Binary Sunset | SW Oneshots

A Wolf and a Rose

kanera, for the soul (with mild spoilers so if you care at all about that and haven't watched the show, that sucks)

i'd like to add that when i first started editing, my only commentary was "ahaaowhwls" because i wrote the first part on december 4, the last part last weekend, and i just barely finished the middle. if this is written kinda weirdly, that's why

also happy valentines day :) (it's okay, i don't have a valentine either)

--

Kanan had never thought he'd get another chance to be free like this again. He had especially never thought he'd get to be with Hera again; He'd thought it was all over. But then, once that moment came where it would end, finally, his sight returned. He was pulled from it.

And now, here he was. Now, he found himself lying beside Hera again, hands clasped, staring up at the sky from the roof of one of the towering buildings of Lothal. The world, in contrast to the stars that lit up Hera's eyes, seemed dark - blue evening dusk, with warm undertones and glittering skies. Space finally seemed filled, here on Lothal.

Most importantly, Hera seemed happy.

The doorway to the balcony they lay on glowed with the light of a family; inside, Zeb, Ezra, and Sabine were most likely arguing, as they had been doing for roughly an hour. However, the door was closed, and all that drifted outside was the muffled sound of chaos and the glowing beams of light through the cracks in the doorway.

Kanan watched Hera as she puffed out a breath. He watched as it clouded in the air; He watched as she blew it away with a hum. "We should probably get inside before they burn the place down," She said with flattened amusement.

She glanced over at Kanan, who simply looked away and said, "Nah, they're fine. They'll figure it out."

From inside the apartment, a glass shattered, and the yelling picked up. Both Kanan and Hera's eyes fell to the door. Kanan corrected himself. "...Eventually. They'll figure it out eventually. It might take a while."

"I doubt Jacen's getting much sleep," Hera muttered.

They both returned to silence, laying in the night and scanning the sky.

Kanan spoke again. "Hey, you remember when the kids and... well I mean I..." He sighed and turned his head to face her. "You remember those gliders?"

"Yes?" She prompted, not impatiently.

"I think at least one of them survived. We still have it somewhere."

Hera looked over at him. "You can't be serious." 

--

20 minutes later, Kanan and Hera were digging through the hangar. Neither one of them had found a single glider yet. They'd spread across the space to "cover more ground", as Hera had put it, but at this point, Kanan wasn't confident they were covering anything.

He shoved aside a box brimming with scraps, pressed up against the back of the hangar. Why do we keep scraps?  Where he expected to see the wall, though, he saw a terrifying-looking contraption, with bars in the center and unstable-looking wings - one which he wished he didn't recognize. 

He looked up at Hera, who was digging through her own pile across the hangar. The hangar seemed to be full of junk, yet she hadn't had any luck so far. 

"I found it," He called, placing his hands on his hips.

She walked over to his side. She crossed her arms as she sized the thing up. Reasonably, she looked skeptical. "It looks a lot scarier than it did before, I'm going to be honest."

"I think it's always looked that way." 

"That's not incredibly reassuring..." He didn't really want to touch the thing, either. He would be perfectly accepting if she just said 'no'. Finally, after a moment of consideration, she sighed. "Oh, well. It might be fun. Let's get this thing in the air."

--

The glider took them smoothly past the edge of the city, away from the lights and starships, yet they were still so high up.

Kanan glanced over at Hera, at the awe in her eyes as she looked up at the stars. She sat propped on her forearms and so precariously balanced, halfway between the bars and right on the edge of the one-person glider. They hardly had any room between them. 

A laugh escaped her. "You know, you'd think I'd have gotten over the stars, being a pilot all these years," She sighed contentedly. "But nope. They're still amazing. And here..."

She gazed around at the moonlit landscape that took the place of the city buildings that grew gradually smaller and more distant behind them. "It's beautiful," She said, and smiled.

She looked back up at the sky, scanning the stars, like she was mesmerized by the light. "The stars look less luminous when you're part of them, but from here, the galaxy is so much brighter."

The light was mesmerizing; Kanan couldn't look away, either. Hera was just so... lovely.

He figured that the abundance of flowers in the universe could be owed to Hera. Every time she spoke, a rose bloomed. Every blink was another petal. Not just flowers, though; Hera was... everything. Every light. Every breath was another flame to light a candle, a star that lit the moons. And here on Lothal, she was the moonlight. She alone was worth the night.

Every night.

He didn't realize he was staring until she looked over at him, a smile gracing her lips. He looked down at their hands pressed together, fingers intertwined. And briefly, he closed his eyes.

He could feel them drifting along the breeze – slower now, steadily, smoothly – over a rustling field. He saw a Loth-wolf, bounding through the grasses, carrying them somewhere distant.

Wait, hold on, how are we gonna get back? A worry of his subconscious voiced.

His conscious mind simply told it to shut up. Focus on the present.

Focus on the light.

When he opened his eyes, Hera was looking at him; Still smiling so lovingly. He smiled back.

Together, they looked up at the horizon, where the stars met the moonlight and the bristling grasses of ever-stretching fields.

The breeze carried a distant howl in a distant field of roses.

Kanan sighed. "Yeah. It's... lovely."