Book Talk: Peter

I've introduced Jack's love interest, but now it is Franks turn. The only problem is, his is a more complicated story and the character I'm about to tell you about, well, they aren't going to hook up for some time, if at all.

The world my characters live in is a fantasy world of magic and science fiction tech... kind of a Star Wars-ish environment. But it's a future of our earth as we know it now. It's a future where all the old gods of numerous cultures all return from some far away place and are mad to find that people turned them into simple myths and legends. To punish the world they lowered some land into the oceans while raising other portions up, leaving only one large landmass instead of the differing continents. Many years after, humanity has re-established themselves on the plant but as humanity often does it's divided itself into 5 different nations. Each nation has some similarities to others, as well as their share of differences. Each book will follow our heroes as they have to go into each of these differing lands and experience their different cultures.

Anyway - the first book takes place in the heroes mainland of Idoless. In Idoless, gay relationships are illegal. Not punishable by death like one of the other nations, but still frowned upon by the general public and legally a person could be imprisoned or fined, not to mention what could happen if people took matters into their own hands. It's very much like America has been, and in some places still is. I'd like to go on, but for the sake of keeping this short(er) I'll leave it at that.

As I've already spoiled, Frank is gay, and will be taken on a similar journey as mine in terms of coming to accept himself. One of the big elements to help him along that journey is meeting Peter.

Peter is someone the Idolessian army encounters when going on their mission into Death's Province. They actually need him, because Death's Province is contained my a magical barrier, with only one entrance that moves around regularly. Peter lives in the wild and just happens to know where the door currently is.

Peter is kind of like Tarzan or Mogli from "The Jungle Book". He was raised in the wild by... sue me... bears. They aren't just everyday bears, there's more to them, but yeah, they're bears. Peter's past is a bit of a mystery. He's not feral, he's familiar with humans and human ways and can speak... as a matter of fact, when Frank first encounters Peter, he is singing the song "Someone to Watch Over Me". After the adventure in Death's Province is over, Peter comes back with the army and get's cleaned up. He get's some proper clothes and a haircut... as seen in the drawing on the left.

Peter is my voice of reason in the story. I often use him to say things I think but am afraid to say. Though he has the ability to communicate with people, he's not conditioned by society on the "proper" way to interact. He calls things as he sees them, and due to his unique upbringing, has a way of reading peoples body language and can often tell what someone is thinking, even if they won't vocalize it. He knows right away that Frank finds him attractive, but here's the kicker - he's just as attracted to Frank. When he makes his feelings known, it opens a door to Frank that he'd never known and doesn't know how to deal with.