Kel Brezan

High General **Kel Brezan**, born **Rhezny Brezan**, is a Kel soldier who appears in Raven Stratagem and Revenant Gun, as well as in the flashfic Vacation.

## Appearance and Personality

Brezan is fairly tall and lanky, with brown eyes and tan skin. He wears a binder to flatten his chest, and keeps fit, but is not musclebound. He keeps his hair severely cropped.

He functions indifferently as part of a composite and hates the illusory sense of silence, distance, and protection in space battles.

He disregards behind-the-back remarks by some soldiers about the fact that he is a womanform, caring only that his fellow officers were civil about his identity. Despite his competence and background, equivocal notes about impulsiveness and unconventional thinking in Brezan's profile meant a less prestigious career.

He grew used to leaving his personal belongings at home with his parents, and never brought much with him except for the orrey his sisters gave him. Raised on a space station, he is uncomfortable with the trappings of planetary environments, such as streams, fish, and long-necked water birds. His calligraphy is only passable, but he appreciates beautiful lettering and eventually began to save particularly nice samples of others' calligraphy to look at.

## Personal Life

Brezan was a fourth-generation Kel from an honorable Kel family. His childhood was spent in his parents' apartment on Irissa Station. His oldest father was a Kel who retired by the time Brezan was old enough to be sentient, though the younger two fathers did most of the childrearing work; he believed that dramas should be watched together as a family, despite quarrels over what to watch. One of the younger fathers collected and restored antique guns, the cleaning of which was a household chore. The other was a papercut children's book illustrator. Brezan once ruined his best pair of scissors. A set of pattern-stones used by the children belonged to their youngest father.

Brezan's oldest sister, Rhezny Keryezan, has two children and may be planning a third. Their age gap made her more interesting than the twins; these days he sees her even less than he used to, but enjoys baking indulgent treats for her children.

His middle sisters, Colonel Kel Miuzan and Kel Ganazan, are twins, six years older than he is. Brezan considers Miuzan, who never lets anything rest, planned to be a "the best" Kel since childhood, and refuses to stop talking about her posting with General Kel Inesser, to be insufferable, and hates being treated like the gawky eight-year-old sibling who used to follow his sisters around asking to play forts. Still, Miuzan taught Brezan pattern-stones (though she never gave him a handicap), swordplay, gun maintenance, and how to bake honey-ginger cookies, and he does care about her. Ganazan has a clerical posting on a boxmoth, which she enjoys; though more easygoing than Miuzan, Ganazan always took her twin's side in arguments. Miuzan always thrashed Brezan at dueling.

One of Brezan's former lovers was a perfumer; another was Agent Andan Tseya.

## Career

### Kel Academy

His formation instinct was weak during his Academy years, which he spent convinced that he would be kicked out. Afterwards, it decayed below even those low levels.

After experiencing Exercise Purple 53, Brezan swore to become a "boring, ordinary, unimaginative Kel like the ones in all the Kel jokes."

When he graduated Kel Academy, Miuzan and Ganazan gave him an ornate miniature orrey which, unlike most of his personal belongings, he brought with him wherever he was posted.

### Early Career

Brezan's first bannermoth posting was against Taurag raiders. During the engagement, fading shields failed to protect against railgun shot, which punched through the moth and killed the woman next to him.

Brezan was made a personnel officer for General Kel Khiruev, a better position than he'd hoped for considering his equivocal profile.

## Trivia

* A full hex of six Rahal inquisitors such as those who scryed Brezan is unusual and only occurs in direst emergencies.
* Brezan is borderline phobic of live fish.
* Brezan will appear as "The Heretic" in Hexarchate Tarot. The card stands for ruination and heterodoxy; reversed, it symbolizes a precarious situation and the need to proceed with caution.

## References

1. ↑ Author's description of Brezan
2. ↑ Raven Stratagem, Chapter 1
3. ↑ Raven Stratagem, Chapter 1
4. ↑ Raven Stratagem, Chapter 22
5. ↑ Raven Stratagem, Chapter 1
6. ↑ Raven Stratagem, Chapter 1
7. ↑ Raven Stratagem, Chapter 14
8. ↑ Raven Stratagem, Chapter 3
9. ↑ Revenant Gun, Chapter 8
10. ↑ Raven Stratagem, Chapter 1
11. ↑ Raven Stratagem, Chapter 12
12. ↑ Raven Stratagem, Chapter 22
13. ↑ Raven Stratagem, Chapter 1
14. ↑ Raven Stratagem, Chapter 2
15. ↑ Raven Stratagem, Chapter 14
16. ↑ Raven Stratagem, Chapter 22
17. ↑ Raven Stratagem, Chapter 1
18. ↑ The Factions: High Faction Rahal
19. ↑ Author's remarks
20. ↑ Author's design
21. ↑ Hexarchate Tarot: Major Arcana