ooc: application
Dec. 1st, 2013 05:03 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
drageridderName: Mhairi
Personal Journal:deathwailart
Contact: aim&plurk: deathwailart | email: starkhavenmalt [at] gmail [dot] com
Other Characters Played: n/a
Character: Tanis
Age: 27
World Information: all found here (linked due to length)
History:
Tanis personal history prior to the story
Tanis was raised communally with other children in Jormsen, in the northern region of Stjarnacado, her mother hardly noteworthy and indeed more or less a mystery to Tanis save for the fact that she'd already had several children and would have several more, all half-siblings to Tanis, such was her mother's duty. Her father, Hákon, is a Dragon Knight too and travels with a band of nomads; he is one of the last of the human noble bloodlines as records are kept to give them something to hold on to and he sired Tanis at seventeen before he received his training as a Dragon Knight as Jormsen is the last place where it can be done. He agreed to sire a child and to be made aware of who she was so that she would know her birthrights and so when Tanis was born, word was sent out.
Tanis has two children, a son and daughter, twins who she had only to be allowed to become a Dragon Knight. She has no idea who they are - if she saw them, she wouldn't be able to pick them out and she has no desire to know them whatsoever. They were her duty so she gave birth to them, named them and that was all.
In her youth, Tanis spent time apprenticing with many of the elders - she spent time hunting, working for a blacksmith, farming, healing and of course studying what lore she could although she lived in fear of elven raids, beginning to hate them for what they had done along with the practical skills needed to survive with rudimentary sword training. Her training as a Dragon Knight started when she was thirteen after she proved she was good enough to the elders by being exemplary in all her apprenticeships and in her lessons and so she went to what had once been Jormsen Castle, now referred to as the Fangs. Her training involved gruelling hours, sleep deprivation, hunting for her own food, forced starvation and being tortured, pushed to her limits time and time again to near death along with her continued education in magic, fighting, herbs and traps etc.
As mentioned above, Tanis had to have children with a young man in the village, a blacksmith apprentice named Torrin, and it was only after she had given birth and the twins had survived a week (Jormsen tradition) she was permitted to continue to the last part of the training. Torrin was one of her very few friends and that was the reason she asked him to father her future child, because she trusted him and believed it wouldn't be as traumatic with him. Her pregnancy did come with one unexpected side effect - she actually sought out her birth mother and became close to her, the closest thing she would have to a confidant before she left Jormsen and met Ilea and Oran. The elders in charge of the training kept her alive with magic to carve her heart out, replacing it with a dragon's heart, the heart coming from a fire dragon. Surviving this, her wound was burned shut by her own hand, leaving it blackened and painful before she was made to eat her own raw human heart to symbolise the world she had left behind. After that, at the age of eighteen, she was officially a Dragon Knight and spent the next years of her life patrolling Jormsen, protecting it from attacks by the wild creatures and animals until she was summoned by Ilea, elven princess of Tishlen who had seen Tanis on scouting missions.
The story begins when Tanis, a dragon warrior from a northern village closest to the northern elven kingdom is told she must aid the elven princess Ilea in discovering what the dwarves are doing as they have not been heard from in some time and there have been strange sensations that seem like earthquakes beneath the cities and outlying areas. Tanis goes along with Ilea to investigate as her guard and spends most of her time actively resenting the elf and doing her best not to be drawn into conversation of any sort. Along the way they pass through Borea, a wood nymph forest where they meet Oran who eventually goes with them to investigate saying that she has a right to do so; to the surprise of Tanis, Ilea is happy to let her come along. They travel to the entrance to the dwarf empire in the north and head down, investigating - at one point Ilea is almost gravely wounded but Tanis saves her life claiming it is her duty, shrugging off Ilea's profuse gratitude - until they find out that the dwarves are attempting to hatch dragon eggs. Tanis almost goes on a rampage, wanting to take the eggs back as the humans worshipped them but she is restrained as it could spark something even worse.
During the journey Tanis and Ilea argue often and it comes to a head when they have sex after a fight that turns physical. Tanis is extremely conflicted about her feelings for the elf (Ilea too and neither of them are helped by Oran's probing questions) and though they get to know each through more arguments, they still won't admit to anything and most of their relationship is angry sex and hurt feelings with Oran being the one to keep the peace between them when things get sour.
They return to the surface to report their findings to Ilea's family and court but their words aren't believed. The three leave again to speak to human and nymph elders but no one believes them either. At this point, Ilea is summoned to return home as she is meant to grow up and marry but she refuses and is disowned by her royal family and says that Tanis and Oran are all she has now.
It's around this point that Tanis and Ilea actually talk about their feelings and when Oran asks to return to Borea to undergo the Purification, they act upon their feelings, Tanis admitting that she's come to care about people for the first time in her life even if it terrifies her because she finds it hard to be objective when she worries about Ilea and Oran. Ilea admits that to love a human is considered one of the most shameful things in elven society but that she doesn't care. They support Oran through the ritual which she passes, being marked an adult in their society, given talismans and supplies to help the trio on their journey. (She also informs Tanis and Ilea that they are technically married in nymph society because they'd had sex in the forest. Tanis and Ilea counted themselves lucky they are not nymphs.)
At the same time as the Purification, the dwarves hatch a dragon only it's a wraith that they use to open an ancient tome of magic, forbidden and sealed away by the dragons. But the dwarves used it and created orcs by experimenting on their own people, orcs that overpowered them and escaped along with the wraiths and unleashed hell upon Stjarnacado, spreading pestilence and sickness in their wake. Not long after leaving Borea, Tanis, Ilea and Oran make camp and when she's patrolling she's attacked by a band of elves who wish to end their quest: she kills them, the first time she has ever slain anything other than an animal as well as killing her own kind, considered to be a grave crime should it be discovered. This strains the relationship between her and Tanis - Tanis tries to help her by talking about how she's killed her own kind too and that it isn't a big deal but they argue about humans and elves, nearly coming to blows. Not long after this they come across nomads lead by Hákon, Tanis' father, and Brynjar, his fated one. Tanis has a crisis upon meeting him, acting coldly towards Ilea only to be somewhat horrified at how close he is with elves; the nomads he leads aid the elven resistance of the South.
Tanis has always had complicated feelings on the subject of her father due to his noble blood meaning she had to have children to become a Dragon Knight and that it was still almost banned due to the fact that she was a woman. Meanwhile Hákon is upset about the fact he was not allowed to take her away to live in the South; he reveals that the North is corrupt and wants to follow their version of the old ways and bans much news nomads would bring to the settlement instead of allowing them to move on. Tanis refuses to believe him and they argue often so he tries to talk to Ilea. Brynjar though is the one to make her see sense and she agrees to get to know her father - as Brynjar pointed out, every single one of them has known enough pain in their lives and that none of them know how much longer they'll have left with the evil that threatens their land.
Tanis decides that they need to visit the islands dotted around the continent to search for the lost dragon lore and anything that might stop the orcs and wraiths but in the meantime, the dwarves blame the humans and war is unleashed upon the world. In other places, like the South the elven resistance movement begins fighting, allying with the nymphs to do what they can to repel the forces of evil that are combating their land. The West then decides to go to war with the North causing the first elven civil war to begin and many elves of the East begin to flee to the islands some of the humans have now populated; the western elves are allied with the dwarves and there is massive damage to many places as the dwarves and their creations pour out from under the ground. In the South they abolish slavery entirely and fight alongside the humans, setting themselves apart as an entirely new nation. Everyone returns to Jormsen which is a shambles as the elders still reveal nothing, saying that the rumours of humans and elves in other lands are lies but finally the people of Jormsen rebel and turn from the elders saying that the old ways are at an end. The elves of Tishlen agree to a temporary alliance, promising that they will treat the humans as their equals in the conflict. Those who cannot fight flee to Borea to hide but many join the elves or follow Hákon, Brynjar, Tanis, Ilea and Oran in their nomad force that soon comes to resemble a small army. Oran rallies her people to do what they can in healing the hurts of the land to stop the damage from being permanent. The nymphs agree and the forests and rivers seem to come alive as they join any who will have them in healing. They use a great magic of old to make Borea an impenetrable fortress so that only those with pure hearts might enter and find refuge.
With no answers in sight on the mainland with the war grinding on for years, the decision is made to move to the East to take ship but they are cut off by an unprecedented army of elves, dwarves, wraiths and orcs they have to fight. In this conflict Hákon is slain to the horror of Brynjar and Tanis but he says he can die happy if she ends this. Brynjar urges Tanis to go saying that he will lead their forces as best he can for as long as possible. She promises to find an end to the war as they take ship with the few remaining Eastern elves looking for aid. The journey seems hopeless, many islands populated with creatures, some humans and elves. There even Tanis is tempted to remain until the war on Stjarnacado burns itself out but she comes to her senses with the aid of Ilea and Oran and they keep searching. All seems lost until they come to a point where they find a strange smog that covers an entire island, an island of bones that looks as if it is made of shadow itself. Ilea and Oran beg Tanis not to cross it but her dragon heart moves her and she passes through to a different realm, hazy and indistinct but importantly, where the dragons retreated to so they would not be killed. The elves had lied about killing them but they had sufficiently weakened the dragons instead and so long as the dragons remained, they would attack the humans and kill them off until all were gone. The dragons left to save the humans and to await a time to gather strength and return.
Tanis manages to convince the dragons to come back to the realm to help stop the war before the world is ripped apart for their magic is enough to turn the tide with the final battle taking place in Jormsen. She is knighted their by Ilea after Ilea's parents, the king and queen agree she is a hero and she is the first human to be knighted in centuries, helping to bring about better times for the humans at long last although there is still the promise of war and danger as many are still unhappy about this change in the elven kingdom and even the humans do not trust this sudden and new truce between the races. The dwarves too are silent and rumours still persist of strange things going on beneath the earth that trouble even the dragons cannot discern. Still, there are treaties of peace and equality drawn up with Brynjar voted as the first human king since the wars that crushed their people so many centuries ago. Tanis and Ilea are instrumental in that and though already married by nymph traditions, they become engaged after Tanis' knighting and then attend a ceremony in Jormsen before Solace and the other dragons before finally marrying in the eyes of both their people in the Fangs, determined to live out their remaining time together in peace.
Canon Point: End of written history
Personality:
I'd like Tanis to remember her previous stay in DH and that had a huge influence on her personality, even though she's coming from later in her canon.
Tanis has lived a life where those who are not hard, do not survive. She is cold, blunt and critical of those she thinks of as weak and to Tanis, to care for someone or something beyond a sense of duty makes one weak; she cites it as a reason the humans failed because they spent too long protecting their villages from elves and dwarves instead of the Dragon Knights of old massing to become one great force to attack, instead letting themselves fall one by one. Tanis has never been raised with love so she doesn't really understand it which is part of why her conflicts with Ilea confuse her so much - Ilea talks about doing things she doesn't want to do out of love, talks about family. Tanis doesn't understand any of that. You do your duty, you do your job, you do it because it's expected, not because you'll be letting someone down or hurting them. In fact, Tanis views love as the ultimate weakness and scoffs at the foolish notion of sacrificing yourself or risking the greater cause for the sake of love. Ilea's insistence on asking Tanis how she feels about something often causes arguments; Tanis also genuinely believes that elves are incapable of real feeling due to what they did to the humans and she will never trust an elf.
In terms of her outlook on life, she is nothing if not pragmatic - later in her life, when she stops looking at everything in such a way, it's a real turning point but at this moment in her life she will do whatever is necessary to do her duty. There aren't rules when you fight - Tanis knows how to fight with honour and everything else but if kicking someone in the crotch or throwing sand in their eyes gets her a win? Then she'll do it.
Tanis also believes that she has lost a part of her humanity in the eating of her own human heart; she doesn't fit in so well with the villagers around her because she's one of the very few to survive the training and to be something entirely apart from them.
Tanis doesn't know how to ask for help. She has lived in a society where you work as a community but have to be self-sufficient and her years of being alone as a Dragon Knight have only exacerbated that trait. She's the type of person who really would cut off her nose to spite her face because she sees asking for help as a weakness, even worse, it's admitting you're weak and that is something she has never been allowed to be. She has been raised with duty. She has been trained to be strong, to be hard, to be able to cope with anything the world could possibly throw at her.
Unsurprisingly, given how the elves behave in Stjarnacado, Tanis is very racist against them at this point in her life and only goes along with Ilea because she will endanger Jormsen if she does not. With time and actually getting to know Ilea, she starts to realise that not all elves are as she viewed them but this takes a few years of travelling and fighting and at her current canon point, she'd quite like all elves to fall on a sword.
Whilst not unemotional, Tanis has learned to push her emotions down so that they don't get in the way. She looks for the most beneficial (to her and her goals) outcome and goes for it and refuses to justify her actions afterwards. She can be impulsive if someone or something gets her blood up - when she heard what the dwarves were doing she almost went on a misguided rampage that would have spelled disaster if Ilea and Oran had not held her back. That being said, she will acknowledge that she can see why someone feels uncomfortable or upset by her choices but that it wasn't relevant to the matter at hand. On her own, later, her choices sometimes keep her up at night, even as she tries to push them down and not think about them - at this point in her life, Tanis has never willingly opened up about her feelings and the one 'discussion' comes during a furious argument with Ilea when she's so incensed that she lashes out, bringing up incidents that are nothing to do with the argument they're having because she has kept them bottled up too long. Often, if she feels she's getting close to this point, she leaves to patrol the perimeter or to go do some sort of task until she's cooled off. She doesn't like to talk about her feelings at all.
However, Tanis is lonely. There's a difference between being alone and being lonely and while Tanis says she likes to be alone, it's because that's the default state of being for her. Tanis doesn't quite understand why she sometimes wishes she knew others like her or that she could meet people who would understand how she feels to be an outsider within her own people (Ilea is the one who will come to fit this role) and talk about it. There are so few Dragon Knights that they are sent all over and Tanis is the only one to stay nearby her village due to her being the last of the royal human blood until her children are grown so she hasn't had the chance to talk to them much. Despite the minimal role of her father, she feels she owes him a debt of gratitude for allowing her to continue on with her training by reappearing in her life, even if she's sure he's dead. The only people she feels
None of this is to say that Tanis doesn't dream. She does. Tanis dreams of dragons, of flying and her dearest wish as a little girl, the thing that started her on her path to become a Dragon Knight were frequent dreams where she turned into a dragon and set fire to the elven kingdoms, freeing humans. Even if her dreams aren't prophetic, they linger for her and she puts a great deal more stock in dreams than someone might think and she enjoys dreaming because it's an escape from her life - in her dreams, she's as close to happy as she's ever been.
Although she says she is a Dragon Knight and nothing more, Tanis is intelligent and can speak well if she wanted to, it's just that a) she isn't Ilea who is a princess and knows certain social graces that Tanis lacks and b) she views it as a waste of time better spent doing the task at hand. Nonetheless, if she can be drawn into discussion, she can be very articulate and she's well versed in the lore the humans have left on the dragons and their history. She has a sense of humour too but growing up the way she did, her sense of humour is not always well received, being a bit of a deadpan snarker and delves into gallows humour and black comedy; the good moments of her training as a Dragon Knight involved them all developing that sense of humour in order to be able to cope with their lives. As the humans worship dragons, Tanis is devout and will murmur prayers or invocations when she does many things, often under her breath around outsiders.
It's through her friendship with Oran and her relationship with Ilea that Tanis changes a great deal. She learns compassion and that elves are just like humans - some are good, some are bad and that they aren't all the awful people from the stories and her early experiences. It's through them that she can overcome so much of her earlier years of being raised and accept that fact that she's allowed to have feelings and on top of that, that she's allowed to express them. She has much more of a reason to live which leads to her being far less reckless when she fights because she's less of a deathseeker and she learns to laugh and joke and have fun.
As time goes on and they finally meet up with the nomads - a mostly elven force from the south that joined up with human nomads captained by her father, Hakon, and his partner, Brynjar - she changes again. She's able to interact with elves who a) remembered going to war with the dwarves against humans and nymphs and disagreed with it then and b) risk their own life and limb because they object to what's going on. She's amazed to learn that slavery isn't standard the way the elders of Jormsen claimed and she stops seeing elves as just elves and sees them as people. That isn't to say she doesn't still have her problems, especially given how the southern elves are more privileged and have gained a great deal as a result of the war but she can put a lot of her hatred to one side and work with them.
Her relationship with Ilea finally becomes healthier. It isn't without problems caused by the increasing tension in Stjarnacado but they actually admit that they love one another – this is a huge step for both of them. It's considered a huge taboo for an elf and human to have a relationship but at this stage, Tanis and Ilea are the only homes the other one has and together with Oran and the nomads, they're some of the only people trying to do anything constructive about the monsters plaguing Stjarnacado.
Finally meeting her father is a hurdle – there's a lot of hurt feelings on both sides, mixed messages and angry words but talking to his partner Brynjar makes her realise she either has him on a pedestal or blames him for things beyond their control and they start to bond, Hakon teaching her leadership skills and encouraging her and Ilea to stay together. Being with a group of people , she starts to open up and even if she's still uncomfortable with feelings, she's actually better at admitting them instead of stamping on them until they inevitably turn into anger and frustration.
There's a new vulnerability in that she was lied to for years about the very people who were responsible for looking after her and raising her due to the beliefs they wanted to perpetuate. Jormsen will feel a lot less like home and it will cease to be the thing that defines her and some of her sense of duty slips and changes; she wants to protect people, not a place. The world is a much darker and more dangerous place than before: there are wraiths and orcs, monsters never before seen in Stjarnacado that spread pestilence and darkness across the land but she isn't as tied so strongly to the north. It's her people and other innocents that she cares about more and she is increasingly convinced that the only way to fix the situation is to actually find the dragons. After witnessing Oran's purification (where she set herself on fire to prove her devotion to Stjarnacado) and the pure faith it takes to do it, she actually does believe with her heart and soul that the dragons are still alive.
Of course given that she spends several years of her life at war fighting dark creatures that never seem to stop there's a weariness to her and she'll always remain haunted by some of what she has seen and the loss of her father in allowing her, Ilea, Oran and a small force to take ship in the east to sail away for answers almost destroys her. She spends the majority of the trip as an empty shell, barely functioning as they drift from island to island in search of answers only to find vague clues. She slips into a berserker rage - something she had done only previously in battle on the mainland - and it takes Ilea to calm her down, the most serious confrontation the two have ever had. It's when some of their party go to find herbs that they find others and that gives Tanis hope to carry on with the mission and restores her faith; there are people, her people, alive and well, living good lives on the island and soon they have more help than ever before in finding their goal: the dragons. In the end, it's her faith that actually allows her to be the one to find the dragons on a desolate island and convince them to return to Stjarnacado and end a war as well as allowing her to be brave enough to be a voice and authority in uniting the kingdoms in peace once the war has come to a close.
Skills and Abilities:
Living a hard life, Tanis knows how to be self-sufficient. Here are a list of non-magical skills she has:
♘ Trap-making; whether for food or against foes, Tanis knows how to construct traps from whatever happens to be lying around although she does not use this in battle unless an ambush is being set
♘ Survival skills; her training means that she is able to survival with minimal provisions in the wild, in all elements
♘ Herbalism; all humans are taught herb lore from an early age to help prevent illness from spreading - she knows a great deal about plants and can make salves, potions and poultices
♘ Poisons; related to the above, although using other such things (i.e. spider venom) she can make poisons, often supplied to Ilea to coat her arrows
♘ Combat-training; Tanis can wield a sword and shield or a two-handed sword as well as daggers and can provide combat magic to support other party members; she is most comfortable now with a sword in one hand and magic in the other unless she's dual wielding magic.
♘ Hunting; Tanis is a supremely skilled hunter with a bow as well as knowing how to set and bait traps along with being able to track her quarry
In addition to this, she has a very good memory for places she has been which aids her tracking - this is vital due to the thick forests of Jormsen but especially in the winter and when she needs to, she's more than capable of navigating using the stars if she knows them.
In Stjarnacado, the magic humans possess came from the presence of the dragons as the dragons created Stjarnacado and all that was in it. Magic is such a part of the humans that it's basically their life energy and though they don't have the strength they once had, the dragon hearts still being present in some as well as a continued worship of the dragons by the human population has allowed magic to remain. As a dragon knight, Tanis has spent years learning magic to hone it as a battle skill with fire magic being her strongest as she possesses the heart of a fire dragon. Throughout her training and again during the war that she was forced to fight, Tanis is most proficient in using her magic when it comes to combat. She is able channel her magic into her body to make her a more effective fighter as well as using magic that gives her an edge in combat and mastery of the elements.
Most of her initial magic is split into categories:
♞ Elemental: fire, ice, earth and lightning (fire and lightning are her strongest.) Tanis can summon, manipulate and wield all of these including being able to breathe fire, coat weapons and combine them such as creating storms or meteoric attacks. Having the heart of a fire dragon means that with sufficient concentration, fire does not hurt her at all and often, when she loses her temper, this magic comes to life, flashing across her fingertips and making her and her surroundings much warmer.
♞ Restoration: this is magic Tanis is least skilled with as she relies much more on her herbalism. Still, she is able to heal others by way of manipulation of their life energy to force the healing process. Some wounds are beyond her as she does not channel her own energy the way a true healer can.
♞ Arcane: often referred to as energy magic, this involves manipulating her own life energy or that of others when in combat. She's better at drawing out her own energy to attack a foe but she can equally drain energy from a foe to channel into herself or an ally.
Until the war unleashed by the dwarves, humans hadn't fought anyone with magic since before they united into one empire along with the dragons meaning they were at a huge disadvantage as the creatures the dwarves unleashed were magic too. Tanis learned how to use her magic to disrupt the energy of her foes as well as extending her own to help cover her friends and allies in battle better.
Through meditation with Brynjar, Tanis finally learned how to channel a berserker rage that dragon knights could use - she feels next to no pain in this state and after a long period of initial calm she loses herself to her emotions and becomes violent and vicious, lashing out and attacking anything in her way. She cannot tell friend from foe in this state until someone incapacitates her and it pushes her to the limit - dragon knights can die from these rages and it drains her so completely she usually collapses once she's done. Tanis has only done this a handful of times and only gives in to it in the most extreme of situations.
Despite all her training, Tanis is still human. Her healing has limits and the dragon's heart enhances her magic but it does not give her super strength; if she were to die, the heart would keep itself alive and only keep her body in condition so that the heart will remain healthy. Tanis is only a good archer when it comes to hunting - she has tried it in battle but is far too slow at it to be competent. She also can't cook. She's a little sensitive about it seeing as her food comes out raw or burned. Time with the nomads has taught her a bit more but she'd still rather do the hunting and skinning rather than the actual cooking.
First Person Sample:
So I am to be returned to these lands again? How many years has it been here? Or is this like the work of the crystal where it was but days here and months to my mind? [It's a slightly older Tanis that smiles at the rune, more assured, at peace and dressed rather elaborately for her in a fine gown, her armour ceremonial.] I realise that you do as will but this world was saved was it not? I assumed this was why I was allowed to return home, to my wife.
Speaking of which - bringing me here on my wedding night? You couldn't have waited a few more hours? Or maybe a day, perhaps two? I thank you for allowing me to at least say goodbye to her this time but... [She sighs wistfully, her smile becoming a smirk.]
For those who do not know me, I am Tanis, dragon knight of Jormsen. For those I knew before, I suppose I should apologise for disappearing as I did - I trust you will fill me in on what has taken place in my absence?
Third Person Sample:
Sometimes she wondered if it had all been a dream. That perhaps she had fallen and hit her head on a rock after catching it knotted tree roots she had failed to see and that she lay in a stupor upon the cold, hard ground with snow beginning to cover her. Or that perhaps she had failed in her test to become a dragon knight and that the afterlife was not as the stories said - a great hall with all who had ever lived, all laughing and singing, free of pain and sorrow for all eternity - but instead the sum of every hope and dream you might ever have in this life. Yet she awoke with the warmth of Ilea pressed to her side and she knew it wasn't a dream.
It was still strange to smile so often but she was getting used to it. She wasn't the same woman who had departed Jormsen three years ago, angry and bitter, resentful of the elven princess she'd been sent to guard. Three long years with scars that had healed as nature intended without healers to work on them immediately and things she would never forget. Three years in which to find and lose her father. To find a wife. Not that they were married in the eyes of their own people.
Yet.
"Mmm, is it time to get up?" Ilea asked, rubbing the sleep from her eyes as she yawned and stretched, arching her back.
"Not yet, go back to sleep," Tanis replied, leaning down to place a kiss on Ilea's forehead. Solace save her, Ilea was over a hundred now and a dragon's heart had beat beneath Tanis' chest for ten long years.
"Should I be gathering my strength?"
The teasing lilt in Ilea's voice made her smile before she arranged her features in a stern frown. "Sleep."
"In Tishlen we would be kept apart before the nuptials," as ever, Tanis could feel her heart skip a beat at those words, "the longing makes it all the sweeter."
"Well here we always liked to take every opportunity that we could. Now go to sleep."
"You're going to be the bossy one."
There was a quiet huff from Ilea when Tanis snorted and smoothed the elf's hair from her face, fondly tracing one pointed ear with her finger. They'd earned this. They'd alerted an army to the dangers they had found, they'd fought a war against darkness and a civil war between the elven kingdoms at the same time, they'd sailed east and returned with dragons at their backs. They'd brought their people together after centuries of pain and bloodshed.
By Solace had they earned this and she planned to enjoy every minute of it.
Personal Journal:
deathwailart Contact: aim&plurk: deathwailart | email: starkhavenmalt [at] gmail [dot] com
Other Characters Played: n/a
Character: Tanis
Age: 27
World Information: all found here (linked due to length)
History:
Tanis personal history prior to the story
Tanis was raised communally with other children in Jormsen, in the northern region of Stjarnacado, her mother hardly noteworthy and indeed more or less a mystery to Tanis save for the fact that she'd already had several children and would have several more, all half-siblings to Tanis, such was her mother's duty. Her father, Hákon, is a Dragon Knight too and travels with a band of nomads; he is one of the last of the human noble bloodlines as records are kept to give them something to hold on to and he sired Tanis at seventeen before he received his training as a Dragon Knight as Jormsen is the last place where it can be done. He agreed to sire a child and to be made aware of who she was so that she would know her birthrights and so when Tanis was born, word was sent out.
Tanis has two children, a son and daughter, twins who she had only to be allowed to become a Dragon Knight. She has no idea who they are - if she saw them, she wouldn't be able to pick them out and she has no desire to know them whatsoever. They were her duty so she gave birth to them, named them and that was all.
In her youth, Tanis spent time apprenticing with many of the elders - she spent time hunting, working for a blacksmith, farming, healing and of course studying what lore she could although she lived in fear of elven raids, beginning to hate them for what they had done along with the practical skills needed to survive with rudimentary sword training. Her training as a Dragon Knight started when she was thirteen after she proved she was good enough to the elders by being exemplary in all her apprenticeships and in her lessons and so she went to what had once been Jormsen Castle, now referred to as the Fangs. Her training involved gruelling hours, sleep deprivation, hunting for her own food, forced starvation and being tortured, pushed to her limits time and time again to near death along with her continued education in magic, fighting, herbs and traps etc.
As mentioned above, Tanis had to have children with a young man in the village, a blacksmith apprentice named Torrin, and it was only after she had given birth and the twins had survived a week (Jormsen tradition) she was permitted to continue to the last part of the training. Torrin was one of her very few friends and that was the reason she asked him to father her future child, because she trusted him and believed it wouldn't be as traumatic with him. Her pregnancy did come with one unexpected side effect - she actually sought out her birth mother and became close to her, the closest thing she would have to a confidant before she left Jormsen and met Ilea and Oran. The elders in charge of the training kept her alive with magic to carve her heart out, replacing it with a dragon's heart, the heart coming from a fire dragon. Surviving this, her wound was burned shut by her own hand, leaving it blackened and painful before she was made to eat her own raw human heart to symbolise the world she had left behind. After that, at the age of eighteen, she was officially a Dragon Knight and spent the next years of her life patrolling Jormsen, protecting it from attacks by the wild creatures and animals until she was summoned by Ilea, elven princess of Tishlen who had seen Tanis on scouting missions.
The story begins when Tanis, a dragon warrior from a northern village closest to the northern elven kingdom is told she must aid the elven princess Ilea in discovering what the dwarves are doing as they have not been heard from in some time and there have been strange sensations that seem like earthquakes beneath the cities and outlying areas. Tanis goes along with Ilea to investigate as her guard and spends most of her time actively resenting the elf and doing her best not to be drawn into conversation of any sort. Along the way they pass through Borea, a wood nymph forest where they meet Oran who eventually goes with them to investigate saying that she has a right to do so; to the surprise of Tanis, Ilea is happy to let her come along. They travel to the entrance to the dwarf empire in the north and head down, investigating - at one point Ilea is almost gravely wounded but Tanis saves her life claiming it is her duty, shrugging off Ilea's profuse gratitude - until they find out that the dwarves are attempting to hatch dragon eggs. Tanis almost goes on a rampage, wanting to take the eggs back as the humans worshipped them but she is restrained as it could spark something even worse.
During the journey Tanis and Ilea argue often and it comes to a head when they have sex after a fight that turns physical. Tanis is extremely conflicted about her feelings for the elf (Ilea too and neither of them are helped by Oran's probing questions) and though they get to know each through more arguments, they still won't admit to anything and most of their relationship is angry sex and hurt feelings with Oran being the one to keep the peace between them when things get sour.
They return to the surface to report their findings to Ilea's family and court but their words aren't believed. The three leave again to speak to human and nymph elders but no one believes them either. At this point, Ilea is summoned to return home as she is meant to grow up and marry but she refuses and is disowned by her royal family and says that Tanis and Oran are all she has now.
It's around this point that Tanis and Ilea actually talk about their feelings and when Oran asks to return to Borea to undergo the Purification, they act upon their feelings, Tanis admitting that she's come to care about people for the first time in her life even if it terrifies her because she finds it hard to be objective when she worries about Ilea and Oran. Ilea admits that to love a human is considered one of the most shameful things in elven society but that she doesn't care. They support Oran through the ritual which she passes, being marked an adult in their society, given talismans and supplies to help the trio on their journey. (She also informs Tanis and Ilea that they are technically married in nymph society because they'd had sex in the forest. Tanis and Ilea counted themselves lucky they are not nymphs.)
At the same time as the Purification, the dwarves hatch a dragon only it's a wraith that they use to open an ancient tome of magic, forbidden and sealed away by the dragons. But the dwarves used it and created orcs by experimenting on their own people, orcs that overpowered them and escaped along with the wraiths and unleashed hell upon Stjarnacado, spreading pestilence and sickness in their wake. Not long after leaving Borea, Tanis, Ilea and Oran make camp and when she's patrolling she's attacked by a band of elves who wish to end their quest: she kills them, the first time she has ever slain anything other than an animal as well as killing her own kind, considered to be a grave crime should it be discovered. This strains the relationship between her and Tanis - Tanis tries to help her by talking about how she's killed her own kind too and that it isn't a big deal but they argue about humans and elves, nearly coming to blows. Not long after this they come across nomads lead by Hákon, Tanis' father, and Brynjar, his fated one. Tanis has a crisis upon meeting him, acting coldly towards Ilea only to be somewhat horrified at how close he is with elves; the nomads he leads aid the elven resistance of the South.
Tanis has always had complicated feelings on the subject of her father due to his noble blood meaning she had to have children to become a Dragon Knight and that it was still almost banned due to the fact that she was a woman. Meanwhile Hákon is upset about the fact he was not allowed to take her away to live in the South; he reveals that the North is corrupt and wants to follow their version of the old ways and bans much news nomads would bring to the settlement instead of allowing them to move on. Tanis refuses to believe him and they argue often so he tries to talk to Ilea. Brynjar though is the one to make her see sense and she agrees to get to know her father - as Brynjar pointed out, every single one of them has known enough pain in their lives and that none of them know how much longer they'll have left with the evil that threatens their land.
Tanis decides that they need to visit the islands dotted around the continent to search for the lost dragon lore and anything that might stop the orcs and wraiths but in the meantime, the dwarves blame the humans and war is unleashed upon the world. In other places, like the South the elven resistance movement begins fighting, allying with the nymphs to do what they can to repel the forces of evil that are combating their land. The West then decides to go to war with the North causing the first elven civil war to begin and many elves of the East begin to flee to the islands some of the humans have now populated; the western elves are allied with the dwarves and there is massive damage to many places as the dwarves and their creations pour out from under the ground. In the South they abolish slavery entirely and fight alongside the humans, setting themselves apart as an entirely new nation. Everyone returns to Jormsen which is a shambles as the elders still reveal nothing, saying that the rumours of humans and elves in other lands are lies but finally the people of Jormsen rebel and turn from the elders saying that the old ways are at an end. The elves of Tishlen agree to a temporary alliance, promising that they will treat the humans as their equals in the conflict. Those who cannot fight flee to Borea to hide but many join the elves or follow Hákon, Brynjar, Tanis, Ilea and Oran in their nomad force that soon comes to resemble a small army. Oran rallies her people to do what they can in healing the hurts of the land to stop the damage from being permanent. The nymphs agree and the forests and rivers seem to come alive as they join any who will have them in healing. They use a great magic of old to make Borea an impenetrable fortress so that only those with pure hearts might enter and find refuge.
With no answers in sight on the mainland with the war grinding on for years, the decision is made to move to the East to take ship but they are cut off by an unprecedented army of elves, dwarves, wraiths and orcs they have to fight. In this conflict Hákon is slain to the horror of Brynjar and Tanis but he says he can die happy if she ends this. Brynjar urges Tanis to go saying that he will lead their forces as best he can for as long as possible. She promises to find an end to the war as they take ship with the few remaining Eastern elves looking for aid. The journey seems hopeless, many islands populated with creatures, some humans and elves. There even Tanis is tempted to remain until the war on Stjarnacado burns itself out but she comes to her senses with the aid of Ilea and Oran and they keep searching. All seems lost until they come to a point where they find a strange smog that covers an entire island, an island of bones that looks as if it is made of shadow itself. Ilea and Oran beg Tanis not to cross it but her dragon heart moves her and she passes through to a different realm, hazy and indistinct but importantly, where the dragons retreated to so they would not be killed. The elves had lied about killing them but they had sufficiently weakened the dragons instead and so long as the dragons remained, they would attack the humans and kill them off until all were gone. The dragons left to save the humans and to await a time to gather strength and return.
Tanis manages to convince the dragons to come back to the realm to help stop the war before the world is ripped apart for their magic is enough to turn the tide with the final battle taking place in Jormsen. She is knighted their by Ilea after Ilea's parents, the king and queen agree she is a hero and she is the first human to be knighted in centuries, helping to bring about better times for the humans at long last although there is still the promise of war and danger as many are still unhappy about this change in the elven kingdom and even the humans do not trust this sudden and new truce between the races. The dwarves too are silent and rumours still persist of strange things going on beneath the earth that trouble even the dragons cannot discern. Still, there are treaties of peace and equality drawn up with Brynjar voted as the first human king since the wars that crushed their people so many centuries ago. Tanis and Ilea are instrumental in that and though already married by nymph traditions, they become engaged after Tanis' knighting and then attend a ceremony in Jormsen before Solace and the other dragons before finally marrying in the eyes of both their people in the Fangs, determined to live out their remaining time together in peace.
Canon Point: End of written history
Personality:
I'd like Tanis to remember her previous stay in DH and that had a huge influence on her personality, even though she's coming from later in her canon.
Tanis has lived a life where those who are not hard, do not survive. She is cold, blunt and critical of those she thinks of as weak and to Tanis, to care for someone or something beyond a sense of duty makes one weak; she cites it as a reason the humans failed because they spent too long protecting their villages from elves and dwarves instead of the Dragon Knights of old massing to become one great force to attack, instead letting themselves fall one by one. Tanis has never been raised with love so she doesn't really understand it which is part of why her conflicts with Ilea confuse her so much - Ilea talks about doing things she doesn't want to do out of love, talks about family. Tanis doesn't understand any of that. You do your duty, you do your job, you do it because it's expected, not because you'll be letting someone down or hurting them. In fact, Tanis views love as the ultimate weakness and scoffs at the foolish notion of sacrificing yourself or risking the greater cause for the sake of love. Ilea's insistence on asking Tanis how she feels about something often causes arguments; Tanis also genuinely believes that elves are incapable of real feeling due to what they did to the humans and she will never trust an elf.
In terms of her outlook on life, she is nothing if not pragmatic - later in her life, when she stops looking at everything in such a way, it's a real turning point but at this moment in her life she will do whatever is necessary to do her duty. There aren't rules when you fight - Tanis knows how to fight with honour and everything else but if kicking someone in the crotch or throwing sand in their eyes gets her a win? Then she'll do it.
Tanis also believes that she has lost a part of her humanity in the eating of her own human heart; she doesn't fit in so well with the villagers around her because she's one of the very few to survive the training and to be something entirely apart from them.
Tanis doesn't know how to ask for help. She has lived in a society where you work as a community but have to be self-sufficient and her years of being alone as a Dragon Knight have only exacerbated that trait. She's the type of person who really would cut off her nose to spite her face because she sees asking for help as a weakness, even worse, it's admitting you're weak and that is something she has never been allowed to be. She has been raised with duty. She has been trained to be strong, to be hard, to be able to cope with anything the world could possibly throw at her.
Unsurprisingly, given how the elves behave in Stjarnacado, Tanis is very racist against them at this point in her life and only goes along with Ilea because she will endanger Jormsen if she does not. With time and actually getting to know Ilea, she starts to realise that not all elves are as she viewed them but this takes a few years of travelling and fighting and at her current canon point, she'd quite like all elves to fall on a sword.
Whilst not unemotional, Tanis has learned to push her emotions down so that they don't get in the way. She looks for the most beneficial (to her and her goals) outcome and goes for it and refuses to justify her actions afterwards. She can be impulsive if someone or something gets her blood up - when she heard what the dwarves were doing she almost went on a misguided rampage that would have spelled disaster if Ilea and Oran had not held her back. That being said, she will acknowledge that she can see why someone feels uncomfortable or upset by her choices but that it wasn't relevant to the matter at hand. On her own, later, her choices sometimes keep her up at night, even as she tries to push them down and not think about them - at this point in her life, Tanis has never willingly opened up about her feelings and the one 'discussion' comes during a furious argument with Ilea when she's so incensed that she lashes out, bringing up incidents that are nothing to do with the argument they're having because she has kept them bottled up too long. Often, if she feels she's getting close to this point, she leaves to patrol the perimeter or to go do some sort of task until she's cooled off. She doesn't like to talk about her feelings at all.
However, Tanis is lonely. There's a difference between being alone and being lonely and while Tanis says she likes to be alone, it's because that's the default state of being for her. Tanis doesn't quite understand why she sometimes wishes she knew others like her or that she could meet people who would understand how she feels to be an outsider within her own people (Ilea is the one who will come to fit this role) and talk about it. There are so few Dragon Knights that they are sent all over and Tanis is the only one to stay nearby her village due to her being the last of the royal human blood until her children are grown so she hasn't had the chance to talk to them much. Despite the minimal role of her father, she feels she owes him a debt of gratitude for allowing her to continue on with her training by reappearing in her life, even if she's sure he's dead. The only people she feels
None of this is to say that Tanis doesn't dream. She does. Tanis dreams of dragons, of flying and her dearest wish as a little girl, the thing that started her on her path to become a Dragon Knight were frequent dreams where she turned into a dragon and set fire to the elven kingdoms, freeing humans. Even if her dreams aren't prophetic, they linger for her and she puts a great deal more stock in dreams than someone might think and she enjoys dreaming because it's an escape from her life - in her dreams, she's as close to happy as she's ever been.
Although she says she is a Dragon Knight and nothing more, Tanis is intelligent and can speak well if she wanted to, it's just that a) she isn't Ilea who is a princess and knows certain social graces that Tanis lacks and b) she views it as a waste of time better spent doing the task at hand. Nonetheless, if she can be drawn into discussion, she can be very articulate and she's well versed in the lore the humans have left on the dragons and their history. She has a sense of humour too but growing up the way she did, her sense of humour is not always well received, being a bit of a deadpan snarker and delves into gallows humour and black comedy; the good moments of her training as a Dragon Knight involved them all developing that sense of humour in order to be able to cope with their lives. As the humans worship dragons, Tanis is devout and will murmur prayers or invocations when she does many things, often under her breath around outsiders.
It's through her friendship with Oran and her relationship with Ilea that Tanis changes a great deal. She learns compassion and that elves are just like humans - some are good, some are bad and that they aren't all the awful people from the stories and her early experiences. It's through them that she can overcome so much of her earlier years of being raised and accept that fact that she's allowed to have feelings and on top of that, that she's allowed to express them. She has much more of a reason to live which leads to her being far less reckless when she fights because she's less of a deathseeker and she learns to laugh and joke and have fun.
As time goes on and they finally meet up with the nomads - a mostly elven force from the south that joined up with human nomads captained by her father, Hakon, and his partner, Brynjar - she changes again. She's able to interact with elves who a) remembered going to war with the dwarves against humans and nymphs and disagreed with it then and b) risk their own life and limb because they object to what's going on. She's amazed to learn that slavery isn't standard the way the elders of Jormsen claimed and she stops seeing elves as just elves and sees them as people. That isn't to say she doesn't still have her problems, especially given how the southern elves are more privileged and have gained a great deal as a result of the war but she can put a lot of her hatred to one side and work with them.
Her relationship with Ilea finally becomes healthier. It isn't without problems caused by the increasing tension in Stjarnacado but they actually admit that they love one another – this is a huge step for both of them. It's considered a huge taboo for an elf and human to have a relationship but at this stage, Tanis and Ilea are the only homes the other one has and together with Oran and the nomads, they're some of the only people trying to do anything constructive about the monsters plaguing Stjarnacado.
Finally meeting her father is a hurdle – there's a lot of hurt feelings on both sides, mixed messages and angry words but talking to his partner Brynjar makes her realise she either has him on a pedestal or blames him for things beyond their control and they start to bond, Hakon teaching her leadership skills and encouraging her and Ilea to stay together. Being with a group of people , she starts to open up and even if she's still uncomfortable with feelings, she's actually better at admitting them instead of stamping on them until they inevitably turn into anger and frustration.
There's a new vulnerability in that she was lied to for years about the very people who were responsible for looking after her and raising her due to the beliefs they wanted to perpetuate. Jormsen will feel a lot less like home and it will cease to be the thing that defines her and some of her sense of duty slips and changes; she wants to protect people, not a place. The world is a much darker and more dangerous place than before: there are wraiths and orcs, monsters never before seen in Stjarnacado that spread pestilence and darkness across the land but she isn't as tied so strongly to the north. It's her people and other innocents that she cares about more and she is increasingly convinced that the only way to fix the situation is to actually find the dragons. After witnessing Oran's purification (where she set herself on fire to prove her devotion to Stjarnacado) and the pure faith it takes to do it, she actually does believe with her heart and soul that the dragons are still alive.
Of course given that she spends several years of her life at war fighting dark creatures that never seem to stop there's a weariness to her and she'll always remain haunted by some of what she has seen and the loss of her father in allowing her, Ilea, Oran and a small force to take ship in the east to sail away for answers almost destroys her. She spends the majority of the trip as an empty shell, barely functioning as they drift from island to island in search of answers only to find vague clues. She slips into a berserker rage - something she had done only previously in battle on the mainland - and it takes Ilea to calm her down, the most serious confrontation the two have ever had. It's when some of their party go to find herbs that they find others and that gives Tanis hope to carry on with the mission and restores her faith; there are people, her people, alive and well, living good lives on the island and soon they have more help than ever before in finding their goal: the dragons. In the end, it's her faith that actually allows her to be the one to find the dragons on a desolate island and convince them to return to Stjarnacado and end a war as well as allowing her to be brave enough to be a voice and authority in uniting the kingdoms in peace once the war has come to a close.
Skills and Abilities:
Living a hard life, Tanis knows how to be self-sufficient. Here are a list of non-magical skills she has:
♘ Trap-making; whether for food or against foes, Tanis knows how to construct traps from whatever happens to be lying around although she does not use this in battle unless an ambush is being set
♘ Survival skills; her training means that she is able to survival with minimal provisions in the wild, in all elements
♘ Herbalism; all humans are taught herb lore from an early age to help prevent illness from spreading - she knows a great deal about plants and can make salves, potions and poultices
♘ Poisons; related to the above, although using other such things (i.e. spider venom) she can make poisons, often supplied to Ilea to coat her arrows
♘ Combat-training; Tanis can wield a sword and shield or a two-handed sword as well as daggers and can provide combat magic to support other party members; she is most comfortable now with a sword in one hand and magic in the other unless she's dual wielding magic.
♘ Hunting; Tanis is a supremely skilled hunter with a bow as well as knowing how to set and bait traps along with being able to track her quarry
In addition to this, she has a very good memory for places she has been which aids her tracking - this is vital due to the thick forests of Jormsen but especially in the winter and when she needs to, she's more than capable of navigating using the stars if she knows them.
In Stjarnacado, the magic humans possess came from the presence of the dragons as the dragons created Stjarnacado and all that was in it. Magic is such a part of the humans that it's basically their life energy and though they don't have the strength they once had, the dragon hearts still being present in some as well as a continued worship of the dragons by the human population has allowed magic to remain. As a dragon knight, Tanis has spent years learning magic to hone it as a battle skill with fire magic being her strongest as she possesses the heart of a fire dragon. Throughout her training and again during the war that she was forced to fight, Tanis is most proficient in using her magic when it comes to combat. She is able channel her magic into her body to make her a more effective fighter as well as using magic that gives her an edge in combat and mastery of the elements.
Most of her initial magic is split into categories:
♞ Elemental: fire, ice, earth and lightning (fire and lightning are her strongest.) Tanis can summon, manipulate and wield all of these including being able to breathe fire, coat weapons and combine them such as creating storms or meteoric attacks. Having the heart of a fire dragon means that with sufficient concentration, fire does not hurt her at all and often, when she loses her temper, this magic comes to life, flashing across her fingertips and making her and her surroundings much warmer.
♞ Restoration: this is magic Tanis is least skilled with as she relies much more on her herbalism. Still, she is able to heal others by way of manipulation of their life energy to force the healing process. Some wounds are beyond her as she does not channel her own energy the way a true healer can.
♞ Arcane: often referred to as energy magic, this involves manipulating her own life energy or that of others when in combat. She's better at drawing out her own energy to attack a foe but she can equally drain energy from a foe to channel into herself or an ally.
Until the war unleashed by the dwarves, humans hadn't fought anyone with magic since before they united into one empire along with the dragons meaning they were at a huge disadvantage as the creatures the dwarves unleashed were magic too. Tanis learned how to use her magic to disrupt the energy of her foes as well as extending her own to help cover her friends and allies in battle better.
Through meditation with Brynjar, Tanis finally learned how to channel a berserker rage that dragon knights could use - she feels next to no pain in this state and after a long period of initial calm she loses herself to her emotions and becomes violent and vicious, lashing out and attacking anything in her way. She cannot tell friend from foe in this state until someone incapacitates her and it pushes her to the limit - dragon knights can die from these rages and it drains her so completely she usually collapses once she's done. Tanis has only done this a handful of times and only gives in to it in the most extreme of situations.
Despite all her training, Tanis is still human. Her healing has limits and the dragon's heart enhances her magic but it does not give her super strength; if she were to die, the heart would keep itself alive and only keep her body in condition so that the heart will remain healthy. Tanis is only a good archer when it comes to hunting - she has tried it in battle but is far too slow at it to be competent. She also can't cook. She's a little sensitive about it seeing as her food comes out raw or burned. Time with the nomads has taught her a bit more but she'd still rather do the hunting and skinning rather than the actual cooking.
First Person Sample:
So I am to be returned to these lands again? How many years has it been here? Or is this like the work of the crystal where it was but days here and months to my mind? [It's a slightly older Tanis that smiles at the rune, more assured, at peace and dressed rather elaborately for her in a fine gown, her armour ceremonial.] I realise that you do as will but this world was saved was it not? I assumed this was why I was allowed to return home, to my wife.
Speaking of which - bringing me here on my wedding night? You couldn't have waited a few more hours? Or maybe a day, perhaps two? I thank you for allowing me to at least say goodbye to her this time but... [She sighs wistfully, her smile becoming a smirk.]
For those who do not know me, I am Tanis, dragon knight of Jormsen. For those I knew before, I suppose I should apologise for disappearing as I did - I trust you will fill me in on what has taken place in my absence?
Third Person Sample:
Sometimes she wondered if it had all been a dream. That perhaps she had fallen and hit her head on a rock after catching it knotted tree roots she had failed to see and that she lay in a stupor upon the cold, hard ground with snow beginning to cover her. Or that perhaps she had failed in her test to become a dragon knight and that the afterlife was not as the stories said - a great hall with all who had ever lived, all laughing and singing, free of pain and sorrow for all eternity - but instead the sum of every hope and dream you might ever have in this life. Yet she awoke with the warmth of Ilea pressed to her side and she knew it wasn't a dream.
It was still strange to smile so often but she was getting used to it. She wasn't the same woman who had departed Jormsen three years ago, angry and bitter, resentful of the elven princess she'd been sent to guard. Three long years with scars that had healed as nature intended without healers to work on them immediately and things she would never forget. Three years in which to find and lose her father. To find a wife. Not that they were married in the eyes of their own people.
Yet.
"Mmm, is it time to get up?" Ilea asked, rubbing the sleep from her eyes as she yawned and stretched, arching her back.
"Not yet, go back to sleep," Tanis replied, leaning down to place a kiss on Ilea's forehead. Solace save her, Ilea was over a hundred now and a dragon's heart had beat beneath Tanis' chest for ten long years.
"Should I be gathering my strength?"
The teasing lilt in Ilea's voice made her smile before she arranged her features in a stern frown. "Sleep."
"In Tishlen we would be kept apart before the nuptials," as ever, Tanis could feel her heart skip a beat at those words, "the longing makes it all the sweeter."
"Well here we always liked to take every opportunity that we could. Now go to sleep."
"You're going to be the bossy one."
There was a quiet huff from Ilea when Tanis snorted and smoothed the elf's hair from her face, fondly tracing one pointed ear with her finger. They'd earned this. They'd alerted an army to the dangers they had found, they'd fought a war against darkness and a civil war between the elven kingdoms at the same time, they'd sailed east and returned with dragons at their backs. They'd brought their people together after centuries of pain and bloodshed.
By Solace had they earned this and she planned to enjoy every minute of it.
