#kellenin

Day 14 — Sakaren Tanaki

Or Tanaquil... That’s technically her name in the original version of my Eien stories, but the more I think about it, the more I’m inclined to keep ‘Tanaquil’ as the name people give her, and ‘Tanaki’ as her actual name. For Reasons. Not entirely sure which ones.

Tanaki is a Kellenin, and a Kazari attached to the School of Messhara, along with her twin brothers, Shields Taeru and Tamaku. They operate in a subdivision of Messhara that works closely with the Charter Council of Pwrgham to ensure all Kazarim respect the laws (mostly ‘thou shalt not use kaaru to fight’ and ‘thou shalt not fuck with the minds of the non-telepaths’). Ironically, that makes her the Llenan equivalent of a Watcher, although Kazaran rules are more... lax in many ways, starting with the Shields (”So we can’t use kaaru to fight? Okay, then we’ll use kaaru on our Shields to boost them. I’m not technically fighting, right?”).

She isn’t present in the first volumes, at least not visibly. The legacy of her actions are, though, in that she’s been involved in certain dealings with the Controller/Mokuren, as well as Kaellan and who/what he’s a representative of. She harbours plenty of interest for Ren and Kheril, both for different reasons.

Day 11 — Ari Shadowblood

Ari, one of the thieves working for the Frateria in Callan (the capital of Eomar). Born from a human prostitute and a travelling Kellenin, she was brought up in the brothel, then ran away after her mother died. Since she was too easily recognisable as a half-Kellenin (her skin has a characteristic slight blueish hue, not to mention her black hair, purple eyes and pointy ears), which owed her the nickname of “Shadowblood”, she couldn’t find gainful employment; pursuing the same trade as her mother would’ve attracted the more “exotic” requests for her, and that was something she definitely didn’t want, so she struck a deal with Agas Black Hand, the leader of the Frateria (the local thieves’ guild), and started working for him as a street thief. Later, with more experience, she graduated to burglary jobs.

She met Kheril, Ido and Iswann on their first diplomatic mission, when they were sent to discuss a potential treaty with Archbishop Averen—and after she started tripping over clues of an assassination conspiracy that landed her in all sorts of trouble.