milliways_bar | (no subject)

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Even if time has learned to pass you by, it turns out it is not so kind to everything else. Chirrut's lightbow stock is showing signs of wear, so he has made a new one. That had been a trial in itself, but now he's come to the fun part - using a small laser etcher to create the swirling, looping patterns he prefers for his bow.

He also has tea and steamed buns, because there's no reason not to do this in comfort. He's even taken up a spot on the couch - if any of his old masters wish to come and berate him for his lack of rigor... well. As the Force wills, right?

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On a nearby chair sits a young man with a glass (and a collection of bottles) of alcohol and a hairbrush, with several bobby pins held in his teeth, brushing back his hair and watching Chirrut a he begins to braid the rather extraordinary length of it. Bows he's familiar with--been familiar with for years and years--but this one's slightly different from any he knows.

"Pretty designs," he comments idly, sipping his drink.

"Ah, thank you - I always hope they are presentable." Chirrut smiles, carefully turning off the etcher before turning his attention away from it. Only takes one lesson to remember that, and he did that a long time ago. "May the Force of others be with you."

"Hello," Ganymede replies, a smile in his voice as he watches the etcher and the hand that holds it.

"They are indeed presentable. It's pretty work, you must have quite a bit of focus to accomplish the engraving." He enjoys watching people who know what they're doing, it's satisfying. "What are you engraving, if I may ask?"

"It is a new stock for my lightbow." He laughs, faintly. "I have been told I am ridiculous, keeping up a weapon that will never be used in actual combat again, but... it has sentimental value."

Ganymede lifts his brows, and though Chirrut can't see the expression it is very audible when he speaks. "Why on earth would that be ridiculous? Sentiment is important, otherwise we would all be quite terrible people." Some are terrible despite it, he knows.

"Besides, sometimes weapons are useful in more than just combat." Excellent teaching tools, for instance.

"I have... something of a reputation." Chirrut owns, without a lick of shame. As the Force wills, always and without hesitation. Turns out when Chirrut's the one doing the listening, the Force wills an awful lot of fights. "Besides, it would not matter if the stock was beginning to show wear if the lightbow was only going to grace the wall from now on."

Someone might wish that Chirrut would stop being ready for a major offensive.

Someone ought to be used to the disappointment by now.

"Well then, it sounds like a good idea that you've decided to make a new one," Ganymede says. "Better to have and not need than the reverse."

Clearly Ganymede has no problem in accepting fairly warlike personalities. He may have known a few. "Is it only a ranged weapon, your lightbow? I've never heard of one before, much less seen it."

"Between the two of us, we have covered all bases." Chirrut laughs, because it will be a cold day on Tantooine before he will willingly pass by a blind joke. "But yes, it is a ranged weapon, with enough power to bring down a small starcraft, if it hits right."

"Oh, there's still touch. Important sense, that," he says lightly.

"If I asked, would you demonstrate how it works sometime?"

"Certainly - I tend to practice fairly early in the morning. It helps to ensure the range is clear." Chirrut has to make perfectly sure there won't be some kid out there, messing around - this isn't the sort of weapon you can accidentally wander in front of twice.

He nods. "How early are you usually out there? Before dawn?" Ganymede asks.

Chirrut tilts his head, trying to think of the right answer.

"You know, I do not actually know. In the summer, yes, because the sun rises so early here, and the birds make it obvious, but..." He shrugs. It all looks the same to him.

Ganymede chuckles. "Fair enough." He understands how it would be difficult to tell. "Some day I'll have to rise early enough to meet you out there, then. I don't tend to sleep very late either."

Much to the chagrin of some of his partners.

"Bring a staff, and we can spar as well. I'm always looking for a challenge." Chirrut hasn't really quite gotten the hang of the whole 'gentle retirement' thing, no matter how invested in his mini tea empire he has become.

He laughs at that. "I'll certainly take you up on that, but be forewarned I'm much better with a short sword, or a small sword than I am with staves."

"They never gave me a sword..." Chirrut notes, "Though I often wonder what a lightsaber would be like. Probably too deafening."

Alas.

Chirrut's pretty sure he could have had a great time the last few years with a lightsaber.

"I'll teach you, if you'd like. It's not so difficult as people like to think it is."

"Chirrut, it feels like ages since I've sensed your presence!" Ibani calls out, before settling herself on the couch with little ceremony.

"That is because you never come visit a poor old man." Chirrut retorts, leaning into her without reservation. "Too busy off having adventures."

"I suppose I have been busy lately," she admits. "Adventures of a sort, at least."

She exhales. "Oh, I'm not an apprentice anymore!" Best to start with some good news before mentioning the quite a lot of bad that accompanied that, right?

"... considering what i know of the fellow you chose to call master for some time, I am overjoyed you have come to your senses." Chirrut points out, wryly.

Ibani snorts. "Chose is very relative. It was that or die."

Ibani scowls and the Force simmers with her anger. "She'd had me hunting artifacts all over the place because her body was dying and she wanted to steal mine for herself. Nearly succeeded in ripping my soul out of my body."

"There were...complications, but with Garyn's help I straightened them out. He killed her twice, possessed body and ghost!" She's so proud of Garyn's skills.

Chirrut has opinions, but Chirrut always has opinions. If your name is Baze Malbus, you usually 'get' to hear all of them. Everyone else gets a bit more of a polite version.

"Such preparation, can't understand why such a lovely person expected to be killed. Sure you shouldn't be looking for clones?"

"Reasonably certain," Ibani replies. "And clones don't worry me particularly. SHE'S gone, if there are people out there who happen to be genetically identical to her, I don't care so long as they leave me and mine alone."

Yeah. Chirrut definitely has experience with clones just behaving themselves and not murdering great swaths of people.

...

Waaaait.

"As you say." Chirrut... doesn't quite agree, but it isn't his fight, so.

To be fair, THOSE were kind of brainwashed and not given a choice. So, yeah.

Ibani is puzzled by his reaction, but doesn't pry.

"And now that she's dead, I have her two OTHER apprentices I was never supposed to know about. They're...both older than me." The Force suggests that may make things a little awkward.

Chirrut is not a saint, and the night Order 66 went out was one of the worst in his life. He isn't particularly prone to being fair on that score.

"... Do they want to be apprentices?" He asks, sounding puzzled.

"Want doesn't have much to do with it," Ibani replies. "Only a Darth can raise an Apprentice to a Lord, and I'm not one, so they're stuck on that score."

"And an apprenticeship is SUPPOSED to last for years anyway, to cover all of the things you need to know. I'm...going to have to fake a lot of that training, and do a lot of work in Milliways to cheat on the time requirements."

"... Can they not choose another path, now?" Chirrut asks, confused. "It is a big galaxy, after all."

Ibani's smile and the Force are bitter. "The Empire doesn't let Force sensitives leave, not alive, at least."

"Though I expect they want to stay. Their father was Sith after all. They've been raised to it."

"Is there any harm in asking them?" It seems like it would be one very nicely aimed stone that might garner a whole flock of birds. Who knows - maybe they become the tea farmers on the Outer Rim who manage to create Sapir, and generations in the future a much younger Chirrut enjoys the fruits of their labor, so to speak.

"Potentially, yes. I don't think they're likely to carry tales about such a question to other Sith, but if they did...."

That could be very bad.

"So say you were testing them, if they choose to try and get you into trouble. Who is to gain-say you? Someone who has already compromised their honor?" Chirrut shrugs easily.

"I suppose that could work," Ibani replies. "Could try it and see."

She has a suspicion that they're going to want to stay, though.

"Nothing ventured, after all." Chirrut assures her, carefully carving the next loop of the intricate pattern.

Ibani peers at the pattern. "The pattern is beautiful. Is it a traditional design?"

"The one I was taught as a child." Chirrut confirms, "It was quite an effort, getting permission to try the first time."

"Why?" Ibani asks, a bit perplexed. "I can imagine you were a bit of a hellion, or more than a bit, but still!"

"Oh, I didn't make my lightbow until I was in my twenties, it isn't for the less advanced students." One does not lightly instruct someone in the use of a weapon that can take down starships without an immense amount of training. "But... well, I'm not sure you've noticed, but..."

He sighs.

"Ibani... I'm blind."

Edited 2020-03-15 03:45 (UTC)

"I had noticed that, yes," Ibani replies. "And doing a pattern like that would be harder without sight, but I don't understand why they wouldn't want you to do it at all."

She hugs Chirrut.

"Because if I am not careful, I can very easily slice off a finger with this thing?" Chirrut asks, laughing. "Stop with the pity, I had a privileged childhood, all told. And for the record, it wasn't much easier to get permission for those who were sighted - perfection was expected.

"Bah, that could happen to anyone using that thing," Ibani replies, laughing.

"I'll have to take your word on a privileged childhood, though I'm glad it wasn't too much easier for the sighted."

Ibani doesn't have the best basis for comparison re childhood.

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