TWENTY-THREE â SQUALLER
THE ORDER OF SUMMONERS (ETHEREALKI)
* This character is trans and uses he/him pronouns.
Shona had no idea why he was the way he was, wild in an empty sort of way, at once the rush of a rapture and the silent aftermath of a hollow universe. Even as a child he was so, so much, a tiny catastrophe of tumultuous energy and too honest words born to a family of weary parents and siblings who grew up too fast, too soon. Looking back, he pitied his poor mother, who didnât know how to handle a child who seemed to know more about vexing her than loving her, but she loved him all the same and wept when, one evening, he blew the sheets off his bed and shot them across the house in a shallow gust following a small temper when he refused to go to bed early. Shu Han was not kind to the likes of him, children who were as much offspring to the natural order of the earth as they were to their parents, and he remembered his family mourning long and softly at the foot of his bed. But Shona and his mother were similar in that inaction never suited either of them, and, with the help of a benevolent trader whose route took him through Ravka, she was able to send Shona to safety on the back of a caravan, packed among cheese and dried meats. For a while Shona, would be looked down upon in Ravka for being Shu, condescended to and distrusted; such was the nature of warring nations. Yet it was still better than what would happen to him if he remained. He cried when he left, and then once again when he was delivered to the orphanage in Keramzin, and then never again.
The Little Palace was as foreign a home as Ravka was, but Shona finally had the luxury of being as honest as he liked, in his words and in his capabilities, and the squaller became notorious for his biting tongue, his careless charisma, his complete disregard for anything that didnât immediately capture his interest. He scoffed at the Grisha who lived permanently within the Palace, who fed their ego with the honor of being asked to stay; he laughed at all the hierarchies that had been eargerly laid out for him since heâd arrivedâGrisha and humans, Grisha and other Grisha, Ravkans and Shu. âSimpletons with nothing better to occupy their thoughts than imagining up a caste,â he snorted once. No, he occupied his time not in politics, but by plunging deeper and deeper into the abyss of his art. To be powerful was to be autonomous, he thought, but the wind and he were alike in that attempting to establish total control over eitherâto force them into action rather than guiding their moving path, was to invite failure.
It was a lesson not easily learned in the comfortable confines of the Little Palace, and when he was sent to fight alongside the First Army towards the north rather than remain, he wasnât particularly surprised. He still couldnât summon a storm no matter how hard he tried or how shrilly his instructor commanded, and for as little as he let on about it, the struggle had been agonizing. But he fought, the biting cold alien to him, his spirits low, having been separated from what few friends heâd made at the Little Palace and forced to fight in weather and terrain heâd never known. It was one particularly trying night that the Fjerdans took advantage of a roaring blizzard and attacked, shifting in and out of the white void. One by one, soldiers fell at his side as he frantically wound and coiled winter winds around him like tendrils. White became red with blood, and he could feel his time running short as the desperation and frenzy heâd distanced himself from climbed the edges of his nerves and filled his vision. And he panicked, not as a soldier on a mission, but as a primitive thing trying to survive. A blinding light, a deafening crack, the smell of burningâand when he opened his eyes, all that was left was ash and the Darkling and his men, there to escort Shona back to the Little Palace among the rest of the Grisha who had earned the honor.
It is known that some of the most perilous storms have no meaning nor ghost within - they wreak disasters because they can, regardless of whether or not thereâs a symbol or allegory to be found, and those who seek to find one will only get caught in the hurly burly. He is a masterpiece of smooth curves and unpredictable edges, sanded down by a merciless universe. But rather than mourn or seek vengeance, he much prefers to let the fervor of the tempest use him as much as he uses it, for he is as much a cog in the grand scheme of things as razing winds are to his agenda. His whims take him to and fro, from madness to reason, from lover to enemy, from nothing to everything. Claim the wind as your ally and watch as everything you love is swept away; claim it as your enemy and watch as your entire kingdom becomes dust. But leave it to its whims and fancies, and it may clear the rubble from your path.
ARSEN TARASOV, VALERIAN PETROV & LUKA MRAVINSKY:  The closest thing to brothers as they could be without sharing his blood, they were a ragtag group of children who grew sharp and rough in each otherâs company. Arsen, Valerian and Luka didnât seem to care he was originally from Shu Han, and perhaps that was their mistake and his own blessing. But things have since changed drastically since their years spent growing in the Little Palace, and now theyâve all become jagged sovereigns of their own little kingdoms slipping from their fingers, all the while Shona strives to keep both of them grounded and tethered to what theyâve always known, to keep them all from losing themselves in the growing chaos.
ARINA ZAHKAROV: Like called to like, as oddities often did. Neither of them truly felt like they belonged, and neither of them cared enough to make an effort to assimilate to what their environment asked of them, and if there was anyone Shona could tolerate unconditionally aside from Valerian and Luka, itâs the little scholar with a taste for morbidity whoâs never cared for the differences between them. He was never particularly taken with her projects or her artâhe rarely was with anything that didnât have to do his ownâbut her unapologetic passion captured his own, and he thinks sheâs one of the few good things about the Little Palace.
FARID TERESHKIN:Â They met once years back during a Winter Fete, when he cast lightning to strike the center of the Palace courtyard and the Count caught his gaze just as the light was beginning to fade. He never cared much for titles nor nobility, as anyone with the former usually treated him poorly despite depending on a Grishaâs service most, but Farid didnât much care for traditions nor propriety. He supposes things could be worse than to be treated like a prized dancing monkey and, on many occasions, a personal rent boy, in exchange for honeyed treats and gifts of gold (that heâs only ever thrown in a heap in his closet), but heâs never been one to deny himself a distraction nor a momentary pleasure.
SHONA IS PORTRAYED BY SATOSHI TODAÂ & IS TAKEN BY KAT.
