The Gellboar

This is one of the older novelettes that I’m considering as one of the fourteen realms within the Arcane Agency. It’s set in a world where mages caused a traumatic dimensional battle in the recent past. So that would fit pretty well with the multiversal aspect.

The Gellboar

The Holy Mothers have decreed that only women can be trusted with the awesome powers of sorcery. But Dan can no more live without magic than he could go without breathing. Disguised as a woman, he struggles to provide for his sickly daughter through illicit magic. But his life of lies has drawn a darker eye than that of the Holy Mothers…

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Interestingly, this is a story that began as a dream. “I,” in the dream, was a man cross-dressing. Not in drag, per se, but really trying to pass as female in his professional life. “I” was teamed up with a woman who dressed as a man. We were protecting a child from a strange monster.

It’s hard to remember much else of the dream, with so many years gone by. However, in any story process there are adjustments. Especially so when beginning with a dream, which very much follows its own logic. I decided that the Gellboar, my antagonist, was an alien refugee from that other dimension. And, just as Dan was male passing as female, I decided the Gellboar should be a female passing as male. Or as much as an alien might approximate, anyhow.

This is probably one of the oddest things I’ve ever written. It’s interesting, though, how drag performance and cross-dressing are still so much in the news. This is as good a time as any to shine a light on my dark fantasy, The Gellboar.

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