I once knew a man who thought in numbers, and in their symmetry found peace.

I once knew a man who was born to royalty, and gave it up to reach for the stars

I once knew a man who went to war, and learned the value of humanity

I once knew a man who dedicated his life to teaching, and has slowly lost his memory.

I once knew a man who found a deep duality of nature within himself, and was lost to it.

I once knew a man who saw the world, and now tries his best to make a difference.

I once knew a man who spent a lifetime seeking, and discovered nothing was missing.

I once knew a man who lived in constant pain, and learned to live above it.

The goal of this series is to create a story dealing with the process of discover each character must take as they become a Dragon Officer, and every story is dedicated to man, who in one way or another touched my life and left a permanent impression. This first story is dedicated to the man who thought in numbers.

Disclaimer- I do not own Dragon Knights, though Meilalugol is a figment of my imagination.

Meilalugol, White Dragon Officer in the Kingdom of Dragoon, daintily accepted the hand of the Regional Governor of Fui as she demounted the Darna. Glancing over the ceremonial soldiers standing at attention, she was once again reminded of just how much she loathed the fanfare that came with the title of Dragon Officer. Meilalugol gave a quick nod of approval, because that was required for a person of her standing, before she quickly strolled across the courtyard, heels clicking crisply across the stone pavement and long skirts fluttering around in the light breeze.

Behind her the sound of clinking armor, shifting dragons, and scraping of chests informed Meilalugol that the five Dragon Guards assigned to her for this trip where unpacking the Darna. She had always though it odd that the King always sent so many guards with her, especially seeing the king only insisted that the male Dragon Officer bring one or two guards on trips to outlining provinces. After all, she was nearly as good at sword play as Greeare, the Red Dragon Officer, and it an emergency it would not matter that her fighting style was a tad bit unorthodox. Maybe it was because she always insisted on traveling to do the audits on her own, instead of sending assistance like many of the White Dragon Officers in the past did. Or perhaps it was because her personality made her exceptionally good at creating diplomatic incidents.

As bad as the disadvantages of having to be trailed by a half dozen guards on these trips, they were all balanced by the fact King Carsis had insisted that she travel by Darnas. Riding a Darna meant it was possible to travel five or six times more distance each day than could be covered by simply walking. This speed of travel was a great relief because despite her insistence that she had to travel to do her own audits, Meilalugol loathed traveling. After all, it did not matter how thick the padding of her skirts were, her rump always ached after a long days ride leaving her desperately longing of a hot bath and her own bed. The only problem was Meilalugol didn't trust any of her staff to properly conduct on of these audits. Unfortunately, people insisted that things must be fancy for the arrival of the Dragon Officers. Thus they would throw balls, banquets, and concerts in Meilalugols honor, and the one thing the Meilalugol hated more than traveling was being forced to attend a party. But before any of the social events could begin, the governor always insisted that she take a full guided tour of his grounds.

For a reason that Meilalugol could not understand, the high families of each province tended to always give her a tour of the grounds. They had been interesting the first two or three times, and she had learned a lot from them. The problem now was she had visited each province once every decade or so for the last two hundred and three years. This meant she now had the tour memorized and could probably explain the background history for every painting in every governors mansion in Dragoon. And if the repetitiveness wasn't bad enough, the squire giving the tour today had a some what nasally voice that was driving her completely nuts.

"I apologize for my interruption, sir, but would it be possible to be shown to my quarters? It is not that I do not find the tour fascinating, but I have been traveling for several days to get here and I would really like the opportunity to fresh-in-up. Because of time constants I will have to begin the audit tonight, but I would like to be clean before a start sorting through the paperwork." Meilalugol brushed of some dust from her shirt sleeve to try to emphases her point.

"I am very sorry, Dragon Officer." The tour guide opened his mouth to speak but it was the governor who spoke first. "There is no need for you to apologize. It is I who has been inconsiderate. I should taken into account your long journey and realized the fact that you would be very tired after traveling so far. I will show you to the guest rooms immediately and order a bath run. I promise you will not be disturbed until dinner is served and after the meal I will make all of the arrangements to have all the information you need provided to you."

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Meilalugol sank into an armchair placed in front of a desk. The governor had insisted on dancing after dinner and that had left her feet aching and her head spinning from the heat of the ballroom. But there was not time to dwell of the pleasantries of visiting a royal official. Meilalugol had been given the large stacks of record and a temporary office in the great library in the home of the Governors brother-in-law. Now she had four days to pour over the available data to determine exactly where the fatal flaw in the regions budget was. It wasn't a task that she was really looking forward to, but being able to function a practically no sleep was a benefit of being a Dragon Officer. Acute hearing was another trait, one that she now using as she hear feet quietly making their way down the hallway leading to the library.

Meilalugol had been certain that the entire household had retired for the evening. She froze; ready to duck below the table or under the desk at the first sign of danger. After all the tax collector is never very popular, and she had quickly learned never to bring her favorite dresses on these fact finding missions because they had a habit of getting arrow holes in them. Thoughts quickly drummed through her mind. Maybe she should have insisted that one of the Dragon Fighters stay up with her instead of sending them all to rest. Perhaps she should have continued to wear her sword instead of leaving it by the door when she went to work. Slowly the door slid noiselessly open…exposing a small child instead of an assassin. Meilalugol almost fainted in relief.

"Hello, dear. Are you lost?" The child shook his head. "Isn't it a little bit late to be wondering around the house?"

The child shrugged. "I couldn't sleep."

"Well, dear, it looks like I will not be getting any sleep tonight would you like to keep me company." The child responded to Meilalugol's questioning by wandering slowly in the room and over to the big stuffed leather arm chair in the corner by the hearth. "How old are you, dear?"

"I am five right now, but I will be six in five months and 27 days. Oh, and my name isn't Dear. It is Alfeegi." Meilalugol was slightly surprised at the child response as she would have guessed his age to closer to three because of the child small size, but she reminded herself not all children grew as quickly as other. A fact that was especially true among children belonging to the dragon clan.

"Alfeegi, that is a very nice name, let me guess you were named after the Dragon Knight of Water from the 11th dynasty?" The child nodded. "It is a noble name and I am sure that you will live up to it. My name is Meilalugol, and I was named after my grandmother."

"That is nice." The child said off handedly, clearly focusing the bulk of his energy and concentration on lifting the heavy volume off of the table next to the chair on to his lap.

"Would you like me to read you a story?" Meilalugol had to smile at the slightly comedic sight of such a young child trying to move a book that appeared to be almost as big as he was.

"You are busy and Nana taught me to read a long time ago." The child put such an emphasis on the word 'long' that Meilalugol had to stop herself from giggling. With that the conversation lapsed into companionable silence which was only interrupted by the rustle of turning pages and the scratching of Meilalugol's pen as she took notes. But as with all children, silence only proves to increase their curiosity, and Alfeegi was no exception.

"What are you doing?" Meilalugol almost spilled her ink. Looking down at her elbow she discovered that the child some how slipped off the chair and stuck up behind her without her noticing. Now Alfeegi was standing on his tiptoes attempting to see over the desk and read her notes.

"I am afraid that you would probably find my work to be quite boring, Alfeegi. Even most adults do." Meilalugol was not quite sure how to explain accounting and paperwork to a child of that age.

"You do the same thing that my daddy does."

"Yes, I guess I do in a way do the same thing your father does. I am a national accounting official which is very similar to your father does."

"Then I know that your job is not boring, because I like numbers." Alfeegi burst into a grin the pushed on of the stools over to the desk Meilalugol was working on so he could climb on top of it. True to the child's word Alfeegi watched fascinated as Meilalugol scrolling handwriting attempted to make sense of the information on the page. After finishing the section on pension payments and finding nothing amiss, Meilalugol stated to leaf through the taxation record for the region. She only got to the second page of accounts when once again the silence was interrupted.

"Those numbers pages are wrong." Alfeegi stated proudly.

"What?" Meilalugol looked up slightly surprised at the child as she did not see anything amiss with the accounts or her own calculations.

"They do not match up."

"They fail to match up with what?" Meilalugol scanned the page again attempting to understand what the child saw that she was clearly missing.

"With the number pages that the merchants give us, silly. Daddy says that I shouldn't be looking at his number pages because they are not my business and that child my age should not be playing with numbers." Of course Meilalugol thought, as the child rabble on. The governor must have been skimming off a portion of the taxes. Meilalugol looked over the piles of accounting summaries and it became clear that taxation receipts were not among them. Perhaps she could get them in the morning. "I think number pages are a lot more interesting then the stick swords and model dragons that Daddy wants me to play with. That is why I made my own number pages. They are better than Daddy's because the numbers match up."

The last segment of the child's monologue stuck out to Meilalugol, after all young Alfeegi had just stated he may have collected the evidence she needed. "I would love to see your number pages. Would you mind showing me?"

"Really!" The child's eyes shown with excitement, clearly very few people were interested in viewing Alfeegi's treasure.

The small child scuttled away, but the quick patter of an excited child's feet could soon be heard returning down the hall. Coming through the door Meilalugol could now see that Alfeegi was clutching a child's diary to his chest. He proudly presented the book to the White Officer and scrambled back on the desk to better observer her page through his work.

"Alfeegi, your number pages are amazing." And to Meilalugol that statement was true, for there written in neat columns in the child's diary was the proof of the corruption she had long suspected. Corruption, that had gone on hidden for centuries but was now written out clearly the determination yet innocence script of a five year old.

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