was a construct designed to either let people climb up the rungs of society, or to utilize the loopholes during tax season.

Or, he mused, considering Jinrut Îmwe’s curtly worded post on the holonet, it could provide an opportunity to ingratiate himself with the Chancellor in the Galactic Senate.

The galaxy at large desired kyber—an infinitely renewable energy source in the right engineer’s hands, but monopolized to a ridiculous degree. The Îmwe family, known as one of the most respected owners of the largest kyber mines on Jedha, needed a relatively wealthy suitor for their youngest son.

A believer in long-term plans, Orson Krennic determined the best course of action was to consult others for advice and a thick digital tome on Jedhan marriage legalities.

It would take a while, but what suitor was going to offer the amount Jinrut Îmwe demanded for a blind man’s hand?

Chirrut was the ninth child of five girls and three brothers, the youngest of which still maintained seven years over him. His late existence marked him as an unexpected, and at times unwanted, son. He felt keenly the sheer displeasure his father had for him, like Chirrut embodied some harbinger of ill tidings.

To be fair, he had been.

His parents had not planned beyond eight children. They had long done away with the hand-me-downs and the crib carved of wood, imported long ago when Jedha received more trade. Chirrut’s imminent arrival left the family scrambling to find supplies during a period of weak trade relations, in addition to an inheritance equal to a ninth of the mines rendering the Îmwe name famous.

Fortunately, only a few of his parents’ progeny desired to run the family business.

Not among them was Chirrut, who (while content to wander the kyber mines as a child and trace the rainbow veins of crystal seeping through the rock walls) was uninterested in economics.

Chirrut’s interests were reserved in the Temple of the Whills, one of the family’s greatest patrons and customers. As a child, he visited every quarter of a cycle until he was ten, at which point his father turned his attention from religion to business.

But something tied him to the temple.

When Chirrut slept, he dreamt in sequences that smelled of heavy incense. He wandered in phantasmal halls that echoed with sonorous rumbles and ringing of bells and prayer. And recently, when he was still struggling through the haze of sleep, Chirrut heard himself muttering the old mantra that sat with him during the quarterly visits.

I am one with the Force, and the Force is with me.

The blindness had shook Chirrut—its abrupt arrival a consequence of a late-night outing and a misaim with a heavily-modded taser—but not his goal to join the Temple of the Whills. There was something to be attained there, be it peace for the gnawing (if often subdued) bitterness at his uselessness at home or some form of enlightenment.

Perversely, his dreams meant nothing yet. Chirrut still had to convince his father to let him attend.

Dinner was considered a sacred time of neutrality in the Îmwe household. Conflicts between siblings, parents, or even siblings and parents were to be put away in order to maintain the semblance of a happy family.

One did not detonate the minefield deliberately.

“Father,” said Chirrut. He sat at one end of the table, his portions of rice and vegetables already scooped into his bowl by his mother. The uneti wood chopsticks—wedding gifts dating back several generations—rested on the rim of the bowl.

Chirrut’s father sat the other end. “Chirrut.”

Beating around the bush went unappreciated in the Îmwe household, no matter how bad the news. “I’m going to become a Guardian of the Whills.”

Without hesitation, perhaps without even glancing up from his bowl, Chirrut’s father responded, “No.”

“Are you going to tell me why?” A habit Chirrut had indulged for the past few years was to blankly stare in his father’s direction and tilt his head, blinking with calculated guilelessness. He wasn’t one to waste an opportunity.

“Stop that, you look like some owl,” chided his mother.

“Let him,” his father said. “Maybe then he will get smart enough not to speak nonsense.” He cleared his throat. “And what do you want with the Guardians anyway? You know these religious people—they just want ears to preach their dogma to.”

Little rankled the Îmwe patriarch more than patronization; it was a trait passed down in the family.

Chirrut occasionally owned up to it.

“It costs little for me to travel the city,” Chirrut responded. “All I would like is my parents’ blessing to continue a… family legacy.” Ancestors of theirs had joined the temple before, but one hadn’t joined in decades. No blood relative still yet lived there.

“No,” repeated his father. “I am circulating marriage proposals for your hand, and no spouse wants a chaste husband in their wedding bed.”

Chirrut wrinkled his nose. “I…” he returned, a little concerned. Locals—the Holy City locals, especially—were keenly aware of what they risked in marrying an Îmwe for sake of wealth from the mines. If the marriage was based on a contract for shares in the family fortunes, a life or death stipulation existed to test the fiancé or fiancée’s worth. “Have any offers been made yet?” Any worthwhile offers—Jinrut Îmwe was a picky man.

A third time, though with some reluctance. “No.”

Ah. Victory was close. “So, instead of letting me laze about at home,” Chirrut said, “how about I go learn humility at the Temple? Bow my head and bend my neck in front of elders? You’ve always wanted that.”

“Strange how losing your sight did not make you lose your tongue,” his father retorted. He tapped something hard against… his cup? Chirrut concentrated, discerned it was probably a fingernail against the ceramic. “Perhaps you should go. I hear they beat initiates into submission.”

“Bedtime horror stories have no effect on me now.”

“In every story, a grain of truth.” A hard huff of air. “Fine. You wish to attend, go ahead. I will call you back when I receive a good offer for your hand.”

“Well,” said Chirrut lightly, picking up his chopsticks, “I hope you consider me valuable, father.”

[Sun Yanzi – “Yu Tian”]

Rain on Jedha never failed to leave Chirrut jittery. Jedhans celebrated the rainy season, even the wild floods that ran through the streets, for the precious water would seep down into the porous sand and leave behind shallow-rooted meadows and green weeds poking up from the packed dirt, all dying within the month.

Part of Chirrut felt that joy buzz through the air. Part of Chirrut still remained focused on his echo-box, gifted to him by the successful first sister who’d moved to Coruscant, and the cold sensation of precipitation needling his exposed skin.

Rain on his departure for the Temple? Probably a good sign.

“You should have someone to guide you,” Chirrut’s mother had fussed. “With your luck, you will be mugged or killed.”

“On a rainy day?” Chirrut had asked, cheerfully. Superstitious people—and the Holy City thrived on superstition—wouldn’t dare. One thing for the moon’s lifeblood to spill, another for a sentient’s to dare mingle with it. “I’ll be fine, mother. It’ll be a test of fortitude.”

His cane swept left and right, carving a zigzag pattern in the wet sand. Paying attention to it was an afterthought in Chirrut’s head. He was more preoccupied in recalling the route to the Temple.

From the Îmwe complex in the Merchant Quarter, a path led to a set of stairs, which opened the Merchant Quarter into the Pilgrim’s Route.

The Pilgrim’s Route consisted of several dozen wide, unroofed bridges connecting shelters that served as both hostels and checkpoints; it circulated the entirety of the Holy City. Eventually, it led the faithful to the Temple. Pickpockets were rampant along the path, but Chirrut had nothing of value on him beyond the echo-box.

And few people on the black market could sell an echo-box; his second brother had tried buying one for a year before giving the task up to the first sister.

As he made his way across the second bridge, the arc of his cane finally made its first impact against… Chirrut assumed an ankle, sturdy enough to not even flinch at the collision. “Sorry,” he apologized, barely slowing his step before he realized the body hadn’t moved.

His face crashed into a solidly-built arm, muscle and fat giving off heat under the soaked fabric of the cloak. Chirrut’s nose pressed flat against a rounded bicep.

“Oh!” said a startled voice. Before Chirrut recoiled, he heard and felt the sound vibrate into his ears—rough like the sands, sonorous like a preacher, and deep like the sound had been rooted in the stranger’s lungs. “I’m sorry, I wasn’t looking.”

An opening like that proved too difficult to resist. With a flash of a smile, Chirrut responded, “Neither was I.” He beamed at where he approximated the face to be, eyes wide against the rain.

A bark of a laugh, endearingly close to a guffaw, was cut short. “Do you, uh, do that often? Make jokes about…?”

“Only when I’m in a good mood.” Chirrut clasped his hands, cane held vertically in them, and bowed. “I’m Chirrut—Chirrut. Just Chirrut.” He hid his wince at the awkward introduction, but it was too easy to alienate friends when they realized their uneven statuses. He’d have to just give his last name up, or change it somehow when he got to the Temple. “It’s good to meet you, Master…?”

“Not a master of anything,” said the man, and then hands tentatively clasped Chirrut’s, shaking them once up and down. “I’m Baze. Baze Malbus.” The brisk action left Chirrut frozen, as did their swift departure. They’d been warm hands. “Are you on a pilgrimage?”

“I, ah,” answered Chirrut, trying to push past the flustered fog in his brain. “I’m actually going to become an initiate. Possibly even a Guardian.” He shrugged and recovered his grin. “And you?”

Baze laughed again, surprise in his voice. Chirrut steeled himself for ridicule, and he found himself gaping at the truth. “That’s my aim too,” Baze confessed. “I suppose I got caught up in watching the rain. You get corralled up in the mountain caves when there’s no ready drainage system for the floods.”

“Mm-hm,” Chirrut hummed, attempting to picture a Holy City drowning in the rain, its people forced to higher ground for safety. “So, a fellow brother-in-training.”

He extended his arm, palm exposed, fingers fanned out. His heartbeat thrummed with anxiety.

A cautious hand wrapped around Chirrut’s forearm, squeezed once, then let go. “A brother-in-training,” agreed Baze, slowly. “Would you… mind accompaniment to the Temple? I might get distracted watching the rain again.”

It was a pretty weak excuse.

“I’m much better distraction,” assured Chirrut. “But no, I wouldn’t mind. Stick out your elbow like so—” Boldly, Chirrut reached out to arrange Baze’s arm, then tucked his hand in the crook. His cane still remained in use, however. “Lead on, brother.”

And Baze led them forward, a little absent-minded, a little slow to warn Chirrut of future obstacles (though the cane and echo-box helped Chirrut avoid a few disasters), but adept at describing what Chirrut demanded of him.

He was just trailing off about the sodden red streamers connecting the roofs of buildings when Chirrut asked, “Why are you joining the Temple?”

His own reasons fell into the selfishly-searching-for-an-escape category, the justification being that the Temple was officially a sanctuary. Chirrut doubted Baze’s origins left the man little choice in terms of home, or that Baze also sought a way out from his blood family’s eyes.

Baze fell silent. Chirrut’s new companion was prone to these lapses of silence, trying to put together words ahead of time so that they wouldn’t stumble from his tongue.

Eventually, Baze said, “I… felt like my family were doing well without my input of work. My mothers always thought I was too content at the farm, so they told me to find something to dedicate my life to, and, well.” Chirrut felt a shoulder roll up and down in the bare semblance of a shrug. “I hear the Temple is always in need of farmers.”

“I would’ve expected you to join the Guardians for guarding,” said Chirrut, a little lamely. To recover, he nudged against the thick bicep with his cheek. To anyone else, they would appear like lovers—Chirrut considered the idea and felt the beginnings of a flush on his cheeks. He lolled his head the other way.

“I am not a fighter,” Baze returned. “I suppose you are, though? Running off to join the Temple and trampling over anything that gets in your way?”

“I did not trample you,” objected Chirrut. “What an unjust conclusion you’ve drawn of me!”

“If I was smaller, you could have.”

Chirrut conceded. “If you were smaller.” Too late, he noticed the way his cheeks were hurting with the force of his smile. Oh no. He cleared his throat. “We’re getting close to the Temple. How many aspiring Guardians do you think there will be?” The Temple welcomed any pilgrim at all hours, day or night, but they preferred their initiates to arrive during a specified day—sometime during the rainy season.

From fortuitous beginnings, fruitful fortunes.

Baze shrugged once more. “I hear more than half a beginning class leaves in the first quarter. Nothing of numbers.” He fell silent the same time his body turned as still as a post; Chirrut caught the sudden stop before he tripped over his own momentum.

In leaving Baze to his silent woolgathering, Chirrut’s hearing sharpened. Beneath the falling raindrops colliding with sandstone and the tarp-covered stalls preceding the stairs to the Temple, conversation hummed. Accents mixed with dialects mixed with unfamiliar glottal clicking noises and buzzes. Chirrut tried to follow one dialogue, but the thread of it mingled with another—

“That,” marveled Baze, the roughened voice dragging Chirrut back to himself, “is a crowd.”

“Pilgrims?” asked Chirrut hopefully.

Baze dashed his hopes. “A mix, I think. Both pilgrims and initiates waiting for the doors to open. We’re early.” Perhaps they were—Chirrut had left home early, expecting empty streets and bridges in light of the freezing precipitation. And he and Baze had struck a quick pace. “I wonder how the Temple accepts them all...”

“I’ve never heard of a preliminary test,” Chirrut said, finally conceding to shield his eyes against the needles dropping from the sky. “But once accepted, I imagine they’ll have nothing holding them back from exacting so much useless work on us, more than half of the class drops in the first quarter.”

A bark of laughter, guiltily stifled when several conversations stalled. Baze muttered their onlookers an apology, then nudged Chirrut’s ribs. “You shouldn’t speak ill of our future teachers,” he chided.

Chirrut protested, “I think I give them due credit! Temple-dwellers they may be, they aren’t considered rigorous disciplinarians for nothing.” He dragged Baze further into the crowd, cane hitting ankle after ankle until the two were so tightly-packed, he could no longer maintain the bubble of personal space. Amidst the constant voices, Chirrut shouted, “You must promise me something, Baze Malbus!”

“Yes?” responded Baze, the sound of him cutting past it all—a torrential rush of languages melded until not one was purely recognizable, dammed by one man’s presence. “What, Chirrut?”

He pictured it. He pictured the scene just as he answered Baze, asking him to not wash out with the rest. Clouds overhead, swirling and gray and ominous, blotting light and shadow and dealing water down from above. Pilgrims and initiates, clustered together, asking strangers of the time, the weather, their homes regardless of whether they received responses or not. The stairs to reach the Temple, which sat on a mesa of unique size, and the doors engraved with non-pictorial reliefs.

There was no cry or growing collection of voices to tell Chirrut when the doors had opened—only the sweep of bodies moving up the stairs, shuffling forward and leaving space for the nearest person to occupy, indicated the need to move.

Baze’s hand wrapped around his elbow. The fingers locked tight. And Baze stayed in place, stolidly waiting for Chirrut to lead.

Krennic closed his eyes. His hair thinned faster than his lips these days, all caused by Jedhan bureaucracy and Jedhan family laws and Jedhan superstition. He feared no native of the Holy City—and that should have been a warning for him, something that should have made him stop on this feckless journey for the hand of a blind man to lead him to riches—could be persuaded to overhaul their culture.

Jinrut Îmwe was courting many offers, and it had been no small cause of grief to learn that the deciding factor was not credits.

For the hand of a ninth child, blinded by idiocy if the patriarch was to be believed, Jinrut asked for much.

He looked at the file of Chirrut Îmwe once more, studied the handsome, proud profile. On a good day, Krennic considered it depressing to know Chirrut Îmwe would not pass on his genes. On a bad day, he taped the picture to the door and threw darts at the taunting last name.

The Îmwe patriarch varied his offers by the person who asked. In hearing Krennic’s initial offer, Jinrut had scoffed. ‘Paltry credits are not enough to balance this child’s bad fortune,’ the father had said. ‘Go on a quest to bring me these items, and perhaps I will consider you then.’

Krennic’s initial offer had topped that of a well-off Jedhan merchant’s. He’d double-checked.

It bothered Krennic to no end, his failed attempts to bypass Jedhan culture and appeal to baser urges. Psychology was being turned over on its head. Greed and ambition were dying underneath the fairytale-like demands for a quest.

He cast a malevolent glare at the line of demands, all exceptionally impossible for people without Krennic’s privileges. Jinrut knew more than he let on about Krennic’s position in the Senate, Krennic was certain, but nothing could be proven.

Orson Krennic resigned himself for the long haul.

[Leslie Cheung – “Who Makes You Crazy”]

Several turning points occurred rapidly in Chirrut’s service to the Temple, all in the course of several years. The happenstance of one he blamed on Baze, who protested his involvement in any trouble (if it could be called that!) Chirrut stirred up.

One: Chirrut moved with unexpected grace when foreign objects weren’t in his way, and the ease of his movements during the early months allowed him to advance to zama-shiwo training far before most. Chirrut, the masters proclaimed unhurriedly, despite being a gigantic annoyance in communal readings and Temple life, knew how to discipline his body without irreparable injury.

Chirrut assumed two masters wanted to thrash the insolence from him; the rest seemed to enjoy his radical allegories and symbolism analyses.

Two: Chirrut got himself banned from group meditation. Few could stand his fidgeting, fewer tolerated the way he repeated his mantra without pause. Baze was a notable exception; Chirrut had witnessed him simply fall asleep to the chanting.

Speaking of Baze.

Three: Chirrut had, somewhere along the way, fallen in love with Baze Malbus, prized student of the librarians (Guardians regardless of their field, which was the only reason Baze still trained in zama-shiwo with Chirrut).

Chirrut’s love life preceding the taser incident followed a clear pattern of travel-addicted eye-candy. There had been Maryad, who’d spent a month on Jedha before following her fortunes to Corellia. There had been Eijosu, a pilgrim ship’s guard. For an entire week, he had been a fixture of a bar, attached to one of the many arms of Sabuly before their long-awaited departure for a greener planet.

The names would have gone on and on (because Chirrut had game, even as a blind drunk) had it not been for his mother’s intervention.

Frankly, he was unsure how Baze had captured his affections. Baze epitomized the homesteader, content with books and the sedate scheduled life the Temple thrived on. On sporadic nights, Chirrut located him in the kitchens, kneading the next day’s bao, folding meat or vegetable fillings in thin envelopes of dough, or even washing dishes.

Domesticity draped itself around Baze far better than it could around Chirrut.

It was plausible Chirrut was just desirous of, well, being warmed by judicious amounts of both fat and muscle wrapped around a core of unbending steel. For Baze was warm on the many nights Jedha was cold, and he seemed unbothered by how Chirrut would wrap around him like a snake would a patch of sunlit rock, whether Chirrut willed it or not.

It was improbable to be in lust with a man who lived to toss amorous couples out of the hallowed library aisles, who told Chirrut in increasingly aggravated tones about lovers who were in the midst of ‘sucking each other’s faces off.’

Embarrassingly, Chirrut had come to realize the third turning point several days ago. He’d voiced it aloud when talking to Riacar about xir work in the library, between complimenting Riacar’s calligraphy (something Baze waxed eloquence about) and gearing up to ask whether xir time in the library overlapped with Baze’s.

Purely concerns about efficiency.

And then Riacar had slyly said something about, “You actually retain Malbus’s words better than the master’s, you know.”

And Chirrut, like a dolt, had said back, “Well, I highly value Baze Malbus as a whole—” Riacar, bless xir hearts, kindly knelt next to Chirrut’s sudden drop to the floor and waited out the bemoaning. Xe was used to it, having stuck by Chirrut and his antics for much of their time in the Temple.

“Will you confess to Baze?”

“Not in so little words,” Chirrut had huffed, and then he’d proceeded to roll away from his friend.

Days later, Chirrut was now here. In the library, tucked cross-legged in a dusty corner. His presence alone risked keen attention from the librarians—not that he understood why. Out of deference to Baze’s hobbies and comfort, Chirrut kept his toes far, far away from the library until he needed the odd tome or electronic key to a book.

The librarians, honestly, should be more appreciative of Chirrut’s mindfulness.

“Chirrut?” questioned a deeply familiar voice. It sent a shiver down his spine, the way that mouth rolled the two syllables into something soft. Treasured.

Chirrut grinned up at Baze and held his hands up, palms turned to the ceiling like a supplicant.

The fine-boned hands—smaller than Chirrut had expected on a man of Baze’s size—gingerly placed themselves in his. Without pause (for Chirrut knew Baze wanted to drag him up and brush off the dust), Chirrut snagged Baze’s wrists and yanked him down.

Knees thudded to the floor, a bitten-off curse following their descent. Chirrut, preoccupied with trying to trace the librarians’ meandering patrols, failed to notice Baze halfway in his lap until Baze made to wrench himself away.

“Oh, hush,” Chirrut scolded. “You’ll get me thrown out of the library.”

“You?!” hissed Baze, feeling a great deal warmer than normal body temperatures warranted. “Master Tulm will have the both of our hides!” Being abruptly released while hunched over Chirrut’s thighs shut the tirade up; Baze, in catching himself, flung his arms wide around Chirrut’s waist and slapped his palms flat against the wood floor.

Chirrut sensed the continuation of the rant, the closeness of Baze’s face and the unnatural heat that spoke of fever. Impulsively, he reached to hold it.

A softened jawline, rounder and longer than Chirrut’s own. Shadowed, no doubt, with the prickly growth of a beard Baze would shave once more in the morning hours. A wide forehead—small wonder Baze chose to be in the library, he seemed destined to be an intellectual. Eyes that fluttered hurriedly shut as Chirrut’s fingers skated over them, the light touch making Baze twitch violently.

Heat.

“Are you running a fever?” asked Chirrut, hiding the want with concern.

It was the beginning of the chilly season, and Baze never made claim to sickness until he was crumpled in bed with it, snuffly and grumpy about his infirmity.

“No,” said Baze very clearly. “Are you—” His head swiveled in Chirrut’s hands, and the skin tickled from what felt like flyaway strands. Without even consciously doing it, Chirrut skimmed his fingertips up to Baze’s hairline, to the way his hair was pulled back and up into a frizzing queue. He licked his lips.

Baze scrambled to his feet, hauling Chirrut up with him. “Someone’s coming,” he muttered, and he brushed Chirrut’s chest, his shoulders, his lower back. In the back of his mind, Chirrut knew it was to get rid of dust.

It didn’t rid Chirrut of that insidious feeling of lust. Rather distantly he realized he’d failed his goal in confessing to Baze. Towed from the library, Chirrut decided it was a matter for another day. A day for when Baze wouldn’t be teetering on the brink of sickness.

The question of Chirrut’s family name occasionally bounced between his peers. After he’d almost outed himself to Baze, Chirrut had made a pointed effort in only telling people his first name. His new friend, at the time, had shrugged off the omission. Likely he thought Chirrut wanted to discard his past altogether—not a completely untrue statement, truth be told.

“I bet you were a rich boy,” said Kovara. His spoon clattered decisively into his empty bowl—the twilek’s stomach was insatiable. He’d only received his helping ten minutes ago. “A rich boy with all the privileges in the world.”

“Lay off,” Baze told the twilek. His spoon scraped the bottom of his bowl, and yet Chirrut knew Baze would have an internal struggle over picking up a second helping.

Under the table, Kovara’s foot kicked Chirrut’s ankle. “C’mon. You can’t have been a bastard. You act too prissy for all that.”

Chirrut kicked back. “I was raised on a spaceship,” he said off-handedly. A beat of silence fell over their section of the table; a debate stormed behind their eyes, Chirrut was certain. “By kindhearted Toydarians,” continued Chirrut, injecting a cheerful nostalgia into his tone. “Who gifted me this echo-box out of the kindness of their hearts.”

A disapproving scoff. “Liar,” groused Kovara. “I almost believed you.”

“You did believe me.” Buffing his nails with the front of his robes, Chirrut grinned. “I bet you were thinking back on all those times I swindled you for the dahn tah, hah?”

It was a fond memory Chirrut enjoyed reliving: Kovara paying off a rigged bet by smuggling not four, but eight of his egg custard tarts into Chirrut and Baze’s room.

“In all seriousness, Chirrut.” The twilek tapped the bottom of his bowl contemplatively. “Are you quite sure you’re not some boy from the High Quarter? Or even the Merchant Quarter? You know a lot of stuff I wouldn’t expect someone like farmboy—”

“Watch it,” said Chirrut. He nudged Baze’s leg with a knee, hid his concern over the stiffness of it, and returned his attention back to Kovara. “I am, for all intent and purposes, an orphan. A very well-off one until I came here.” Chirrut lifted an eyebrow and did his best to appear unbothered. “Are you getting seconds for us all?”

Kovara spluttered, “Well, for me—”

Chirrut groped for Baze’s empty bowl and slid it over to their friend. “I’d like another bowl too,” he said mildly. He hadn’t eaten more than half, but Chirrut had a newfound appetite.

“Pah. Lazy, lazy. I��ll bring you so much stew, you will be sick of it.” Kovara withdrew from the table, and Chirrut counted his steps until he was sure he and Baze were alone.

“You know,” Baze said, the words sudden and stilted, “I’ve only just now realized you prefer when people say ‘Chirrut and Baze Malbus’ than ‘Baze Malbus and Chirrut?’” In Chirrut’s defense, the phrase ‘Chirrut and Baze Malbus’ sounded more natural than the latter. It ended more kindly in his ears.

With all the serenity accumulated from years of meditation, Chirrut turned to face Baze and rest an elbow on the table. “We’ve called each other brothers for some time now,” he deflected.

Baze’s voice cleared. Flattened. “So we have.” He was silent for a second more, then, miraculously, “Welcome to the Malbus family, Chirrut.”

Quite rapidly, the thought occurred: this was it. This was the time to confess. Chirrut opened his mouth, intending to admit his lineage. Maybe Baze was ignorant about the families of Jedha. Even the family whose name was passed around daily in the Temple, both as a curse and a prayer.

Really, he should make a gift for the masters for allowing him to stay in the Temple. They identified him the second he’d approached the registrar but accepted his request for an obscured identity.

“Baze, I’m—”

Kovara tucked himself back into the table, and the clatter of bowls hitting the table’s surface cut Chirrut off. “I got you more stew,” he announced.

The letters from Jinrut Îmwe came without warning, after three years of yearning in the Temple and three years of questing in Orson Krennic’s life.

Chirrut slipped into the kitchens with a heavy heart, his father’s missive tucked delicately in the folds of his robes for all that he wanted to crumple it into illegibility. The letter caused concerned eyes to fall on Chirrut in the morning, the package attached to it attracted wagging tongues.

Chirrut’s pale face confirmed what he wouldn’t say, because letters to the Temple initiates were limited to close friends and family emergencies. As Chirrut never spoke of old friends, the overall conclusion was that he was being called back home.

Riacar stopped xir sullen conversation with xir fellow dishwasher and said to Chirrut, wryly, “Are you here for Baze?”

“Certainly not you,” responded Chirrut. He offered Riacar a smile. “Is he by the ovens or the counters today, Riacar?”

“He’s chopping vegetables—hey, watch it with the soap.”

Answer received, Chirrut carefully picked his way to the counters and found Baze after tapping Kovara’s shoulder for further help. He swept a hand on the counter, clearing away a small square of space. He hoisted himself into it, pulled out his father’s letter, and waited. The hissing of roots and tubers frying in oil filled the space between them.

“Chirrut,” said Baze after a moment. “This isn’t exactly a great time for conversation.”

Disagreement between the two of them was happening faster than Chirrut had accounted for. He forged ahead. “On the contrary! You’re busy with your hands and not your mind, and I am out of your way. This is the perfect time for a conversation.” His cane knocked impetuously against the edge of the counter. “You’ve been avoiding me.”

“Easy to do,” Baze groused. “You are easily distracted.”

“Sorry, who needed someone to stop them from staring at the rain?”

The thock-thock-thock of Baze’s knife grimly slicing to the cutting board. Kovara’s tuneless humming to a folk song a trader had taught him. Running dishwater, recycled and re-filtered and never, ever wasted. Other Temple initiates stepping into the kitchens, chattering about the day’s readings and gossip—

A hand on Chirrut’s knee dragged him back to a state of hyper-focus. He imagined he could feel every roughened callus catching on his robes, years of being a trainee librarian doing nothing to soften a farmboy’s hands.

“Chirrut,” repeated Baze, anchoring him.

“You’ve heard the news?” Chirrut heard himself say distantly. “I’m being summoned home.”

“Why?”

And there it was. Baze Malbus, not latching onto the first point of contention: Chirrut’s early lie about being an orphan. Baze Malbus, focusing on Chirrut’s problems before his own pressing questions.

Chirrut bit his lip and willed his temper to calm.

“Why else does a Temple guardian-in-training break their vows?” asked Chirrut. “Family troubles.” He ran his fingers on the raised bumps of the letter, read the message again and again.

Chirrut,

I underestimated your value. Your fiancé has expended a great effort to win your hand, and his offer will assure all your family’s futures. Come home.

“And when,” how could Baze sound so calm in light of all this, “do you leave?”

“Soon. I have to arrange for my swift return with the masters.” Chirrut caught the strangled exhale and was buoyed by the relief in it. “What?” he teased. “You thought I, the second-greatest Guardian to ever undergo the masters’ tortuous trials, would simply give this all up?”

Baze deadpanned, “May the Force forbid you ever devote yourself to a goal you give up as you reach it.”

“Force forbid,” said Chirrut. “Now, the masters will be kind enough to let you escort me home whilst carrying my belongings. It’s only across the city, but there are many obstacles for a blind man to struggle through. Maybe too many.” He reached out and found Baze’s face; he patted a cheek. “I leave soon.”

[Jay Chou – “Moonlight on the Rooftop”]

The night before Chirrut’s departure, Baze found Chirrut in an open air training ground. His back was flat against the bare stone, his neck supported by his hands and the pillow he’d dragged out, and his eyes focused ahead to the stars.

… There should be stars. Chirrut couldn’t taste any rain, and Jedha’s clouds (whenever they deigned to gather) always brought a downpour.

Baze joined him on the ground, though he refrained from flopping onto the stone like Chirrut. It was with a put-upon sigh that Chirrut sat up, crossing his legs beneath him and turning to face Baze. Their positions (he imagined Baze mirrored him) reminded Chirrut of meditation.

“Why are you really returning home?” asked Baze. “Are you the nearest family member? Is there no one else to help with the trouble?” As Chirrut processed the rapid-fire of questions, Baze warmed to his unusual role of carrying the conversation on his lonesome. “I find the timing of it strange too. Is it financial difficulty? You certainly have savings, but not enough to unburden a debt of any load.”

“Enough!” laughed Chirrut, a little helplessly. “Blood called to blood, and I must answer. I owe them one last visit.” He rested his hands in his lap and stared wistfully skywards. “Did I ever mention that I’m the ninth child of my family?”

Silence. Cautious silence.

“Out with it, Baze.”

“If you believe you owe your family ‘one last visit’ because you think you’ve brought some ill fortune to them,” Baze said slowly, his words chosen with care, “then I hope this truly is your last meeting with them.” The click of a throat swallowing—not Chirrut’s own, he realized in a daze. “You would do any family proud with your achievements here.”

Chirrut dared, despite the thinness, the raw quality of his voice. “Even the Malbus family?”

“Even they,” confirmed Baze. “You—mm.” He tsked then, muttering an unintelligible line of noises before sighing. “I have something for you. Hold still.”

… Baze, surely, wasn’t going to kiss him. Chirrut glumly recognized the impossibility of it but waited anyway. He startled at the gentle touch to his hands, the way Baze shaped them into a cup and dropped something heavy into them. Fingers curled on instinct.

“Jewelry?”

“Jewelry.”

Chirrut puzzled over the shape. When he discerned it, he snapped his head up and hoped Baze’s eyes were connected to his. “A starbird,” he guessed.

“Made of gold.” Baze huffed at how Chirrut hurriedly slipped the necklace around his neck and continued, “I’m sure you don’t actually need me to help you home, you’ve overcome more disasters with grace than I ever could—oof!” He let out a strangled sound; Chirrut had launched himself across the distance between their knees, veritably tackling Baze into a hug.

“I would take every moment possible with you,” said Chirrut. “The good and the bad. When you laugh or when you yell.” He chewed his bottom lip for words—he was good with them. He knew this. It was finding words sincere enough to convince Baze that was the problem. “Is that alright?”

Baze’s breath hitched, and Chirrut could’ve wept in response to the slow wrap of arms around his shoulders. “Okay. Okay. Let’s… go back inside before we freeze to death.”

Jinrut Îmwe personally welcomed Orson Krennic into the Îmwe household, a decently-sized property in the Merchant Quarter. That the Îmwes chose to reside in the Holy City surprised Krennic; he had been entertaining the notion of a statuesque manor sitting plainly in a field of sand, the family kyber mines as its backyard.

“Mr. Îmwe,” said Krennic blandly. “I trust you’ve checked your accounts.” In accordance to customs, he tugged off his boots and lined them up with the other shoes, the toes pointed to the wall. He felt strangely naked without them.

Even the presence of his socks couldn’t hide his feet from the chill of the tiled floor.

“All irreversible,” confirmed Jinrut. “And already divvied between my family. You are a generous man, Mr. Krennic.” He led Krennic to a small sitting room and took his place at what was nominally the head of the table. The circular nature of the table made posturing impossible, so Krennic took the chair on Jinrut’s right.

Jinrut had, essentially, bled Krennic dry. His entire life savings and then some had been sacrificed—along with a sizable network of contacts spread across the galaxy—in pursuit of Chirrut’s hand and, consequently, the mines.

Ideas for a hostile takeover of the mines via the policy of eminent domain occurred to Krennic. Multiple times. However, when Krennic checked the records, it turned out Jedha was untouchable by the policy. Many entrepreneurs had tried petitioning the Senate to take the Îmwes’ ancestral lands to no avail.

Assassinating the Îmwes—socially, financially, or physically—wasn’t a possibility either. They were considered a Jedhan staple of life, and beyond that, Krennic knew the family could outsmart anyone who attempted to hunt them down.

So when Jinrut’s demands grew higher and higher, Krennic was forced to relinquish more and more. He trusted in the mines and the Senate’s greed to fish him out of poverty.

“When can I meet Chirrut, Mr. Îmwe?”

“Oh, he is coming home. He has been at the Temple for the past three years.” Jinrut poured Krennic a cup of amber-colored tea. “It is only across the city. He will be here soon.”

“I’d like to take a survey of the mines,” Krennic said, “before I give you my network.” That had been the condition of Krennic’s agreement to the monetary down payment; to withhold his network up until the moment he wedded Chirrut.

“Chirrut can take you,” said Jinrut. “He used to play in them as a child.” He tapped a finger against his temple, dark eyes looking at Krennic knowingly. “Touched in the head, I thought. Wandering like a fool in there, no guide or mining skill to help him back out. But then, as the sun dipped to the horizon, there he would be at the front door, complaining about thirst and hunger.”

Krennic had to ask. “Is he… Force-sensitive?”

“Not enough for the Jedi to take him off my hands.” Jinrut folded his hands on the table. “So tell me in truth, Mr. Krennic. What do you really know about kyber mines?”

[Wu Bai – “Xin Ai De Zai Hui La”]

“Should you be walking out like that into the city?” asked Baze, faintly alarmed by the sight of Chirrut.

Dressed in the clothes his father had sent, Chirrut couldn’t blame him. His nose wrinkled at the foreign touch of silk against his skin and how heavily the robes weighed on him. His fingers had traced the needlepoint threads covering the shoulders and elbows, the hems of the collar and wide sleeves. Interlocking crystals, diamond-shaped and hollow. If Chirrut’s memory hadn’t failed him, the robe was a dark gray and the embroidery a light blue to match the sash cinched around his waist.

The gold starbird necklace remained around his neck, under all the layers that marked him as an Îmwe.

“No one’s going to pickpocket me, Baze,” responded Chirrut. He shook out a sleeve, feeling his hand drown in its expansiveness, and reoriented himself. Facing forward from the base of the stairs leading to the Temple… Chirrut grabbed the inside of Baze’s elbow and pointed to the left. “We’ll take the Pilgrim’s Route.”

Minutes into the walk, Baze asked, “How far are we walking along the Route?”

“A little past where we met.”

“The Merchant Quarter?”

Chirrut grinned, though his heart wasn’t into it. “Yes. Surprised?” He bumped Baze’s ribs with his elbow and moved closer when Baze refused to flinch away. “Of course you would be. Finally, after so many long tales of young Chirrut crawling from the gutters, you finally get to see the truth of me.”

Stolidly, Baze replied, “I was never bothered by your background, whatever it was.”

“Only because you never bothered to question it.” They crossed the first bridge. Chirrut compared the differences between now and three years ago, and he turned his face skywards. Today was inauspiciously dry for the rainy season. “I never liked my family too much. They provided well for me, but never supported my decisions.”

“Were those decisions made poorly?” Baze’s strides were measured. Shorter than usual. Sometimes, in the Temple, he stalked off in such a huff that Chirrut had to dash to keep up.

Chirrut scoffed, but admitted, “The early ones. I was given an especially long leash as a child, and it only grew longer when I was a young man.”

“You’re still a young man.”

“I’ll grow old the second I say goodbye to you.” He bit his tongue. Upon the third bridge, Chirrut turned his eyes to the ground and his thoughts to his father’s intentions.

The reason for his summons was clearly stated—someone had actually asked to marry him, despite never talking to him once. Idly, Chirrut wondered how quickly he could have his suitor withdraw from the engagement.

Chirrut intended on marrying for love first, marriage’s benefits second. He believed the opposite held true for his fiancé.

“Why did you come to the Temple?”

“I was bored at home.” He winced, not entirely for the sake of theatrics. Fingers were digging through his sleeve to the muscle of his forearm. “For the endless supply of tarine tea?” A measured breath, intentionally made louder because Baze never made so much noise, not unless Chirrut shocked or annoyed it out of him. “… I had a dream.”

Baze digested the admission. “Alright.” When Chirrut echoed him, irate at the simple way Baze accepted the answer, his escort grumbled, “I believe it more than I do the rest of your reasons. Dreams have a habit of becoming true, sometimes.”

The caveat ‘sometimes’ gnawed at Chirrut. “What if I told you I had a dream about being eaten by…” He wracked his brain for an appropriately-mythical creature, foreign to Jedha’s sands. “By a whale?”

Actually, there were rumors about some sand leviathan burrowed deep in the Jedhan wastes.

“Then I would keep you in the library,” said Baze, “where the most terrifying spectacle is Master Tulm over the cracked spine of a book.”

“What if I told you I dreamt I was a butterfly?”

Calmly, Baze shoved a hand into Chirrut’s face, scrubbing at the scrunching features with no malicious intent. “Don’t be a fool,” he scolded. “I don’t know how you can even reference that. It’s a small wonder your last-minute reading sticks in your head.”

They were getting close to Chirrut’s childhood home. The Merchant Quarter possessed a certain atmosphere that cut it from the rest of the Holy City; it was louder, for one thing. The day life was as cacophonous as the night, buyers and sellers haggling and hawking their goods and services. Loiterers huddled in bunches by street cooks, lured in by the scent of fried and seared foods. Baze sidled closer to Chirrut and readjusted his grip on Chirrut’s belongings.

Chirrut swept aside a kickball and heard a gaggle of children rush past him, clamoring to reach their plaything before it entered the crowded bazaar.

“I had tutors as a child,” he told Baze.

“Why not just one?”

“Well, if you must know, I kept running away to wander the kyber mines.” It hadn’t stopped his parents from hiring new tutors, but it’d certainly curbed their expectations after Chirrut’s intellectual prowess became apparent. A smart son meant nothing if one was an absent son.

“The… kyber mines?”

Chirrut caught the scent of roasted fruit, and his eyes watered at the spice permeating the air. “Ah, let me lead from here. I remember the way.” He threw a smile over in Baze’s direction, even as he dragged them left. “Yes. The kyber mines. Stories say only two kinds of people can navigate them: the Force-sensitive, and the Îmwes. It’s part of the reason why no one contests the right of the mines anymore. The family used to deal with challengers by walking into the mines with them, down to the very core, and race back to the exit. The practice is no longer continued.”

“I’ve never heard of that,” said Baze. “Did you make that up?”

Sometimes, Chirrut forgot how resolutely oblivious Baze Malbus could be. “We’re reaching the residential area. Count the plates on the houses. Our stop is 120.”

Heart in his throat, Chirrut slipped his hand from the crook of Baze’s elbow to his palm. He entangled their fingers and pumped his arm once to start a pendulum.

He gathered his words and did his best to clean them of clutter. Of flowery phrases that did nothing but give Baze discomfort—Chirrut would have to fix that. He’d been trying for three years to land a compliment on Baze that wouldn’t make the man recoil into his shell, and he’d have the rest of his life to succeed after this family affair.

Communicating sincerity in affection was difficult enough without all of Baze’s choice of literary material beatifically warping his perceptions of love. How was Chirrut to compare with all the weeping and corporeal sacrifices deemed standard in Baze’s fairy tales?

Baze tugged Chirrut to a stop. “Ah,” the man managed, struggling to put words together. “This is… a big house.”

“You’re looking at the courtyard,” said Chirrut wryly. “The housing complex is smaller.” He cocked his head and reached out until his fingers found a button. He didn’t press it yet. “The kyber mines,” Chirrut said, “are out of the city limits, but easily accessible if you take the backstreets and don’t mind an old alcoholic driver as escort.”

Now was the moment. He had to seize it before Baze left, before his parents’ preternatural sense of his ‘troublesome’ actions could act up after three years.

Chirrut turned around and fitted both his hands at Baze’s jaw, cradling the soft edges of it with his palms.

“Baze Malbus,” declared Chirrut Îmwe, “when I turn back around, you are going to head back to the Temple with my belongings, and you’re going to put them back where they belong.” He grinned, as fierce as he could make it. “My name is Chirrut Îmwe, ninth child of the Îmwe patriarch, Jinrut Îmwe. I don’t know how long this business will take me, but know I will be home soon.”

“Chirrut. Chirrut.” His hands grabbed Chirrut’s wrists and flung them down, freeing his face, and before Chirrut could rightly feel stung—

Lips mashed against his, clumsy and strangely endearing. Their noses bumped painfully. Chirrut angled his head and steadied the kiss, stomach fluttering all the while as Baze relented and let Chirrut have control. A theory occurred to Chirrut in that instant, one he immediately stuffed into a box so he wouldn’t be tempted to return to the Temple, to their quarters, right then and there.

“You’re coming back,” Baze said, his flat tone daring Chirrut to joke. The shattered pattern of his breathing ruined the sober statement.

“Have you ever known me to break a promise to you?” Chirrut released Baze and took a step back. “Go now, before you seduce me into abandoning all my dignity.” He listened intently to the bark of laughter, the quiet, almost shy farewell, and the retreating footsteps. When Chirrut’s echo-box confirmed the lack of audience, he finally pressed the intercom button. “Father, it’s your terrible son, back from a chaste life of being beaten and fed gruel.”

Chirrut’s first impression of Orson Krennic confirmed his earlier suspicion: Krennic wanted the mines. The man—foreign to Jedha, native to Coruscant or some Inner Rim planet, tones rougher than the norm—behaved exceedingly well, despite sounding exceedingly bored of the proceedings.

Chirrut, in his opinion, played the role of dutiful son to perfection. The suspicion from his father was palpable. Clearly, someone had maintained faith in Chirrut’s ability to adapt and resist the Temple’s insistence of humility.

“Oh, you’d like to visit our mines?” gushed Chirrut. “I haven’t been in so long, allow me the privilege of showing you the best routes.”

“Before that,” said Jinrut Îmwe, “a word, Chirrut.” A curt pause. “Come, we’ll talk in the kitchen. Mr. Krennic, excuse us for a moment. My son is in need of some water supplies. The mines will dehydrate you faster than you will expect.” He swept out of the room, and Chirrut tossed an empty, flirtatious smile in Krennic’s direction before he joined his father.

He slid the door shut behind him. “I do hope you don’t actually intend to marry me off to him, father.” Chirrut tilted his head and heard his father move about the kitchen and turn on a faucet. Outside, Krennic began to pace. “Or if so, expect him to stay with me for long.”

Water filled one bottle, crashed against the sink, then began filling another.

“You would be surprised how far Mr. Krennic will go for you,” said his father. “He’s sacrificed much.”

“Not everything yet,” Chirrut responded mildly. “What does he know about our traditions?” Graciously, he extended his hand and received the leather strap of a satchel. Rummaging through it revealed two water bottles and a few more packages, the size of the protein bars the Temple passed to the poor. “… Father, you’re not thinking of giving him a handicap, are you?”

“The Temple should have taken your tongue,” the senior Îmwe muttered. He cleared his throat. “The matter of Mr. Krennic’s survival is entirely in your hands, Chirrut. His credits are already dispersed in the family accounts, and his network of spies?” A scoff. “An unwieldy tool. No, I think the true value of Mr. Krennic’s presence has played out. The Senate has shown interest in our mines before, but never to this extent.”

Chirrut blinked and accidentally let out a laugh. “Politics! Is that your idea of retirement? Who’s in charge of the mines, then?”

“Feirut.” Considering Feirut Îmwe’s penchant for fantastic luck, Chirrut guessed he could understand the decision, especially given that Feirut had successfully built a small nest egg of his own actions. He would have preferred Huajie, but his second sister was somewhere on Naboo, taking all her banking abilities with her.

“Well, then,” said Chirrut. “If you intend on politicking, father, perhaps you ought to leave me to my own devices. Permanently.” He shouldered the satchel, and he smiled. “This is my final duty as your son. After this, I belong to the Temple.”

A beat of silence, and then in a leveled tone. “Then you best be off to the mines before you break your mother’s heart, Chirrut.”

It was child’s play for Chirrut Îmwe to disappear into the shadows, the inner sanctum’s torches not yet lit. He hooked the satchel over Krennic as he began to sprint the long, winding way out. Might as well give the man a decent chance of survival.

[Guangliang – “Tong Hua”]

The Temple of the Whills’ library was empty of life, excepting for one Baze Malbus. The heavy clouds blotting out the sky were finally relieving themselves of their heavy burdens, and the Holy City rejoiced as one for the delayed downpour. The Temple itself was outside, participating in the celebrations and also ensuring that the floods would not sweep away families or their belongings.

Baze Malbus, lost in thought, carried a stack of tomes to a case and started to tuck them away. Four days had passed since Chirrut’s departure, since Baze returned home with his friend’s belongings and redecorated their room. Four days since the Temple’s initiates and acolytes had pestered him for Chirrut’s family name.

On the third day, Baze, sick of the gossip, snapped that it was Malbus.

In retrospect, not the best answer. The gossipmongers had new material, and years of old blackmail material, and now Baze’s life was filled with well-wishes about his absent husband and congratulations about the nuptials. Riacar asked once about their sex life, and then refrained from asking anything of Baze after receiving a fist to xir face.

The doors opened and closed, and the footsteps were quiet but audible. Baze closed his eyes, and his shoulders slump.

“Master Tulm,” he directed his words to the cracked spines of the books, “I’ll be out soon. There’s just a few more books to shelve—”

Two arms circled Baze’s waist, fingers locking tight. A face buried itself in the dip of Baze’s shoulders. “Hello, husband,” teased Chirrut, his voice muffled. “I’m home.” Baze grappled with the silence locking his tongue to the roof of his mouth, but he failed to summon the simplest greeting. Fortunately, Chirrut had patience for this—Baze’s tongue-tied state—in spades. “This is my husband right? I don’t remember the wedding night, but I’m pretty sure only my husband would lurk in the library on a rainy day.”

“Stop saying that,” Baze finally said. A traitorous flush crept along his face, burning into his ears. “It was just to get them to stop asking about your family.”

He turned in Chirrut’s arms and leaned against the bookcase, grateful that it was rooted to the floor and not liable to tip over at his weight.

He met Chirrut on a rainy day. A short man with short hair, the black strands plastered to his forehead because unlike Baze, the man wasn’t wearing any protective layers. So the image carried over, transposing itself on the Chirrut of now, his short hair even shorter, soaked from the rain.

Chirrut rested his chin on Baze’s sternum, staring up with his wide, clouded eyes. “I thought I was part of the Malbus family.” The mock hurt was just that—a mockery of the real feeling. Baze felt pathetically relieved that Chirrut wasn’t prone to overreacting. “… Is this still alright?”

Baze gave up pretending apathy and hugged Chirrut, holding him tight against his bulkier frame. “Yes,” he mumbled into Chirrut’s neck. He could taste the cold rain, beading at the skin all the way up to the hollow between jaw and ear, and from there, Baze found it comfortable to kiss the corner of the bow-shaped mouth. He hesitated to move further, hardly daring to breathe while his lips were above Chirrut’s.

Chirrut blinked, lazy in waiting until he realized Baze wasn’t going to act. “Thank the Force,” he said fondly, lifting a hand to hold Baze’s chin in place, a thumb pressed against his lower lip. “The universe would collapse at the sight of me on my knees, begging you for a place in your heart alongside your books and devotion.”

His breath hitched at the visual, and Baze’s eyes fell shut as he let Chirrut take the lead. Incongruously warm, for all that Chirrut seemed to have run through the rain to reach Baze.

Warm and wet and playful—Chirrut, Baze thought in that moment, had had past lovers. Chirrut was experienced in this form of affection, whereas Baze had confined his own love life to merely ogling those he admired.

Chirrut pulled away and coaxed Baze to sit on the floor, back pressed against the bookcase. He knelt in-between Baze’s knees, his hands heavy on Baze’s inner thighs. They hadn’t rucked up his robes yet, and Baze, slightly hysterically, supposed it to be a small mercy—

“We aren’t doing this in the library!” Baze hissed, praying that none of the masters would return early. His cock still rose to the occasion, pressing against his smalls with an insistence Baze hoped wasn’t due to a late-born kink.

This was climbing to a level of ridiculous hypocrisy. Baze had caught amorous couples in the library, and he’d thrown them out on their rears unceremoniously. And he’d had to face them with a stoic expression, deadened eyes to embarrassed ones, during communal readings or meal times.

At least Chirrut had stopped moving, even if he hadn’t stopped panting. “Ah,” said Chirrut. “Right. You’re the safekeeper of the library’s chaste eyes. My mistake, my mistake.” He made to withdraw, and unbidden, Baze‘s legs lifted, and his ankles hooked at the small of Chirrut’s back. Chirrut’s expression went slack with shock.

“I want to revisit this another day,” Baze said, hardly believing his own gall. “For now,” he managed through a dry throat, “shall we clear up the misconceptions of our relationship to our friends?”

“‘Misconceptions?’” Experimentally, Chirrut leaned forward. Baze’s legs followed him, until Baze felt like Chirrut was seeing if he could be folded in half. His breath stuttered to a halt, sputtered back into a sporadic existence.

“By which I mean, ah, the married part, not the relationship part—”

“I love you,” said Chirrut, intent on covering Baze’s body with his as much as possible. On crowding himself into Baze’s heart, trying to gain attention that had already been focused on him. “Baze? I’ve been trying to find a way to say that for a very long time, you know. I’ve thought it quite often, but you’re the Guardian who deals in words, and I wanted it to sound as sincere as it is. So—”

“Where you go,” pledged Baze, yanking Chirrut down so close their foreheads knocked against each other’s, “I will follow.”

/credits/

[Wu Bai – “You Are My Flower”]

The marriage of Chirrut and Baze Malbus follows the rainy season, when Jedha—cold desert moon—pretends it is a green planet for a week, growing shallow-rooted meadow flowers in acres, in and around the settlements.

A/N: First and foremost, thank you, giftee, for giving me an excuse to plug in all my love for my culture into this fic, from the worldbuilding to the songs (the credits of which will be covered later). Secondly, thank god for RTC, because parts of the fic would be a lot less coherent if not for y’all.

Credits for the song inspirations:

“Yu Tian” translates to “Rainy Day.” My sister used to play the piano piece for this song ALL the time.

“Who Makes You Crazy” can wholeheartedly by attributed to @evocating. I maintain this is more of an aunty song than Wu Bai’s entire discography.

“Moonlight on the Rooftop” is from @kellymarietran, who kickstarted the entire ‘spiritassassin’ name and also made a fanmix for them.

“Xin Ai De Zai Hui La” translates, to me, personally, “Goodbye, My Love.” Google Translate will tell you differently, as will Youtube videos. This song is my parents’ love song (in that dad sings it in dedication to my mom EVERY TIME IT POPS UP), so. I’m just ecstatic I worked it in.

“Tong Hua” translates to “Fairytale.” Which, fitting! This song was a huge craze in Asia when it came out, and now it’s a Shih family karaoke staple.

“You Are My Flower” is another Shih family karaoke staple; we just really love Wu Bai, alright?

#spiritassassin fanworks exchange #bottombobbysinger #spiritassassin #shih.txt #sw tag

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