Drabble for 6I

[templelessguardian]

Chirrut has never thought of his life as a struggle.

Sure, it hasn't ever been easy; his parents are long gone, along with his sight and his temple and his order, all crumbled to dust and left to memory. Life on Jedha is tough, every inch fought for against odds determined to push back a thousand times harder against anything sought to be gained for oneself. The signs and spoor of war are everywhere, rubble in the streets and mistrust in the faces of everyone around them, and Chirrut doesn't need to be able to see to know that, it's been woven into the fiber of its existence since the Empire first took root there with bloodstained tendrils. Since resistance fighters took up the cause to try to free it from the Empire's clutches and only added to the stain. Since the Guardians fell and their Temple was demolished, and what remained of their hope faded.

But this is not a struggle for Chirrut, his pervasive belief that it isn't the end. His belief in the hope everyone else is so quick to disregard. Baze may have lost his own hope and belief long ago when they were made paupers and losers and nobodies, when Chirrut's enduring faith became the only thing left standing of What Was, but Chirrut himself refuses to. Even when he is mocked, when those around him have forgotten what Jedha used to be, what the Guardians used to be, when they assume he is just an old blind fool clinging to the glory days that will never return.

His burden is light because his faith is strong. If this is what he must shoulder, the belief that things will one day change, that the Force hasn't abandoned them, that this isn't an unwinnable war with insurmountable odds, then he is happy to do it. He will believe for the both of them. For all of them. Life is struggle, life is Difficult, but then it isn't meant to be easy. Things are the way the Force wills them, and it isn't for him to question or complain the hand he's been dealt, only to make his way along the path provided.

It isn't a struggle, because he believes, with all his being, that the end is worthwhile.