Tanis

Bio
tba

Personality
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.

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.

post canon update

First off Tanis will be a good 60% less racist given that she interacts with elves who aren't Ilea and 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 outwith 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.

Abilities
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

As a human from Stjarnacado, Tanis has magic, native to all but due to her having a dragon heart that comes from a fire dragon, her fire magic is strongest. Here is a list of what she can do: Elemental: Fire and Ice (Fire is her strongest) - she can summon, breathe and manipulate fire and ice or coat weapons in them Primal: Earth and Sky (Sky is her strongest) - she can summon winds and raise the earth Energy: Drain and Bolt (Bolt is her strongest) - she can drain the energy from a person or summon her own to project, she often uses this to bolster her fire magic Restoration: Healing and Enchanting (Enchanting is her strongest) - she can heal a party member (within certain bounds, dipping into Energy magic) or she can strengthen them by speeding them up or casting them a shield

Spells can be combined such as earth and fire to make meteor like objects etc

What Should You Know?

 * gifted a hatchling from Tiamat called Hákon and also owns a fire lizard named Brynjar, both are spoiled brats
 * roams often but always returns to Jormsen where she's a knight
 * member of the Haven rangers - the first 'meeting' took place in the hot springs during the Jormsen Festival
 * actual dragon worshipper

Daily Life

 * Wake up, get bombarded by dragon and lizard
 * Attempt breakfast
 * Salvage breakfast from dragon and lizard
 * Patrol
 * Patrol some more
 * Scour the rune
 * Patrol
 * Roll around with dragon and lizard
 * Miss wife and best friend
 * Drink in the main hall and listen to terrible songs that get more verses the longer the song goes
 * Collapse in bed
 * Remove fat dragon from spot crushing lungs
 * Ignore whining dragon, untangle lizard from hair
 * Sleep