The Tenryus couldn’t be crossed on foot. The line of extraordinarily tall mountains stretched out as far as the eye could see, and they were home to dragons and other related subspecies that were too big or vicious to ever be tamed, as well as horrifying beasts like the spotted bear and ashen panther, which could even devour dragons. Once upon a time, there had been a tunnel through them—the Earth Dragon’s Aorta—but the Kingdom of Arabakia had collapsed it, and it was now impassable. Short of borrowing the help of the elusive gnome race, it would never be possible to open that path again.
Sea routes were more practical, but every plan for exploration or colonization that went through the Coral Archipelago and Emerald Archipelago had ended in failure.
Every member of the tribe knew that great-grandma longed for a return to Grimgar. But it wasn’t only their tribe that had an emotional attachment to the continent.
It had been over forty years since the tribe had started a joint venture with a company to expand south of the Tenryus. The north of the Tenryus was Grimgar, but the south of the Tenryus was both Grimgar and at the same time not Grimgar. It had been controlled by the Lion God King, Obdoo, who commanded the seventeen beast god tribes, while the remnants of the dismembered Kingdom of Arabakia lived on the run. The tribe and the company had absorbed the survivors of the kingdom, defeated the Lion God King, and made peace with thirteen of the beast god tribes, establishing a united kingdom a little over two decades ago.
Yori hugged Karambit around the neck as she pulled her beloved winged dragon out of the hole. Of course, if Karambit resisted, then even with all her might, Yori wouldn’t have been able to make the dragon budge. If Karambit really didn’t want to come out, the dragon could’ve bitten her head. But Yori couldn’t let herself tense up because of that possibility, since dragons were sensitive to that sort of thing. Dragons were capable of love, but they could never love someone who feared them. A dragon tamer could never let themselves be awed, and at the same time they couldn’t underestimate their dragon. If they let themselves be overwhelmed, they had to expect resistance, and even if they showed their dragon love, they couldn’t count on being loved in return. Even if they were about to be devoured, they had to love their dragon to the very last moment. Only a dragon tamer who offered themselves up body and soul would be loved by the dragons.
Over at the neighboring hole, Riyo had already gotten onto Ushaska’s back. Back when her little sister had first begun holding Ushaska’s egg to warm it with her body heat, she’d been much smaller than her big sister, and had been clumsy and awkward at everything. In all honesty, Yori had worried that raising a winged dragon would prove too much for Riyo, and had repeatedly tried to convince her to give it up. But even though her little sister would do almost anything she asked—except when she asked Riyo to stop following her around—the younger girl had stubbornly refused.
Yori lowered Karambit’s head, had the dragon crouch down, and threw a saddle over its back. As she got into the saddle, Yori thought, Now that I think about it, that was when this all started. When she had started raising her dragon, her little sister had started training to build muscle. She’d trained under a man who’d come from who-knows-where to learn some strange martial arts, and she’d started reading a whole lot of books too. Then she’d started eating a ton. Before Yori knew it, her little sister had caught up to her in height. Then she’d quickly passed her. That was good, in some ways. All of that training had meant her sister had less time to follow her around. But then, after a good long time of not seeing her, Riyo would suddenly show back up. Yori might go to sleep in her own room, only to find her oversized little sister curled up next to her in a way that looked uncomfortable when she awoke.
“Karambit.” Yori leaned forward to hug the winged dragon gently around the neck and to whisper in its ear. “You’re all Yori needs. Despite all their talk about it, nobody else is serious about crossing the Tenryu Mountains, so the plan was going to be for you and Yori to go alone. And Yori really was fine with that.”
Karambit let out an indulgent squeal. The dragon’s eyes, with irises that were a complex mix of orange and green, stared back at Yori. Yori almost smiled, but then sat up straight.
“Yori! I’m going on ahead!” her little sister declared, making Ushaska’s winged front legs flap as she began racing down the slope. There were types of flying dragons that could take off vertically, but these winged dragons needed a running start in order to fly.
Ushaska took off.
Yori slapped Karambit gently on the neck and whistled. Karambit took off running. A dragon rider needed to do more than just hang on for dear life. Yori put her feet in the stirrups of her saddle and raised her hips. She had to match the dragon’s movements, controlling her body flexibly so as to never kill their momentum. But at the same time, she had to keep her core steady, so that she didn’t become unstable. There were running dragons, pure dragons, winged dragons, and more, but the differences between individual dragons went beyond just their species. Each one also had its own personality. Trying to make a dragon match its rider wouldn’t work. The rider had to match themselves to their dragon. Only once they accomplished that would the dragon begin to try and match their rider. The key things were its pulse and its breathing. If the rider could sense their dragon’s pulse and breathing, their movements would match naturally.
Yori loved the feeling when her winged dragon kicked off of the ground and soared into the air. In that moment, Karambit felt a pleasure like every cell in its body was buzzing at once, and in their many flights together, Yori had learned to feel it too.
“Okay, Karambit, the castle. You know where that is. We’re going to the castle first, so you don’t have to fly too high. That’s right. You know just what to do, Karambit.”
With a few words and a gesture from Yori, Karambit turned south. They were only around three hundred meters in the air. Riyo was up ahead, riding on Ushaska’s back. It felt like Karambit wanted to catch up to Ushaska.
“Oh, fine. Go on, Karambit. Catch up to them.”
When Yori spoke, Karambit started flapping faster. With each flap, the distance to Ushaska shortened.
Yori and Karambit, along with Riyo and Ushaska, had to visit the castle for a ceremony after this. It wasn’t necessary, but Yori and Riyo were direct descendants of their great-grandma, after all. That made them royalty in the united kingdom. In fact, the two of them were proper royals, referred to as princesses and everything. Two princesses were about to depart on a journey across the Tenryus on dragonback, and that was going to cause a bit of a stir. But they couldn’t just leave without saying anything, so they had to at least let the higher-ups in the united kingdom know. In their position, they couldn’t just say, “We’re going,” and let that be the end of it, so the decision had been made to hold a ceremony. Actually, it was apparently going to be a pretty major affair.
“It’s a pain in the backside, but we can put up with it one last time. Right, Karambit?”
Karambit let out a cry, and Yori laughed.
Karambit would soon catch Ushaska. Riyo glanced back. It was just for a moment, but her eyes clearly locked on to Yori. Even though Yori had been hoping to finally get away from her sister once she crossed the Tenryus into Grimgar proper.
Karambit passed Ushaska.
Yori wanted to leave her little sister behind. She was going to go get what her great-grandma had left in Grimgar, to make her elder’s wish come true. That was a certainty. Yori would definitely do it. But even if that was her intent, she had no guarantee that she’d be able to make it back alive. She was going to Grimgar, after all. She hadn’t wanted to bring her little sister along. She had a lot of problems with Riyo following her, so she’d tried to push her away. But the little sister acted almost as if she knew what her big sister was planning, and raised a dragon, and kept on getting bigger and stronger.
“Stubborn girl. You’re such an idiot. Oh, there’s no helping you!”
Even without turning to look, Yori knew that Ushaska was right on Karambit’s tail. Riyo had her eyes on Yori’s back. The little sister would try to protect her big sister no matter what. She wasn’t that same little Riyo anymore. She’d grown enough now that her big sister could trust her to watch her back.
Two people and two dragons crossed the Tenryu Mountains into Grimgar.
Yori didn’t think about what would be waiting for them there, because Yori was the one who’d been waiting. She’d been dreaming of Grimgar all this time. They were going, two people and two dragons, to make their dreams and wishes come true.