(Because I cannot focus on actually writing anything, it’s time to bring you more Spiritassassin fairytales. The Snow Queen would also work pretty well for Spiritassassin.)
Chirrut and Baze as childhood friends in the temple, growing up together. There are strange tales told about the rare frosts and snows that descend upon Jedha, especially in the faraway mountains one can reach by walking out through the sands. Chirrut has always wanted to see the snow, but Baze is hesitant about venturing away from the temple, out beyond the mesa, into the sands where the stories talk about a whole host of dangers: the sucking sands, the skeleton trees, the statues that guard and fell any whose hearts are found lacking, the siren call of the wild kyber caves that can convince someone to descend into their depths to drown in the swirling kyber pools. Baze is not a coward he doesn’t think, but he is sensible. Going into the desert is not sensible. It is a bad idea.
Even for snow. Which may not actually exist, Chirrut.
But Chirrut dreams of it. Cold, crisp, melting on the tongue, catching on his eyelashes, covering his body in a strange shimmer that makes him think of kyber. He thinks it’s the Force talking to him, trying to lure him into finding something. Baze thinks he is being silly, reckless; Baze does not think it is the Force.
(Baze does not speak of the way he sometimes dreams of Chirrut, holding his hands, crying, while the snow blankets around them both. Baze will not utter these visions to life.)
They grow up. They become young guardians of the Whills.
Chirrut is still enamored with the idea of snow, but Baze thinks that their commitment to the temple will keep him grounded. Chirrut stops speaking of venturing into the sands after the ice as much, and Baze thinks perhaps he has forgotten about it.
Chirrut is just not speaking of it, of the dreams of crystal ice halls and cold snow kissing his cheeks the way that Baze never does. Chirrut becomes convinced, little by little, that perhaps they are only friends, after all. Perhaps everything he has felt was wrong. But the snow. He still dreams of the snow.Â
Baze dreams of Chirrut. More and more. And his dreams are anything but cold. He says nothing because it is Chirrut, and Chirrut is lovely and wild and this love is, perhaps, not sensible. And while he is not a coward, neither is he brave.Â
A visitor comes. A visitor in snow white robes. A visitor with hair the blue-white color of ice sheens. A visitor with cold, dead eyes and a strange speeder. A visitor who speaks of snow. A visitor who does not kneel out of respect to the Whills, who comes not as a pilgrim but as a thief. A visitor whose speeder kicks up sand and pebbles, sand that lodges into Chirrut’s eyes when the visitor goes back to the mountains.
Chirrut’s eyesight dwindles. Chirrut loses his focus. Chirrut stops dreaming of Baze, dreams only of ice, snow, cold, the visitor, the far-off mountains past the wastes. Chirrut, blinded, leaves in the middle of the night.
Baze wakes with his lips frozen, fingers frozen, crying. Chirrut is gone. Chirrut is gone. Chirrut is gone. When Baze closes his eyes, all he sees are snowflake patterns and the mountains and the strange ice blue that has drifted over Chirrut’s eyes.
He knows where he has to go.
Baze crosses the sands. He tames the sand and the skeleton trees. He passes the tests posed to him by the statues. When he hears the songs of the kyber, he sings to them instead, sings to them of a love he cannot express and a friend he has lost and the lack of bravery in his own soul. He sings a song of loss and want and love. He sings the kyber down. It does not drown him. It weeps.
Baze continues on his way.
He reaches the mountains, he reaches the forgotten, fallen temple where the ice visitor lives. There is frost on everything. There is snow everything. It is dirty. It is slush. Nothing here is very beautiful except for Chirrut. Chirrut who will not hear him, heed him, see him. Chirrut who is cold to the touch and cold regarding him. Chirrut. Who has forgotten him.Â
Baze battles the visitor and ice cuts his cheek, blood covers his face, marks him. “You can take him,” the visitor says, beaten, “but only if he agrees to go.”
Baze cries onto Chirrut’s hands to warm them. Baze sings to Chirrut’s ears to unstopper them. Baze confesses his own love to free Chirrut’s heart. The frost melts. Chirrut melts. And they embrace.
But his eyes. Oh, his eyes remain that frost blue, not quite blind because they see snow, all they see is snow, blue like kyber crystals, blue like the Force. Something like a gift, something like a curse. A touch of snow.
Baze asks him to leave the mountain. Chirrut touches the blood on his face, mixed with tears, mixed with melting snow, slightly frozen. Chirrut touches the blood, spilled out of love.
Chirrut follows him home.
