Chapter 302
After that, I had several more conversations with the gryphon.
And through those interactions, I learned a few things.
In many subcultures, four-legged creatures that could communicate with humans often disliked letting people ride on their backs.
And when you thought about it, that was only natural.
The animals that carried humans—like horses or oxen—were usually livestock. It wasn’t strange for intelligent creatures to see the act of carrying a human on their back as degrading, as if they were lowering themselves to the level of a domesticated beast.
And in those kinds of stories, most humans who heard that explanation would nod in understanding. After all, the image of one person riding on the back of another person lying flat on the ground was undeniably bizarre.
But for some reason, the gryphon didn’t seem to care about that at all.
When I asked, "May I try riding on your back?" the gryphon knelt down immediately and lowered its wings to make it easier for me to climb up—like it was the most natural thing in the world.
Did gryphons simply not associate kneeling with submission the way humans did?
That didn’t seem to be the case.
Every time the gryphon greeted me, it bent its knees respectfully.
But fully kneeling... That seemed like something it could do if necessary, but probably not something it would casually display in front of a human.