Here is the chapter you've probably been waiting for: the one where the dinosaurs and dragons finally meet. I have no estimate on when the next chapter will be posted, but I'll try my best. And, as always, Land Before Time is © Universal, and Dragon Tales is © Sesame Workshop
Chapter 3: First Encounter
It was a clear, beautiful day all across the Great Valley. The sun was shining, the air was clear, and the water was about as fresh as it could be. As for the resident dinosaurs, they seemed to not show a care in the world. In fact, if someone gave just a little effort, they could hear the laughter of hatchlings as they played all manner of games, while the adults were just content to relax and watch over their charges. Little did anyone realize that they were about to meet creatures who were literally from beyond the mysterious beyond, as they called it….
Sheltering Greens
As the early-morning light ascended over the area, the ball was seen bouncing out of a small cave in the nearby foothills and rolled down a nearby slope towards a pink three-horn hatchling named Tricia, who was playing by herself after wandering away from her nest. She charged towards a bush, trying to knock some berries out of it when she heard the ball coming towards her. Looking back, she got a little surprised at the site of it and quickly moved out of the way. It stopped moving just a couple of feet in front of her. After a few moments, she started inching towards the ball, getting closer and closer with each step, until she was eventually close enough to tap it with her nose horn. Upon seeing it bounce several times, she giggled with glee.
“What a wonderful toy.” she thought. “I must take it home and show it to Cera.”
She started pushing the ball in the direction of her nest, but didn’t get very far before she heard her mother and father calling for her from a nearby stream. Realizing that she needed to get back to her family in a hurry, she decided to abandon her new toy and head off in the direction of her parents. The ball continued moving forward on the path for a little bit before coming to rest in a small grove of berry bushes…
Meanwhile, back at the cave, the dragons were looking out the exit of the long tunnel when they got a little stunned by a bright beam of sunlight. As the light dimmed, they let out a gasp. They had found a valley that none of them had ever seen before.
“Where are we?” asked Ord.
“I don’t know. I’ve never been to this place before.” answered Cassie.
“Let’s look at my map. I’m sure we can figure out where we are.” suggested Zak as he reached into his pouch and pulled out a roll of parchment.
It took them only a moment to find where they had been playing on the map, and another few seconds to follow their underground course until he reached the point in the Stickleback Mountains where they thought they emerged from the caves. It was then that Max noticed something odd: there wasn’t a gap in the mountain range big enough for this valley.
“Something’s wrong. This valley isn’t on the map.” he said.
“How can a valley like this not appear on the map.” wondered Zak.
“There’s no time to think about that. We need to find that ball soon. Otherwise, we’ll be late for the museum.” said Emmy.
“I think it went that way.” said Cassie, following the slope of the hill and the patches of disturbed grass.
They soon came to a small shaded field with many branches overhead and a couple of small tunnels leading underground. Moving around a cluster of berry bushes, they finally spotted what they had been looking for.
“There’s our ball.” called Max, pointing to it.
Cassie started moving towards it, but stopped as a small bipedal dinosaur with a large frill, a beaked mouth, and a vine stuck to its right leg ran out from behind the bushes. Without a second thought, it reached down and picked it the ball, mistaking it for a big berry. It then turned slightly and noticed the dragons for the first time. It gave a little yelp of surprise and immediately ran toward the nearest foliage, still carrying the ball.
“What was that?” asked Zak
“I don’t know. We’ve never seen something like it before.” replied Emmy and Max.
“It doesn’t matter what that is. It’s getting away with our ball. Hurry up.” called Wheezie, running after the small dinosaur, with the others following close behind.
Despite their best efforts, however, they soon lost sight of it and had to rely on the creature’s footprints. This was also a challenge because at first, the footprints were clear and easy to follow, but they gradually became fainter and fainter until they were barely discernable. The group continued on for a few more minutes until they reached the edge of a thicket of tall grass, at which point the trail seemed to disappear. It was then that Zak looked up and noticed how high the sun was.
“Uh oh, I think we should start heading back. Everyone will start to get worried if we are out much longer.” said Zak.
“But what about our ball, Zacky?” asked Wheezie.
“I guess we have to come back tomorrow after school. Hopefully we can pick up the trail again.” said Cassie.
Realizing that Zak was right about the time, they reluctantly turned around and started to head back. They briefly thought about trying to fly back, but decided against it, fearing that they would lose sight of the path in the air and become even more lost. Before they had taken even a single step, however, Wheezie picked up the sound of several people laughing, accompanied with an intermittent knocking sound.
“Wait. I think I hear our ball.” she exclaimed. “It sounds like someone found it.”
“Where?” asked Max.
“It’s coming from the other side of this tall grass.” replied Wheezie.
“Let’s see if we can find it.” Emmy suggested.
“Okay.” agreed her brother.
So, they started moving through the tall grass, following the sound of something being knocked around…
Off in a remote part of the valley, a group of young dinosaurs had gotten together to play. This group contained a multitude of various species, from Littlefoot, a long-neck, to Cera, a three-horn, to Ducky, a swimmer, to Spike, a spike-tail and Petrie, a flyer. The group even included Ruby, a fast-runner and Chomper, the only sharptooth currently living in the valley. They had decided to play toss the seed, and were dividing up into teams.
“Who wants to be captain?” asked Littlefoot.
“Me.” cried Cera, in a tone that showed a great deal of excitement and a bit of arrogance.
“I would like to be a captain as well. I would, I would.” said Ducky, in her normal, optimistic tone.
As soon as the team captains had been identified, the others declared their allegiances.
“Me want to be on Ducky’s team.” said Petrie, wanting to working with his swimmer friend.
“I will go on Cera’s team, on Cera’s team I will go.” said Ruby, knowing that Cera’s determination would count for something today.
“Then I think I’ll go on Ducky’s team today.” said Chomper, wanting to test himself against his temporary caretaker.
This left only Littlefoot and Spike.
“I think I’ll also join Ducky’s team today. Don’t take it personal, Cera, but she will probably need a little help today.” said Littlefoot.
“It looks like I got Spike. Oh goody.” said Cera, with a hint of sarcasm.
With the teams set, Cera and Ducky walked to the center of the area. Littlefoot bent his neck back and started the game by tossing the seed in between the two captains. As soon as the seed hit the ground, Cera ran for it, but despite her bigger size, she could not stop the more nimble Ducky from grabbing it first and pitching it up to Petrie, who caught it in midair before throwing it to Chomper, who threw it to Littlefoot. He tried to knock it past Ruby into their goal, but she managed to intercept it and pass it to Spike, who knocked it towards Cera, but Petrie managed to catch it and tossed it back towards the goal. Cera jumped up to try and stop it, but ended up hitting the ground face-first as the seed sailed over her head and into the goal. The seed bounced a few times before coming to rest near a patch of tall grass.
“I’ll get it.” Chomper called as he ran over toward where the seed had landed. When he got there, however, he froze, for he heard a rustling in the nearby grasses.
“What’s the matter, Chomper?” asked Ruby.
“I think I hear something.” he said, pointing towards the grass. Far off in the distance, the tops of the grasses could be seen swaying, as if something or someone was pushing it aside. A few seconds later, the others caught the sound of something moving in the grass.
“Me think we should just leave sound-maker alone.” suggested Petrie, fearing that whatever was coming might be dangerous.
“Don’t be such a scaredy-egg.” retorted Cera. “Whatever’s out there can’t possibly harm us. Besides, if it decided to attack us, it’ll stop it.”
“I don’t know about that, Cera.” said Chomper as he took in a couple of deep breaths. “I can smell something out there. Something that seems...”
“Seems what?”
“Seems to smell like its emitting a constant fire. I’ve never heard of something that smells like that.”
As he said this the group was slowly taking a couple of steps back until Cera got behind Chomper and nudged him forward.
“You go check it out. I’m sure whatever’s out there won’t want to mess with a sharptooth.”
The others stopped moving backwards at the sight of this.
“Oh no, not me.” He retorted as he got out from in front of Cera. “You go check it out. You’re older and stronger that anyone else here.”
“No, you check it out.” Cera shouted back.
“No, you check it out.” He answered.
“No, you.”
“No, you.”
“No, you.”
“I’ll go check it out.” Littlefoot said in an exasperated tone as he started to move forward. He stopped, however, when he saw a creature emerging from the brush. It looked like a yellow belly, but was much bigger. It had a blue head, a light green stomach area, and what looked like a red stone hanging from its neck. Looking to the side, he saw that this was not the only strange creature emerging, either. On the left emerged what seemed to be a pink yellow-belly, but it was a bit smaller, sprouted a tuff of yellow on its head and something clear hanging from its chest. But what surprised him most of all was the third creature, emerging from the right. At first, it seemed that it was a multi-colored yellow-belly with purple on one side and green on the other, but after a second, he realized that he was looking at two different heads. The creatures stopped moving and let out a gasp when they saw the group. Noting that none of them seemed to pose a threat at the moment, Littlefoot tentatively started walking forward to introduce himself, but was stopped when the blue one gave a cry of surprise and started running backwards before he seemed to vanish into thin air. The other creatures turned and started to run in the direction of the first one.
“Who were those guys?” they wondered…
A couple of minutes later, the dragons managed to catch up to Ord. It took a little while, however, before he calmed down enough to resume a visible form and carry on a conversation.
“Are you sure we’re safe?” he asked.
“I’m sure, Ord. It doesn’t look like they followed us.” consoled Cassie.
“What were they? They looked real scary, with their sharp-looking horns and even sharper-looking teeth.” he said.
“That was a group of dinosaurs back there.” answered Zak.
“How could you tell, Zak?” asked Wheezie.
“I remember seeing pictures of several of their species in the big storybook a couple of times.” said Zak.
“I didn’t know dinosaurs lived in dragon land.” noted Emmy.
“They don’t.” said Cassie.
“Are you sure about that?”
“Yes, I’m sure.”
“But…if those were real dinosaurs… and dinosaurs don’t live in dragon land… then… that must mean…” stuttered Emmy.
It took the others only a couple of seconds to realize her implication.
“We’ve gone back in time!” they all cried…
Back with the dinosaurs, they were having a little conversation about their recent encounter.
“Did any of you happen to see what kind of creature those guys were?” asked Littlefoot.
“Who cares? It’s not like there’s a whole herd of them somewhere around here.” answered Cera. “They would stand out.”
“Me just wonder how that blue one go so fast.” added Petrie.
“I’m sure we’ll find that out eventually, of that I’m sure.” said Ruby.
“Anyway, who wants to get back to our game?” asked Cera.
Since no one could come up with another thought on the encounter, they put it out of their minds for the time being and went back to their game…
Back with the dragons, another discussion was going on at that same moment. They were trying to decide their next plan of action.
“Do you think we should go back and meet them, or should we continue heading home?” asked Emmy.
“I want to go meet them.” said Max, without any hesitation.
“I don’t think that’s a very good idea.” commented Zak.
“Why not?” asked Max.
“Well…” said Zak, at a temporary loss for words.
“They looked harmless, and only one of them looked like it could fly, so we can take to the air if necessary.” said Cassie.
“Yeah.” added Max. “And besides, where else are we going to have the chance to interact with real dinosaurs.”
“Alright, I guess we can go meet them. But I doubt they’ll understand us. They probably speak a language of roars and grunts.” noted Zak.
As they started heading back toward the field, he added “Remember, let’s not take too long. We really need to get back soon.”
It took them only a couple of minutes to get back to the field where the dinosaurs were playing. The dinosaurs continued playing their game, but stopped when they noticed the creatures heading toward them again. This time however, they weren’t shocked by their appearance.
Feeling safe enough to try and talk with them, Littlefoot walked right up and said “Hi there.”
This caused the dragons to pause for half a second. They had wanted to see the dinosaurs, but they never imagined that they would be speaking the same language. After they recovered from the shock of this new development, they decided to go ahead and engage in conversation.
“HI. How are you guys doing?” asked Cassie.
This now caused a half-second pause among the dinosaurs. They hadn’t expected that these creatures were capable of speaking flat-tooth. They thought the creatures couldn’t talk at all, based on their last encounter. They quickly recovered and joined in the conversation.
“We’re fine. And you guys?” Littlefoot responded.
“We’re fine, too." they all said. After a couple of seconds, Wheezie asked "So, what are your names?”
“Well, my name is Littlefoot, and these are my friends Cera, Petrie, Ducky, Spike, Ruby, and Chomper.” He said, pointing to each one of them in turn. “What are yours?”
“My name is Wheezie, this is my brother Zak, and these are our friends Ord, Cassie, Max, and Emmy.”
Petrie then happened to notice Cassie’s necklace.
“What that shiny thing?” Petrie asked her.
“This is my dragon badge.” replied Cassie.
“Where you get that?” he asked.
“My mommy and daddy gave it to me when I was a very young hatchling.”
“That sounds like something Tria would do. Remember that shiny stone pile, Cera?”
“Don’t remind me.” she answered.
After that, the conversation slowly lapsed into further details of everyone’s previous adventures. It was probably at least half an hour before Emmy finally noticed how high the sun had gotten. Motioning towards it, she said “Well, as much as we enjoyed meeting you, we have to be going soon.”
Noticing that the conversation was drawing to a close and not wanting to leave just yet, Max quickly thought of something they could do in order to prolong their visit.
“So, what were you guys doing a few minutes ago?” he asked.
“We were just playing toss the seed. Do you want to join us?” asked Littlefoot.
“Sure, but only for a few minutes.” said Cassie.
“Love to.” added Wheezie.
But before they could start playing, they heard a high pitched scream coming from right behind them…
To be continued…
