blood, sweat, and tears // joong-ki/florian

Sweat beads down your brow and drips down your back, spreading across muscles aching with repetition, chest heaving with exertion, hours of physical labor laying heavy on your form as the sun dips below the horizon.

Ever since Sublino's defeat on the grand stage that so many of you aspire to, life inside these four walls had been akin to hell on earth. But it's an environment you've long since been accustomed to, and there's something addicting about pushing yourself so damn hard that each limb weighs down like a lead pipe, the rush of adrenaline flooding your brain the sole fuel that pushes you ever onwards.

It's a hell you have control over, a hell you enjoy. Through the pain comes ecstasy, a piercing light in the dank fog that awaits you back home. Your home in name, anyway - this place has become a refuge in everything but as of late.

The trainer calls time, her reminder echoing the one in your head that training begins nice and early tomorrow. Some loath the summer hours in which lessons and schoolwork are absent from interference; you're just grateful for the chance to escape.

You peel your shirt away from soaked skin, tossing it to the side as something more tantalizing catches your eye. All stone and seriousness on paper, one hand yanks the staff from where it lies against the wall - training might be over, but you've never been much for following the time.

A twirl here, a swing there, you revel in the reach of your preferred weapon, years of honing polishing the fluidity in which you strike. An extension of your own body - it's no wonder that sparring is your favorite exercise of the day.

Your gaze flits amongst the few souls remaining, catches that of a boy - and half a smirk cracks your stone, for you know the look that he displays.