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The children of Hearthstone used to play a game called Suneyes, when Kaladin lived there. It was a very simple game. You gather out in the sun and take turns looking up, hoping to catch the sunlight in your eyes. The kid with the lightest eyes in the end won, and sometimes, if the other kids liked you enough, they’d pretend to be your servants for a bit and you’d get to pretend to be a fancy lighteyes for a short while.
Isn’t that the dream? To wake up one day with eyes so bright you stood out from your friends, and now that you’re a lighteyes you’ll at least move from nahn to dahn, and even being a tenner was better than being darkeyed.
Kaladin never liked that game. He found it boring and asinine. When he was roped into playing, he was glad he’d never won, with eyes darker than the dirt beneath his feet and sensitive enough to turn away from the sunlight. Being averse to staring at the Sun was a trait he believed to be common, since most people don’t desire damaged eyes, but apparently all the other kids were completely fine holding stubborn staring contests with the Sun if it meant lightening their eyes. Kal rolled his eyes every time. Everyone thought he was just mad he never won.
If only they could see him now.
Eyes a storming blue, jaded jewels framed by flowing hair, a renowned Knight Radiant known as the Stormblessed, Kaladin had finally won Suneyes. Although, it’s not quite Suneyes, no, Kaladin’s eyes were Stormeyes, and they were tan even after the blue had faded. He was praised for his eyes often these days, as opposed to the lack of comments in his younger days.
Well, not quite. He was only praised when Stormlight lit his eyes, bottled lightning staring into your soul. They were beautiful. Even his tan eyes were something of a marvel, complimented the lighter they were in the moment.
Eventually, Kaladin got used to the compliments. It no longer surprised him when Stormlight flowed through his body and he was stopped by a starry-eyed fan commenting on his sapphire broams, his stunning skymarks, or when the last wisps had left but his eyes were still stained and someone else remarked on their similarities to infused heliochips. He did not think about the lack of compliments for his natural eyes - not a single person remarking on how gorgeous those were, nobody stopped him to tell him his “chocolate orbs” made them melt. No, they never spoke of those eyes.
Perhaps, Kaladin reflected, perhaps he did care about the color of his eyes. Despite it all, a part of him preened at each compliment, delighted in them. Was happy his light eyes were such a point of focus as compared to the empty landscape of compliments for his natural darker shade. Some part of Kaladin loved being lighteyed, and the privilege that came with it.
Kal didn’t like that part of him. He’d spent so long hating lighteyes and despising the parts of him that so reminded people of them, and his own mind was betraying him. Each time he caught a glance of himself with lightened eyes, he cringed at the pride that whistled upward. Inversely, each time he caught a glance of himself with the dark eyes he’d known since birth, he cringed at the irrational pride over those, too. Eventually, Kaladin began consciously ignoring his eyes.
It was looking in the mirror one day after shaving when he caught his own gaze in his reflection and held it, and for a moment Kaladin was stunned. He had never really noticed his eyes before. Never. And yet here he stood, transfixed by his own reflection.
It’s not like Kaladin had ever thought about his eyes that often. They were an intrinsic part of him, and an intrinsic indicator of his place in society, but he had rarely ever consciously thought about them. They were simply a part of him. He’d hate to be without them, sure, but he didn’t care if he had these eyes in particular or not. At least, he’d thought so for a while. They were just eyes. They served their function and he’d hate to lose that, but that’s that. Nothing more, nothing less.
But looking in the mirror, Kaladin stared at dark brown eyes and noticed a depth to them he hadn’t before. They were dark, almost black, as most darkeyes tended to be, but they weren’t ugly by any means. They were...nice. They were nice to look at. He was almost tempted to call them beautiful.
Kaladin stared for a very long moment at his eyes. He’d seen other darkeyes when the Sun hit their eyes, knew the honey-brown color eyes like his turned, he knew the poorly-written romance novels about illicit romances liked to describe the roguish love interest with dark, shadowed eyes, but not once could he recall someone sighing dreamily about plain eyes. Eyes the light didn’t hit in a specific angle to make them look a certain way, eyes still and staring at nothing in particular, just eyes on their own, no other factors interfering.
Kaladin stared at his eyes in simple, normal lighting, with only the underlying emotion tangled in his heart peeking through, and saw beauty in them he rarely attributed to himself. He saw pools of brown that were just that: brown. And yes, they were beautiful. Brown was one of the least desirable eye colors in Alethi society, and in that moment Kaladin thought his brown eyes were beautiful.
And then his name was being called and the moment passed, and Kaladin blinked and found himself staring at brown eyes that caused a storm of emotions to rise in his chest, and he broke away to face the world again, the same man he’d always been.