Part 27: The Best Laid Plans

Alistair was half-asleep. He'd spent the day before drilling the new White Warden recruits, and he was worn out. He decided he'd just go and do some meditation in the new building they'd put in to grow vegetables. They called it the sun room, though it was really a modified greenhouse.

Apparently, according to one of the Tranquil who had come to assist them, dragon feces made for the best of fertilizers.

Alistair didn't want to know how they figured that out.

He dressed lightly in breeches and a tunic, padding along the corridors in soft boots. He dashed the short distance to the sunroom, and found one of the comfortable benches spread throughout it.

Before long, he found himself drifting into that clear, fluid state between sleep and wakefulness. He pondered on being a dragon, wondering what the greater purpose in it had been.

He fell deeper into meditation, and began to reflect on what he might teach, if he were really a dragon of Justice, not only in the fade.

Then he realized he was trapped. His wings were crammed against him, and his head was wedged tightly into something that smelled like roses and… shit.

With a bellow, he jerked himself free, thrashing and jerking until glass shattered and he could open his eyes.

He found himself standing in the middle of the decimated sunroom with his wings tucked awkwardly up into the air and his head under a walkway because he was wedged into the courtyard.

"Vel…is…tar...uh!" he shouted mentally. "You said it was only in the Fade and now I'm stuck!"

People were running out of the fortress already, staring and pointing in awe at the massive golden dragon that seemed, to their way of thinking, to have appeared out of nowhere.

"Well," Velistara said, standing in her human form with her hands on her hips. "I guess I was wrong."

Alistair growled at her. "That's no help! Get me out of here!"

"You will have to go into hibernation again," she explained.

"Meditation," he said.

"As you say," was the answer.

He scowled again. "I'm stuck, how am I supposed to meditate when I'm stuck?"

"You will figure it out. If it is any consolation, it is easier in your dragon form."

He growled at her again. "You're heartless sometimes. Which is pretty bad for the so-called Dragon of Compassion."

"I am practical, Alistair." But her grin gave the lie to her words.

Alistair focused and soon found himself slipping into that pre-sleep state again. He shifted back to his normal form and stood up, glaring at his wife. "Figure it out, will I?" he asked, ignoring the gaping people around them.

"I didn't know!" she said. Then as he started towards her, she picked up her skirts and fled towards the fortress with a squeal.

"They're like children," one of the Tranquil said.

"Yeah," one of the White Warden initiates said. "It's awesome!"

And so began the Order of the White Wardens… devoted to Justice tempered by Compassion.

It hadn't turned out the way they expected… it was even better.