It's funny, how drastically a person's life can change. If you had met Lily when she was just a child, she would have been a completely different person than the woman who tried to commit suicide over the loss of the only man she had ever truly loved. No, if you could go back in time, you would have met a bright, inquisitive, helpful little girl who loved her parents and revered her sister. Truly tragic things shaped her into the woman she has become. This is a story to document those tragedies. This is not a story for the faint of heart, but if you are able to stick with a younger Lily as you have with her adult counterpart, I hope this will help you understand her, her behavior, and her motives just a little bit better.
Her story did not begin tragically. She was born to two loving parents, while her ginger haired father and dark haired mother looked on proudly as her five year old sister looked curiously into her cradle. She enjoyed twelve years of happiness before things began to take a turn for a worst. Her father owned a ranch on the outskirts of Silverymoon. Lily loved helping him tend to it, having helped him since she was old enough to walk. Her sister, Violet, had always been more of the indoor type, and she stayed inside helping their mother with the cooking and cleaning.
"Violet, I'm going outside to help daddy," said Lily, looking into the kitchen as she passed. "Are you coming?"
"No, I don't think so," said Violet, turning around and pushing her long, dark brown hair behind her ear. "You know, mom needs help too."
"Yeah, I know," said Lily, "but daddy's job is more interesting."
"You just don't like cleaning," said Violet, smiling.
Lily shook her head and walked to the front door. Going outside, she spotted her father in the pasture they owned. She went over to the fence surrounding the pasture and hung on it.
"Hey, daddy," she said. "What's up?"
"Not much," he said, straightening up and smiling at his youngest daughter.
"Need any help?" she asked.
"Always," he said.
Lily hopped over the fence and walked over to join her father. He was feeding the few chickens they owned, wandering among the grass. He held the bag of seed out to Lily, who took a handful. She held out her hand to a young chick, allowing it to eat from her palm.
"Honey, Lily!"
Lily and her father looked around at the sound of her mother's voice. "Dinner!"
When dinner was finished, her father stood up. "Well," he said, "the sun is going down, so I'm going to put the animals in the barn for the night. Lily, would you like to help?"
"Yeah!" she said, jumping up. She had never been allowed to help bring the animals in and out; her father had always said she was too small when she asked.
Her father picked up his bow propped against the wall and a quiver of arrows and walked outside into the dusk.
"Daddy, why do you always take your bow outside with you when you go out to put the animals away?" asked Lily, trailing behind her father.
"Oh, for the creatures that come out at night that might bother the chickens," he said. "Foxes, badgers, the like." Lily nodded. Her father looked over his shoulder at her. "You know, there's a legend about a bow that doesn't need arrows."
"There is?" asked Lily, her eyes widening. "What is it?"
"It's called AnuValore," said her father. "It's said that instead of arrows, it fires the pure energy of life."
"Wow," breathed Lily. "Do you want that bow, daddy?"
Her father chuckled. "It'd be nice, but I have no need for a magic bow. I'm content to leave the magic to the mages, but if it comes my way, I can't say I'd object."
"If I ever find that bow, I'll get it for you," said Lily. "I promise."
"Well, thank you, sweetie," said her father. "But it's only a legend. Now, how about you help me put the chickens away?"
By the time they got the animals into their respective shelters, night had fallen. They reentered the house just as her mother was coming out of the kitchen.
"Oh, good, I was hoping you wouldn't be much longer," she said. "Lily, dear, it's your bedtime."
"Okay, mom," she said.
"I'll take her," said her father, leading her up the stairs. They got to the room Lily shared with her sister. Lily climbed into her bed, her father sitting down on the edge.
"Daddy, I can go to bed by myself," she said with a smile.
"My youngest little girl?" he asked in mock seriousness. "Nonsense."
Lily took one of her pillows and whacked her father lightly with it. Her took the other pillow and hit her back. Laughing, the two of them got into a pillow fight. This continued until Lily missed.
The lantern on her bedside table crashed to the floor. The world seemed frozen for a few seconds as the fire crept up the wooden wall, much faster than either of them would have liked. Lily stared in horror at what she had done.
"Go," said her father. "Get out! Go! I'm right behind you!"
The fire had now reached the ceiling. Lily ran downstairs, but stopped when she noticed her father run further down the hall.
"Go!" he shouted when he saw she had stopped. "Get outside!"
"But daddy…"
"I'm not going to tell you again!" her father shouted, disappearing from view of the stairs.
Lily ran, but she didn't go outside. She hovered by the front door, keeping the stairs in view. It was beginning to get extremely warm and smoke was thickening from the second floor. The orange glow of the flames surrounded her. Every instinct was screaming at her to get away, but she wouldn't leave her father. What was taking him so long?
Her mother and sister appeared at the top of the stairs. Violet was coughing as her mother ushered her down the stairs.
"Lily!" shouted her mother. "What are you still doing in here?"
"Where's daddy?" she asked.
"He's right behind us, don't worry, now get out that door!" her mother said, shepherding her daughters out the door.
Her father appeared on the upstairs landing just as there was a tremendous crack. Flaming wooden beams from the ceiling fell on the stairs and upstairs landing, breaking them. Her father skidded to a halt.
"Daddy!" cried Lily. Her mother grabbed her arm and tried to pull her out the door but she struggled violently. "Daddy!"
"Go, all of you!" he shouted. "Get out of here! I'll find another way!"
"Daddy, no!" shouted Lily.
"Honey…!" cried her mother.
"I love you, girls," he said over the crackling of the flames. "Now get out of here!"
He turned and disappeared from view as he went back the way he came. Her mother and Violet both took hold of the struggling and screaming Lily and pulled her out of the burning house. They dragged her roughly seventy feet away from the house before she broke free and ran back at the house. She was halfway there when there was a terrible cracking sound and the second floor caved in upon the first.
Lily stopped dead and stared at the burning wreckage, tears forming in her eyes. "Daddy…DADDY! DADDY!" she screamed. "DADDY!"
Her sister came over and wrapped her arms around Lily, holding her tight. Lily whipped around and buried her face in Violet's chest, tears streaming from beneath her tightly closed eyes.
"It's my fault," she whispered. "I'm sorry, daddy. It's all my fault."
"What are you talking about?" asked Violet gently, her voice shaking slightly. "No one blames you. It was an accident. It's not your fault."
But Lily only shook her head and repeated "I'm sorry, daddy. I'm sorry. It's my fault. All my fault," over and over again.
Neither her mother nor her sister knew it, but on that day, something inside Lily changed forever.
This is a week late, but it proved to be much harder to start than I thought. I caught myself turning it into a Harvest Moon DS Cute crossover in take one. What's sad is that I was going to go with it until I realized that there was no way in hell I'd be able to kill Skye in a fire. Besides, Lily is my character in that game, not her daughter. I don't like this start, but I had to have something before her house caught fire.
This is the only part of her backstory that I did not come up with. This is the part our DM came up with on the spot when we first met Xant, if you'll recall. I thought his was better than what I had originally thought up for her father.
Speaking of Xant, this is a true story that proves how anal I am about little details: I started playing Sims Medieval yesterday and am making old characters be the heroes (Lydia is the Monarch, Zyphre is the Knight Master, Lily is the Spy Master, Isarda is the wizard. etc.). As I had nowhere else to put him, I made Xant be the physician. Let me start by saying that you cannot make him on Sims. Ever. I can't ever make him look good on any Sims game. Although Sims 2 came the closest. I must have gotten careless in the frustration of making him look passable (I think the problem is that my image of all the characters, especially Xant, is very animeish, and Sims is, well, not). I had almost finished the quest, the whole time feeling that something was off, when I realized what it was. His eyes were not bright green. I had forgotten to change them from the default brown. So what did I do? I made him jump into the Judgement Pit and get killed by the Pit Beast so I could make him again. I failed a quest on purpose over Xant's eyes.
Okay, something about the story, something about the story...Uh, Lily is now True Neutral? She was Neutral Good before.