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#Post#: 2837--------------------------------------------------
Grace Delicatesse
By: Grace Date: June 28, 2017, 9:35 am
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Name: Grace Delicatesse
Race: Unicorn
Gender: Female
Age: Mid-twenties
Physical Description: Grace possesses a lean, athletic build and
carries herself with an air of authority and importance. Her
posture is perfect as is most of her manners and casual
movements due to careful etiquette training when she was young.
Born into a privileged class and taught the importance of taking
care of her appearance, Grace is considered attractive by most
with a very well kept blonde tail and mane, the latter of which
normally being tied into a neat ponytail except for two locks of
hair she allows to hang in front of her blue eyes. The clothing
Grace wears is often expensive and tailored to suit her figure
perfectly with the colors usually consisting of her family
crest’s scheme of gold, red and black. Whenever not wearing
these colors she opts for whatever compliments her light gray
coat the most.
Special Talent: Business. Cutie mark is a scale with coins.
Likes: Successfully sealing a deal where she leaves with an
advantage. Taking part in novelty games and activities. Theatre
and concerts. Fencing, chess and saber sparring.
Dislikes: Using her wealth to get what she wants when her words
fail. Tolerating people whom she has deemed unworthy of her
time. Groups or individuals that try to act friendly purely due
to her wealth or family. Acting on behalf of her company as
opposed to her own interests.
Strengths: Grace is well traveled and is familiar with most
locations within Equestria. Her globe-trotting and dealing with
many different races has left her fluent in multiple languages.
Grace’s family is in control of an immensely successful trading
company primarily focused on spices and exotic goods. While her
personal slice of the wealth is nothing compared to the
collective whole, she still lives in luxury and has, through
years of favors and carefully establishing connections,
resources and contacts at her disposal.
Grace has several hobbies in competitive sports. Saber dueling
and fencing are her preferred leagues and she has attended
numerous tournaments across the country. She displays her
interest proudly by keeping her rapier at her side at all times.
Grace is highly agile and quick with her preferred means of
defense with whatever she can’t avoid being left up to a light
vest of chainmail tailored into her clothing to protect her.
Weaknesses: Grace was raised to only ever look out for herself
and her family’s interests. As a result, she can be highly
selfish and even treacherous when it comes to those she does not
care for. While she is convincing and well-practiced in
pretending to enjoy the company of those she meets, she is in
fact cold, manipulative and near antisocial at times with most
ponies she meets being little more than pawns in whatever game
she is playing. It is not impossible for her to care for others,
but those trying to make friends may find it a challenge should
they not prove themselves useful to her.
Grace has issues in controlling her anger. A trait inherited
from her father, Grace wishes to see those that have wronged her
destroyed be it through financial, emotional or physical means.
Depending on the severity of the slight against her and the
strength of the guilty, Grace can become increasingly cruel and
even reckless in her pursuit of revenge.
While a skilled fencer and duelist, Grace’s mastery of magic is
relatively lacking. She knows a few simple spells (Telekinetic
control over small to medium sized items, simple light producing
magic, etc.) but anything more advanced or requiring serious
study is lost on her.
She’s tougher than she looks, but Grace is still a unicorn with
a light build and is not suited to slug out brawls.
Fears: Falling in line with her family.
Bio: Grace is the only daughter of a very wealthy and powerful
pony named Affluent Enterprise. Affluent is the primary owner of
a business focused primarily on importing and trading spices and
exotic goods. Grace was raised to be an heiress to this business
and was educated and trained to have a strong understanding of
both legit and illegitimate business practices including illegal
means by which to secure an advantage when dealing with others.
Despite her upbringing and personal enjoyment when she succeeds
with these tactics, Grace wishes she could help others using her
money and resources and has on occasion done so to satisfy her
whimsies. She currently day dreams about turning the business
around and making it something that can do some good in the
world, this being something that often puts her at odds with her
family.
To sum her up in one sentence: Grace is a bad person that is
trying to be better.
Extra: If involved with more modern technology, Grace’s
chainmail is switched with a light stab vest and she carries a
concealed custom .38 pistol in addition to her dagger and
rapier.
Extended Bio: Grace was born into the upper echelons of
Canterlot society as the only daughter of a rather distant and
unfeeling pair of ponies. Before her birth, her parents
successfully seized control of most major assets being
contributed to a supposedly temporary syndicate of several
different companies focused on a sudden rush of imported spices
and exotic goods from outside of Equestria. The means by which
the takeover had come to pass is buried somewhere beneath
mountains of paperwork written in legalese with hidden clauses
and loopholes plentiful enough to satisfy a circus acrobat team.
The soon to follow folding of the victim companies, acquisition
of their remaining assets and fates of some involved did little
to deflect questions and accusations regarding the overall
ethicality of it all. To this day, it continues to be an
occasional topic of discussion for old rich ponies with nothing
else to do. These events left Grace’s family with a near
monopoly over most of Equestria’s spice trade and exotic
imports, the crown needing to step in some years later to limit
their influence and cut back on their dominance over the market.
Regardless, her family was still left as one of the wealthiest
in the country and it wasn’t uncommon to see one of her
relatives in courts across the land making friends.
“Money can’t buy happiness” is one of the first things Grace
learned in her early life, it also being one of the few things
she remembered clearly hearing from her mother in the short time
she knew her. She doesn’t remember her terribly well due to her
dying when Grace was still young from an illness she contracted
on a trip abroad. The other memories she has, while brief and
sparse, were not ones she considered fond. Days spent being
ignored in favor of things deemed more important like meetings
and letters scribbled out and addressed to potential buyers. The
only times she did earn her mother’s attention was when her
overworked live-in nannies quit or were fired forcing her to be
brought along to wherever her parents were going next. She
doesn’t think about her mother today, but she did however still
cry when she passed. She can’t remember if she did this more
than once, but she can remember that her father had done the
same. It remains the only time she’s ever seen him shed tears.
Affluent Enterprise, Grace’s father, wasn’t known for his softer
side. Evidence that it even existed was scarce and considered
similar to sightings of alien beings. Strange and not of this
world. Normally the only emotions anyone ever saw in him was a
subtle simmering anger when displeased or a hungry and almost
unsettling joy when things went according to plan. It was in the
eyes mostly, those windows Affluent could never fully close
allowing a peek behind the mask of professionalism he always
wore. Grace was rather annoyed to realize she’d inherited these
same eyes when she suffered comments over it during one of her
careers earliest accomplishments. Way she saw it, they may as
well have compared her to a shark that smelled blood in the
water.
No, Affluent wasn’t known for his compassion or empathy, this
holding true even when he was forced to be the only remaining
guardian of Grace. To call him a parent would be beyond generous
as it was clear early on that he desired not a daughter but
instead an heiress to what he’d built. Grace grew up with no
cherished memories of her father playing with her upon returning
home from work, no trips to the fields outside of the city
purely for the fun of it and no warm parties where the sole
purpose of which was their familial bond. That wasn’t her
purpose. Not to him at least. She was meant only to be a
continuation of him. A piece that would live on even after his
own death. It would be his blood that he would vicariously rule
over his fortune and power through when he grew old and it would
be his lineage that would be regarded with reverence, his genes
the code for success as it carried into the future.
To this end, Grace only became useful to him when she grew old
enough to begin her studies in full. Her personal tutors were
instructed to work over-time in introducing Grace to every facet
of finance and trading as well as making sure that proper
etiquette and manners become second nature. She took to this
quickly and easily as she displayed a remarkable aptitude for
business related subjects with her special talent eventually
being revealed to fall in line with that of most of her
relatives. The more colorful subjects she was made to master
were a bit more tasking however. Acting, wordplay, different
languages, personal grooming and fashion, manipulation, lying,
cheating, coercing, intimidating, the gamete grew darker the
further along she progressed with her training to use weapons in
her mid to late teen years.
It didn’t surprise her that things had shifted in such a way.
The older she got the less naïve she became as to why her family
always seemed to have an upper hand in every situation they were
dealing in. It failed to surprise her when she neared adulthood
and was being told how to pinpoint the softest part of someone’s
back. What did surprise her was just how good at this she
became. Working in business came easy to her, but getting what
she wanted out of a deal was almost child’s play after a few
years of practice. The way she saw it, people are basically a
series of emotional responses that can be easily predicted if
you can get an early enough read on someone’s personality. The
subtle cues, the tells for when they lie, the sweat that builds
when their nervous, the momentary hesitation when presented with
an altered deal, the crack in their voice when they respond to
an ultimatum. It was almost fun finding these. Sort of like a
photographer waiting for just the right moment to snap a picture
and capture a moment, Grace waited for just the right moment to
strike and end a career.
Her skill was indeed impressive, and the moment of victory was
pleasant, but it brought no long-term joy for the mare even
after proving herself over years of service within Fae
Exotiques. Despite a lifetime of being taught differently, Grace
still couldn’t help but feel that twinge of guilt, that brief
stabbing pain of regret when she allowed herself a moment to
assess the damage she’d caused. There are people out there of
many races she’d ruined by this point, and what exactly had she
gained to show for it? Whatever spoils weren’t strictly monetary
were simply absorbed by Fae Exotiques, so what had she really
gotten out of it? Money? Grace didn’t care about money. She’d
lived with money her entire life, grown up in a large luxurious
home, eaten the highest quality of imported delicacies, been
treated to the fanciest of parties where she or someone she knew
were a VIP and yet she’d always felt so… empty. All Grace could
ever truly show for her work was the approval of her surviving
parent and the accolades her extended family would shower her
with at every get-together. Approval and accolades for taking
when she already had so much.
Grace began to find excuses for distancing herself from her
family. Primarily she chose to take her self-defense training in
using rapiers and cavalry sabers to a more professional level.
She turned fencing and dueling into a hobby at which she
excelled after many a session practicing against the best.
Attending tournaments became a common part of Grace’s life with
victories coming more and more frequently as the years rolled
on. Travelling went hand in hand with this and served well to
build distance between her and her family back home as she spent
a couple of years hopping from place to place keeping up with
the various circuits she would drop in and out of depending on
what she was doing. She still worked of course. Cutting all ties
would only work against her desires of isolation and incur the
wrath of her relatives, but it became less common for her to be
seen in person and more common for her to be known as a name at
the bottom of a page. It was only during the most important of
occasions that Grace would come back home and deal with things
herself, and even then it was only to keep up an appearance of
being a part of the company.
When Grace finally did return home for the long term it was with
little fanfare. Indeed, most hadn’t even known she’d come back
until an employee of their Canterlot headquarters caught sight
of her enjoying a meal at one of her favorite cafés. She was
then immediately contacted by her family and invited to a party
they wanted to organize to welcome her back, this also being a
perfect opportunity of course to consult her on Fae Exotiques'
most recent actions, but much to their surprise she refused.
Grace expressed little interest in such an event and invited
them to simply cut to the chase and send her copies of the
documents that would have been the real guests of honor for she
was far too busy to dance around the issue.
And what was she busy with?
The funding and organizing of a local festival celebrating
culture from both within and outside of the country complete
with rare examples of genuine artefacts and antiques of which
most would be donated to Canterlot’s museum upon the closing of
the event.
Her father was furious. Grace was never able to decipher if it
had been because of how she had conducted herself
professionally, or if it was because the antiques donated were
part of his own personal collection. Either way, Grace had never
before needed to rely on her acting ability as she had when she
kept herself from laughing in his face after his eruption of
anger. She defended her actions as a PR stunt intended to warm
relations and spark interest with potential buyers as well as
bring the company name down from the upper rungs of society. It
would allow the common pony to hear the name and see what good
Fae Exotiques could do, again improving their image. Really,
though, she just wanted to screw with him and the rest of her
family. What better way to mess with the greedy than to throw
their money at the people they deemed beneath them?
She was put on a tighter leash after the third time she’d done
something like this. Grace was restricted from using most of the
company’s assets without first going through Affluent and her
actions when operating within or in the interest of the company
were watched more closely now. However, there was only so much
they could do. When all was said and done Grace was proven to be
a big earner, her words carried weight and her father’s ego
ensured she remained the heiress to the company regardless.
Despite technically still working for Fae Exotiques, Grace
manages her own slice of the wealth now by carrying out her own
interests and brokering more specialized deals and trades. All
in all, she felt it had been worth it to throw a few jabs at the
one up top to release some steam that had been whistling for a
couple decades now. It was only intended to be a joke after all
as it hadn’t truly harmed anyone but herself. Those things lost
would be replaced, the money spent had been a mere drop siphoned
from the sea, and the slap she was given fell on a numb wrist.
She had expected as much.
What Grace hadn’t expected to get out of these three occasions
was the simple enjoyment of having spent her time and money on
something that didn’t purely benefit her family nor force anyone
innocent into a victimized role. For the first time ever she’d
done something that had helped others, a huge change of pace for
the mare even if the intentions behind it had been antagonistic
towards Affluent at first. Since then she’d looked for more
excuses to indulge in what felt almost like a guilty pleasure
and wondered what the possibilities could be for someone in her
position. It made her uncomfortable to think it, but Grace liked
what she’d been doing and wanted to do it more.
She is not a good person, however. Once the daydreams fade away
and reality returns she knows who she is, what she does, how she
does it, and how good she is at it. She knows that no number of
bleeding heart pursuits and generous detours will magically
change this, that she won’t awake tomorrow a virtuous mare of
the people heading a company of honest spice and exotics
traders. Maybe someday, but not now, not while Fae Exotiques
continues the way that it is and her family keeps in lock step
with their mantra of greed being good. A mantra she still felt a
disciplined adherence to herself. It would take time to break
old habits and find solutions, but Grace isn’t going anywhere,
even with the growing disapproval of Affluent and his people.
She’d find a way. Someday.
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