Talia Malak-el-Dahshat

P L A Y E R I N F O R M A T I O N
Your Name: Thleen
OOC Journal: thleeny
Under 18? If yes, what is your age?: No!
Email + IM: disconewsie@gmail.com || disco newsie
Characters Played at Ataraxion: Remus Lupin || theshabbiestofmen

C H A R A C T E R I N F O R M A T I O N
Name: Talia Malak-el-Dahshat
Canon: The Princess Series by Jim Hines
Original or Alternate Universe: Original
Canon Point: After the ending of the third book.
Number: RNG is fine!

Setting: The world of the Princess series is much like medieval Europe-- candles light the halls, people use swords instead of guns, there are horses to ride, and royalty rules the land. However, this series is all about magic and fairy tales-- and so there is magic in the land, openly acknowledged as a normal part of life. Fairies rule their own private kingdom; gnomes and pixies are a regular sight; the fairy King and Queen hold a treaty with the human rulers. One of the protagonists, Snow, is a sorceress, and uses magic on a regular basis.

History: Born a princess in the land of Arathea, Talia Malak-el-Dahshat was, to put it frankly, a runt. Tiny and unhealthy, it was suspected she wouldn't survive the night. Desperate, her family pleaded with the fairies to save her and give her gifts. They enchanted her, not only saving her, but giving her the power of grace, a wondrous voice, and beauty. But the next fairy was not so kind. She cursed Talia to die on her sixteenth birthday; only the intervention of the last fairy saved her, dispersing the spell. It cursed everyone in the castle to a hundred years of sleep.

A kind action, but only in theory. It's later revealed that the last two fairies had plotted with one another in order to shift the power in the land from humans to fairies. Once the royal family fell into an enchanted sleep, Arathea fell into chaos. Out of it rose fairies, who enchanted things to make life for humans easier-- and to make them in the fairies' debt. Arathea became a nation entirely dependent upon fairy magic; though humans were still technically rulers, everyone knew that the lowest fairy was still worth more than the highest human.

So the land changed. Meanwhile, countless princes killed themselves on the enchanted hedge that surrounded the castle, thinking that perhaps they'd be the one to wake Talia, earn true love, and become the king of Arathea. Each failed. The hedge didn't kill them immediately; instead it impaled them and kept them alive until they slowly starved or dehydrated to death. Over the next hundred years, a temple arose nearby: the Temple of the Hedge, whose mission was to tend the princes, to feed and water them and to help ease their suffering. They also attended on anyone too poor or outcast to go to better doctors.

Meanwhile, Prince Jihab ela'Ghelib, son of the current rulers, had a plan. Buying enchanted axes, he cut through the (dying) hedge and slaughtered everyone inside: Talia's siblings, her parents, even her servants. When he reached her room, he kissed her. When she didn't wake, he raped her and left, declaring her dead and the line destroyed.

Talia woke nine months later, when her body began to give birth to twin boys.

Staggering out of the palace dazed, disoriented, and in pain, Talia was scooped up by Jihab and told that though she wasn't a virgin, he would still consent to marry her. Their sons would be sent away, to be raised out of sight of the public. There was to be much rejoicing. Not two hours later they were married by a sham of a priest.

That night, she killed him while he slept and fled.

For a year she stayed at the Temple of the Hedge, learning how to heal people. During that time, she also fell in love with another caretaker, a woman named Faziya. Faziya was part of a rebel organization, dedicated to (it's implied) undermining the royal rule. There she learned how to fight, how to throw knives, how to use a sword-- and, importantly, how to use a zaraq whip, the same weapon that was used to curse her.

But the royal family was hunting her down, furious at the loss of their heir, and it soon became difficult for Talia to remain hidden. She fled to the kingdom of Lorindar, where Queen Beatrice sheltered her. For seven years, she worked under Queen Beatrice with Snow White, another princess whose fairy tale was not quite as wonderful as the stories made it sound. The two of them acted as bodyguards and spies, taking care of threats to the kingdom that were best dealt with quietly. Their duo is soon rounded out by Danielle (also known as Cinderella), recently married into the royal family.

The events of the first book deal with Danielle having to deal with her husband, Armand, being kidnapped by her stepsisters working with the duchess of fairies. The plot largely concerns Danielle, but there are two things relevant to Talia: the first is when her gifts are removed by the duchess and she is threatened with being put under an enchanted sleep again. The loss of her gifts stagger her, quite literally; she's barely able to walk, let alone fight. But it's the threat of sleep that truly cripples her: Talia, fierce and brave, runs away, too terrified by the threat to do anything else.

She later comes back, having made a deal with a fairy (her as-yet-unconvinced child for her gifts returned) and saves Danielle and Snow. It's here that the second relevant thing occurs: Snow had been enchanted as well, forced back into her glass coffin. Only a kiss from someone who truly loved her could wake her-- fortunately, Talia has been in love with Snow since they met. She and Danielle keep this fact hidden from Snow for the next two books, but it's a driving theme in their interactions.

The second book again concerns Danielle, but Talia plays a larger role. The fairy tale tackled here is that of the Little Mermaid: Liera, an undine who fell in love with a prince and changed her body for him, but who was scorned and forced to live between worlds, never again belonging in one or the other. In the beginning of the book, Liera attacks the queen Beatrice, stabbing her after the queen refuses to tell her where she's hidden her sister. Only by a miracle is the queen's life saved. Much of the book is dedicated to Talia's self-loathing and fury at not having stopped the attack.

Eventually, it's discovered Liera isn't the true villain; her grandmother Morveren is. Morveren wanted to change Liera, make her something both human and undine, all the better to take over the sea and the land both. She used her granddaughter, making her into something little better than a puppet. Eventually Snow manages to kill Morveren, though the process destroys Liera's mind in the process.

In this book Danielle's kind and forgiving personality is shown rubbing off on Talia: there are numerous points in the book where Talia is all for killing both Liera and Morveren, but reluctantly stays her blade at Danielle's behest. She even pities Liera a little, though she doesn't let it show. It's in this book that-- during a fight with Liera-- Snow is hurt badly. It's a mark of how much Talia cares for Snow, and how preciously she truly does value her friends, that she immediately drops the mission in favor of caring for Snow. In other regards she's a master assassin and spy, sacrificing whatever needs to be given in order for the mission to succeed.

It's the third book, Red Hood's Revenge, that really gives us details on Talia's previous life and personality. In this book, Lakhim, queen of Arathea and the mother of Talia's rapist, has hired an assassin to kill Talia once and for all. After a mix-up involving magic and transportation, all four women: Danielle, Snow White, Talia, and the assassin (the Lady of the Red Hood, aka Roudette) end up in Arathea. A deal is struck with Roudette-- she'll help them, and in return she won't be killed-- and the four travel to the Temple of the Hedge. There they find that Talia's former lover Faziya is missing. She was last seen trying to attack Rajil, the raikh (sort of a guardian of the city) of Arathea. Faziya suspected Rajil was sending packs of supernatural hunters (literally called the Wild Hunt) to tribes of Aratheian citizens to pick them off one by one.

Talia, of course, immediately leads them on a rescue mission. They eventually succeed, though not without a lot of effort, and bring Faziya back, where she reveals more of the plot: Rajil is working under a fairy named Zestan (lots of politics in this book), who in fact was the one to actually hired Roudette. Their eventual plan had been to bring Talia back in order to study the spell that sent her to sleep, so they can send Lakhim into the same sort of sleep and cause another hundred years of chaos in Arathea-- chaos that fairies could take advantage of, and use to cement their power.

So! Lots of debate happens, lots of politics; the long and short of it is that Talia eventually ends up calling upon her birthright in order to summon a ghostly army (formed of all the princes who died trying to reach her) and bring them to her side to fight Zestan. During the battle, she ends up meeting (and killing) one of the two fairies who collaborated to send her to sleep, an ogre called Naghesh. Zestan is eventually killed as well, the souls of those princes are released and allowed to move on, and the plot for the fairies to retake Arathea is foiled.

Talia is eventually summoned to Lakhim's court, to still answer for the crime of killing her son. A deal is struck: Lakhim will take off the death sentence if Talia officially renounces her claim on the throne and leaves Arathea forever. After some long internal conflict, she eventually reluctantly accepts. After a few words with her twin sons Mutal and Mahatal, she leaves with Snow and Danielle, heading back to Lorindar for good.

Personality: Sharp is the word best used to describe Talia. Her personality is like flint; unbending and uncompromising, hard and abrasive. She's sarcastic, cynical and pragmatic; out of all the princesses in the series, it's Talia that has her feet firmly on the ground. She isn't friendly, she isn't out to make friends; it takes her ages to warm up to Danielle-- and even ,then, it's only because Danielle starts becoming useful.

She's incredibly practical: it's always Talia who suggests outright killing their enemies; it's always Talia who sees through the magic and glamor to the issue at the core. She's also quite frank about what needs to be done; in the third book, she's more than willing to be given back to the enemy as a prisoner if that's what it takes to get the job done. Of course, this trait has its drawbacks; many times the person Talia is insistant on killing later proves to be useful in some regard. This trait also ties in with her rashness: she's not one for foresight, not really. She'll plan things out in terms of how to attack and when, but Talia isn't one for thinking in the longterm. Better to kill now and think later. Coupled with that practicality is a (admittedly healthy, given her life as a spy) suspicious nature. Talia isn't trusting in the least; she always assumes people are threats, out to rob, rape, kill, or trick her. "Talia expects to see the darkness in people, and thus she's more likely to find it," Beatrice comments at one point.

However, all this isn't to say she isn't a basically good person underneath it all. She fights for justice, for her queen to continue to rule in as fair a manner as possible. She likes children (most especially Danielle's son, Jakob); she likes her friends, few though they are. She might express her affection gruffly, but there's no doubt she cares. "You've always tried to protect me, as though I were some fragile butterfly who would be crushed by the slightest weight," Faziya comments at one point; when Snow is hurt during one of their adventures, it's hard to get Talia to focus on anything but helping her heal.

Because of her experiences with fairies, she outright hates and distrusts them. She's not too happy with magic in general, to be honest, but she tolerates it from Snow. It's a hatred driven so far as to make her prejudiced, a fact she freely admits; though they've encountered some good fairies in their travels, Talia treats them at best with suspicion and disgust.

Abilities, Weaknesses and Power Limitations:

Fairy Gifts:

Weapon Prowess: While the weapon she's best at is the zaraq whip (a whip with a spindle-like attachment at the end), Talia is also incredibly well versed in swords and knives.

Inventory:
-A hairtie
-Four throwing knives.
-One larger knife, made to be tucked into her boot.
-Her zaraq whip.
-A blade that tucks into her tied hair.

Appearance: Standing tall and slender, Talia is, frankly, a beautiful woman. She hasn't any choice in the matter; her brown skin will always be smooth and silky, her black hair will always have a shine to it; her body will only age wonderfully. She's also graceful, each movement looking effortless and serene.

Age: 24.

AU Clarification: N/A

S A M P L E S
Log Sample:

The holodeck was a poor substitute for a desert, but Talia found the heat of the false sun and the rough scrape of sand more comforting than anything else on the ship.

She spent most of her time here when she wasn't patrolling with security. Not simply idly wandering, but training in the hot sun, punching and kicking at imaginary foes, moving until her skin was slick with sweat. It began as a way to keep herself fit, but now Talia found it was the only way she could keep her panicked thoughts at bay. She found the ship too stifling, too containing-- no exits, no windows, doors that could be locked far too easily, elevators that could stop or misdirect you, unnatural monsters, nightmarish visions-- magic, magic and science far too advanced for her to deal with it manually. The ship was a death trap, and she found herself fearing again and again she would die here with very little fuss.

Her knee struck upwards; her arm lashed out, slicing along an imaginary throat. And worse than all that, worse than her panic and fears, was the fact that this ship was filled to the brim with sorcerers and witches. Talia would rather deal with all the nightmares Tranquility had to offer her if it meant at least half of the magic-users would have their magic nullified (a thought that sent a guilty little jolt running through her; god only knew what Snow would say in response to that-- but there was a difference between Snow and these people).

Talia leaped back, her feet digging into the sand as she skidded to a halt and cut low. It was a matter of time, she thought, breathing hard. A matter of time before some power-hungry witch decided she was going to rule the ship; before some too-idealistic wizard tried a spell to bring himself home and ended up blowing up the ship. And there wasn't a damn thing she could do to stop them.

Comms Sample:

[Should she pretend to be a meek servant or show her true self? Talia had debated for three days before finally deciding on the latter; better to intimidate than be mistaken as weak. She glares into the camera, mouth set.]

I require tobacco. Flavored if you have it, but any sort if not. I can offer nothing in trade, not yet-- but I will act as bodyguard if need be, or I can teach you to defend yourself. Too many of you know nothing about fighting; that will lead to your deaths in a place like this.