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Sun Summoners
It had been considered a sign from the saints when Alina Starkov was found to be a hidden Sun Summoner in the First Army.
It was more like an omen from the devil when Pin Hawthorne was yanked out of his Kerch farmhouse to join her.
Suddenly Ravka felt very accomplished and there were two new Grisha being shuttled to the Little Palace for training.
General Kirigan ended up bringing Alina to the Little Palace personally. Pin arrived via boat and then subsequent illegal train through the Fold, but both arrived on the same day. They were then presented to the king, both forced to use their powers, and then they were thrust into training.
Alina made friends, but Pin didn’t. He made friends in his own way - the horses. Whenever he could, he snuck off to go riding, which introduced him to Marcus.
Marcus was the stablehand, while their relationship first started off as enemies, it slowly changed to friends, best friends, and then the weird limbo stage before they kissed.
The entire time, Pin had noticed how weird Kirigan had gotten. He’d always been strangely close to Alina, but when the twin summoners were presented with their dress keftas, he noticed how they were black with gold embroidery instead of blue like their combat ones.
“You two are very special to me,” He said. “You will help fix the problem my bloodline created,”
Yeah, Pin thought. Something was up.
Alina bought into the whole thing, but Alina was naive and always had her mind focused on the fact her childhood friend still hadn’t written her back. Pin would have joined her because he never got letters from his Dad, but there was a Shadowfold blocking those.
It all went downhill at the Winter Fete.
First, Mal showed up and Alina was enamored, and the two kept disappearing, which made Kirigan increasingly more mad. Then, he turned his more deeper affections onto Pin, which made their barely there relationship very awkward and triggered his ‘flight or fight’ response.
Pin chose flight.
“We’re leaving!” He yelled, throwing two packed saddlebags over his horse saddle and looking at Marcus. “I can’t be here anymore,”
“Where are we going?” Marcus asked. “Kirigan will just come find you again,”
“Not if we go through the fold,” Pin shot back, practicing the hand movements for a small ball of sunlight. “Which we will,”