AU Kid!Ibani - The Wind

[idontneedluck]

Chirrut doesn't often ask things of the Force, but as the fall edges its way into winter, he has been asking for one thing daily. He prays that this year, the winds don't come. Life with Ibani has settled down into a comfortable routine, and he doesn't want that broken up. He doesn't want her to see him hanging on to his temper with his teeth, doesn't want her to see the spectacle of him needing to be beaten down like a feral creature.

He's afraid of what would happen then.




The Force does not grant him his wish.

One morning he awakes with his skin already crawling, the thin high whistle of the oncoming winter wind already ripping at his peace. He works hard to ignore it - harder than he ever has in his life, even more than the year after the disastrous match with Baze and Eiko.

He makes it through breakfast before he starts to feel his temper fraying. He wants to beg Baze to take Ibani away, somewhere far away, but it's getting to be too cold to go out of the city on frivolous pursuits. It will only lead to a fight.

Chirrut knows despair then. He's not getting past this day without being bloodied.

Comments

[iprotectyou]

Chirrut did hurt Baze. The smaller Guardian beat the larger one badly, and, while Baze can hold his own after forty-five years of sparring, he always takes some damage when Chirrut has his blood up.

Baze can't lie to his friend. "You did, but I'm all right now," the larger Guardian says. Then he switches to Jedhan, surprise tinging his tone. "No, I didn't bring Ibani. I wouldn't do that to you."

[last_kallig]

Ibani frets at the pain in Chirrut's voice, catches her name among the Jedhan words of both her fathers. Can Chirrut not feel her through the Force?

She scowls in frustration, that emotion echoing in the Force along with love and worry. Clearly, she needs to find another way to communicate!

Her eyes fall upon a sand garden with tiny stones, placed in the infirmary for some unknown purpose. There, that will work! She can push on the sand to write and both of them will be able to read it!

She reaches out to the sand garden and pulls, the Force flexing with her effort as the garden moves nearly off the counter where it's sitting all alone and well away from anything or anyone that might cause it to move. The garden thunks back down onto the counter.

Ibani swears profusely at it, as it's heavier than anything she's tried to move before and she's having difficulties.

[idontneedluck]

Chirrut startles, heavily, the motion lacking his natural grace.

"No, she's here." He contradicts in Jedhan, as sharply as his drug-fogged brain will allow, "Do you think I wouldn't know the sense of our own daughter? But I can't hear her. Why can't I hear her?" The machines' beeping becomes less tranquil and more warning as his disquiet grows.

[iprotectyou]

What the kriff? That sand garden just moved by itself! Baze is reluctant to leave Chirrut's side, but the larger Guardian wants to go investigate. He pats the smaller one's hand and crosses to the newly-moved object.

"She's not here," Baze calls over his shoulder in Jedhan as he walks. "It's okay, Chirrut. She's safe in bed, where I left her. I told her not to set foot in the infirmary. It's probably just the drugs messing with your system."

The sand garden doesn't appear to be moving anymore. Huh. That's odd. Baze picks it up, and sets it down again, and then pokes the sand.

"There's a sand garden over here that moved by itself," Baze says, knowing how foolish he sounds.

[last_kallig]

Chirrut's increasing distress makes Ibani's feeling of distress and frustration in the Force increase.

After Baze pokes the sand, something very strange happens. The sand starts to move, as if someone were very slowly dragging a finger through it.

The words are crudely scrawled in Basic, because pushing with the Force with precision is tricky at best, but they're legible. The letters that form in the sand say "Give This Chirrut!" Ibani ran out of both space and patience to attempt more words while Chirrut is this upset.

[idontneedluck]

Chirrut rallies his drug-scattered wits and focuses, stretching out and hoping the Force won't slip away through his fingers like so much wind-blown sand. He focuses, letting the machines' chittering sounds illuminate the room in echos, focusing on how sound bounces and recoils and drifts away into nothing.

Ibani is here, he knows this as much as he knows that in a few days, or a few weeks, the wind's howl will become intolerable again.

Her body is not. There's no soft breath, no heartbeat to rapid to be Baze's.

He's up before he even fully realizes he was going to try, ripping loose monitoring equipment and medication drips alike. There's a noise like a wounded creature, something bleeding out and trampled, and it's only later he'll realize it was him.

Ibani is here.

Her body isn't.

He screams, because something, someone, killed his little girl.

[iprotectyou]

Baze's eyes widen at the writing in the sand garden. He resolutely does not believe in ghosts. Force ghosts, sure, he's heard of them, but he didn't think they could affect the physical world around them.

He picks up the garden to cart it over to Chirrut, but then he's getting up and screaming. Baze drops the sand garden back onto the counter and rushes to his friend--feeling that strange tingling feeling again as he runs. He pays it no mind.

"Chirrut! What's wrong? You shouldn't be up!" Baze shouts, pressing down on Chirrut's shoulders to try to force him back into bed. Janeth, the medical technician, comes running over with a syringe.

[last_kallig]

Chirrut's pain tears at Ibani, rips her heart open. She'd rather an eternity in an an active shock collar than ever hearing or feeling Chirrut like this again. There is no penance sufficiently horrible to atone for the pain she's accidentally inflicted.

This time, this time the Force answers her desperate prayer and her voice is audible to everyone in the room. "DAD! DAD, I'M NOT DEAD! PLEASE STOP SCREAMING!"

"I didn't....I just, they wouldn't let me in to see you, and I was so worried so I found a loophole, but I hurt you..." Her voice dissolves into hysterical sobbing.

[idontneedluck]

Between Baze and Janeth they knock him back to the bed, and Janeth is quick to take the opportunity to give Chirrut a hefty cocktail of sedatives and tranquilizers. Thankfully she gets it in before Ibani speaks, because she promptly drops the syringe in surprise at that party trick.

Chirrut, pinned and half surrendered to the medications crawling through his veins, doesn't understand. He doesn't, but he can hear Ibani, his little girl, and she says she's alright.

She says she's alright, and that's enough for him to stop fighting and slump against the bed.

[iprotectyou]

With Chirrut indisposed and Ibani in such distress, Baze is panicked. "Watch him," he snarls to Janeth, and tears down the hall to confront--and console--his little girl. He has no idea what he'll find, and prepares himself for the worst.

[last_kallig]

Ibani lets go of the power holding her away from her body, snapping back into it like a rubber band pulled taunt, then let loose.

It's agony, but it's still less than what she feels she deserves. By the time Baze reaches her she's upright in her pajamas and slippers.

When she sees him, she does the only thing she can do. She submits, going slowly to her knees, then face down onto the floor.

She's still sobbing, because she feels terrible and she hurt both her dads, and there's nothing she can do to make up for all this pain.

[iprotectyou]

When he sees that she's okay, Baze is--for a moment--filled with anger. Her prostrating helps him brutally stuff his rage, shove it into a corner where he'll deal with it later. He's still very displeased, and, in a way, betrayed, because she has deliberately disobeyed him for the first time. He draws a cleansing breath, and gathers her into his arms, settling his bulk on the bed with her.

"Ibani," he says, calm and measured, "what did you do?"

[last_kallig]

Ibani feels his anger, braces for...something that doesn't come. She's surprised when he gathers her into his arms.

She swallows hard. "I left my body," she explains. "I left enough of me here to keep my body alive, but took the rest of me to the infirmary." And Force is she regretting that more than she thought possible!

"I'd done it once before, on accident, when I was little. I wanted Ma'Vena and I was too weak to stand and, and I was suddenly next to her."

[iprotectyou]

Well. That's not horrifying at all.

Baze bites back a gasp, and tries to reign in his terror. If she had messed up the connection, if she hadn't returned to her body... He can't even think on the consequences. He squeezes her against his chest, where she can feel his heart beating a staccato rhythm.

"That," he says, just as calmly as before, "was dangerous. You could have hurt yourself. And you knew what I meant when I told you not to set foot in the infirmary."

Knew what he meant, and exploited his words. He'd almost be proud of her for finding a loophole if he weren't so upset.

"Your dad didn't want you to see him like that. Why did you do such a thing?"

[last_kallig]

"Yes," Ibani admits, shrinking in on herself.

"I didn't know he didn't want me to see him like that. I just, I wanted to know he was okay. I was so scared, and, and I knew he was hurting and I wanted to make him feel better. I feel better when he sits with me when I'm sick."

Ibani breaks down sobbing again.

[iprotectyou]

"Ssh," Baze soothes, wiping her tears away with his thumbs. "You're all right. Everything will be all right."

He wraps his arms around her and rocks, humming a tuneless song. "Your dad is different than you. He doesn't like anyone to see him hurting. Even me. He needs privacy to heal."

[last_kallig]

"Can't be all right, I hurt you both too much. I felt it," Ibani says. "Could be in the collar forever and it wouldn't be enough hurt to balance."

"Okay. I'll, I'll stay away. I don't want to hurt him anymore."

[iprotectyou]

Baze stiffens. "I don't ever want you to think that. Just because we were hurt doesn't mean you should be hurt, too. What good would that do?" he says, holding her tightly. "We will never hurt you. We love you."

He grumbles a little at her next statement, a rumble deep in his chest. "No, he'll want a hug at the very least to know you're okay. I will ask if he wants it before or after he heals."

[last_kallig]

Ibani shrugs. "Guards used the collars, when we were bad." And sometimes when they weren't, but that's a different subject.

"I love you too." She hugs Baze tightly. "Will you ask him now, or later?"

[iprotectyou]

Baze clutches her shoulders, drawing her back so she's forced to look at him in the eyes. "We are not the guards," he says, just shy of vehement. "We are your dads. And we will never hurt you."

If he has to repeat that a thousand times, he will. He wants her to understand the depth of their love for her. Hurting her doesn't even come into the equation.

"I'll ask him later--he's knocked out, now. Janeth gave him a powerful sedative."

[last_kallig]

Ibani meets his eyes and nods. "Okay. I believe you."

"I should probably sleep," Ibani says, sighing. "The Kyber helped, but I'm so tired." Emotionally, physically, mentally, spiritually....

[iprotectyou]

Baze wants to ask, "and you'll really sleep this time?" but now is not the time for that. He nods, smoothing her hair out with a meaty hand, and offers her another hug. "Sleep, little one. Your dad will probably want to see you when he's awake."

Later, he'll grill her for details on how, exactly, she did this. The why is known to him now, and, while he's still not pleased about it, he can understand her reasoning. Later, after he checks on Chirrut and puts out any more fires that need his attention. He's too keyed up to sleep himself.

[idontneedluck]

Chirrut rouses slowly from his drug-enforced nap, and when he does... he feels old. Everything aches, including his heart.

"Baze?" He asks, after spending what feels like a long time trying to decide if Baze is actually there or not. The drugs are making his perception a little wonky.

[iprotectyou]

"Chirrut! I'm here," Baze says, standing from his chair at the side of the bed and taking his friend's hand. "Ibani is okay. She's sleeping."

[idontneedluck]

"What happened to her?" He knows he wasn't hallucinating, wasn't dreaming, wasn't fooled by the drugs in his system - though he'd really prefer to think one of those things. "Did I..." He can't really ask the question - the idea that he might have hurt Ibani is abhorrent.