Two Halfs of One Warrior • Obikin/Vaderwan One-Shots

Fuel to Fire

• Summary: It was a smell she’d recognize anywhere, one she grew up with - the one she inhaled as if gasping for oxygen whenever she had a childhood nightmare, and her Master would comfort her in his arms until she fell asleep again. An aroma she had been cruelly denied ever since she hit puberty not long ago, and one which she spent countless hours recreating in her mind during the quiet hours of the night.
Obi-Wan’s smell.

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Anakin Skywalker seizes an opportunity to take what she wants.

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Jedi Temple, Coruscant.

Dusk.

“Off your game today, Skywalker?”

Ferus’s tone was a pointed, undeniably sharp tease, and that made none of it any easier.

Anakin took a step back as she wiped the sweat off her forehead with her flesh arm and stared at the boy. Thin, wet strands of her long, burnt caramel hair fell onto her face despite the tight braid in which she had restrained them before leaving her quarters.

Heavy panting made her chest rise and fall within the suffocating fabric of her tabard and tunics and, despite being a daughter of the desert, she was increasingly aware that her face was likely flushed. Anakin’s entire skin was indeed flaring - whether it was the smothering heat of the enclosed dojo or her own frustration manifesting itself in searing discomfort, it mattered not.

Ferus’s hazel eyes offered sheer provocation while his pale skin glimmered beautifully under the soft orange light from the afternoon sun. His smell – sweat marred by some artificially citric fragrance – was an unpleasant distraction to her nostrils. She almost resented the stark sensitivity to aromas caused by her own singularly high mid-chlorian count - or so she had been told by Master Vokara when, as a child, she loudly asked why Master Yoda smelled like the moss of the Temple’s gardens.

The boy’s lean torso was covered only by a sleeveless brown top, granting his arms all the necessary freedom to counter each of Anakin’s uncharacteristically ineffective blows. She cursed the layers of fabric latching on to her skin. While there were no hard rules over a Padawan’s training gear, her own Master - the irreproachable Obi-Wan Kenobi - had made his own preference clear: his apprentice was expected to maintain her complete apparat even during these informal spars.

Anakin once more raised the training saber and gave Ferus a brief nod so that they could resume. The small group of Masters spread over the wooden boards around the dojo were watching them with eyes that seemed ever condescending. This would have been of little importance to Anakin had her own mentor not spontaneously shown up shortly after their sparring began, making her immediately wish for it to end.

And put an end to it she did - as Ferus enthusiastically stepped forward, Anakin allowed him to hit her on her right arm, carelessly dropping her saber on the floor to concede him his victory.

The polite applause emerging from the banks twisted her insides, and Ferus’s satisfied smile at his first victory over her made Anakin close her fists tightly – lest they found their way directly into the boy’s teeth. She just wanted to leave - the depths of a Sarlacc would have been preferable to the growing heat in the room.

Feigning a short smile to her opponent, Anakin tried her best to keep her blazing frustration under control. It was all Ferus’s fault after all - he had suggested the spar after teasing her mercilessly for her foul mood during their morning lectures and knowing well that physical exertion was an offer Anakin was unlikely to reject.