Tanis Trahain
Tanis Trahain is an elite military defender, professional mortician, and the designated Evening Star practitioner within the official Archangel Triad of the Kingdom of Enca. Standing at an imposing 6' 2" with long black hair and the distinct, ice-blue faceted eyes of an Encan guardian, Tanis possesses a quiet, stoic disposition balanced by a characteristically warm smile capable of putting others at ease. He is historically recorded as the final living male of the ancient Trahain lineage, a status preserved through his eventual marital and magical union with the Boscan healer Xally Pradesh. Beyond his defensive obligations, Tanis operates as a central cultural figure in the capital city of Penni, managing the nation's primary sacred rites for the deceased.
Tanis also serves as Guardian of Baron Samedi. His work combines protection, guidance, and release with the celebration of those who have died. Elegant, steady, calm, relaxed, and devoted, he brings music and warmth to the rites he oversees.
Biography
Academic Romance and Cultural Divide
During his higher education, Tanis encountered and fell deeply in love with the Boscan water mage Xally Pradesh. Their relationship encountered a severe cultural impasse when Tanis disclosed that he was bound to a traditional childhood engagement back in his homeland. Within Encan societal frameworks, childhood engagements are viewed pragmatically as a baseline structural norm to ensure family continuity. Conversely, Boscan culture treats engagements and marriage as absolute, spiritually sacred arrangements.
Deeply respecting her native morals, Xally immediately reassigned Tanis to strict platonic friendship status, severing their romantic trajectory. Though profoundly hurt by the estrangement, Tanis accepted her decision without interference, allowing her to follow her cultural principles until later events ultimately reconciled their lineages.
Awakening during the Darkest Night
Tanis's latent cosmic heritage fully manifested during the extra-planar crisis known as The Darkest Night. When the planetary rift on Sanctuary Island split open, releasing hordes of shapeshifting shadow entities, Tanis deployed to the front lines alongside his fellow guardians. Under the catastrophic stress of the invasion, his dormant Evening Star lineage awakened.
Rather than tracing directly to standard Encan genetic parameters, his magic unlocked a deeply rooted, primeval Evening Star lineage. Massive black wings erupted from his back, embedded with intricate, heavy chains of solid metal. Leveraging the native **Metal Magic** he had been trained in since childhood, Tanis demonstrated the unique ability to telepathically manipulate these wing-bound chains as high-density tactile weapons and defensive barriers, heavily shifting the tactical tide of the conflict.
Penni Funeral Parlor & Encan Rites
In his civilian life, Tanis owns and operates the oldest and only functional funeral parlor within the capital city of Penni. It stands as the sole institutional facility officially approved to handle the remains of fallen Encan Guardians. Tanis heavily enjoys singing and dancing, traits that directly align with the unique cultural theology of Encan funerary customs.
Encan funerals are structured not as mournful gatherings, but as elaborate celebratory festivals. The rites feature live jazz bands marching down public thoroughfares alongside communal storytelling, designed explicitly to ensure that departing spirits can transition into the afterlife entirely free of earthly regrets. While Encans experience deep grief, their cultural conditioning dictates that they withhold personal mourning during the initial transition period. The populace processes pure grief privately weeks after the ceremony, only when they are entirely certain the souls of the deceased have successfully moved on.
Guardian of Baron Samedi
As Guardian of Baron Samedi, Tanis's role is associated with protection, guidance, release, and freedom. His work as a funeral director connects his guardianship with Enca's celebratory approach to death: the departed are remembered and honored through the company of loved ones, music, dancing, singing, flowers, and good food.
Music, Dance, and Celebration
Tanis is a singer, dancer, and celebrant as well as a mortician. His performances offer songs for the departing and joy for those who remain. His approach to funeral service is expressed in the phrase:
Music for the living. Honor for the dead. Joy for the journey.
Personality and Appearance
Tanis is elegant, steady, calm, relaxed, and devoted. His quiet composure and warm smile help put others at ease, while singing and dancing form an expressive part of his public and ceremonial life.
He commonly wears a white shirt, a dark fitted waistcoat, dark trousers, and boots. Gold star motifs and decorative chains accompany his formal presentation. His Evening Star manifestation includes large black wings and hooked metal chains under his control.
Powers and Abilities
- Evening Star Lineage Arcana: Tanis serves as an immovable defensive anchor, possessing extreme natural resistance to advanced dark magics and apocalypse-level concussive forces. His cosmic lineage grants him access to localized gravity manipulation and specialized sealing spells capable of inflicting true death upon immortal demonic entities.
- Chained Metal Magic: Tanis seamlessly synthesizes his inherited cosmic arcana with traditional Encan metallurgy. He can telepathically manifest, reshape, and launch the heavy iron links integrated into his black wings, utilizing them as unbreakable binding chains or high-velocity piercing weapons.
- Vast Mana Reservoirs: As an Evening Star practitioner, Tanis is engineered with immense internal mana capacities and an accelerated magical replenishment rate, allowing him to sustain prolonged defensive operations under extreme physical duress.
Family and Relationships
- Xally Pradesh: Wife and partner; a Boscan water mage and healer whom Tanis met during his higher education.
- Esme Trahain: Child.
- Sirius Levron, Remy Gousselle, King Curtis, and Syzgian: Friends recorded in his character profile.
The Darkest Night (unpublished)
This section draws on The Darkest Night, an unpublished story. The opening document and numbered DN documents are manuscript sources, not published AO3 chapters. Ages, relationships and events below describe this earlier point in the characters' lives.
Loss and the Evening Star
Tanis's family serves Baron Samedi by recovering the dying, tending the dead and performing rites. The invasion leaves Tanis the sole survivor of his twenty-five-member household. His Evening Star wings awaken during the fighting, and Damshiel trains him with Sirius and Remy. Afterward Tanis carries an immense burden of mortuary work, with nightmares repeatedly interrupting his attempts to sleep. (DN 2; DN 8–9.)
Xally and the end of the imposed engagement
Tanis and Xally had become close while studying abroad, but she withdrew when she learned that he was already engaged in Enca. His childhood match with Cida later becomes a means of protecting him from other forced matches while she remains missing or abroad. On returning, Cida makes clear how childhood bullying and their incompatible needs affected that relationship. Curtis's reforms release Tanis from the imposed arrangement. (DN 3; DN 10–11; DN 15.)
Xally helps Tanis obtain restorative sleep and monitors his distress with a gentle magical feedback loop. Their renewed companionship includes meals, walks and practical support while she works in Enca. Tanis also helps protect the Parksons, defends Curtis and later survives capture in Pergrand with Remy. These events precede his later settled family life with Xally. (DN 5; DN 8–9; DN 11; DN 14.)
White Sea story
Tanis accompanies the UN delegation confronting Trumpell. His Evening Star truth aura exposes lies during the questioning; he later sits with the Justices at the televised trial. The mission demonstrates the use of his magic in establishing accountability as well as in combat. (White Sea, Chapter 21.)
He prepares for Anubis's trials with Xally's support. Near the ending Xally gives birth to their unnamed twin boys; the story notes that the couple have not yet held their wedding at that point. (White Sea, Chapters 22 and 40.)
