Training
Chapter 9 - Day Five


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Notes/Disclaimer: This fic is based solely on the Dinotopia movie, NOT the series. I apologize for any inconsistencies with the books. I don't apologize for any inconsistencies with the series because it bit. I don't own the movie, or the series, or the books. Thank you.

Note: I just noticed that I changed the spelling of "Skybacks" to "Skybax" about midway through the fic. Anyone know what the real spelling is supposed to be? Oh, and I apologize for the fact that this chapter is crap. Ah well. At least it's longer.
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The next morning, David knew that he had dreamed of Sebastian again, but he couldn't remember anything specific. His thoughts were too chaotic, too unsettled for anything coherent. Instead of waking on his own this time, Sebastian had had to shake him out of sleep. For a moment, David had looked up into his eyes and found himself caught, unable to breathe.

But it had only lasted a second, and then Sebastian, seeing him awake, had backed off to get the lesson ready.

David yawned, stretching, and tried to clear the last traces of weariness from his mind. His gaze wandered over to Sebastian, who was already dressed in his flying gear. Suppressing another yawn, he quickly put on riding leathers and grabbed his helmet. He was never at his best first thing in the morning.

When he finally finished getting ready and had prepared Freefall, he looked expectantly over at Sebastian. Then he saw what the man was holding and groaned.

"The blindfold again?"

Sebastian nodded, smiling slightly. "Yes, but don't worry. It's not for you this time. This time it's for Freefall."

David felt Freefall shift uneasily next to him and heard him squawk nervously. He held a hand out and petted the Skybax's haunch to calm him. "You're going to blindfold Freefall?" he asked skeptically.

Again Sebastian nodded. "You proved yesterday that you two could still fly if David was giving the directions. Now it's time to put that to further test. Don't worry, I'll let you try it out a little bit first before I give you an assignment. This is about trust."

He must have seen David's still skeptical look, because he grinned. "Don't worry. I won't let anything happen to either of you."

David tried to return the smile, but he felt something lurch in the pit of his stomach at Sebastian's words and the tone of voice in which they were said. It made him profoundly uncomfortable. To distract himself from the unwelcome sensation, he reached out and took the blindfold, turning back to Freefall.

"You okay with this, Buddy?" he asked. Freefall eyed the blindfold warily, but nodded. Carefully, David secured the large strip of black fabric over Freefall's eyes, patting the side of his Skybax's beak when he was finished.

He mounted up cautiously, then urged Freefall forward with a slight pressure of his legs. The Skybax waddled uncertainly to the edge of the ravine, then with his customary abruptness, fell off.

David gritted his teeth, his pulse hammering in his ears. He was sweating with the force of his concentration. He new that Freefall was depending on him to tell him when to come out of the dive. He knew that it wouldn't be hard to tell; he'd been with Freefall when the Skybax did it on his own hundreds of times. It had gotten to the point where he almost felt that he shared the Saurian's instinct for the exact right moment to pull up.

But sharing it was a bit different than having to come up with it on your own.

And yet... David could feel it. He could feel the way their speed approached a certain point and then... there! He yanked on Freefall's reigns, and the Skybax pulled flawlessly out of the dive. David grinned to himself. He could feel now that it was the same as regular flying. The only difference was that instead of reacting to Freefall's motions, now he was causing them. The trick was to make sure it felt the same as a normal flight.

It was exhilarating. More than regular flying, David felt Freefall responding to his every movement, every directive. He knew that the Skybax was relying on him completely to fly them. If he so much as twitched the reigns one way, Freefall felt it and responded without hesitation. Soberly, David realized that in a true battle situation, that response time could be the difference between life and death.

When David finally began to loosen up and get the hang of flying on his own, he saw Cliffdiver, carrying Sebastian, suddenly swoop in front of him. A flash of color caught his eye, and when he looked down, he saw that Cliffdiver had ribbons tied to him. David grinned, nudging Freefall into pursuit, knowing what Sebastian wanted him to do.

He leaned down low on Freefall's neck in order to help the vibrations of his voice travel to the Skybax. "He's got ribbons!" he yelled, knowing that the wind snatched his voice even as he spoke. But the rumble of his communication was felt through the Saurian skin and Freefall called back his own wordless answer, clacking his beak in anticipation.

David grinned and pressed himself down against Freefall, giving chase.

Hours later, after a lunch break and another session of chasing ribbons blindfolded, Freefall and David finally set down on the cliff edge, the last of the colored fabric having been snatched from the back of Cliffdiver's saddle.

David hurried forward to take the blindfold off his mount, stroking Freefall's beak comfortingly.

"There now," Sebastian called over from where he was removing Cliffdiver's saddle, "that wasn't so bad, was it?"

"Not at all," responded Freefall. David looked at the Skybax and chuckled. Freefall may have been acting calm, but he could see the rigidly tensed muscles that told a different story. He stroked Freefall's neck, trying to massage the tension out of him a little bit. Truth be told, David wasn't much better - he could feel his own body vibrating like a harpstring. The drill had been fun, but it had also required some serious concentration. Not being able to rely on Freefall's judgement for flying had been like lacking a limb. Trying to catch ribbons at the same time had been more difficult than he'd thought.

David had just finished putting away Freefall's gear when he felt a hand on his shoulder.

"Geeze, you're really tense," said Sebastian, sounding worried. "Why don't you go lie down, I'll give you a massage."

David felt his heart spasm slightly at the thought of Sebastian's hands on him outside of his dreams. "N-no, that's alright, I'm fine," he stuttered.

"Nonsense," said Sebastian firmly. "I can feel how tense you are." He still hadn't removed his hand from David's shoulder. "Take off your shirt and go lie down. This will be good for you."

Not really wanting to, but unable to think of a way to decline the offer without sounding childish, David did as he was told. Facing away from the fire which Sebastian was now lighting, he pulled off first his riding leathers and then his shirt, stowing them next to the base of the canyon wall where it continued up from their ledge. Then, still not looking over at Sebastian, he lay down on his pallet, burying his face in his pillow to hide the heavy blush on his face.

He didn't hear Sebastian approach, and so gasped in startlement when he suddenly felt warm hands descend on his back, kneading his muscles forcefully.

Despite his misgivings, the massage was just what David needed. He could feel his muscles beginning to loosen and unknot under Sebastian's undeniably talented hands. His cheeks burned with shame as he felt himself growing hard against his pallet. There was no escaping the comparison of this situation to his dream. But Sebastian's hands on his back were real this time, the pleasure of skin against skin even sharper waking than it had been in his subconscious.

David closed his eyes, trying to relax, trying not to imagine what it would be like if he turned over, reached up, and brought Sebastian's lips down to meet his own. Nope. Definitely wasn't going to think about that. Not at all. David bit back a moan. He took deep breaths, trying to calm his libido.

For a few more minutes, the massage went on, Sebastian's fingers seeking out and neutralizing every knot, every muscle pain. The man certainly had very talented hands. And then suddenly they paused. David realized that between his exhaustion from adrenaline withdrawal and his deep breathing, he had nearly fallen asleep.

He was about to sit up and apologize when he felt the soft tickle of hair on the back of his neck. It wasn't much, barely noticable, but enough to make him pause. Then he heard the soft inhalation of breath, and knew what was happening. Sebastian was taking in his scent. It was a strangely intimite gesture, and caused a now familiar quivering sensation in David's stomach. He waited a moment until Sebastian had drawn back, then cleared his throat to let the White rider know that he was awake.

Sebastian patted him once on the back in a companionable fashion and got up, going to dig some food out from their provisions. "Ready to eat?" he said. His voice was oddly rough, and he cleared his throat.

David sat up, drawing his knees to his chest to hide his still-present erection. "Sure. I guess. I was practically asleep." He yawned. "You're really good at that," he admitted. "Massage, I mean."

Sebastian grinned, tossing him a wrapped package of bread and greens. "It's a personal talent. I take a lot of pride in that particular skill."

They ate for a few minutes in silence, before David, thinking of the conversation he had overheard between Sebastian and Cliffdiver the previous night, finally broke it.

"So... I feel like even though we've been training together for so long, I don't really know that much about you. I mean, everyone seems to know me and Karl and my Dad, what with us being new arrivals. But... I don't know anything about you."

"Well that's a relief," said Sebastian. Seeing David's raised eyebrow, he laughed. "Most cadets, especially those who come from flight families, grow up with tales of the White Squad and all its riders. Not all of which are true. You'd be amazed at some of the bizarre stories that people tell about us."

David blushed, remembering how Romana had been so ready to gossip about the White Riders. "So," he said, "tell me about yourself, then."

Sebastian smiled, but it was a different smile from the one he usually wore. David was surprised to see that he looked wistful. "I was left on the cliffs as a baby. I never really knew who my parents were. One of the riders found me and brought me to Canyon City. She was technically my guardian, but really the whole city raised me. I was kind of the riders' little mascot." Sebastian smiled fondly at the memory, and David marveled at this unexpected side of his new friend.

"I thought you said you had siblings?" David said, remembering their conversation a few days earlier.

"Good memory," Sebastian complimented. "Yeah, sort of. The woman who 'adopted' me had two daughters. So I came to think of them as my sisters."

David smiled. "So, I guess it must have been pretty easy for you to pass the test, if you had already hung around the place so long and watched all the other riders."

Sebastian grinned, still looking far away. "Well, sort of. You see, there were sort of... complications."

David was intrigued, but didn't interrupt, waiting for Sebastian to continue.

"You see, I used to hang out on the cliffs an awful lot. Still do, when I can find the time. But spending so much time hanging around with the Skybax was a little unusual, and because of that, I bonded to Cliffdiver before I was even old enough to consider training, let alone taking the test."

David was rapt. "So what did you do?"

Sebastian shrugged. "They sped me through the training program, even though I was young for it. Since I had seen most of it so much, it really wasn't that much more difficult for me than it would be for a normal cadet. And then I passed and officially got to ride Cliffdiver. Good thing too, we're made for each other, aren't we buddy?" He called this last over to Cliffdiver, who was nestled half-asleep next to a snoring Freefall. The Skybax squawked non-commitally.

Sebastian chuckled at his mount. "So anyway, that's how I acheived a post this high so young. I just happened to get there a bit earlier. What about you? What was your initial training like?"

Surprised to be asked the question, David sat up a little more, rebracing himself against the canyon wall. "Well, to be honest, it didn't really go that well. I sort of failed it."

"I'd heard about that," said Sebastian. "So, what was it like?"

"Terrifying," admitted David. "You have no idea. I mean, I felt like... Like I was letting everyone down. My brother, Marian, but most of all... Most of all I was letting down myself, you know? I felt worthless, like nothing I ever did ever worked out. Like I would be nothing by a failure the rest of my life." David found he was surprising himself by how much he was admitting.

"So what made you try again?" asked Sebastian softly.

David frowned. "I'm not sure. Suddenly I just thought... I thought, 'You've run away from enough things in your life, David. You know you can be a rider. You know you have the determination. You just have to make those Skybax feel it too.' So I went back. And I stood there, and in my mind I kind of dared them to come get me. And still no one came. And I could feel the despair just starting to encroach on me again, and suddenly there was Freefall." David smiled fondly at the memory. "If it weren't for him, I don't know what I would have done."

There was a brief moment of silence, before Sebastian met his eyes across the campfire. "Anyone would be lucky to be your partner, David. Freefall was just smart enough to snap up the chance first. He saw the potential in you that I see. Someday David, probably someday soon, you will be a great rider. Better than me, better than your friend's father. You will be the best. I can feel it."

David blushed at the compliment. "Yeah, well. Thanks for the sentiment. I wish I had as much confidence in myself as you seem to."

He looked up in time to catch a very curious half-smile on Sebastian's face. It was another expression he had never seen before. This seemed to be the night for that.

"That will come," said Sebastian. "That will come. Now, let's sleep, shall we? I have an all new exercise for you tomorrow."

David lay down on his pallet and closed his eyes, wondering what the next day would bring.

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