Chapter Text
Chirrut Imwe was born into pity. He could see it in their faces despite the darkness, the beings that took in his sightless eyes and the way his mother gripped his hand as if he would fall away without her guidance. From a young age, Chirrut came to despise this pity. When his parents inevitably abandoned him, he refused charity and made a life for himself in the dusty street corners of Jedha.
What no one knew about the little blind boy who stalked the city alleyways was that he could see, in his own way. He could pick out the correct fruit to steal, something that would yield the most flavor and energy. He knew exactly when someone had abandoned a Caf on a bench and when it was clear to snatch it, and he could defend himself against the older kids who made it a sport to hurt and torment him. They never got what they wanted. After he sent them all scurrying home with broken noses, they stopped bothering him.
Ignorant of the ways of the Force, he had no words to describe his abilities; he simply thought his parents had made a mistake in sending him away. “Mā,” he would say at night to the sky, his face turned upwards and bathed in the moon’s celestial glow, because the night had been more of a guardian to him than his birth mother. Jedha was mercilessly cold at night, so most of its inhabitants stayed indoors. Chirrut, bundled in stolen furs--if he was not careful, he would be creating a career out of larceny--took the time to meditate, a skill his father had taught him many years ago. It was one of the only memories he retained of him, that and the few years of martial arts training he’d been fortunate enough to be given.
He was six and stealing was his way of life. His hair was long and unruly, his skin calloused and scarred. His eyes, people told him, were cold, bright blue. He was told he was lucky, but he thought there was more than luck involved, and his ears pricked with interest when talk of kyber crystals and the Jedi Temple came through the marketplace. Though that life seemed unreachable for him, the stars whispered to him that it was alright to dream.
He was seven when the Jedi took interest in him.
A woman wearing a long cloak passed him one afternoon and gently deposited a coin in his empty cup of stolen Caf. “May the Force be with you, child,” she said. There was something off about that smile, too much complacency, Chirrut realized, but she was gone in a puff of jade and snow before he could decipher it further.
Enraged by her pity offering and reckless enough to think he could take on a fully trained warrior, he took off after her. Vendors and civilians shouted as he sprinted into the streets, letting his instincts guide him to the mystery woman. He was small and fast enough to catch her in mere minutes; he caught the swoosh of her cloak as she slipped around a corner and past a door into a building. Chirrut entered it with fire in his veins.
Jasmine incense burned heavy in the air. Chirrut reached out with his other senses to locate her. Soft footsteps on a hard floor, soft whispers of, “Isn’t that the blind boy who lives in the marketplace?”. He gritted his teeth, closed his eyes, and focused.
From the cacophony of the temple--families praying, offerings being made, elders drinking holy spirits--he pinpointed the distinct sound of a cloak floating through the air as the woman sat. He paced forward, listened again. Turned to the right. His head cocked to one side, he drowned out all other sounds to hear her rustling in place, seemingly restless. Her jade scent contrasted conspicuously to the jasmine laid out by the temple’s monks, and her husky voice as she thanked someone for a glass of water was unmistakable.
Chirrut ran to her and without a moment’s hesitation leapt up with his leg extended. She stood, not even jostling her glass, and blocked his kick lazily. Breathing hard, Chirrut faced her in a fighting stance; she crossed her arms and laughed. “I knew you would come for me,” she bragged. “We will have to make you less predictable, child.”
He delivered a swift uppercut that was easily swatted away, and then he was on his back and she was holding down his entire body with just one foot on his chest. Chirrut had never been bested before, and it was not a feeling he enjoyed. So he laid still and calm, feigning defeat as he waited for another chance.
“Alanora, by the way. My name is Alanora, and you are Chirrut Imwe.” He blinked. “Oh yes, child, I know you. The marketplace menace, the tangerette thief, the blind bandit. They have many names for you.”
“I do not answer to those,” he muttered.
“Then how would you like to answer to Guardian Imwe?” Alanora asked. She removed her foot and extended her hand, which he declined to take as he righted himself. She smirked; he could hear the way her lips quirked upward, like ice cracking apart. “You are strong with the Force, Chirrut. Not a Jedi, but someone like me.” Alanora snatched his wrist and pulled it toward her face even as Chirrut struggled. Stronger and tougher, she forced his palm open and laid it flat against where her ear should have been. Instead, a gaping hole and thin, crudely healed flesh took its place. He knew without touching her that the other ear was also gone.
“Both were blasted off by a stray shot in a street brawl,” she explained when she released him. “I was eleven, and already training to be a Guardian. I do not consider this a tragedy, Chirrut, nor a burden. That is how we are the same, me and you. I put that coin in your cup because I knew how angry it would make you.”
“You could have just asked,” he retorted, rubbing at the sore spot where her boot had planted itself. “I would have said yes.” He held his chin high.
Her laughter was rain on a foggy day. “That would not have been any fun, would it have? Now come with me, we’ll be shaving your head like mine, hmm, these long locks are simply intolerable...” She spoke as she moved, expecting him to follow. And he did.
Chirrut Imwe exceeded all expectations from the Jedi. Most thought him too irascible. Overtime, however, he channeled that anger into his fists. He was lethal in a fight, and unstoppable once Alanora took him to make his staff, which contained kyber crystal shards. He was a devout believer in the Force, praying and meditating when he was not sparring. He trained his body and mind and soul, understanding the harmony Jedi coveted between the three, and was well on his way to becoming the most capable Guardian the Jedha Temple had ever seen.
No one told him he would need a partner.
“They are only trials,” Alanora reminded him sternly. “And you have almost complete control over who is chosen. Feel it here, ” she touched his chest, hand flat over his heart, “and let the Force guide you.”
Chirrut nodded. “They will disappoint me,” he told her. She laughed that same laugh from the day they met and smiled the same crooked smile.
He was ten, not even a Jedi, and he could beat most of the Padawans who came through the Temple. It was foolish of the Jedha masters to think sparring was the proper test. Yet he stood in the cold air, clothes clinging to his lean frame, as the candidates were seated about the area. It was a circular colosseum built within the rock walls, and he was at its center. Staff in hand, mouth shaping his daily prayer-- I am one with the force, and the force is with me-- he could feel the tension in the air, thick and tangible enough to be cut with a knife. He grinned, stepping into his fighting stance.
The first boy went easy on him because of his eyes. He pointed his staff at the boy’s bloody nose; “I leave you with this lesson: Never judge a man by his appearance. Next.” The second boy lasted two minutes before Chirrut broke his foot. Alanora snickered from behind her hand. Third, a girl--she managed to hit him once in the stomach, and then he upended her and left her eating snow.
“At least challenge me,” he asked the Jedi, arms spread wide.
His only warning was a hoarse grunt, and then he was smashed into the ground, a hefty body wrestling him down. The Force, it seemed, had willed a check on his ego, which he appreciated. The hands curled around his biceps, he did not. His staff had fallen away, so he relied on his legs, wrapping them around his challenger’s waist and flipping them. He straddled him, noting his size; irregularly large for someone Alanora had insisted was only eleven. Also far too large was the fist that smashed into his temple, sending him toppling over.
The effect was immediate and terrifying. Blood rushed through his head and his ears buzzed. He was dizzy, stumbling about with a momentary lapse in every sense. The Force was the only thing that kept him standing. The large boy was the only thing that knocked him over and kept him that way. When the ringing ceased, he gasped like a drowning man brought back to life. Alanora was close by, holding his head in her lap. His tongue held salt and copper, having licked his lips and tasted the blood dripping from the wound in his scalp.
“Is he okay?” a gruff, unfamiliar voice asked.
“Baze Malbus… What a hit,” Alanora said on a breath. Chirrut had to agree.
“Him,” he murmured to Alanora. She tapped him twice on the wrist, their signal of “yes” when she didn’t want to speak it aloud.
Chirrut felt Baze sit beside him. “I’m sorry,” he apologized genuinely. “I have always used that move. I forgot… I forgot that your sight was already… It’s meant to incapacitate you, cut off all your senses.”
Chirrut’s face burned. He stood abruptly, forcing his audience to scramble up with him. “You ruined it,” he fumed through gritted teeth. He offered no explanation for his behavior, instead plucking his staff from the ground and returning to his room in haste. He cleaned and dressed his wound himself. Every pinch of pain reminded him of the pity soaking Baze’s words. He’d been so promising, but Chirrut could not abide by a partner who spent his time pitying him.
There was a gentle knock on his door; he did not recognize the pattern or strength, so it was a new caller. He swung the door open forcefully.
“No,” he said, irritated. “You are not welcome.”
Baze grunted and stuck his wide shoulders in the door to keep it from closing. Chirrut frowned at him, surprised.
“You are right to be angry with me,” Baze admitted. “I should not have pitied you, I know. I was worried. I cannot be your partner without worrying, but if you will have me, I promise to never again pity you.”
He extended his hand. Chirrut, smiling, grasped it.