Training Montage | Hedge Maze

The hedge maze itself wasn't that tall, but it was tall enough for a rabebe to be unable to peek over the sides if they only walked. Atlas looked over to Captain, who was pushing the last of the bushes into place to finish the maze for practice. With everyone training in the same area, it made sense that Captain would be able to find someone who had some hedge bushes on little platforms with wheels that he could use to create a hedge maze as quickly as possible. He let out a large noise of exhaustion once the bush was in place. It took him a second to recover, but when he did he walked over to Atlas and lightly pat the little imp's head.

"Now remember, no flying or bouncing or whatever you can try to do to peek over the bushes, okay?" Captain started, looking towards Atlas with a little pout on his face. The rabebe nodded in response, and Captain smiled. "Good! I know you're going to do great, but if you need anything, you can always make some sort of noise of distress and I'll stand up and come find you, alright?" Once again, the Rabebe nodded, this time with a small squeak of acknowledgment. The imp got a small pat on the head and a kind smile from their owner before he disappeared behind the bushes of the hedge maze. Captain had made the maze layout himself, making sure it was just hard enough to be a challenge, without there being too much of a threat of Atlas getting so lost that they got upset. 

Captain walked towards the center of the maze, stepping over the bushes and giving a soft wave towards Atlas before sitting down in the grass, hiding his body from sight outside of a few clouds that hovered over his head. It was a good symbol to represent the middle of the maze from all angles that the rabebe could see. As soon as Captain was gone, Atlas walked into the maze and started to navigate. They always had a strange sense for direction, be it on the sea or on land. With the creature being so good at navigating in real-life situations, it was obvious that the trick to train for the contest was finding something in a maze. In this case, the thing to be found was Captain. The gluttony bun had tried all sorts of other rewards at the end of the maze, treats ranging from small imp treats to entire desserts, but the only thing that encouraged Atlas was him. He found it kind of cute, actually, even if it did mean that he had to sit in the middle of a small rabebe-sized maze for a few minutes in order to help train his imp.

Atlas moved through the maze easily, dodging dead ends with a mix of intuition and basic knowledge of how mazes worked. A lot of different things were going on in the imp's mind all at the same time, but it wasn't something that Atlas minded. Captain had expected to hear some sounds of Atlas knocking into foliage- but instead he heard sounds of the rabebe squeaking at walls and moving around on the grass without issue. Part of him had to wonder if Atlas was able to use some form of echolocation to find out what the right path was. Until he could question it too much, the lunar rabebe made a happy little noise and jumped into his lap, finishing the maze and claiming his reward of snuggles and headpats. Captain let out a small giggle as Atlas climbed up his body to leave his lap and move into his arms instead. Once the rabebe was secured in his grasp, the bun stood up, stepping over the bushes once again and holding the little creature up towards his face. 

"Are you sure you aren't part compass or something? You did that way too easily." Captain joked, and Atlas placed one of their paws on his face in response. What did he expect? An actual answer? It was a rabebe, there would be nothing but squeaks and maybe annoyed little hisses coming from that creature.