Kel Nerevor

Commander **Kel Nerevor** was a Kel soldier who served during the Siege of the Fortress of Scattered Needles. She appears in Ninefox Gambit and in the flashfic The Lieutenant and the Sergeant.

## Appearance and Personality

Though Shuos Jedao did not entirely approve of her, he understood why Cheris liked her, considering her command style very hands-on, combatative but involved. He also suspected her to be erratic. It irks her to be less capable than her peers at anything Kel duty might demand of her. Though regretting the inadvisability of dueling anyone who slights her, she is aware of the need to build rapport with fellow Kel and does not duel indiscriminately. However, she enjoys dueling and takes part with delight when the opportunity arises. Her calendrical sword is a fierce yellow-white.

## History

Nerevor went to Kel Academy with the commander of the bannermoth *Forever Minus a Day*, and achieved excellent scores all the way through. As a junior lieutenant, her first posting was to a planetside marine vessel, patrolling a corrosive sea in search of pirates, instead of the coveted bannermoth assignment. She determined to serve with distinction anyway.

In later years, Nerevor commanded the cindermoth *Unspoken Law*.

On the fourth day, Nerevor requested a duel from Cheris. It was attended by a fair number of her officers, including Rahal Gara and Shuos Liis. The duel was set for best out of five. Nerevor won the first two bouts handily, but the last three rounds went to Cheris with a show of skill unexpected after the first two. Nerevor saluted her without irony afterwards, holding the duel as a reminder not to underestimate her.

On the nineteenth day, Nerevor called Cheris's attention to a scouting swarm from the Fortress, 1.7 days out from the effective range of the shields. Though surprised at Cheris's orders to masquerade as opportunistic allies of the heretics and outraged that the bannermoth *Forever Minus a Day*, apparently captured, was among the Fortress's scouts, she followed orders. She was furious when Commander Vidona Diaiya broke formation and aghast at her use of a fungal canister, which should not have been possible to launch from a bannermoth; however, Diaiya's *Starvation Hound* was destroyed and could not be brought to account. When the scout moths were defanged, Nerevor recommended against boarding, and the moths were cindered.

Nerevor volunteered to be sent to the fortress as a high-ranking hostage, reasoning that they couldn't do better than a cindermoth commander and declaring her intent to serve as a Kel, no matter the nature of the service required. Relieved by Hazan, she reported to Medical to be injected with full-strength formation instinct and wiped to fledge-null so no information could be acquired from her. After this preparation, she was dispatched with the Kel landing troops on Hopper 1, which was retrieved by the fortress's servitors.

On the Fortress, Nerevor was roughed up and her jaw injured by one of Znev Stoghan's enforcers. After being extracted - at a cost - from the Anemone Ward, she was restrained in a gray room and questioned by two individuals whom she had no compulsion to answer because they were not Kel. She made a mental note when Jedao's name came up, although it meant little to her, and otherwise did not react to their questions or remarks, though she disliked the non-Kel stranger calling her "fledge." After they left, she comforted herself with the knowledge of her duty and the belief that her people would come for her if she was brave and loyal enough to be worthy of the Kel name.

Though assured by Jedao that Nerevor would suffer very little and that only an unscrupulous Kel would be able to damage her mind, Cheris remembered her frequently during the subsequent campaign, wishing she could be restored to her post and reflecting on orders she would have challenged. After the destruction of the Drummer's Forum, Cheris hallucinated Nerevor in the dueling hall, saluting her with her yellow calendrical sword and trying to tell her something in "words of fracture, seizure, cooling ash."

Vahenz afrir dai Noum reported to Liozh Zai that interference, implied to be unauthorized Vidona-style torture, "scratched out" Nerevor just as she was beginning to be eased out of fledge-null. Despite Cheris's hopes, Nerevor was never found.

## Trivia

* Nerevor is inclined to seasickness when on a boat.
* The author presently has no plans to write more about her fate.

## References

1. ↑ Ninefox Gambit, Chapter 8
2. ↑ The Lieutenant and the Sergeant
3. ↑ Ninefox Gambit, Chapter 8
4. ↑ Ninefox Gambit, Chapter 8
5. ↑ The Lieutenant and the Sergeant
6. ↑ Ninefox Gambit, Chapter 8
7. ↑ Ninefox Gambit, Chapter 9
8. ↑ Ninefox Gambit, Chapter 11
9. ↑ Ninefox Gambit, Chapter 12
10. ↑ Ninefox Gambit, Chapter 11
11. ↑ Ninefox Gambit, Chapter 15
12. ↑ Ninefox Gambit, Chapter 17
13. ↑ Ninefox Gambit, Chapter 15
14. ↑ Ninefox Gambit, Chapter 20
15. ↑ The Lieutenant and the Sergeant
16. ↑ Author's remarks