Caput Draconum
The mist curls like a living thing before him on the path. His sturdy boots brush through it and it slips caressing tendrils across his broad, muscular chest and arms.
He's garbed in a long tunic of strong colors and fine material that probably costs more than his rent for the year. The heavy signet ring on his finger clinks as it brushes his expensive chain mail and the hilt of his sword, hanging at his hip.
Carrot blinks. Where is he, and where did he get this excellent armor? Perhaps he has stolen it, and then been afflicted with amnesia. Oh, dear. What will the Commander say?
His feet continue carrying him through the mist. As they seem unlikely to halt without intervention, he lets them continue. There's some lightness up ahead, but it's a friendly light, not alarming in the least. Carrot emerges into a clearing. Before him stands a citadel, an elegantly formed expanse of white stone.
Its presence doesn't surprise Carrot; rather it seems to make sense in a way he can't quite put his finger on. Of course there should be a citadel. The smooth, clean lines of the stone are restful and oddly familiar in a way the ersatz architecture of Ankh Morpork never is.
The breeze flutters his tunic as he opens the heavy oak door. Inside the courtyard, the cobblestones are clear and the grass green. He kneels to touch the grass, marveling. He hasn't seen real grass and not weeds since coming to the city.
The door to the Great Hall is standing open invitingly, and he ascends the steps to the castle proper with a light air. There's nothing to fear, he knows. Nothing could touch him here, where he is master.
Inside the hall, soft light fills the cathedral ceiling. It's tinged deep shades of azul, plum, and goldenrod by the tall stained glass windows that fill the far wall. His footsteps off the smooth stone floor echo into the empty space. The light seems to be centered around a pedestal of white marble in the center of the room, and on the pedestal…
Carrot's mind is clear and very sure. With the easy confidence he was born to, he crosses the hall and lifts the crown.
There's no thunderclap, no singing of a heavenly choir…why should there be? the action is simple, as accustomed to him as the shape of the crown itself. It's in his blood, after all.
Except the coronet, and the room, is blurring oddly. The peace is masked by a ringing in his ears—
That resolves into words. "Captain! The city does not pay you to sit on your behind all day!"
Carrot jerked awake, blinked at the red face of Commander Vimes.
"Sorry, sir. Must have dozed off."
"Well, stop it. You're on Traffic. Got a pileup on Treacle Mine Road."
Carrot stood up. What had he been dreaming of? Something about…fairy tales?
Not important.