Graceling Read Along: Personal Character Origins!

Hi everyone! Welcome back to another fun post in honour of Caroline from Just Another Bookish Blog and my Graceling series read along! We're reading Fire, the second book, this week. And don't forget that we're holding a fan art competition! Details can be found in this post.

As you may recall, during the first week of reading Graceling, Caroline and I created profiles of own Graceling selves (you can find mine here and Caroline's here). Today, we're taking it one step further and exploring our backstories and how we discovered our Graces!

If you recall, my Graceling self's Grace is travelling unseen and unheard. Which makes me great for spy missions ;) Without further ado, I present to you Erika's Graceling Origin Story! :D

Three weeks after the birth of a baby girl to an earl of Lienid, one of her brown eyes began to change to gold, marking her as a Graced. But whereas the kings of other kingdoms demand all Graced to be brought to their castle to grow up in order to determine what their Grace is and if it would be useful to the court, the kingdom of Lienid allow their Graced to to grow up freely and do as they please. 

At five, the daughter proved to have a slightly mischievous streak, stealing sweets from the kitchen at the dead of night. In games with friends, she excelled at hiding games, in particular games of blind tag, where unless she was seen, no one could ever determine where she ran. After a few baffling incidents where she would seemingly materialize from thin air, her parents realized their daughter's Grace was the ability to move around unseen and unheard. As a result, they began to teach her a firm system of right and wrong, in hopes she would never use her Grace for wrongdoing.

At eight, a trip to town revealed the hardships of citizens and chefs, where a lack of proficient hunters resulted in a lack of proper diet. The girl was confused; earlier that day she had snuck up and jumped a wild turkey roaming near her parent's estate on a dare. Her father explained later that it took normal men twice, possibly triple the time it took her to capture an animal due to her Grace. Comprehension dawning, she began secretly sneaking out at night not to steal sweets, but to capture animals for the citizens in the town for food. When her parents discovered her night time activities, though they frowned at her secrecy, rather than lock her up, they instead offered her the chance to learn how to hunt with weapons. 

As time passed, she became quite well-known among various towns. Numerous chefs enlisted her help, guaranteed that she would bring in fresh game for specific events or special occasions within a few hours. Any small game she captured along the way went to smaller, more local businesses like to inns or taverns, or to less fortunate households. 

Her Grace for moving unseen and unheard has constantly drawn the attention of mercenaries. The first incident occurred recently after her first few hunting excursions, where mercenaries tried to kidnap her. Unfortunately for them, all it took to get away was for her to pretend to be knocked out, and once their attention drifted away from her for a moment, she easily slipped away without a sound. By the time they realized she was gone and began looking, she was long gone. Since then, she has always taken additional care in being aware of her surroundings, and to avoid extensive social interactions with people who may desire using her Grace to harm others. 

Don't forget to check out Caroline's profile as well, on her blog!