Hileia was born in Linandria. Her mother died in childbirth, and so she was raised by her father, Her father was a woodworker and certainly not the best in he did well for himself. An important thing to note about Hileia was she was born without a left arm, and though it was an annoying thing not to have she never let it slow her down. When learning archery she held the bow with her hand and pulled back the string and arrow with her teeth, In combat practice, she strapped the shield to her chest. Truth be told she is a horrible shot and the shield usually fell off within five minutes, in short, she sucked. But she was okay with that, she didn’t have to be an archer or a guard and more importantly, she didn’t want to be. She swayed more towards her father's line of work, art. More specifically painting, most days of her childhood Hileia’s father would take her down to the shore and while he whittled, she painted. One day she noticed her father wasn’t whittling his usual bear or raven, he was making small beads. She also noticed the discolored wood he made them from, the kind of wood usually only used for kindle. She asked him why he was making beads and why from such unusually and ugly wood? But he just smiled and said, “I’ll tell you when you’re older.” And like he promised when she turned fifty he explained, they went down to the shore as they always did and he surprised her with a beautiful necklace made out of smooth beautiful wood beads. Each bead had unique colors mixed in the wood that Hileia had never seen in any other wood. As she put the necklace over her head and on her neck she looked to her father for the long-overdue explanation. He said, “When you were younger I always worried that because you only had one arm you would see yourself as weak, or let it break your spirit. Society can be cruel and if you believed that because your different you are less valuable then so will society. But as you grew I saw that you never saw it as a disadvantage, you saw it as an advantage. Something that made you different, something that challenged you every day to do even better. And just like the wood, I used for these beads some people might say that you are unsightly or unimportant. But I know and you know that just like these beads it is your differences or your “discoloration” that makes you beautiful beyond compare.” From that day on, she wore that necklace every day. Now she is one hundred years old and is moving to Irrinor to become a painter and teach other people that they aren’t amazing in spite of there differences but because of them.
