Tag Archives: landon

The Bunny in the Bow Tie

bow tie bunny

Found at Etsy

Ana kept chasing after the small dragon and then realized she was no longer in her room. In fact, she wasn’t sure she was even on Earth. It was early morning wherever she was, and the nine-year-old girl was freezing.

She looked around and she seemed to be in the mountains. There were trees, bushes, and other plant life. There was a trail beneath her feet, but it didn’t seem to lead back or lead to home or even any buildings. She was totally in the wilderness and the dragon she’d been running after was nowhere in sight.

Ana was still in her pajamas and barefoot which didn’t help matters any. Then, when she heard the voice behind her, she nearly jumped ten feet in the air.

“Hey, Dollface. You lost?”

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The New Apprentice

falcon

A peregrine falcon flies near the Throgs Neck Bridge. Credit: Metropolitan Transportation Authority / Patrick Cashin.

Landon stood majestically on top of the wind-swept plateau dressed in archaic and stereotypical magician’s apparel. The robe draped over his slight nine-year-old frame from neck to ankle was colored a deep violet with bright yellow crescent moons and five-pointed stars dappled generously across the fabric. His head was adorned with a tall, conical hat made of the same material, displaying identical hue and decoration.

In his right hand, he held a long, slender wand made of a dark wood with no name, and on his left hand and wrist, he bore a thick, heavy glove of leather. High above in the deep azure sky, he saw a mere speck of darkness contrast against the pink and yellow clouds, spread thin as paper by the light of the setting sun to his back.

The wind rushed past his ears, but he could still hear the distinct cry of the falcon circling over his head. The bird of prey was too high for him to hear the boy, but he projected his thoughts into the heavens and the avian would be compelled to respond.

“You must choose now, Perry. Is she to join us or not?”

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Show Me The Way To Go Home

pennywise clown

Pennywise from the 2017 film “It.”

Down, down, down Landon fell into the seemingly bottomless pit. The light from above got smaller and further way until he was totally in the dark and still falling, screaming at the top of his lungs. And then he hit something but it wasn’t the ground.

The lights suddenly came up and he was bouncing up and down on a…really big net. The nine-year-old boy looked around as his bouncing started to settle down and he saw he was inside a big circus tent. He’d never actually been to a circus before, but he’d seen them in TV shows and movies. He was in a net used by trapeze artists so if they fell during their act, they wouldn’t get hurt.

Finally the bouncing stopped. It felt like he was on the world’s biggest trampoline, and he used the one his cousins had whenever he went over to their house.

Sitting up, he looked around more. Inside the “big top,” it was completely empty of people. Lots and lots of seats, cages for the lion taming act, another ring for the clowns, but no one was around.

Straight up, there was a big, big hole in the top of the tent which was where he’d come from. How was he going to get out of this?

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Riddle Me This!

worm

Screenshot from video game “Star Wars: Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy.”

Landon could hear a strange sound from behind and a huge shadow loomed over him. He suddenly whirled to see a hideous apparition instead of his friend the dragon. It was an enormous worm with a mouth like a lamprey eel, full of thousands of razor-sharp teeth and it was getting ready to strike. It’s hot breath stank of rotting meat and the grave and the nine-year-old knew he was only seconds from death. Try as he might, he couldn’t summon even the simplest of spells. After all of the dangers and adventures he had faced, was this how his life would end?

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Doom in the Maze of Dreams

hedge maze

Example of a hedge maze found at nerdist.com.

Landon kept walking down, down, down the endless, onyx spiral staircase when he stubbed his toe or should have. It didn’t hurt.

“Hey. Wait a minute. I know what’s going on. I’m dreaming. I’m having a lucid dream. Cool. That means I can control everything.” Great. I think I’ll fly the rest of the way to the bottom.”

Landon took a leap expecting to fly like Superman, but he only went up so far before going back down. “Hey!” He was starting to fall and got scared. What if hitting the stairs hurt this time? Then he began to slow and soon he was taking big, bouncy steps.

“At least this is faster than walking but I really wanted to fly.” Now that he realized he wasn’t going to get hurt, he stopped being scared, but it was too late.

Malevolent eyes were watching from the darkness, their owners chuckling to themselves.

“We have another one, brother.”

“Indeed sister. He has entered the first layer.”

Yes he has and he doesn’t know it. Now we will take full control of the dream.”

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The Dragon’s Legerdemain

stuffed toys

Produced by DollyAndPaws and found at Etsy

The dragon was about the size of a small St Bernard and covered with golden scales. He had two hind legs but his forearms ended with what could have been hands complete with opposable thumbs. His eyes where the most human thing about him, a crystal clear blue, like water in a mountain stream. When he opened his mouth, the first thing you saw were hundreds of needle-thin, razor-sharp teeth, and then a long, tapered tongue the color of raspberries.

His long, thin wings fluttered but not as fast as a hummingbird’s and his tail wagged back and forth with annoyance like a common house cat, and yet he was far more fierce than even the greatest feline predator in any jungle.

The source of his annoyance, actually it was more like trepidation, was the vision that had manifested before him. It was late on a Sunday morning. Landon had been helping Buddy the Ambrosial Dragon test the boy’s young friend Ana for potentially possessing a latent magical ability. To that end, they were using a story book that allowed the user to bring into reality any tale the book contained. The story they’d chosen was that of a cloud city.

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Trapped Between Dark and Darker

black dragon

Found at wallpapersafari.com

In a mysterious floating cloud city, eight-year-old Landon and his friend Ana were trapped in a roomful of inter-dimensional portals by a smoke dragon. When the dragon’s snout broke open a door from the outside, it bumped into the boy, knocking both he and the girl through a gateway into the unknown.

“Landon!” Ana cried out as she fell into nothingness.

The boy reached out and grabbed her by the waist and then used his levitation spell. “No, not this time. We’re not going to fall into another world.” He used the spell to stop and then reverse their motion. He didn’t take the time to look around but concentrated on getting the both of them back up and through the opening to cloud city.

“We’re almost there, Ana.” Landon could see the other side. Some of the mist from the sky city was drifting toward them, but was it mist or smoke? Then an intensely hot stream of flame shot through as the dragon tried to incinerate them from the other world.

Reflexively, Landon, still holding onto Ana, dove beneath the flames and further into…what?

Then the light vanished. Landon and Ana looked up and the doorway back to the cloud city was gone. In fact everything was gone.

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Walking in the Clouds

cloud city

(Courtesy of Chung Ti’en Television/YouTube)

She was lost in the fog wondering how she had gotten there. The last thing Ana remembered was playing during recess at school. No, that wasn’t right. School had ended and she walked home. Was it foggy when school let out? No, it only gets foggy in the morning and only on some mornings.

“It’s not fog. It can’t be. I should be able to see houses. I’m not on the sidewalk. The ground is made out of fog. But if that were true, I’d fall through it, yet it feels solid.”

“Wait. Landon?”

Ana woke up safe and warm in bed. Why did she call out to Landon? She liked her friend and she recently found out some very special and secret things about him.

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Getting the Stuffing Out

stuffed animals

Image: weplayreplay.com

In our last adventure, Landon magically discovered what happened to the living stuffed animals but in the process, both he and his friend Ana were transformed into stuffed toys and trapped in the stuffed animal universe.

“Landon! What happened to me? What did you do?”

“I’m sorry, Ana. I was trying to bring the stuffed animals back to life but the spell went wrong somehow.”

“But…but how can I be…stuffed?” Ana looked at her hands in astonishment not recognizing them as her own.

Meanwhile, the living stuffed animals were so happy to see Landon, even as a stuffed boy, that they all crowded around him giving him a big group hug.

“Guys, I love you too, but we have a big problem.”

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All Stuffed Up

baby

© James Pyles

“Why not, Buddy?”

“No magic. Anna have no magic. Not taking new apprentices. Just you.”

Keeping his promise, Landon told his best (human) friend Anna all about Buddy the Ambrosial Dragon and their adventures together, which started almost a year and a half ago. It had taken a long time to relate everything to Anna. Landon hadn’t realized just how much he and the dragon had gone through together.

“But couldn’t we teach her magic?”

After Landon told Anna everything, she thought it would be really cool if she learned some magic, too. Landon said he’d ask Buddy if he would take her on as his second apprentice. Today in the boy’s bedroom, the dragon gave him the answer.

Only the events that had occurred in Shadow of the Dark Wizard made it absolutely necessary for Buddy to train Landon in the mystic arts, and that was because the child had been accidentally infused with magical energy. If Buddy didn’t teach him how to control the magic inside, the magic would control Landon.

But such wasn’t the case with Anna. Like most other children, she was a perfectly ordinary human and had no access to occult energy, especially in this universe where real magic was all but unknown.

“She’ll really be disappointed.”

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