Shuos Zehun

**Shuos Zehun** is a Shuos administrator who is the personal assistant of Shuos Mikodez. They appear in Ninefox Gambit, Raven Stratagem, Revenant Gun, and the flashfic Irriz the Assassin-Cat.

## Appearance and Personality

Zehun often has their appearance altered. They have been a slim manform with a dark face at least once; their various faces have been described as "cheerfully ugly." Their hair is long enough to tie back. Zehun is ageing and wears shawls in the workplace, claiming the temperature is kept too low. Although not normally superstitious, Zehun allows themselves irrationalities about matters such as Shuos Jedao and the designation of the Room of Guns.

Zehun is the only person who fully understands the layout and security measures of the Citadel of Eyes. They are normally a stickler for nomenclature and correct bureaucratic procedure, and it is a bad idea to waste their time.

Zehun uses a form of sign language with Mikodez.
Zehun hates it when Mikodez signs off before they can respond to something. Last time Mikodez suggested a vacation, Zehun scrambled his noncritical custom grid interfaces in retaliation.

Mikodez considers Zehun, whom he first knew as "a quiet person with unquiet ideas about how the Shuos should be run," to be "the glue holding this place together."

Zehun likes cats and always keeps one or more as pets, keeping them in their office and often bringing a cat on family visits or to Mikodez's office, even during serious meetings. Their cats are habitually named after notorious Shuos assassins, and they decline to confirm this as a commentary on Shuos assassins' intelligence.

## Personal life

Zehun has raised five children, and thought they were done with raising teenagers after that. Hragoshik Verrisen, Zehun's second daughter, has a daughter named Piri, who enjoys the occasional visit from her 'Gran.' At the time of the Hafn invasion, Zehun had four grandchildren, with a fifth on the way; by nine years later, they had great-grandchildren.

Zehun's cats have included a black kitten, who might have grown into one of two later black cats; Irriz; Fenez and Jienji; and, eventually, Jedao.

## Career

As an instructor, Zehun was sent with an assassination team to assess Vauhan Mikodez, a second-year Shuos cadet whose signifier had briefly shifted to Ninefox Crowned with Eyes during an evaluation. Zehun chose not to have Mikodez culled. A late growth spurt in subsequent years left Mikodez a bit taller than Zehun. Mikodez remembers Zehun's *don't play innocent cadet* look vividly.

Zehun's support was a critical part of Mikodez's rise to power.

Zehun served two other hexarchs before Mikodez, the last for only three years. When Mikodez visited his predecessor, who had retired to breed cockatiels, Zehun had to talk him out of bringing a cockatiel home as a pet.

During Mikodez's seventh year as hexarch, Zehun yelled at him for quarreling with Kujen on Kujen's home station over whether Jedao should know that he had been the prototype for formation instinct.

Zehun was lent to Kel Academy Secondary during Rhezny Brezan’s first three or more years as cadet; they wore many faces during that time, "all of them cheerfully ugly," and did not need to wear faction or rank insignia because everybody recognized them as Mikodez's assistant. They were a slim manform when leading Brezan’s third-year class through the Purple Paranoia exercise.

During Mikodez's thirty-fourth year as hexarch, he forgot to eat. Zehun has never let him live it down.

Mikodez asked if they would take immortality in his stead, but they refused, unwilling to spend eternity with people who always turned their paperwork in late.

## Trivia

* Zehun (and cats) will appear as "The Empty Hand" in Hexarchate Tarot. The card represents potential for advancement and the opening of new possibilities; reversed, it symbolizes misunderstandings and being trapped in one's current position.
* Zehun, unlike Mikodez, is a crocheter rather than a knitter. The author suspects "they have flamewars about knitting vs. crocheting."
* Zehun mentions Lieutenant General Kel Sumaarzaav as "that one Kel general whose name I can never pronounce."
* Brezan considered blaming Zehun when the blade of his calendrical sword appeared red-yellow during a scrying session.

## References

1. ↑ Raven Stratagem, Chapter 3
2. ↑ Raven Stratagem, Chapter 4
3. ↑ Raven Stratagem, Chapter 26
4. ↑ Raven Stratagem, Chapter 26
5. ↑ Raven Stratagem, Chapter 8
6. ↑ Raven Stratagem, Chapter 27
7. ↑ Raven Stratagem, Chapter 25
8. ↑ Raven Stratagem, Chapter 25
9. ↑ Raven Stratagem, Chapter 25
10. ↑ Irriz the Assassin-Cat
11. ↑ Raven Stratagem, Chapter 4
12. ↑ Raven Stratagem, Chapter 27
13. ↑ Irriz the Assassin-Cat
14. ↑ Raven Stratagem, Chapter 25
15. ↑ Revenant Gun, Chapter 36
16. ↑ Raven Stratagem, Chapter4
17. ↑ Hexarchate Stories: Glass Cannon
18. ↑ Raven Stratagem, Chapter 25
19. ↑ Raven Stratagem, Chapter 4
20. ↑ Raven Stratagem, Chapter 25
21. ↑ Raven Stratagem, Chapter 9
22. ↑ Raven Stratagem, Chapter 9
23. ↑ Raven Stratagem, Chapter 2
24. ↑ Raven Stratagem, Chapter 25
25. ↑ Raven Stratagem, Chapter 25
26. ↑ Author's remarks
27. ↑ Hexarchate Tarot: Major Arcana
28. ↑ Author's remarks
29. ↑ Raven Stratagem, Chapter 12