bodhi rook week day 1!!!! the prompt was family, so i had some bodhi taking in young finn and teaching him how to make the bread his mother loved
Bodhi has always been prone to worrying but he felt like he
was worrying about Finn a little too much. He couldn’t make himself stop,
though. Was Finn eating enough? Did he like the house? Was he sleeping through
the night without nightmares? Did he feel comfortable talking to Bodhi about
anything? Did he like Bodhi’s cooking? Because Bodhi wasn’t sure he’d say so,
if he did.
“Is that the same bread from last week?” Finn asked. He was
standing at the counter, his posture still military-straight. Bodhi remembered instructors
trying to get him to have ramrod shoulders like that during flight training
too. He’d never been good at it. “I liked that.”
“It is!” Bodhi said. In the past couple of months, Finn had
shot up, but he still had a round baby face and eyes too serious for a boy. He
was only ten. “It’s my mother’s recipe,” Bodhi said softly. “She taught me how
to make the bread when I was little, me and my little sister.”
Finn tilted his head, clearly thinking about something. Bodhi
didn’t know what, because Bodhi didn’t know what the First Order had taught him
about Jedha. Probably that their predecessors had reigned victorious over the
monks there. “Can you find all the ingredients here?”
Bodhi shook his head. “I can usually find similar things
though,” he said. He held out a bowl for Finn to sniff at. “These nuts go in
the bread. They’re aren’t exactly what my mother used, but I added some sugar
and berries to make them sweeter, like the nuts on Jedha. It still tastes good,
huh?”
Finn took the bowl with careful hands and took a whiff. He took too deep a whiff, actually, and made an affronted face. “Can I help?”
Bodhi blinked at him, surprised. He shouldn’t have been,
though. “I’d love some help,” he said. “Do you want an apron?”
Finn nodded, so Bodhi got him an apron. It was a little too
big. Bodhi also got him a chair so that he could knead the bread next to him, so they were almost the same height.
Finn approached kneading the bread with the same determination and care that he
approached everything. Pretty soon, he was covered in flour, which was pretty
adorable. Bodhi’s mother would undoubtedly have loved him, the way Bodhi loved him.
“That’s good!” Bodhi said, checking the consistency. “Okay,
now we’re going to fold these nuts in, okay, like this.” He demonstrated. Finn
watched and then did the same. “You’re a natural at this,” Bodhi said, and Finn
beamed. Bodhi had been told by Leia, when he’d taken Finn in, that Finn was the
brightest of his cadet class.
It kept Bodhi awake at night, sometimes, wondering what sort
of horrors Finn would have faced being the brightest in his class.
That didn’t matter now, though, because Finn was here, with
Bodhi. They had each other.
“Uncle Bodhi,” Finn said. The spiced nuts were almost fully
folded into his bit of dough. “Can I ask you something?”
“Anything you’d like.”
“Anything?”
Bodhi looked down at him. Finn had an unusually serious look
on his face. “Anything,” he said, because he wanted Finn to really believe
that. Finn didn’t ask a lot of questions. Bodhi wanted him too, but he knew
what the Empire was like. It was why Leia had asked him to take Bodhi in. So
Bodhi didn’t push, yet. He let Finn come to him.
Finn looked back down at the dough and pressed a nut down
with his thumb. “Does it hurt to think about your family?”
Bodhi’s hands stopped working at the dough. “Oh,” he said. He
forced his hands to keep working. His hands knew what to do, they’d been doing
this for years. “Yes, very much. Sometimes it’s overwhelming.”
“Oh.”
“But sometimes it’s not,” Bodhi added quickly. “Like this,
right now? My mother taught me this. And it hurts that she’s not around, but –
she lives on in this recipe. It can be both, Finn. I can be sad they’re gone
and I can miss them, and I do miss them, more than anything. But
that doesn’t mean that I can only be sad forever. I want to remember that I can
also be so so happy that I had them.”
It had taken him a long long long time to get this point. And he won’t lie to Finn, there were
some days where he could barely get out of bed because he missed his family so
much. Because he missed his sister’s laugh and his little niece’s smile.
Because he missed the smell of Jedha and the clang of its marketplace and the
cold desert, so seemingly empty and so so full.
But it’s been many years. Bodhi wanted to remember the good things
more than ever.
Finn nodded, then said, “Can I miss people I don’t know?”
Bodhi paused. “Like your parents?” Finn gave a jerky nod,
still looking down at the bread. He wasn’t crying, probably because he wasn’t sure he was allowed to. “I think so, Finn.”
“I just don’t know what happened to them.”
“I know,” Bodhi said. He gave Finn’s hand a clumsy pat. “And
I’m sorry.”
“I don’t have recipes.”
“Well, we can fix that!” Bodhi said, tearing off a hunk of
the bread and forming it into a little ball. “You have this one now, and I can
teach you more.” His mother would be thrilled. “This counts, Finn. It might not
be exactly the same, but I want you to have these recipes. My mother would want
you to have them too, because we’re family now.”
Finn looked at him. “Really? Even though I made you sad?”
“Oh, Finn, you didn’t make me sad,” Bodhi said, and he
reached out and pulled Finn into a hug. They were both getting flour all over
the kitchen. “My family made me happy. And I carry them in my heart, both the
love and the pain of missing them. But loss is just a part of life, yeah? There’s
so much more.”
He felt Finn nod against his chest and gave him one last squeeze
before releasing him.
“Thanks,” Finn said. “For everything.”
“Any time,” Bodhi said, and he meant it.
“You have flour on your face, Uncle
Bodhi.”
Bodhi grinned. “My sister always threw flour at me,” he said, elbowing Finn.
“That’s just family.”
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Happy Hanukkah, everyone, from these two jerks! I’m posting this a little early this year. Line art by the amazing Ro Stein & Ted Brandt, and colour art by @deecunniffe.
I want to point out what a technical achievement this story is on the art side. There’s a real joy to creating a whole story in eight panels, but this? This is some magic. We introduce four new characters. In panel 5, SIX PEOPLE are talking. SIX. In the world of comics, that’s almost un-doable.
Yet Ro and Ted arranged everything so the conversations flow and are sensibly grouped, all the “acting” is fantastic, and then Dee laid on top these beautiful, almost fairytale colours – look at the subtle work, the blush in Henry’s cheeks, Frank’s five o-clock shadow, the shine of the wine bottle’s glass surface, the light texturing in the backgrounds… and of course the snow! This is some first-class illustration work on an incredibly hard script. (I fear Ro and Ted always get me at my worst – my very formalist script for them in the 24 Panels anthology was no cakewalk either. (The problem is, they’re just so damn good at it… check out their work on the Image comic Crowded!)
concept: which member of the fellowship are you personality quiz, except there’s only one question and its “what do you think about pippin”. answers range from “bastard man, naughty boy” to “my son whom shall be cherished”
Gandalf: “bastard man, naughty boy”
Legolas: “the one who’s not as pretty as frodo”
Aragorn: “the result of my parents wishing for me to have a kid just as troublesome as I was”
bodhi rook week day 2: anxiety! i just uh . i just did things idk
The first time Bodhi put his hands back on a ship, it was
just to do repairs. That didn’t matter, because they were shaking. They shake
as he smooths a hand over the nose, they shake as he tries to pull apart the
steering column to fix a wiring issue, and most dangerously, they shake as he
tries to fix the wiring issue. He struggles with it for the better part of an
hour and manages to burn a small bit of skin right above his wrist, where his
gloves don’t quite reach, before he gives up.
This never used to be a problem.
His hands don’t shake if he takes a shift in the mess hall
serving food and they don’t shake when he’s in the garden with Baze and Chirrut
trying to meditate. He’s fine if he’s playing a game of sabacc with Cassian and
Jyn, which is good because he has a reputation to uphold.
They shake when he’s trying to go to sleep. They shake if he
thinks people have been looking at him too long, even if he knows they haven’t,
even he knows they’re only looking at him because they want the next serving of
their meal.
Chirrut has a habit of folding his hands over Bodhi’s when
they start to shake, which Bodhi likes. Jyn will usually make faces at him and
stick out her tongue, which is so surprising on Jyn’s face that it makes Bodhi
laugh and forgot and then his hands stop shaking. Cassian would tell bad jokes,
and throw his arm around Bodhi’s shoulder. K2 isn’t good at comfort much, but
Bodhi appreciates that.
He tries to reason with his hands, sometimes: “It’s just a
ship,” he’ll whisper. “You’ve been flying ships for forever.” His hands will be
above him, working on wiring, and enough mechanics and pilots talk to their
ship that no one gives him a second glance. This is an old clunker that no one
will be flying anyways, it was just for him to work on while he was recovering.
His left leg is still aching whenever he walks, and he thinks it will probably
twinge forever, even though the doctors say he should have a total recovery.
But his hands haven’t recovered so why should his legs.
So he whispers to his hands, “It’s just a ship” and “We need
to do our part” and “please” but they really have a mind of their own. “Please,”
he says, one last time. His leg is aching more than usual, because he had to go
to physical therapy, but he’s full, because he was just at the mess hall with
Cassian and Baze. “Please, you love to fly.”
He’s probably not the only mechanic or pilot who’s cried
while under a ship trying to fix her, but that fact doesn’t make it any less embarrassing.
No one mentions it, but at least a few people around him have to have heard.
Even if he is quiet, and he’s not sure he is, the warehouse echoes a little
bit.
Even more embarrassing is the fact that the next two times
he tries to fix this ship, he cries again.
He misses flying but no one wants to a pilot with unsteady hands and Bodhi used
to have the steadiest hands around; even when he was scared or upset or crying,
he never faltered. He misses flying and he misses having something to do and a
routine and he misses his sister.
He misses Jedha.
The fourth time he’s crying under this rusty cargo ship, because
he’s apparently incapable of doing te proper thing and crying in his room, Luke
Skywalker (the Luke Skywalker!) slides
in next to him.
“Hey,” Luke says, casual as can be. He probably has a
million things to do, or maybe he doesn’t, who knows what the hotshot pilot of
the Rebellion does on his off time, but he’s here, under a rust bucket in the farthest
back corner.
“Hi,” Bodhi says, then he hiccups.
Luke pointedly doesn’t look at him. “It’s bad, huh,” he says.
He folds his arms behind his head, even though there isn’t a ton of room. As
is, they’re lying side by side. “I miss Tatooine.”
Bodhi takes in a big gulping breath and let the wrench rest
on his chest, giving his hands a break. “You’re from Tatooine?” He didn’t know
that. It was odd to find a similarity here, two boys from desert planets. They
must both find the rain so strange and unpredictable.
Luke sighs. “Yeah, and I couldn’t wait to get off it,” he says.
“Now I miss everything. The sand. I miss the kriffin’ sand.”
This Bodhi understood. “My mom used to scold me from tracking
it in,” he says. It always managed to coat him and stick to him, although most
of the whole front room had sand on the ground. “I miss that.”
Luke nods. “I’m sorry about Jedha.”
“I’m sorry about Tattooine, too,” Bodhi says, because even
if Tattooine is still a planet, going back is impossible. Luke’s had it cut out
from his heart the way Jedha has been carved out of Bodhi’s flesh, leaving only
the gaping memory of what used to be. Neither of them can go home.
Luke reaches over and put a hand over Bodhi’s. “Don’t let it
take more from you,” he says, and it’s so soft. No one has been soft like this,
everyone has told him to keep going because of anger, revenge, spite, but Luke
seems to want it for Bodhi’s sake and Bodhi’s along. “They can’t have more.” He
gives Bodhi’s hand a clumsy pat then made to slither out from under the
“And,” he adds, ducking down on all fours to peer under the
belly of the ship. He looks ridiculous, and Bodhi smiled. “I want you on my
squadron, Bodhi.”
“Oh!” Bodhi says, “No, I couldn’t!”
“You named it,” Luke says, grinning. He looks like a boy. “You
should be part of it!”
“I – no.”
“We’re waiting,” Luke says, then he stands up and his boots
disappear.
Bodhi reaches back up to the wiring of the ship. He breathes
in deep – he used to be so much better at putting aside everything. He used to
be able to fly no matter what fears. He wants that again. So he breathes deep
and thinks about Luke’s faith and Cassian and Jyn and Baze and Chirrut, the entirety
of the friends he’s made at the rebellion.
His hands are steadier this time. They still aren’t
perfectly still but they get the job done.
Rebellions are built on hope 