Ishgard was, by and large, a city-state with very little in the way of opportunity. Even for those born into the gilded halls of nobility, there were certain futures expected of them, certain lives they could live and many more they could not. But few as their options were, they were still leagues above those born to the brume. To one young woman, born of a relatively minor noble and his favored mistress --- an unwanted child who cost her mother her relatively comfortable position and cast her back to the Brume from whence she came, life itself was something she ought to be grateful for being allowed. Or so her mother claimed, when she pocketed the meagre stipend her once far-more-generous lover was willing to provide for the care of his bastard daughter. (And that only at the urging of his son, legitimate and softhearted and ever looking for a route out of a life he, too, felt caged in by.)
Well, something to be grateful for or not, Gracie wanted far more than anyone’s table scraps, let alone what little of it actually went to her care and not straight into her mother’s pockets. As soon as she was old enough to start spending more time away from her mother’s home (not her home, never her home; as far as she was concerned, she had no home and no need of one), she started looking after herself. Petty thievery was as common as dirt, she found, and invited too much trouble besides. Finding information, on the other hand… listening for rumors, passing them along for a fee, ensuring the right person heard (or didn’t hear) something of note… that was difficult to make profitable, but more satisfying. Almost as satisfying as tinkering with bits of metal, or playing around with potions.
Hardly glamorous, hardly moral, but everything combined to help a wary, angry child get by. And then, one day, when she was nine summers old, her half-brother sought her out, and promised to take her away. He would give her the Sournois name, he said, and she could come with him and his newly-wedded wife out of Ishgard, to another land entirely, and there live the life a child should live, one an innocent who had no choice about the manner of her birth truly deserved rather than one of misery and cruelty.
… In one world, this was exactly what happened. The scars from her childhood would remain, but she would grow up appreciative of what she gained, strive to protect that for others, and dedicate her life to those noble souls who sought to uphold the coming dawn for all. But not here.
Here, after promising one desperate, lonely little girl the world, one Tomasieaux Sournois disappeared from her life, a victim of illness (or perhaps politics). Regardless of the cause, no glorious rescue happened. Gracie had only herself and her mother’s cruel treatment. Under such conditions, she grew up cold and remote as a snow-chilled stone, unwilling to trust, unwilling to let herself care, and though her love of tinkering never faded, her love of learning never dulled, her life remained empty. Even gaining work at Skysteel Manufactory sometime after reaching adulthood (due to one Stephanivien de Haillenarte claiming his prospectometer going mad in her presence when she approached due to hearing of his willingness to employ the lowborn masses) and eventually receiving training in machinistry did little to warm her to the city or others.
The moment the war ended and Ishgard once again opened its gates to the world, she left, resigning from her post at Skysteel and never once looking back. Ishgard had never done her any favors, and though she couldn’t help but acknowledge the existence of kind, decent souls such as the manufactory chief, she had no loyalty to her home city, no desire to see it improve. An unfulfilled promise hung in her ears, and Gracie knew she would never get the life she deserved if she stayed in Ishgard. No, she was going to have to look elsewhere, to the wider world, and involve herself in far more… profitable ventures. She could take care of herself out there; after all, all other people ever gave were empty promises.
(And if the woman who left Ishgard claimed the surname ‘Sournois’ for herself, denying her blood family’s right to reject her based on illegitimacy? Well, anyone who didn’t like it would see just how good of a shot she was.)
