This is part of an AU I've been writing, where Ezra and Kanan were both blinded at Malachor. The other stories in the AU are "In One Piece", "The Last of the Light" and "Moving Forward". They are all available on my profile. It's not exactly an ongoing story though, just a series of scenes within an AU, so there is no real need to read them first or in any particular order if you don't want to.

Swirly

"So, is it finished?"

Once, Sabine never would have allowed Ezra, or anybody else, to be in the room with her while she was painting, especially not while she was painting something like this. It was different now, though, because Ezra couldn't see the bare bones of the work, he couldn't look at the first few brushstrokes or sprays from the can and come up with his own idea of what she was about to create. He didn't get to see the mistakes she made and covered over, or the ones that somehow worked, and became incorporated into the work, changing it for the better.

She cast a critical eye over the thing she had painted, and shook her head. "I don't know," she said. "Probably not. I think it's going to be one of those things I keep working at for a while." Or one that she realized wasn't going to work and painted over when she needed some more space. "Done for today though, I think. Why?"

She was still looking at the wall, but she could hear the shrug in his voice, like he was trying too hard to sound casual, disinterested. Like it didn't really matter. It did, of course. If he didn't care, he wouldn't ask. "So, what's it look like?"

She had known the question was coming, of course; it always did. If it hadn't been today, it would have been the next time the subject came up. She couldn't help but wonder whether he genuinely wanted to know, or whether he asked just to try and keep a connection to something from before. He had always enjoyed looking at her artwork, pretending like he knew what he was talking about when they discussed it. She missed that, and she supposed he did too.

Along with everything else he had lost.

Kanan didn't ask about her art, not really. Not often. And when he did, he tended to just accept whatever answer she gave. Not Ezra; he kept pushing, wanting more, like he was trying to generate a copy of the painting in his mind. In a way it was nice, but she hated it, because she knew that no matter how descriptive she tried to be, it would never be enough to make up for seeing it for himself.

Sometimes, she wondered how Ezra could stand it. If it was her — not that she would ever hold that thought in her head for long — if it was her, she didn't think she would want to know; to think about it. It would hurt too much.

She pursed her lips and looked critically at the thing she had created. One hand was still clutching a spray can, the other rested on her hip as her gaze wandered over the painting, trying to pick out the important details. It was going to be impossible to describe.

It wasn't the thing she had set out to paint, that was for sure.

For just a moment, she considered describing the thing she had been planning on painting instead. It wasn't like Ezra was going to know the difference. She dismissed the idea instantly, it would have been unfair and dishonest.

"If you don't want to tell me, you don't have to," Ezra told her.

"It's not that," she assured him. Only it was, in a way. She sighed, a sharp intake of air expelled hard through pursed lips. "It's nothing special," she said.

Behind her, she heard Ezra's feet shuffle impatiently before he sat himself down at the desk she had constructed in the space that had once been a lower bunk. "They're all special, Sabine," he told her. "I remember that much."

She frowned. That wasn't true. Sometimes, a painting was just splashes of color, meaningless, a spur of the moment thing thrown onto a canvas or the wall. Other times she put her heart and soul into a piece. This was both, actually. It was also impossible to describe.

She was running out of space on her walls. There wasn't a lot of room for anything new there anymore. From time to time, she would paint over something she didn't like anymore or thought she could improve upon; cover the wall in the same gray as it had been originally to create a blank canvas or, when she could get hold of some, clean off the paint with solvent. She hadn't done that today though; she hadn't had the time to select a piece to be removed, or to paint over it with the many layers of paint it took to block out the bright colors of her previous works.

That was probably for the best; it had turned out she wasn't in the mood for bright. If she had started, she might have found herself unable to stop until the images were all gone and there was nothing on her walls but a dull gray.

At least she wouldn't have had any trouble describing that to Ezra. He was intimately associated with how that would look.

"It's just colors," she told him.

"Which ones?" he asked.

She stared at the wall. "Blue, mostly; purple, a bit of red, but mostly blue. Different shades. And it's kinda…"

It was mostly dark, almost black toward the middle with a deep, rich shade of blue on the outer edges. It looked like the sky at night, not long after the sun set; the blue remaining, but growing darker as the last hints of light sank further into the horizon and night descended.

As she had painted, allowing the work to expand to fill the space, it had begun to crowd out other paintings on the wall, even obliterating one completely; not one she cared much about, but by that stage she probably wouldn't have noticed if it had been. It was as though the paint had taken over, the art compelling her to keep going, layering ever darker shades on top of the lighter until the middle was almost black with the lighter shades around the edges, like they were clinging on, trying not to fall.

Like the sun setting not into the horizon, but into a black hole.

"It's kinda…?" Ezra prompted

She folded her arms, the paint can still clutched in her hand. "Swirly," she said.

Sabine had never had a talent for words. It had never bothered her; it wasn't like she was bad with words after all, she could use them just the right amount, and in more languages than most people. She had just never seen any kind of a need for poetry before. There was nothing wrong with poetry; her people had a long and proud tradition of it. She just chose to express her art visually.

"Swirly…" Ezra screwed up his face theatrically, like he was putting genuine effort into bringing an image to mind, then shook his head. Sabine looked back at the painting, trying to think of a better way to describe it. One that would make sense. "Wow, yeah," Ezra continued. She wasn't looking at him, but she could hear the ridiculous grin in his voice. "You've got such a talent for description, Sabine. Blue and swirly. Beautiful."

Sabine made a frustrated sound. She stared deeply at the painting, her eye drawn to the centre, the hole into which the color was falling. She closed her eyes and tried to imagine never having seen it, tried to pick out the important parts, the things that meant something, and that would mean something to Ezra. She couldn't do it; it was too abstract. Any attempt to describe it would fail. It wasn't a person that Ezra knew and could imagine like some of her paintings, or a landscape that he might have some kind of similar visual reference for. It wasn't a thing.

"It's blue around the edge, then gets darker in the middle," she tried. "It is swirly. The colors swirl into the middle."

"Like a spiral?"

"No, like… like water down a drain."

Ezra frowned, his brow wrinkling in consternation as he tried to picture it. "So, is it water?"

"No, it's…"

It wasn't a thing. It was a feeling.

It was Ezra, and it was Kanan. It was light being stolen from the world, the day being replaced by the night. It was the helplessness she felt every time she looked at Ezra and he didn't — couldn't — look back. It was the feeling of laughter and joy dying the way they had that day over a year ago. It was the idea that she might never seen Kanan smile again.

It was the blue that was still so clear and vibrant in Ezra's eyes.

"It isn't anything really."

Ezra laughed, not exactly mockingly, but it was close enough. "So, it's blue and swirly, and it isn't anything. Wow, yeah. I can almost see it."

She spun around to glare at him and found a wide grin spread across what she could see of his face with his far too long hair covering most of it. Honestly, he was her family, and she loved him, but there were times that she just wanted to smack him in the face.

Of course, there were times when she had done that. She didn't make allowances for the fact that he couldn't see her coming, not anymore. He had proven himself more than capable of ducking out of the way.

She loosened her grip on the can of spray paint in her hand, and tossed it in his direction. There was no malice behind the action, she simply wanted to show him that she didn't appreciate being laughed at.

Ezra caught it easily with a sweep of his hand through the air; he didn't even turn his head like he was trying to see it, the way he used to do. The result looked impressive. It wasn't though, not really. Or, it was, but for Ezra it was just normal now.

What was really impressive were those times when Ezra did seem to look; when he genuinely appeared as though he could see. It had taken a lot of practice, but he had almost perfected the fine art of deception. He used it occasionally undercover, but only when he had no choice, because he didn't trust himself not to slip up and give himself away. More often, he just used it to mess with people.

Most recently, on a trip back to Krownest, he had managed to fool some distant cousin of hers for a full five days before he finally decided to tell him the truth.

"Thanks," Ezra said, his grin widening as his finger touched the top of the spray can. "I guess that means it's my turn to paint something?" He brought the nozzle toward the wall.

The blue paint can moved dangerously close to the wall, and to paintings that she didn't want to lose. Sabine resisted the urge to go over there and snatch it away from him. "Don't you dare," she told him. She tried to keep the panic out of her voice. He wouldn't do it; she knew that. She trusted him. But on the other hand, he was still Ezra. His sense of humor was sometimes tinged with the kind of malice that showed exactly how much time he spent around Chopper.

He shook his head and put the can down on the table in front of him. "Joking," he assured her. "Don't worry, I know you've finished that wall. But find me a nice blank space and I bet I could fill it with something 'blue and swirly'."

Sabine grimaced at the reminder of her terrible descriptive skills. "Shut up," she told him. "It's a picture of nothing, of course I can't describe it. It's not even very good."

It wasn't bad, actually, and it definitely wasn't really of nothing. It didn't matter anyway; she didn't think it would be there for long. It was making her think of things she would rather not.

"I'm sure it's great, Sabine. I've never seen you paint anything bad."

"Yeah, well. You haven't seen this…" She stopped abruptly, her breath catching in her chest and heat rising to her face. She hadn't meant to say that. Of course he hadn't seen it; that was the whole point. He hadn't seen anything she had painted for over a year.

She forced up her gaze up, to look at him, dreading what she was going to see. Slowly, he picked up the paint can again and rolled it between his palms, then allowed the tips of his fingers to trace the top, a solemn expression on his face. "True," he agreed. "I still know it's great though. In fact, if I could get to see one more thing, I'd choose this painting."

She winced. She hated talk like that, and he knew it.

"Sorry," Ezra told her. "I would though. Even if it was just to prove I'm right."

"No you wouldn't," she told him. For a start, the ability to see one more thing would be a gift that he wouldn't waste on a design sprayed onto a wall. If he ever got that chance — and he wouldn't, so there was no point thinking about it really — she still had the holo of his parents carefully stored in a safe place.

Ezra grinned, and she wasn't sure whether it was her imagination, or whether the expression didn't quite look real this time. "I don't know, I might. I'm kinda curious why you're being so secretive about it."

She looked at the painting again. It was going. First thing in the morning she was either going to find a way to change it into something else, or she was going to paint over it. She didn't have any paint right now that matched the walls, but she didn't care, she would cover it in orange if she had to. It was too personal. Anyone that saw it probably wouldn't understand what it represented, but it still gave too much away. She didn't like having something like that on her wall.

"Actually," Ezra continued, a little wistfully now, "maybe I'd see your new hair color. This is the second change I've missed."

She folded her arms. It was the third change, technically. He hadn't seen the black she had dyed it for her undercover mission either, but that didn't really count. "It's purple," she told him.

"And swirly?"

"Shut up. No. It's a little lighter at the tips, but basically it's just purple."

It hadn't been this dark in years. In certain lights it almost looked like her natural black. She half-wondered whether she had made an unconscious decision to remove some of the colors from her life; if Kanan couldn't have them, and Ezra, they felt meaningless sometimes.

"I mean, it looks good," she added, "but if you could see one thing? There's a lot better things you could choose."

She didn't really want to be talking about this. It was irrelevant, theoretical, and she didn't know how Ezra could stand to even imagine being faced with a choice like that. It shouldn't bother her. If it didn't bother him to talk about it, she should be able to listen. Maybe it even helped him, so it wouldn't be fair to ask him to stop.

"Fine," he said. "I'd choose the painting you did of Zeb and Kallus in the cargo bay, the one that Zeb keeps threatening to paint over. I'd want to see it before it's gone."

She couldn't help but smile at that. "You know, that one I actually believe you might choose," she said. "It'd still be a huge waste though."

He shrugged. "Hey, at least I'd get a laugh out of it. Your description of that one was actually pretty good."

"That one was an actual thing," she told him. "This is more like…"

"A feeling?"

She looked at him, surprised. How had he known that?

"You can describe those too, you know," he told her. "Like… you remember on Atollon? I only saw it once before we left for Malachor, but the sunset, it was beautiful. The sky was almost purple higher up, but the horizon was on fire. It was my first night there, and I knew I was leaving soon, and I didn't know when or even if I was going to come back, but it already felt like home, you know? I felt safe, and I got that warm feeling you get when you know you're right where you're supposed to be. It was the same feeling I got when I met you guys, when I first came aboard the Ghost. Until then, I hadn't felt it since I was too young to recognize it."

"It wasn't that you were too young," Sabine told him. "It's because you'd never been without it, it had just always been there so you never noticed it until you lost it and got it back."

Ezra shrugged, "Maybe you're right. But it was that, and it was this feeling that we were starting a new chapter, like things were going to get better from now on, things were finally going the way they were supposed to. I was nervous, obviously, but I felt at peace, like whatever happened on Malachor, at least I'd come this far. It was like the sun was setting on the past and getting ready to rise on something new."

She folded her arms tightly. The sunset hadn't meant that to her. It hadn't meant anything. He was right; it had been beautiful, but she had seen it so many times that it had become commonplace. Now, she was seeing it through new eyes.

Why could Ezra do that, when she couldn't?

"I hate you," she told him with a smile.

He grinned back at her. "I know."

She looked at him critically. He had changed so much in the few years she had known him. Not just the obvious; the extra inches on his height that had made him taller than her, but also the confidence that he had picked up along the way. He had lost it for a time, after Malachor, but it had come back to him in recent months, and it suited him.

Picking up on her change of mood, he turned his head in her direction, eyes not quite meeting hers. "What?" he asked.

She shook her head. She wasn't going to get into that, not now. "Your hair's getting long," she said instead. "When did you last cut it?"

He put down the paint can and frowned thoughtfully. "Before," he said.

She didn't need to ask before what. Their lives were divided now, into what happened before and after that fateful mission. "Yeah," she told him. "That's what I figured. It's almost touching your shoulders now."

In fact, it was a little longer than that, at the back. In that awkward phase of growing where it was neither one thing nor the other. It looked a mess.

His hand moved to his hair, brushing it back. It wasn't quite long enough to stay in place, and when he moved his head it came back to where it had been a moment earlier. "Yeah, I know," he told her. "I don't need to see it to know that."

Of course he didn't, she hadn't meant to imply that he didn't know. She frowned at him. "So what's the plan?" she asked. "You trying to compete with Kanan or something? Planning on growing a beard next?"

Ezra grinned teasingly, and touched his fingertips to his face. "Hey, great idea. I think it'd look pretty good."

"Yeah, well. You think wrong."

He laughed, and touched his hair a little self-consciously. "I guess you're right, it is getting a little long. I should probably either cut it or tie it back. I'm just not sure I trust myself to cut it without looking."

Right. Which was why it had gotten that long in the first place. And probably why Kanan had grown his beard too. Ezra's hair was probably too short still to tie back without the front parts falling out around his face, but it definitely needed something.

She could have some fun with it.

"How much do you trust me?" she asked.