Before I begin, I'd like to think the following people for the following reasons: Cloudemeh, for collaborating with me on everything except the first chapter; Fractal Moon for coming up with the name Rodle; Kristin Cashore for writing my favorite book; Coldplay for being a band. Now that credit is given, finally, where credit is due, I promise no more bolded interruptions unless they are legit important.
Somewhere in the land of Westlington, in a city called Bulpville, a young woman was being held captive in a cell that was less like a cell and more like a pretty nice room in the palace owned by King Bulp, one of Westlington's many Evil Kings. Like most Evil Kings, King Bulp was foolish and haughty, and had a name that sort of sounded like someone swallowing vomit back down. But he was thankful for his name. At least he wasn't Ubb or Leck. That would suck.
Anyhow, the girl was held captive in the manner of being allowed to wander the castle, play with friends, eat wonderful food, and above all, ride horses, which, besides falling in love with a jerk, is the number one pastime (or daydreamed pastime) of women in general.
But nonetheless, she was very sad. She was sad because she was Graced, and therefore had to do the king's bidding. It bored her to no end. Young Padwyn (for that was her name, and it was a special one too: Most other girls who were named Padwin had it spelled that way) possessed the Grace of Feet.
Not only did Padwyn have two of her very own attached at her ankles (and she could even use them to run and kick!), she could also give the distance between any two things in feet, and had enough rulers for all of Westlington to prosper on ruler sales. She was a true blessing.
But Padwyn did not see it that way. She was absolutely convinced that the people from Westlington hated her and did their best to distance themselves out of fear. She was also convinced that she was a misfit and a reject for her bicolored Graceling eyes, which, from right to left, were iridescent white (rainbow in the right light), and deep ocean blue (almost black).
Padwyn sat balefully on the plush purple bedspread of her cell with her best friend, and the only person who she felt didn't hate her, Marcie. She sighed. "You know, Marcie, I feel like people just don't understand me. After all, the Ungraced will never understand or love the Graced, but I'm a person. It shouldn't be this way. I wish I didn't have to do the king's dirty work. And all I do is make rulers and measure how many feet away an invading army is or something dumb like that. Maybe if I was an assassin or something cool like that, and had a good Grace, I'd feel better, but I think I'm kind of a disappointment of a main character. You know what I mean?"
"Quack," Marcie quacked.
"Exactly," said Padwyn, nodding her head solemnly. "Marcie, you always know what to say. I guess I feel a little better now."
Marcie quacked again, making Padwyn laugh.
"You're the only source of happiness in my dark life," the Graceling said cheerfully. "I don't know what I'd do without you. Probably fall in love, but I'm so afraid of commitment. And the people here hate me anyway," Padwyn continued, tossing away a box of chocolates sent to her by an admirer. She got up off of the bed. "Make yourself comfortable, Marcie. I know you're probably wanting to be by yourself now. You always get like that."
"Quack," Marcie quacked.
"I know, I'm going, I'm going," Padwyn muttered. "I'll just be four hundred and two feet away in the courtyard if you need me," she said, closing the door. "Some people can be so irritable."
The girl strolled down to the courtyard. She was wearing a red and black dress she'd bought at Hot Topic earlier. She felt edgy. As she walked through the grass, she had some sort of private conversation with herself about how she didn't want to get married and hated children. Truthfully, I wasn't paying much attention because there was a show about lizards on the TV. Lizards are cool.
"Hey!" Padwyn yelled. "I not be very interesting, but I'm still moody and antisocial, and thus command attention! Write about what I'm doing!" Padwyn flipped her hair indignantly and its dark red streak sort of shone in afternoon sunlight. She probably should have bleached her hair before trying to dye it. She humphed indignantly at the narrator's critique on her hair, then was caught off guard by an explosion in the stone wall off to her left. She ran what she knew was about forty-eight and a half feet to the source of the explosion to see what was going on.
A hand reached out of the gathering smoke cloud and grabbed her ankle, which freaked her out because her ankles were right by her feet and her feet were part of her Grace!
"Come with me, fair maiden!" coughed a voice she hoped had some correlation to the hand around her leg. "Myself and my comrade and our Mecha made of dinosaurs and bears are here to take you away from here!" For indeed, it was Rodle who spoke, and he and Gerp had forged together the individual parts of each bear and velociraptor, and then these, the most dangerous creatures of all time assembled into a giant Mecha that had shot one of its bear missiles (and Rodle) into King Bulp's courtyard.
"Velociraptors, Rodle!" Gerp commanded from inside the robot, using its microphone, which was also made of bears. "Not just dinosaurs! Don't be so indiscriminate."
Padwyn noticed that this voice had the same slight nasal accent as the first one. As Rodle crawled out of the smoke toward her, she could see his superhero costume, which made his gaunt frame seem all the gaunter. She didn't think he was very attractive, but since he appeared to be rescuing her from her prison, she would make do.
"Finally!" she exclaimed, "My time to shine as the main character! My story will finally be interesting! Or at least readable! Oh, take me away, gallant knight, and let us stop upon the nearest food court, as this lady hungers for some lo mein from the Panda Express!"
Rodle didn't quite understand what Padwyn was saying, but he figured a teenage girl was a teenage girl, and this one was what they'd been looking for. Taking her in his arms with quite a bit of labor, he hopped aboard a passing grizzly and commanded it back to the Mecha.
Padwyn briefly wondered if she ought to have gotten Marcie to come along too, but then remembered it was a main character's job to leave the ones she cared about and grow stronger, braver and less relatable to her old friends by the story's end. She figured Marcie would just have to survive on her own.
Which Marcie was doing just fine at. She'd made herself at home in Padwyn's room and was currently devouring the box of chocolates. Marcie was a veteran of explosions and robots, and they hardly fazed her anymore.