[Rogue One] A Blue Robin's Tale

4,

"Have you heard the story about the bluebird?" Chirrut asked.

"Which story?"

"God sent a flood and asked Noah to take the animals on the land to take refuge in an ark. Later, he released a crow and a bluebird. The crow never came back, but the robin came back and brought back an olive branch. So Noah knew the water had receded."

"The version I've seen is a dove. The dove brings back an olive branch - and I'm sure your book says so." Baze pointed to the Bible in Chirrut's hand with his chin.But he remembered that the other party couldn't see this action.

"That's a bluebird."

"It's a pigeon."

"It's a bluebird." The priest insisted on his position stubbornly. "There will always be a Bible that says that the olive branch is a bluebird. But not this one."

"Such a printing factory would have closed down a long time ago."

Two blue birds circled above their heads. Baze raised his head, secretly guessing whether one of them brought him to the church.They look so much alike, and there are so many of them, that Chirrut named them all.

"Come here, Cassian, come here. You too, Jyn."

Two bluebirds, one big and one small, understood the priest's call and landed on the steps. Chirrut took out an unfinished compressed biscuit out of nowhere, broke it into small pieces and put it in the palm of his hand.The birds jumped up and down on his right arm, and their little heads gathered together to share the crumbs.

"They got along just fine this time," Baze said.

"Cassian and Jyn have always had a good relationship." The priest smiled and tucked the compressed biscuit back into his shirt, "but Orson and Galen fought as soon as they met."

Only then did Baze realize that he had confused some of them.

"Dear Baze," Chirrut tilted his head in the direction of Blood Hunter, "There are places where pigeons have never existed, but there must be a bird that brings an olive branch to Noah."

He stood up and walked down the steps step by step, like a normal blind man, beating back and forth with the blind stick in his hand to explore the way, as if he wasn't the one who fought bloody battles among a group of monsters last night.

Finally, the Anglican did not break its promise, and the supplies that came with the army were distributed to each of the living blood hunters, and then they shared what should have belonged to the dead-enough for them to return to their cities.

Then comes the question of going or staying.

Although leaving now is still a bit too worrying, not to mention that Jada's status as a holy city makes most bloodhunters reluctant to abandon her early and run for their own lives, but there are still many bloodhunters who have decided to leave with a strong attitude, especially those already in Jada. Those who lived a long time.The leader among them was that Tarkin. He claimed that he had served in the sea fortress Scarif, and he would take refuge there, and by the way, proposed to Darth Vader, the supreme military officer there, to bomb the city that would fall sooner or later.Everyone was fed up with his arrogant manner, so no one stopped him.In the end, most of the blood hunters stayed, and all the blood hunters who had been stationed in Jedah for more than a month all left.

Jada's streets were soon half empty.As soon as the group of panic-stricken residents left, they were immediately replaced by better equipped soldiers.Out-of-town trucks and incoming armored vehicles met in the streets, and there was dead silence on both sides.The innkeeper had the foresight to pack all the luggage the night before the chaos. When Baze met him at the stairs, he only answered one sentence:

Jada was long dead.

Any surface that is not covered with asphalt or concrete is a potential threat.The blood hunters moved near the church. During the day, they patrolled with the army in black armor. After nightfall, they raised their guns and stared at every inch of earth and rock that might move.There was no need for them to be so nervous, but no one knew why the residents who gathered every night to revel were still unwilling to give up this dangerous land.At first the soldiers tried to threaten them with guns to leave the market, but each time more and more residents put their chests on the guns and looked dismissive.Later, a young blood hunter proposed to cover the market with floor tiles, but it would take at least half a year to cover the entire area, not to mention that there is a large forest behind the church.

The whole city seemed to be divided into two contradictory parts. The citizens on the periphery seemed to have been prepared to flee for their lives, and fled in a hurry on the morning of receiving the alarm; During the carnival, death was not considered at all.

Until later, a soldier asked a priest during the shift change, and the answer he got was that the apocalypse in the legend hundreds of years ago in Jedah was approaching, and Jedah would soon become a hell on earth. Believe it from the start.

Compared with soldiers from the army, the blood hunters who graduated from the seminary can better understand the two psychology caused by this legend.But they all sneered at the so-called legend, and gradually no one cared about those lunatics anymore.

Baze listens to the morning news in Washington on the new walkie-talkie that was uniformly issued in New York every morning, although the airwaves are always sporadic.The news mentioned that the reconstruction of Washington had to be postponed again due to the emergence of mutant vampires, and the citizens who had returned to the ground were driven back to live underground.The news occasionally mentions the development process of the latest antidote K-2SO - usually in the foreseeable future, and the spokesperson of the Washington Institute of Biology can't explain clearly as if he had eaten half a kilogram of devil's pepper.However, the R2-D2 that has attracted more attention is obviously already in use, even though it has only managed to preserve the vision and sanity of the virus carrier for an additional three months.

Baze can easily find Chirrut every day.Like any other priest, the blind little man did not change his routine, as if the nightly chaos were nothing more than a daily movement.But he talked more, grinned more, and walked out of sight more often than the others.Almost every time, as long as Baze raised his head and looked around, he could see Chirrut either leaning on something to read the Bible, or sitting on the steps feeding the birds, but no one talked to him.

Baze began to take the initiative to talk to him. Chirrut's mouth is full of weird stories, or jokes that are not funny.But Baze is also used to this, most of the time he just listens, occasionally with a few words of harmless sarcasm.Slowly, Chirrut appeared at the door of the church earlier and earlier, and they listened to the radio waves from the walkie-talkie and laughed at the researcher's stuttering together.

Finally one day when Chirrut was feeding the birds, he mentioned their names.

"You should memorize them, Baze."

"I'll do my best." Baze rolled his eyes.Chirrut couldn't see it anyway.

On the first day he remembered the two birds that always circled Chirrut.Their feathers are royal blue without any impurities. The larger one is called Cassian, and the other petite one is Jyn, who is also the leader of all bluebirds.

Later, Baze remembered the names of other birds intermittently.He found that it was not difficult to spot the differences between them as long as he looked closely.For example, the one with the brightest feather color is Orson, who has a very bad temper and always fights with his companions for food, just like a proud peacock.The one with the brownish tip of its wings is called Bodhi. It is easily startled by passers-by, but it flies fast and well. Galen was the most steady and quiet one, except in front of Orson. Baze had seen it peck Orson - after the latter snatched Jyn's cookie crumbs.Another one came from nowhere and just joined the flock two days ago.It has the darkest plumage and is bigger than Cassian. When Baze described it to Chirrut, he used words like "rolling in the mud", Chirrut laughed, and generously handed over the right to name it to Baze.

At first Baze scoffed at this as a child's thing, but he did rack his brains to come up with a name that wasn't too corny and didn't sound like a golden retriever.He couldn't help but mentally predict how Chirrut would react to each name, and he shot down new ideas with increasing determination.He thought about cheating by flipping through the Bible, but when he did, he found to his chagrin that he had already spent too much time on it.

"I read a story yesterday." Chirrut said suddenly, and the air suddenly became quiet.

"Go ahead."

"About bluebirds."

"It's really unexpected." Baze began to guess which story about birds was adapted by Chirrut without authorization this time.

"Once upon a time, there was an Eastern emperor who liked to listen to the singing of bluebirds very much. One day someone gave him an artificial bluebird, which was studded with precious stones. When it was wound up, its singing was no less than that of the real bluebird. The bluebird. So the emperor ignored the bird in the garden that sang to him every night. Later, the emperor fell ill on his couch, but the artificial bluebird was scrapped not long ago."

"So the original bluebird flew back and sang to the emperor, and the emperor recovered from his illness, realized his mistake, and everyone was happy. Right?"

Chirrut turned his head and "looked" at the blood hunter beside him, expressing dissatisfaction on his face.

"Even if you know the ending, you should pretend not to know."

"Well, I was wrong." Baze laughed and put his hands on his shoulders, "With all due respect, you are telling a story about a nightingale."

"I told you, Baze, there are no nightingales in some places. But there must be a bird to sing to the sick emperor."

"Then I can say this: there are places where there is no God."

As soon as the words left his mouth, Baze regretted it.He realized that he had just questioned the existence of God in front of a priest.

Chirrut seemed to be in thought for a few seconds, but unexpectedly, he quickly laughed again, and there seemed to be a light of surprise in his misty eyes.

"You're right, you've made progress, Baze. There's always going to be a place where there's no God, and people there will rely on another existence for their faith. Maybe some other god, maybe...  ... some invisible force."

This sentence stunned Baze.A word seemed to come out, and he could feel the great energy and blinding brilliance in it, but he just couldn't say what it was.

Chirrut, on the other hand, seemed rather agitated.

"Think about it, there will always be somewhere without you and without me."

"No Chirrut and no Baze? Sounds like a pretty boring place."

"No, no. I mean no priest Chirrut and bloodhunter Baze."

"Is there a difference?"

Chirrut didn't answer. Baze quickly understood what he meant.

"Oh. There might be Chirrut the vicious robber and Baze the pathetic hostage."

"It's the righteous and kind fighter Chirrut and the notorious bandit leader Baze."

"Why are you a fighter?"

"Because I can fight better than you."

"But I have a gun, and I have bullets. I'm a bandit leader."

They remained on the steps until evening.

"I think of a legend." Chirrut said as he stood up, clutching the cane in his hand.

"Say." Baze also stood up.He looked at the crowd beginning to gather at the bottom of the steps, and the three waves surrounding the marketplace.

"It used to be believed that people would turn back into babies when they died, and that the bluebird would take..."

Well, this time it's the crane giving off the child. Baze looked at Chirrut who stepped towards the market before him. The hem of the latter's clothes fluttered back and forth behind him as usual, making him look light and vigorous.

Chirrut is like a bluebird.

Baze thought, and pulled the bolt of the gun.

TBC.