Kiy Tanthar

Kirill "Kiy" Tanthar
Кири́лл "Кы" Танфьар
Gender	Male
Born	April 12th 9305
Affiliation	Brazak West
Height	174 cm
Weight	72 kg
Hair Colour	Dark brown
Eye Colour	Grey-Blue
Ethnicity	Laro

Kiy Tanthar (full name 'Kirill Tanthar', - Azbuka: Кири́лл Танфьар; however the short form is pronounced "kai"), is a cloudgazer from Brazak West, and a protagonist of the Cloudgazer story. He is cool-headed and often detached, although marked by an almost chivalrous sense of doing the right thing. He had a younger sister, Julene Tanthar, though hasn't seen her since her kidnapping by Ganzabar during the Liberation War.

Background

Kiy was born in Laronor, Great Brazak, before the occupation years to Eugene Branna and Tatyana Tanthar. His parents met as officers aboard the GBC Nyeshimny, a Tykos Class cruiser, during the Great Nezzu War. They also had a daughter, Julene Tanthar, prior to the Liberation War. Known as Kiy from an early age (as opposed to his birth name Kirill), he grew up into a somewhat reserved but passionate boy.

Tatyana, Kiy's mother, was a member of the clandestine BULF. In what was to be one of the opening acts of the fighting, she (amongst a group of other rebels) seized control of the USK-built carrier Dawnstar, bound for the Ganzabi garrison forces, at Nantez. However, an informant summoned a naval response from the authorities and the fleeing Dawnstar was sunk, killing both Captain Tanthar and her husband Officer Branna. On hurried instructions from his parents, a young Kiy had made for an escape plane with his little sister Julene, which made it out before the ship reactors blew. Unfortunately the plane was detected by Ganzabi forces and the refugees aboard were captured. Julene was taken away by the command staff, while Kiy was incarcerated aboard the GMFS Isenbard and shipped to Ganzabar. He never saw his younger sister again.

He spent four months in a prison camp at Jonzunstad, where he began to obsess over the loss of Julene and set about finding her again. He met a Ziothi named Jansla Breck, who took sympathy with the young Brazakker and taught him all she knew. A later incident forced them to make an impromptu escape attempt, as Labeck revealed her prosthetic leg hid a sling. They made it as far as the sprawling capital of Zaropolis, where she bestowed the device on Kiy; having suffered a wound from which she wasn't to recover. Kiy hid the sling away in Labeck's bulky backpack and wandered the streets, begging for scrap to sell on. After running out of food and looking death in the eye, he chanced upon a kindly old monk by the name of Neb, who gave him shelter. Kiy lived with Neb in the Gnostic Monastery for most of his adolescence, learning to live on the rough streets of Zaropolis. He wrestled with his doubts over Neb's theological assertions, against the desire to make the old man -who had become like a father- proud. When Kiy was fifteen he met a young girl named Aggie. They began to see each other, despite warnings from Neb about the impiety of unmarried sex. Kiy revealed the sling to Aggie, promising to take her away from their dreary existence to live in Azrune. When Aggie boasted of it to her friend, word got out and local thugs went looking for it; culminating in an attack on the Monastery that killed Neb. Kiy was forced to use the sling to defeat the assailants, but blamed Aggie for Neb's death. The two parted ways, with Kiy leaving Zaropolis to make a living in rural Ganzabar as a Cloudgazer. Over time, his yearning to see home again overcame his denial of the past and he returned to a now-liberated Brazak West.

It was in Brudor that he met Esmerelda Litvyak, who would become his primary work contact. The Litvyaks became almost like a family to him, but a restlessness tugs at his mind.

Personality

Kiy has a very relaxed and non-committal attitude. He tends to be solitary, but does have a charismatic side when he's in his comfort zone. He has a distrust of aerofoil craft, but it isn't entirely clear why. Despite gaining an early hatred for the Ganzabi after the incident at Nantez, Kiy's consequent years of exposure living there gave him some degree of respect for Ganzabar's people, if not its government.