#tanei

[bradtrek]

#tanei co reed in #moss (at Ta Nei Temple) https://www.instagram.com/p/B1yS8UFhIDI/?igshid=1a177sr4g0uun

[bradtrek]

#tanei (at Ta Nei Temple) https://www.instagram.com/p/B1ySzkJB01G/?igshid=1xtutycwiga21

[alecctravelgram-blog]

Taking shelter at Ta Nei to avoid the scorching sun. Ta Nei is an abandon temple in the forest. #march2016 #cambodia #fromsg #siemreap #tanei #templeintheforest #traditionalcostume (at Ta Nei, Cambodia)

[llawrencebispo]

Tanei and the Mimic, part 2

Tanei felt her energy draining away. The feeling that she could not win against a creature who stole not only one’s face but one’s abilities, one’s very thoughts, threatened to overwhelm her. If she could not find a strength that was not also possessed by her enemy, how was she to...

Then Tanei blinked. If the sorcerer possessed her strengths while in her form, then perhaps her weaknesses were shared between them as well. Her mind cleared. The princess had told her often enough: You are too protective! You leave yourself at your enemies’ mercy whenever you fling your body in front of mine to protect me.

Tanei smirked and pivoted on her feet toward the guillotine. She cocked her arm and threw her staff with all her strength at the sorcerer’s machine.

The sorcerer’s eyes flew wide. “No!” he shouted, and threw himself at the staff. He missed, and the weapon clattered against the machinery. It did not harm anything as far as Tanei could tell – but that had not been her intent. In the moment her staff hit the guillotine, Tanei’s knees hit the sorcerer’s back. The sorcerer went down with Tanei atop him. She grabbed the head below her and slammed it into the stone floor.

She knew she had dazed the sorcerer when she caught a glimpse of a man beneath her, dressed in a gray robe. Then the illusion returned. Tanei locked her arm around the sorcerer’s throat and pulled him toward the guillotine. She heaved his body, beginning to struggle, up onto the machine. She held his wrists down one at a time and shackled them.

When he was bound, she turned to the clockwork of the wicked device and studied it. It did not take her long to find the lever that surely operated the thing. She reached for the handle and touched it thoughtfully.

“You won’t do this, of course.” The sorcerer’s voice was now a man’s voice. She turned to regard him. He had dropped his disguise entirely. “I know you won’t, because I know you – although, clearly, I might have analyzed a bit more thoroughly. But you won’t murder me, of that I am certain.”

Tanei knew his words were true – and then suddenly, with his having spoken them, they weren’t. Grasping the lever’s handle, she leaned close to the man, and his eyes widened as he realized his mistake.

“I am going to disappoint you,” she said. The great blade came sliding down. “But you knew that already.”

[llawrencebispo]

Writer’s Digest competition

Tanei and the Mimic, part 1

“I’m going to disappoint you. But you knew that already.”

Tanei edged to her left, forcing her adversary to do the same. “You are mad, sorcerer. I know nothing of the kind.”

The other laughed. “Oh, yes, you do. I know you do, because I know everything about you. As you have by now comprehended.”

Looking at her opponent was like staring into a mirror. The sorcerer was Tanei, from her features to her fighting staff to her topknot of black hair. Even the voice was her own.

More, her enemy moved as she did, fought as she did, for all she knew thought as she did. Every attack she had attempted had been countered by motions that matched her own perfectly.

Tanei and her opponent faced off in a stone-walled room lit by lanterns set in the wall. In a corner stood a great guillotine, with shackles on either side and machinery for its operation, the likes of which Tanei had never seen. Its gears were adorned with intricate designs in bronze, depicting its function in gruesome detail.

The sorcerer, seeing her glance at it, seemed pleased with the foul machine. “Beautiful, no? Nevertheless your princess will, as I’ve promised, die on it.”

She launched herself at the sorcerer, and the two staffs clacked together, but her attack was repulsed. Again her opponent had known just what she would do and how she would move.

“You can’t win, you know. All your strengths are my strengths. It’s one of my best enchantments, if I do say so. I’m not a fighter, but no opponent has bested me for... well, quite a while.”

To be continued...

[llawrencebispo]

Tanei and the Deadly Decadent Court, continued

But the men, drunk as they were, were still too numerous for her to be sure of getting past them in an assault, especially if she had no weapons. The guards were armed with swords and daggers, and there were enough of the others to simply pile on her until she was subdued. But if she could just get a sword and dagger from one of the guards – especially if she could get that guard away from his fellows first – then she might have a chance of fighting her way through them.

She had only seen one other door leading away from the room, and it had the markings of a royal chamber. The princess must be imprisoned within. The serving maid would have entered from Tanei's hallway.

She waited. When the maids came around the corner she quickly took the girl's pitcher and pulled her back against the wall with one hand covering the girl's mouth. She whispered in the maid's ear, and after a moment the girl nodded and relaxed.

Shortly after, Tanei walked into the lighted room, her bearing meek, wearing the maid's uniform over her own clothing and carrying the serving pitcher filled with cider. She no longer missed her sword, as she would have been forced to leave it behind in any case: there would have been no way to hide it properly under the skirt and apron, especially if one of the revelers were to grab her. As she approached the table, the men looked up at her.

"Well, now, here's a new one!"

"Friendlier than that other one, I hope!" The voices were slurred.

"Ah! Where did you come from, wench?"

Tanei gritted her teeth and sidled up to the table, making sure to position herself between two of the armed guards. As she poured to fill one of the flagons, one of the guards put his arm around her waist.

Tanei did her best to smile and raise her eyebrows in a fetching way. It must have worked, for the men roared with approval, and the guardsman at her elbow rose to his feet. He held Tanei by the shoulders and gave her a kiss.

Tanei worked to keep the disgust from her face. She crooked her finger and led the man by the hand to the door leading to the royal chamber. He followed her with a sly grin, and the other men called and whistled after them.

The guard fumbled with his ring of keys, and Tanei was afraid for a moment that the man was too drunk to manage them. But finally he turned the key in the lock and opened the door. Tanei followed him into the room and shut the door behind them.

She felt the guard's hand on her, and she whirled on him. There was a loud snap, and the man's arm was broken in her hands, at the elbow. She knocked him to the ground and followed him down, her knees landing on his shoulders. His eyes and mouth widened in surprise, and Tanei slammed his jaw shut with her palm before he could shout out his pain. She pulled the knife from the guard's belt in one practiced motion, and a moment later the man lay dead.

Panting slightly, Tanei look up and around the room. Princess Kandinei was there, seated on a wooden chair, her hands and feet bound to it.

"Well, sister," Kandinei said, "and just when I was thinking you had decided not to attend. Might we leave now?"

[llawrencebispo]

Prompt: Tanei and the Deadly Decadent Court

As I let the first draft manuscript of the book cool down (perhaps for a while) before editing, I’ll post some replies to prompts I find online. Here’s one in installments.

Prompt from Absolute Write: Your MC is transported to a Deadly Decadent Court and have to play by their rules! How do they fare? Feel free to prompt.

Part 1:

Tanei came to herself slowly. She was leaning up against a stone wall in a hallway of some fortress or another – she knew she had never been here before, but other than that she knew nothing of her whereabouts. Around a corner came a warm light and the sounds of revelry. Tanei shook her head to clear it, and glanced quickly in both directions to make sure she was alone in the corridor. Then she checked for her weapons, and she cursed silently when she discovered they were missing. It seemed the enchanted portal allowed only clothing.

Tanei peered around the corner, toward the light and noise. Beyond was a room lit by lanterns. In the center of the room was a heavy wooden table, and around this table were assembled all manner of dandies of whatever court ruled this place, as well as three or four men who, by their armament, were apparently supposed to be guards. If so, they were delinquent in their duty: all the men drank cider or perry from large flagons, and joked with each other. The hall roared with laughter. They were all drunk.

A serving maid moved around the group. She obviously attempted to keep her distance, as the drunken men at the table leered at her and occasionally reached out to grab a skirt or an elbow. Periodically the poor girl was forced to dart in to refill a cup of cider, and each time she risked being grabbed around the waist and subjected to a wet kiss from one the lechers. She backed away again as quickly as she was able.

Tanei pulled back from the corner and leaned her head back against the stone wall. She sneered. So this was where they had taken the princess. It was well she had come quickly.

To be continued...

[llawrencebispo]

Character sketch: Tanei

The main character's name is Tanei. Tanei is a captain of the Princess Guard, and Princess Kandinei's identical twin sister and guardswoman. As is customary in Anei, from which the two sisters hail, Kandinei, as the older of the twins, became a princess at birth, while Tanei became a lesser court official and warrior.

Tanei is a girl in her late teens, of Central Asian descent. She wears her black hair in a topknot and pony tail to keep it out of the way. Tanei and her sister look remarkably similar except that Tanei is more tanned and muscular from physical activity, and has a scar along her jawline. Because of their resemblance, Tanei is sometimes used as a security double for the princess.

Tanei is smart and strong, and is an expert martial artist, having trained hard for years with the Princess Guard. She has a good mind for military tactics, but she sometimes has trouble understanding other people, especially when subtle signals are given. She can be led astray by a well-placed lie. She is fiercely protective of the princess, but she is quite young for a captain, and prone to making mistakes (sometimes bad ones) in her eagerness to succeed. She is also deeply romantic, and lonelier than she realizes. She is distrustful of men because of something that once happened to her old friend and mentor Nuanee.

Tanei was first raised among the horse people of the steppe, learning to ride and hunt at a young age, before being brought back to the palace to train as a guardswoman. Her preferred weapon is the long staff, which is the primary weapon of the Princess Guard, but when she rides she switches to a bronze short sword or composite bow, the weapons of the horse people (and the War Guard). She wears a simple, sensible kurta and trousers when on duty, but generally no armor – other than, occasionally, bronze shoulder protection or shield. Her hobbies include horseback riding, sparring with the other guards, and hunting with Princess Kandinei.

Inspirations: Olivia Dunham, "Fringe"; Xiao Mei, "House of Flying Daggers"; Dara, "Golden Cane Warrior"; Dr. Julia Walker, "Helix"; Trinity, "The Matrix".