         @warknighted | pained soulmates
Sweat beads on his foreheads and though his arms sting from exertion they do not slow or quiver. Ben is accustomed to strain and training with the Knights is different but it is only more difficult in that he does not yet understand the parameters of what they require of him and his shadow (but there’s no other choice, no other place to fit, no where else his jagged edges will fail to be tempered by meddelsome hands who complain when they cut themselves when they knew better than he what a danger he presented). His breath comes a little faster as he faces the other knight before him, a little more than a handful of years his senior. He is fast. Strong. He doesn’t appear to tire, even as the humidity clings to their skin.
And he weilds the most impressive weapon outside of a lightsaber that Ben has ever seen. For the sake of sparring they possess weighted clubs, and Ben is accustomed to moving quickly with or without tapping into his innate abilities in the force. It might be cheating to impress those whose ranks he hopes to join, and an over reliance upon a thing makes one weak and lazy. So he reads body language, strain of muscles, a flick of the eyes, the shifting of weight from one of Cal’s feet to the next and finally lands a blow. It’s merely a glance to a shoulder as the other corrects himself but he’s surprised by the shock to his own shoulder and for the briefest of seconds he glances to see if he, too, has been hit.
He must have. Or his muscles are twinging from dehydration. Whatever the reason, he needs to land a definitive blow to impress. It’s only then that the whizz of air and the hairs standing on the back of his neck as a natural reflex alert him down and he dodges just in time. And with the upwards follow through he takes the weighted end of the club and jabs forwards and up catching the other man in his stomach.
