Chapter 24: Family

「I... I’m certainly not human. I’m not an elf, and I’m not a dragon either.」

Clutching her own horns, Chryse pleaded from the heart.

「Rin‑nee... People who’ve traveled the world for decades, and travelers from far‑off lands no one’s even heard of—they all say they’ve never seen a human with horns like mine.」

Ah. So that’s it.
The reason Chryse followed me even over Nina’s objections.
It was simply that she wanted to ask this.

「Grandma. If it’s you—if it’s a dragon who’s lived thousands of years—do you know what I am...?」

Mother looked gently back at Chryse, whose eyes were filled with a desperate, hidden longing.

「Chryse‑chan. I’m sorry. I... don’t know how to answer that.」

At that answer, disappointment colored Chryse’s eyes.

「But you know, you’re my son’s... and Nina‑chan’s child. Even if that isn’t the usual way life works. Isn’t that enough?」

As if to savor Mother’s unhurried words, Chryse closed her eyes.

「—Yes.」

Then, after a moment, she nodded firmly. Her expression made it plain she hadn’t truly accepted it, but it seemed she could swallow it to some extent.

「Now then, this time you all tell me. What has my son been up to until now?」
「Leave it to me.」

To match Mother’s bright voice that shifted the mood, Nina accepted at once.

「...Go easy on me, okay.」

I said it with a wry smile, but Nina paid me no heed.

My partner, who knows most of my life as a dragon, began, with great relish, to spill every last blot on my record.


* * *


「Ah, that was fun. I wonder how many years it’s been since I had this much fun.」

The next morning. After spending the night at Mother’s mountain, everyone had hit it off and wore smiling faces.

—Except for me, utterly drained after my mortifying past had been laid bare.

「Yeah. That was fun.」
「Me too!」

Nina and Chryse were delighted to hear stories from before they met me.

「Hey, can we come visit again?」

When Nina went so far as to say that, I widened my eyes in surprise. It’s rare for her to warm up to someone this much.

「That might be difficult.」

What came back was a refusal.

「Why?」
「Because it’s about time I leave this place.」

She must not have expected to be turned down. To Nina’s saddened question, Mother answered as if gently advising her.

「Centered on one’s lair, the area you can fly in a day—that is a dragon’s territory. Another dragon entering that range signifies hostility, but...」
「Our village sits smack in your territory, Mother.」

Even on my wings it’s only minutes away. For Mother it would be an even shorter hop.

「The dragons around here are mostly green and blue, and it’s a bit dangerous for a young dragon.」
「That’s the first I’ve heard of it!?」

I felt the blood drain from my face.
In this world there seem to be five kinds of dragon: white, black, green, blue, and red—also called ice dragons, swamp dragons, poison dragons, thunder dragons, and fire dragons. White is the smallest and weakest; red is the largest and strongest. That said, even a white dragon is threat enough to ordinary creatures.

「As you are now, you’ll be fine. Against a fully grown fire dragon—say, one who’s lived about a thousand of your years—almost no one would try to challenge you, including we fire dragons ourselves.」

I suddenly realized it: Mother’s build is nearly twice mine.
Conversely, it meant I was more than half her size.

If we fought in earnest, I’d probably lose eight or nine times out of ten... but that also means there’s one or two chances in ten I could win. At the very least, it wouldn’t be a one‑sided trampling; it would be a fight.

In that case, no matter how greedy a fire dragon may be—no, precisely because of that—they won’t go picking fights with other fire dragons. There’s plenty of land all over the world that’s far easier to take.

「So you see, I have to leave here. Even for parent and child, overlapping dragon territories cause all sorts of trouble. And your peculiar nest is only going to get bigger and bigger, isn’t it?」
「...But still.」

Wouldn’t that be like driving Mother out?

「This is simply how it is. A fire dragon watches over its child until it’s fully grown, and when the time comes, moves on. I received this place the same way. Now it’s your turn. That’s all.」

Mother told me this as I stared at her, still unsatisfied.
Hearing those words, it struck me.

「...Understood.」

I had watched over the people of Hiiro, knowing they would someday slip from my hands.
But Mother was the same.
Was she now tasting the same joy and loneliness I had felt?

When we stepped out from the volcano, Mother’s gigantic body burst from the cave like a rocket. Captivated by the beautiful, firework‑like sight, I suddenly felt something off.

「Take care—!」

When Chryse shouted and waved broadly, Mother, as if in reply, circled twice, thrice in the air and flew northward.

「...Why was it so cool in there?」

But my attention was fixed on that sense of wrongness.
The great hall where Mother had been waiting was oddly low in temperature. Right—magma should have been boiling there, hot enough that ordinary creatures couldn’t endure it.

And yet it had been cool enough for Nina and Chryse to pass the night comfortably, and the magma that should have been flowing was nowhere to be seen.

—No way.

A nasty premonition ran through my chest. That couldn’t be. Dragons aren’t supposed to have lifespans. There’s no way that was a sign of Mother’s decline...

Just as I reached that thought, far off, Mother’s figure flying across the sky tilted unnaturally—

And then a tremendous shock struck us.

The volcano before our eyes erupted.

『Sooorry—!』

Turning to face backward in midair, Mother called out in a clear, carefree voice.

『I forgot I’d closed the volcano’s main valve—』
「It’s not a gas stove, you know!?」

Seeing her like that, she looked like she could live ten, even twenty thousand years without breaking a sweat.
Beating my wings to shield Nina and the others from the falling volcanic bombs, I shouted back at her.