Shay Grayson's Story

Shay sighed as she pick one of the tiny white flowers off of a bush. She looked at the fragile thing in her hand and brushed her fingers against the flower's soft petals. Making sure her wavy brown hair covered her one eye that was darker than the other, Shay let the crowd of people around her push her along the current. Keeping her head down Shay's eyes darted from face to face. Young people, old people, but never anyone like herself. When Shay arrived at the market she walked around and pretended to look at the items the venders where selling. She saw a short lanky boy who appears to trip over his own feet and she sighed, she'd found her source of money for the day. Turning her head down Shay walked over to the boy and bumped into him sending him sprawling on the floor. "Oh my," Shay said in her soft quiet voice, "I'm so sorry." Helping the boy up she gave him a faint smile and quickly walked away. When she was far enough Shay let out a sigh and took the boy's pouch of coins out of her pocket. She felt bad knowing that the boy would be yelled at for losing his money but Shay had swapped it with the flower. And it was a beautiful flower.

When Shay got to the inn she was staying at she opened the old splintering door and smiled at the lady behind the desk. Walking up the stairs to her room she opened the creaking door and locked it behind her. Turning around she slid down the door to sit on the rug covering the room's floor. Taking the coins out of her pocket she threw them across the room and laid her head on her arms. Shay hadn't realized how tired she was until her eyelids drooped shut. She didn't even bother to move to the bed as the sounds of people outside drifted away and Shay fell asleep.

Shay's eyes snapped open when she heard a clamor outside of the inn. Rising slowly to her feet Shay made her way to the single window in her room and poked her head out warily. She was started to see a girl smaller than herself hanging upside-down from a pole sticking out from the inn's wall. Shay's eyes took in the hooded man she was talking to and the poorly hidden man in the background and clicked her tongue. The man was making a mockery of himself with his poor hiding skills, he wasn't even sticking to the shadows like any person who gave thought to hiding would. Shay's attention was drawn back to the upside-down girl and hooded man when he threw back his hood and said, "Looks like you might have gotten into a spot of trouble back there. I don't know that I'd take time to admire my spoils considering this city's not gonna be safe for any of us once word spreads." Shay saw his one green eye and one blue eye and had to cover her mouth so she wouldn't gasp. Other gracelings!

She couldn't help but smile, she'd found not only one, but three others like herself! Her smile turned even bigger as she felt the icy tingle that meant she was turning invisible. Time to have a little fun. Pulling herself out of the window Shay slowly started climbing up to the roof, telling herself not to look down the whole time. When she finally made it to the roof she'd missed half the conversation but she made it in time to hear the girl say, "You can call me Chase. And nothing but Chase or you might get chased." Shay and sat cross-legged next to the girl. Turning visible again she smiled at Chase and said in her soft voice, "Chase....what a lovely name!" She looked at the two men and turned back to Chase with a smile, "Sorry to interrupt. It only seemed fair that I even the numbers."

Leon looked at the two of them not knowing what to say his eye patch moved a little the eye under it blinking. He slowly moved out of where he was badly hidden just to see the girl jump up and hang form a bar coming from one of the near by walls. He smiled still not knowing why he tryed to hide in the first place knowing he wasn't good at it. His light purple eye looking over the two both were hiding their eyes with hoods. Why? He had so much luck with his dealing with the eye patch over one eye he could understand hiding it with a hood. He was snapped out of his thoughts but the girl asking him something.

"Hasn't anyone ever told you it's not polite to stalk little girls?"

He hadn't even been meaning to 'stalk' her but he guessed thaat is what it could have looked like. "I am sorry Miss Chase. I didn't know how to speak to you and I was only waiting. It looked like you had a fight with a few men and I didn't think know how you would react to me.........."He looked away and looked back and now there was two girls he didn't know what to think till the 2nd spoke. He moved a little closer and asked "And what would your name be miss?"

Izzy smirked taking her cue from the new girl that just appeared from line air. "Sorry to interrupt. It only seemed fair that I even the numbers." She stepped out of the shadows of the alley way making her way in three steps to the wall under Chase's perch "I think I would rather have the odds in our favor would you agree?"

She pulled her hood down as well showing her copper and blue eyes, "I am Isabelle, but you can call me Iz or Izzy." She clear her throat trying to keep her voice slowed some what from her normal blurred speech.

Nathaniel immediately took a step back as the others made their appearances. He was confident, but he wasn’t sure if he could withstand the odds if they all turned their attention his way. They might be the same, gracelings all of them but that didn’t mean he immediately trusted them. As for the matter of numbers it didn’t matter much to Nate seeing as he always played for a team of one.

“Well, look here. What are the odds that so many of us would convene so randomly? If I didn’t know any better I’d think we were being set up, but I just can’t see how that’d be possible.” Nathaniel offered his voice neutral as he tried to keep all of the newcomers within sight and listened to them exchange pleasantries.

The cagey young man completely ignored the question of what his grace was, instead letting the attention shift to the rest of the group. His grace was as such that it wasn’t immediately noticeable and was such a part of him that he didn’t consider it to be anything strange or abnormal. Crossing his arms across his chest he took stock of the people before him. There were five gracelings meandering in the alleyway, as if that were a normal occurrence and wouldn’t set the town aflame if they were caught.

“I’m Nathaniel and we might want to do away with the how do you do’s and find someplace else to be? I mean it’s all well and good, there’s more of us than I thought but it wouldn’t do us much good if we were all cornered by an angry mob and strung up.” Nate added to the conversation, his tone making it apparent that he wouldn’t be too bothered by such a turn of events. Nathaniel might try and seem logical but he can’t help his natural affinity for a fight.

"I'm Nathaniel and we might want to do away with the how do you do's and find someplace else to be? I mean it's all well and good, there's more of us than I thought but it wouldn't do us much good if we were all cornered by an angry mob and strung up." Shay smiled shyly at the rest of the group and sighed, "Nathaniel's right, we're no good to anybody if we're dead." Shay slowly got to her feet and walked to the edge of the building.

Looking down over the edge of the roof she wondered vaguely how she was going to get down, unlike Chase she wasn't exactly able to just swing down. Sighing Shay looked over the group once more before quietly adding, "My name's Shay by the way. Some people used to call me Shy or Mouse, I'm not really sure if I should take that as a complement or an insult so you can chose." Shrugging Shay walked back over to where the window to her room was before climbing back in and going to gather her stuff. Something told her that this trip was going to be different.

"Chase....what a lovely name! Sorry to interrupt. It only seemed fair that I even the numbers." Chase was so startled by the sudden appearance of another girl that her feet slipped and Chase let out a small yelp "Ahh!" She didn't have time to catch her self and so she tumbled to the ground, landing roughly on her back. To ease the impact she rolled upon hitting the ground and sprung up. Coughing and dusting herself off a bit, she was bright red, embarrassed.

"Well that was.... an impressive trick" She said grinning up at the mystery girl who was clearly also graced. However, upon studying her she noticed that both her eyes were brown. Maybe she wasn't graced? But looking closer, she saw that one eye was just a bit darker than the other. Interesting. Chase's own eyes were hard to miss. Bright and strange, just like her personality. "You, my friend, have earned my respect. Shay's your name? I like Mouse better."

Taking in the other members of this merry band of misfits, she watched as the stalker guy spoke up, and quite eloquently. Chase rolled her eyes and twirled the dagger in her hand "You can say what you want," she said dismissively. Just then another voice crept up "I think I would rather have the odds in our favor would you agree?" Chase jumped, startled again, and quite surprised she'd managed to get outsmarted, twice. Frowning, she turned to the new girl, who claimed to be Isabelle. "Izzy, I do agree. But I also agree with Nathaniel it would be wise to go and find somewhere else to talk."

Her eyes darted up to the rooftops, and in another second she was climbing to the roof. After another second or two she was standing precariously on a ledge, overlooking a small view of the city. Mapping out the area in her head before climbing down, she had an idea of where to go. "There's a forest nearby and a small cottage next to it. I'm pretty sure the cottage is abandoned but it's hard to tell from here."