Interview With The Dragon

Yvonne Eve Walus is a novelist, wife, mother, educator, and project manager, living in New Zealand. Her fascinating story, Interview With the Dragon, published by Echelon ,is now available on Fictionwise

Read an excerpt:

Dragons. The word has always evoked dread in humankind.

Persecuted by adventurers and would-be heroes, we-dragons-were eventually declared extinct. And man rejoiced the death of yet another of Earth's predators. Gigantic reptiles. Fire breathing. Bloodthirsty.

That's one of the reasons why I'm granting this interview. An exclusive tale, straight from the country's top security prison for women.

I need to set the record straight. We are not gigantic and certainly not reptiles. We are not the bloodthirsty ones. As to the fire breathing-but I'm getting ahead of myself.

In the twentieth century, dragons were part fantasy, part legend, but mostly forgotten. I guess it was because man finally began to feel guilty: about the dodo, about the African mountain lion, about the rainforests. And about slaying the dragons. It's one thing to paint St George smiting something that spouts fire, it's quite another to see species after species hunted into oblivion.

So that's the past. And today? Today, the fate of the entire planet is up to me.

The wake-up call sounds and my thoughts return to the present. The interview. My heart beats faster as I pull the black scarf off my eyes and let my pupils adjust to the artificial light that glares at me twenty-four hours a day. I stretch carefully, one limb after another, fold and unfold my wings ten times, then begin the sit-ups. I hate exercising as much as the next girl. Being pregnant, however, leaves me no option but to stay fit.

You may also visit her blog, A novelist speaks on books, the universe, and everything, or her website.