Lukna was just about Baze's age. They went through their duans together, and though he didn't know her personally, he knew a lot about her. She was an awkward youth, yet that awkwardness translated into charisma as a young adult, and she had a way of shirking chores and swindling sweets only surpassed by Chirrut in the Temple.
Chirrut, on the other hand, had a hankering for mischief surpassed only by Lukna. She would often lay elaborate tricks on the Elders, and would orchestrate entire class groups of monks and acolytes to play along. Elder Shre, often, would be the victim of her practical jokes.
Shre was loud- too loud, according to the front row of his pupils- and it was easy for Lukna to convince his class of monks to pretend they couldn't hear them. Shre was furious; Baze recalled their voice being quite soft after they yelled themselves hoarse that day.
Her sleight of hand was known throughout the Temple, feigning that she would hand someone something just to twirl it out of their grasp. Sometimes, the Elder she tried this on would laugh and ask for it kindly. Other times, such as during ceremonies in which Lukna would be passing the ceremonial scrolls to the Head of Ceremony, it would be severely less appreciated.
Baze knew well how her sleight of hand did not end when the Temple fell. The modern Guardians of the Whills, however, appreciated it much more.
It earned them access codes and formations. It won them street fights and rations that she plucked from crates before poisoning what she left behind.
That is what got her in trouble. And not with the Elders. And the punishment wouldn't be a kow tows, or even a caning.
The Imperials found that modern Guardians- ones who survived the insurgencies and raids and still chose to label themselves Guardians- were difficult to corner and capture. They were either steadfastly faithful, and therefore unyielding in their quest to free their sacred home from Imperial occupation, or like Baze, a cornered animal that was cornered and desperately grasping what they could of their old life.
The Imperials knew they couldn't capture Lukna, or any other Guardian, on the street. She was too clever and steadfast.
Their one advantage over her was their ruthlessness.
Although bounties on her were fruitless, bounties on the heads of her family members proved rewarding.
First, they came for her brother. And her sister. Her mother pleaded with her- they were willing to die for the Guardians' cause, her mother assured her. The bounties were put on her mother and father. She stayed resolute, steadfast in her mission and her faith.
Then they came for her niece and her nephew, and she acquiesced. There was no sleight of hand or trickery that could save her as she turned herself over to the beast.
She was tried and sentenced to death.
As Baze was told, they gathered inhabitants from the marketplaces and emptied the nearby shanties into the square before the dilapidated steps to the Temple. They gathered them and forced them to watch.
Lukna was a small woman. As Baze was told, it took a gruesome amount of time before she stopped squirming.
But all of that, Baze had only heard second hand. He'd been away, off-world taking a job. Only when he returned did someone pull him aside and tip him off. He wanted to see for himself.
He carefully veiled himself- they wanted the people of Jedha City to come and see, of course, but Baze knew it would be best not to be recognized.
It had not felt real, had not hit home for Baze until he was standing in the square below the ruins of the Temple. They had moved her body from the gallow post to hang from a low and wide stone window in the remaining tower of the Temple. It was close enough to be visible, sickeningly visible, but far enough to be out of reach.
A message and a warning.
Her corpse was blindfolded, her face pale and head inclined to the side and jaw clenched as it would be in life as she explained some story she decided was boring halfway through her telling of it. It was funny how corpses continued to resemble the soul that had long escaped it and left it cold.
Her body would surely be there for weeks to come- bodies, even left to the elements, were slow to decompose in Jedha's cold, dry climate.
A stormtrooper at the base of the tower watched Baze as he stood in the square and stared up at her.
She was Chirrut's friend.
Baze was struck by a pang guilt. He hadn't been here, had been off world taking jobs that Chirrut would despise to know, and had left Chirrut alone to deal with this. And when he had returned and heard the news, he thought first of himself and his need to witness the spectacle of a Guardian's body strung up from the sacred Temple.
He shivered and averted his eyes. The night was cold and only getting colder.
Baze pulled the shawl of his costume close to his shoulders and turned away abruptly, melding into the nighttime crowd and heading through the bustling nightlife of the city back toward the edge.
There were safe houses that the Guardians upkept throughout the city and surrounding villages. With little variance, Chirrut stayed at the one nestled in the slums to the south side of the city's mound complex.
Baze let a small group pass him on the dirt road leading out and beyond to the villages before he ducked to the side and knocked on the slap job door. He pulled the veils away from his face when someone peered out.
They let him pass, and Baze took the moment in the foreroom to collect himself, unwrapping the veils and scarfs and settling them nicely on the shelf above the hooks for outerwear.
"He's in his room," the sentient that opened the door told him. Baze didn't recognize them, but they recognized him.
Baze thanked them and entered the compact living room where Guardians and their supporters were sat on every surface available, some laying across the floor and others sitting up and talking. They glanced at him, and the chatter quieted, but did not stop altogether.
He slipped past them, into the back where there was a short corridor that ended in bedrock. He knocked on the first door on the left, and Chirrut's voice told him to come in.
Chirrut's "room," frankly, was a closet with a beat up mattress shoved into it. It had one small window near the ceiling, but no light filtered through it as they boarded all entryways aside from the front door when they moved the Guardian's there.
Chirrut sat on the mattress facing away from the door. He didn't react as Baze knelt behind him, pulling off his shoes and crawling up behind him. His hand hovered in the air between them before he rested it on Chirrut's waist, waiting for some response before closing the space further so his chest pressed against Chirrut's back.
Chirrut didn't melt against him- he didn't ever relax so much, recently. No, he leaned back into Baze's arms, but forcefully. Baze set his chin on Chirrut's shoulder and Chirrut turned his face back against him, pressing their cheeks together to feel the burn of Baze's beard. He grabbed Baze's arms, pulling them around himself and holding onto his wrists tightly.
They held that position, stiffly intimate, stubbornly silent, just holding each other. Even as cool dampness spread down Chirrut's cheeks, wetting Baze's jaw and beard, they remained silent. There was nothing Baze could think of to comfort Chirrut with, nothing Chirrut could say that Baze would be able to reply to. No prayers they could share, no hymn to sink into the rhythm of. Just the slight rocking that Baze gradually lulled Chirrut into.
Still, the image of Lukna was burned in his mind. He was grateful he'd gone at night, when he could not clearly see her body. He could not wrap his mind around her sacrifice- she'd lost so much, had given so much, yet she died so her niece and nephew could live. Regardless of what other lives she could save if she'd remained steadfast.
To Baze, no one else's lives were as important as his cause. If Baze died for the cause, he would be satisfied, and yet he couldn't imagine sacrificing himself, walking straight into death and welcoming it; accepting it for someone else was unthinkable. He'd lost enough, enough of even himself, that he wouldn't imagine sacrificing for anyone else.
But Chirrut, Baze could imagine Chirrut feeling moved to it.
And Baze, however begrudgingly, would follow Chirrut.
That day would not be today, however. Baze would continue to push that day away, further off on the horizon. Today, Baze held Chirrut as he trembled, gasping softly for air. He rocked him until his body relaxed and he slept peacefully in Baze's arms.