I’ve always thought dragons and lawyers have been badly treated.
When I see a dragon, it’s usually being attacked by St George and skewered
with a lance. Lawyers are criticised for defending people the public have
condemned already in their own minds.
I decided to write a fairy tale about a dragon who becomes a lawyer to help
the sentient beings who’ve not been treated well in the fairy tales of yore.
Of course, this can only take place in a parallel universe to our own where
those fairy tale characters try to make the best of things for themselves.
When they need or want legal help, Wendy Draig is now there for them.
Wendy is the Dragon Lawyer who tilts the Scales of Justice in favour of the
underdog, undercat, and every other member of the underclass.
Buy the book here for $1.99 USD
This is Chapter 1
The towns called The Town, The Next Town, and The Next Town But One were at the western end of a plain that stretched for hundreds of miles across the Land of Fair E. The towns were surrounded by large forests that covered the lower slopes of the Mountains of the West. The towns were close together as though there was safety in numbers. On the other side of the mountains was a port called The Port where ships from all around the world docked to deliver their cargoes.
Wendy had arrived in The Town two days prior to the start of the trial of LRR Hood vs BB Wolf. She had to organise herself and find out some information. Wendy had read her brief though she didn’t have time to talk for long with her client, the accused wolf. She listened to his story and agreed that he must tell the truth. She learned the wolf’s name was Timothy, and she also met his wife Tina and their children, Harold, Alex, Jasper, and the youngest, a three-month-old baby called Heather.
Tim had long light-grey fur, blue eyes, and protruding teeth, and sounded as though he had the flu. Otherwise, he looked like any other wolf you’d meet in your local high street or woods. Because the prosecution’s case was based on hearsay, innuendo, and rumours with no actual evidence, Wendy felt confident in her ability to defend her client. Wendy believed the prosecution wanted to stoke up prejudice against Tim and influence the jury that way.
In the courtroom, the public galleries were full of people talking and pointing towards the judge’s chair and the separate area where the jury would sit. The clerk of the court called the lawyers to attend the court. The jury filed in, some of them waving to the public gallery as they sat on their wooden benches.
Wendy placed her bag on the rickety desk provided for her use and retrieved three papers outlining her questioning, along with refutations of points she was confident the prosecution would make. She believed that the prosecution’s argument relied solely on one line of reasoning and one biased witness.
‘The court will rise,’ stated the clerk of the court, ‘and be upstanding for Judge Scrivener.’
Everyone stood on their feet, including the saturnine prosecutor Peter Perry, who was at a desk ten feet away from Wendy. She glanced at the dock where Tim had just arrived, accompanied by two warders. Wendy had asked Tim to appear non-threatening and keep low down, so that he appeared diminutive and harmless.
The judge wore a white wig and a long red robe. Glasses were perched on the end of his nose. He raised a grey eyebrow when he observed Wendy, and she smiled back at him.
‘Ladies, gentlemen, and others of the jury, I hope you understand the terrible case we’re hearing today. The Big Bad Wolf…’
Wendy stood up.
‘Objection, Your Honour.’
An astonished intake of breath swept around the room, followed by mutterings of ‘She be dragon …’
Wendy looked towards the humans who’d said this and nodded her head. Two little pigs and three bears looked towards her and grinned their appreciation.
‘What is the nature of your objection, may I ask, Wendy? Sorry, your surname is Draig, yes?’
‘It is Draig, Wendy Draig, and as some people here have correctly observed, I be dragon. The nature of my objection relates to the usage of those two three-letter adjectives you used, Your Honour, in relation to my client. They are entirely prejudicial, and their usage is likely to turn the jury against my client from the beginning of this trial. This is discrimination against a minority and that is against the law.’
‘But, Miss Draig, those are his names, are they not?’
‘Indeed, they are not, Your Honour. My client’s name is Tim, Mr Tim Wolf, and his loving parents baptised him with that name when he was a young cub.’
‘Really?’ said Judge Scrivener.
‘Really,’ said Wendy, nodding to emphasise and scanning the jury to verify whether any of this was registering with the six humans, two goblins scratching their heads, one dwarf without a beard, one smiling bear, one pig wearing yellow gloves, and the Fairy Godfather, who was wearing a very sharp pin-striped three-piece suit with a dark-blue tie.
‘Well, I stand, or more accurately, sit corrected,’ continued Scrivener. ‘But regardless of his name, he’s accused of a heinous crime. I ask Mr Perry, the Prosecuting Counsel, to call his first witness.’
‘His only prosecution witness, Your Honour,’ replied Wendy, winking at the jury before sitting down. In the gallery, the little pigs patted their trotters together and oinked their appreciation. Mama Bear whispered into Papa Bear’s ear and he gave a slow, solemn nod.
‘Indeed,’ said Peter Perry, ‘but a witness who is accurate, calm, and collected. I call Miss Little Red Riding Hood to the witness stand.’
A young woman carrying a parasol skipped to the stand and glared at Tim. She was around thirty-five years old and heavily made-up under her bright-red headwear. Miss Hood wore a light-green dress and long white gloves made from lace. She placed a wicker basket she’d been carrying on the floor.
‘You can put down the parasol in here, young lady,’ said Scrivener, ‘there’s no sun inside.’
‘There’s no sun in my life now,’ wailed Little Red Riding Hood. ‘Not since that nasty, horrid, big, bad wolf ate my dearly beloved granny with those horrible, gnashing teeth.’
‘Objection,’ said Wendy, standing up, ‘the witness can’t just release a stream of abuse towards my client like that. No one has asked her a question yet.’
‘Sustained,’ said the judge, nodding at Wendy. ‘Mr Perry, please keep your witness under control and ask her to stick to the salient facts of the case, instead of releasing a stream of invective towards the accused. Her outburst might be prejudicial if she insists on being regarded as a reliable witness.’
‘He ate Granny,’ said Little Red Riding Hood, pointing at the wolf before bursting into tears and dabbing at her eyes with a long, blue handkerchief.
Wendy shook her head and scanned the jury before sitting down. By scratching their armpits, the goblins exhibited their lack of interest. Miss Hood’s emotional display had left the dwarf looking horrified. The humans were smiling and trying not to look at the witness. The Fairy Godfather leaned back in his chair and smirked at Miss Hood.
Peter Perry asked Little Red Riding Hood some questions, and she provided a theatrical performance of some depth, outlining how she’d skipped through the forest on a lovely summer’s day only to find her granny missing from her house and a wolf in her bed instead. A wolf wearing a bonnet belonging to her granny. A wolf with big teeth who’d said ‘All the better to eat you with’ when questioned why his teeth were so big.
Chapter 2 will appear on Substack on 6th May
Julian Worker Fiction Writing 