"If love is blind, then maybe a blind person that loves has a greater understanding of it."
― Criss Jami
Kanan had always been fond of sitting in quiet contemplation, counting every inhale until his thoughts became muted whispers, subtle impressions that continued to linger like Hera's hands in moments of respite, trailing up his arms, over the breadth of his shoulders, and into his dark hair. He felt at peace, easing into silence as effortlessly as the air he'd taken into his lungs, unable to discern how beautiful the sky had become above him. He had grown accustomed to blindness in the same way he'd come to know every shape Hera's body could make beneath his hands, memorizing how it felt instead of how little he could perceive. He could hear her humming beside him, a sultry exhale against his ear that sounded an awful lot like his name, curling around his heart and into his soul in the span of a few seconds, making its home somewhere unfamiliar to him, a place he could hardly see in his mind's eye. Hera's warmth had begun to seep through the fabric of his shirt, coercing his thoughts from the spaces they'd retreated to, creeping across his cheeks as slowly as a sunrise. The sound of her laughter startled him, but it wasn't unexpected. He could picture the look on her face if he tried hard enough to, remembering the tone, shade, and colour of her eyes in the early hours of the morning, a vibrant green that spoke volumes, betraying her innermost thoughts. Hera's fingers had replaced the stories he used to decipher from observation alone, allowing her voice to rise and fall like the notes in a song, hoping he'd understand the words her mouth refused to relinquish. Kanan loved her idiosyncrasies, but missed seeing them for himself.
"You're beautiful," he told her, unable to express how much he meant it.
She laughed again and this time he could feel it. "It's late and you're sleep deprived."
"I can feel the sun coming up, Hera."
"Then we should get back soon. We have a lot of work to do," she said, leaning over to kiss him.
He could sense the subtle way her lips curved against his mouth, a secret smile he experienced as often as the words accompanying it, promises fulfilled when no one else was around. Kanan's memory gave voice to scenes he yearned to scrutinize in detail, too incorporeal in comparison to the real thing, a bland and ashen copy of something he remembered being too beautiful for words. Their past had become a treasure trove of colour, bleeding into his waking moments when he felt physically incomplete, unable to recall how long her fingers were or how slender her wrists could appear in certain situations, making mundane tasks look graceful. His sight had allowed him to see things he had taken for granted, and he regretted how little he had cared for it. Hera had always been lovely to him, an accumulation of characteristics that reminded him of reinforced steel, malleable but strong, glinting from behind her green eyes in moments of utter hopelessness, a flame he hoped would never die. The light she emitted had never been anything but blinding. He smiled at the irony of it, dragging his fingers under her chin so that he could feel her eyes on him, tracing the lines Maul's lightsaber had etched across the bridge of his nose until she sighed, pressing a kiss into his scarred skin. He tried to recreate her features in his mind, imagining the fullness of her lips, the gentle slope of her nose, and the curve of her brow, poised above her eyes in an expression he'd found endearing back when it had mattered the most. He had fallen in love with her in the most conventional way possible, but he had learned to see her differently. His perception of her had always been more than muscle memory to begin with.
"Describe the sky for me," he asked quietly, smoothing his thumb across her lower lip. "What does it look like? Is it pink? Blue?"
"It's definitely pink."
"Would I like it?"
Her fingers slipped into his hair, brushing across his temple and over the tips of his ears, resting against the base of his neck. Her silence surrounded him like a blanket, thick with something he refused to name. He could feel the weight of her thoughts in the space she'd made between them, resting comfortably across his shoulders in a way he recognized as being familiar to him, a gesture she had grown used to sharing when the gravity of her words had filled her voice with sorrow, a sound he hated hearing from her mouth. He prepared himself as best he could, closing his eyes so that he could envision the expression that would appear on her face, how her mouth would open in the span of a breath, a perfect circle as pink as the sky, releasing an onslaught of syllables he'd take to heart. He cradled her face between his hands and hoped for the best.
"Yes, Kanan," she said after a moment, wrapping her arms around his neck. "You'd like it very much."
A/N: For lorna-ka. I hope this soothes your sweet soul! I was inspired by one of your watercolours and I really wanted to write something that would be worthy of it.
*The title of this story is based on the song, "Just Around the Bend," by Lena Natalia.