"Randall!" Hershel shouted. He had made it to solid ground, but his best friend, just a heartbeat behind, was too late. Randall leaped towards him but with the ground falling from under his feet, he couldn't make it. Clutching the Mask of Chaos in one hand, he desperately extended the other, hoping that he could somehow reach the edge. He couldn't, but Hershel managed to grab his hand before he fell. Even as he did, however, the "solid" ground shifted, nearly making him lose his grip. Randall dangled above what now appeared to be a bottomless pit. Another Azran trap, surely.
"Just drop the mask! Give me your other hand, Randall!"
Randall looked up at his friend. He almost did as he asked, but he was loath to part with the mask after all the trouble it was to get it, and besides, he wasn't sure Hershel could pull him up alone. Instead he swung his legs toward the rocky edge of the ledge and attempted to "walk" up it. Of course, this failed quickly, sending some rocks tumbling into the abyss and making his situation even more precarious. Now Hershel was halfway over the edge, his grip on a protruding root slipping. "Randall, I can't hold on…!"
"I was so close… I'm sorry, Hershel. I let you down," Randall apologized. He knew this would be the end. If Hershel tried to save him, they would both fall, and he couldn't let that happen. Someone needed to tell his girlfriend… "Tell Angela I'm sorry!"
"I can pull you up! Now give me your other hand!" Hershel insisted.
It was too late for that, Randall knew. He replied, "Take the mask. It's yours. You must solve the last puzzle, Hershel!"
Hershel was still straining to pull his friend to safety, but it was a losing battle. Even as Randall tried to hand him the mask, his hand slipped.
And Randall fell…
And he fell…
The last thing he saw was his friend's grief-stricken face, the last thing he heard his horrified shout.
"Randall!"
And he fell…
And everything went dark.
=^w^=
Craggy Dale was an isolated, peaceful little farming village. There were few people, but the ones there were treated each other like one big family. They didn't often see any outsiders, but when they did encounter strangers, they did their best to make them feel welcome. Such was the case when a teenage boy with reddish-brown, spiky hair washed up on the riverbank.
It was Firth, a man with so much facial hair he could be mistaken for a tree, who found him. The placid farmer gasped when he saw the boy lying face-down in the mud and rushed over. He rolled the teen onto his back and was relieved to see that although he was unconscious, he was still breathing. Firth lifted the boy and, as an afterthought, the strange mask lying beside him—a prized possession?—to take him back to Craggy Dale with him. He'd need some kind of medical care, surely, and being in those soggy, muddy clothes wouldn't be good for him.
=^w^=
"Where...am I…?" The messy-haired adolescent blinked open his eyes to an unfamiliar place. It seemed to be a cozy room, with wooden walls, floor, and furniture and earthen-toned rugs and curtains.
"Oh, good, you're finally awake!" Was that a...tree...talking to him? No, it was a person, but a very hairy one. In answer to his question, the man added, "This is Craggy Dale. The name's Firth. What's your's, son?"
"... I don't know," the boy admitted.
"Don't remember? Do you remember anything? Family, friends, where you're from?" Firth inquired.
He frowned for a moment, struggling to remember… "No, nothing." A sense of despair crashed over him.
Firth seemed to sense this feeling, for he offered, "Well, you can stay here until you do remember. I could use a hand around the farm."
"Do you really mean it?" the boy implored, hope in his eyes.
"Sure, Lando!"
"Lando?"
"If you're going to be sticking around, I've got to call you something, right? How's that?"
The newly-dubbed Lando slowly nodded. It almost seemed to fit, somehow.
"Lando it is, then! Come, now, everyone wants to meet you!"
And so "Lando" settled down as a farmhand in Craggy Dale, where he would spend the next eighteen years, until he received a mysterious letter addressed to "Randall Ascot".
A/N: Poor Randall. Anyway, the writing prompt for this was "You fell in a hole to _"
Yes, I actually used a writing prompt and didn't make it the title. Aren't you proud? Even though I still can't title...
I have no idea where the name Lando actually came from. I've just seen it used to refer to Randall and… Welp.
Review please? And feel free to leave a prompt as well, since I've only got one left at the moment! That'll be a fun one though, it'll probably be total crack as well as a crossover.
Edit: Thank you, guest reviewer SS, for pointing out the minor issue with "he was loathe". That was actually a typo that autocorrect didn't catch because loathe is also a word, but I've fixed it now! Also, thanks for telling me the Japanese names, and for your lovely comments!