Fly on the Purple Dragon

I have a secret. On weeknights, long after I’ve finished my button-downed day, I unbutton my dress shirt, make dinner and then fly to the sky’s edge. Based on my title, and my description so far, you might have arrived at any number of erroneous assumptions about this post and me. You might have thought I was talking about flying on a fun, new airline. You might have thought, and I’d forgive you, that I was talking about some crazy new drug. And you might have thought I’m talking about hitching a ride on a massive purple beast. You’d be wrong about all three of these. Wait! Yeah, I’m talking about riding on top of a purple dragon named Tengri.

A pirate I met introduced me to Tengri, who was very sick at the time. I managed to cure the dragon by traveling between two different worlds, just like any other Thursday night. Then Tengri became my loyal and faithful friend — several thousand feet in the air.

There’s an aura of elegance that surrounds Tengri both in the air and on land. His purple body shines a little as it gracefully flies through the air. Even the way I summon the dragon has a touch of class: I blast a trumpet in upward, and he swoops down to gingerly place me on his back.

Then we flew all over the world’s exotic locales last night. We soared over shimmering desert sands featuring palm trees and an oasis. From the sands, we made a wrong turn into a nightmarish cemetery with ghastly ghouls. Frightened, we flew away using Tengri’s speed bursts, where he collapses his wings, twirls and shoots forward, to ascend a giant volcano. Now the volcano wasn’t the wisest choice, but we couldn’t resist hovering over as it spewed molten lava all over the environment. He and I are both stuck in adolescent phase, after all, where we think fire is cool. Happily, we escaped without a scrape or a burn, and cooled off on an island where winter never ends, where your eyebrows freeze in seconds.

I bet that, after reading this far, you think I’m crazy. I might be. But I think you should fly on a dragon too. The flight might take you and your life to new heights.

In case it isn’t obvious, the video game I’m talking about is Ni No Kuni. This post is not a review of that game. This post is my impression of Tengri’s beauty and elegance in flight.