Lily Underhill

[kendra]

LILY ASPHODEL UNDERHILL

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THE BASICS:

Name: Lily Asphodel Underhill
Age: 43
Gender: Female
Race: Hobbit
Birthplace: Long Cleeve
Current Location: Bywater
Weapon(s): Never needed 'em, never used 'em.

APPEARANCES:

Facial Appearance:
Lily's face is framed by thick wavy dark brown hair that flows just a couple of inches past her shoulders, or at least it is when she doesn't tie it back or pile it up to keep it out of the way while she's working. Her face is rather round and other than the occasional bags under her eyes from working a late shift or staying up to finish a book her complexion is smooth and pale. Her eyes are also of the dark brown variety, though there's a light in them that spares them from looking like someone dug two small circular graves in her face. Whether they're wide with excitement or narrowed in concentration, her eyes tend to be her most expressive feature as she's not one for flailing her arms about (unless she tells a particularly exciting story). Her nose is, well, a nose I suppose. It's not too long, not too stubby and almost button-like, really. It sits above her mouth, like most noses do, and keeps those soft semi-plump lips properly distanced from her eyes. So really, it's a good nose.
Build:
Rather average for a hobbit lass, I suppose. Pleasantly plumpish as she eats well, as most hobbits do. She stands at three-feet and four inches, just shy of normal, and is rather envious of the fact that her brother is a full four-feet tall.
Distinguishing Marks:
There's a birthmark about half-way between her left shoulder and breast that isn't in any particularly remarkable shape, but that's about it.
Face Claim: Jenna-Louise Coleman

A LITTLE MORE IN-DEPTH:

Personality:
Lily Underhill is much more of an Underhill than a Took, and that much is clear. She has rarely explored outside of the Shire's borders... and she's quite comfortable with that. Her relatives may be fine with wandering off into the unknown and socializing with all sorts of strange people and creatures, but that is certainly not on the agenda for her. That isn't to say that she's never had a passing thought about how interesting it might be to meet a dwarf, or if dwarven women really have beards - because how absurd would that be? Did Belladonna Chubb have some dwarf blood in her, because she sure had her fair share of chin hairs?

So yeah, she isn't adventurous, but she's always been rather curious. Not in the way that she's seemed odd, she's as hobbit-like as she should be... however some of the tales she read at a young age did their part to give wings to her imagination. She'd often overanalyze things and come up with absolutely impossible explanations for things, such as Belladonna's dwarvish ancestry (when everyone knows darn well that the Chubbs would have no relations with things like Dwarves). She daydreams often, and gets overly excited when hearing a good tale or retelling one that she'd overheard someplace else.

While a bit excitable at times, Lily is also rather shy when presented with people she doesn't know (and most of the patrons at the Ivy Bush are regulars or some sort of relation, so they're hardly strangers). While new people fascinate her, she finds it difficult to speak up and actually participate in a conversation with them for quite some time. There's a lot of anxious lip biting and fidgeting, perhaps a bit of stammering... it's awkward and uncomfortable and generally doesn't involve a lot of eye contact.

With those that she's more familiar with, she exists as a ray of sunshine. She's not just any ray of sunshine, though, she's that single ray on a cold day that teases you with the thought of warmer days to come. Exhibiting a pure joy of life, she's always got a smile on her face and a laugh in her throat. She seeks to find the good in other people even when they can't find it themselves and has yet to make an enemy... which is a fantastic thing because enemies don't do so well with the type of games she likes to play when she's in a good mood.

You see, Lily enjoys games. Not the childish games that she was afraid of in her youth, but she fancies word games, puzzles, and silly mind games where she likes to test her limits and see how far she can get before giggling and giving away the joke. By testing her limits I don't mean anything obscene, but rather teasing patrons with things like saying she's not going to serve them that day, and continuing to find reasons not to until she just can't do it anymore and offers them a drink on the house for being such a good sport.

History:
Daisy Took - of the North-Tooks - was a direct descendent of Bandobrus "Bullroarer" Took, or at least she claimed to be. Really, the Took family tree was quite jumbled in that general area on account of just how many offspring Bullroarer had managed to produce. But that never stopped her from laying claim to the adventurous streak that ran in her blood. She was always off trying to make some great claim to fame herself, all while not venturing much farther than Bree. She'd often come home smelling of ale and brag of slaying some foul creature between a tavern and home, all while forgetting that she had never so much as lifted a weapon. In truth, she liked the idea of adventure much more than the effort that went into actually having one. There were far too many stories of the discomforts and dangers of the world outside of the Shire, and that was really no place for her.

Ferdinand Underhill, on the other hand, was as respectable of a hobbit as you'd ever want to meet. He tended to his crops (it was said that Underhill weed was some of the best in the Westfarthing, if not the whole Shire) and lived rather peacefully. He was the quiet sort and had a tendency to keep to himself when he wasn't making deliveries to hobbits - and occasional humans - whose pipes were sadly empty.

As luck would have it, one day Ferdinand was tasked with making a delivery to a more adventurous hobbit who'd taken to living in Bree. Upon arrival he sat and smoked for an hour or two in an attempt to be sociable and left rather later than he'd intended. This same evening, Daisy was making her way home from a night of singing drinking songs with strangers and tripped in the road. To this day she claims that she heard growling coming from the bushes off the road that was clearly a sign that a wolf was going to devour her whole, when the noise of Ferdinand's pony drawing his rather empty cart scared it away. To hear her tell it, he was a bona fide hero! He took her home and said farewell, rather flustered at the path his evening had taken.

The next day Ferdinand had quite forgotten about the event - or at least tried to - when Daisy showed up at his farm declaring that she was going to court him. He stammered in protest, because courting really isn't something a lady should decide on is it?, but she'd hear none of it... which is probably a good thing because a year and a half later the two were getting married and she left her life in Long Cleeve for a quieter one with him.

A few years down the road Daisy got really fat. Not hobbit-fat, mind you, but pregnant fat. Yes, the newly married couple was ready to expand their family! Daisy had secret fantasies about having a boy in who the Took-ish blood was strong and the yearning for adventure and excitement would be not only present, but strong. Ferdinand, on the other hand, had his fingers crossed for a girl. Surely a girl wouldn't be as rowdy or rough as a young boy... because goodness knows he had his hands full enough with his wife who still went to drink in Bree once a month just to hear traveler's stories.

As the piece of gold that the fates tend to flip in these situations would have it, Ferdinand got his wish. Daisy gave birth to a rosy-cheeked and healthy baby girl, and she was quite disappointed. That's not to say that she didn't love the child that they named Lily Asphodel, but she had so desperately wanted a boy.

Ferdinand must have been one lucky hobbit, because as their daughter grew it seemed as though all of his wildest dreams had come true. Despite not wanting for anything thanks to the money the farm produced, Lily didn't adopt that spoiled attitude. After all, she wasn't a Sackville-Baggins, she was an Underhill... and half Took, though that side hadn't exactly been prevalent in her personality.

It was rather obvious that she was destined to be a daddy's girl. While she looked a great deal like her mother, it was her father's traits that she'd seemed to inherit. As a child she'd much rather sit around and read a book than run about with other children. In fact, the other children made her nervous. They were always so filthy and loud and just... not what she wanted to deal with. She would often accompany her father on deliveries and reveled in the way that adults behaved and treated each other. It was so much more... civilized and, well, respectable.

When she was fifteen, her mother finally had the son that she wanted, Drogo. Lily wasn't particularly fond of her younger sibling as children still weren't her favorite things in the world. He was loud, he never seemed to stop eating, and it seemed like he was destined to grow to a size to rival Bullroarer Took himself. He was a rather large baby, and that just wasn't right to her either.

In her adolescence she took to venturing down to the Green Dragon and Ivy Bush for the company of other hobbit folk, mostly because said folk weren't her baby brother. She got to socialize like an adult, discussing things like the weather or quality weed or history over an ale. It was so much easier than she'd expected after a childhood of near solitude!

When she was in her late twenties, she moved out to a hole all her own and went about starting her own life. She got a job as a bar maid at the Ivy Bush and has been working there ever since, never having anything remotely resembling an adventure or anything as unsavory as that.


Roleplay Sample:

Aster was having a positively fabulous day. In fact, nothing short of one of those gloom clouds in muggle cartoons could possibly ruin it. Her classes had gone smoothly, she'd managed to get her curls to frame her face absolutely perfectly, she received a fairly positive bit of news from her father, and she was off to see her little brother. It wasn't like her da' had written to tell her that they'd found the jerk who'd taken off with their investment and gotten every single sickle back from him, but it still made for one hell of a decent day. Now all she needed was a talk with Bram and she'd be off to the pitch for an impromptu Ravenclaw quidditch practice.

With a bounce in her step she was making her way towards the dungeons to find her little brother-shaped puppet when suddenly she found herself knocked flat on her back. Suddenly, her day was pretty much ruined. Because getting dirt and dust on your pristine uniform was about the equivalent of a gloom cloud, right?

"Would you watch where you're bloody going!" she shouted at her assailant as she checked her limbs for any sign of a scrape or a bruise... because those would be so unladylike. Merlin forbid she looked like a tomboy or something. "Honestly, why is it so impossible for people to pay attention..." she mumbled, as she attempted to scramble to her feet.

She'd barely made it to her knees before she bothered to look at her assailant. This horribly rude person who made it a habit of running about the corridors and knocking people to their feet was in for it. They were going to get an earful, or maybe just be at the wrong end of Aster's impeccably made wand. Either way, they were going to pay. I mean, she was dirty now. That was simply unacceptable! Not to mention that they'd managed to ruin her day. Day ruining was an unforgivable action.

Her gaze traveled from her foe's feet (which happened to not be planted on the ground so at least the other person had fallen as well, it was a minor victory) up to their face, noting a black and yellow tie before actually realizing who it was that had collided with her. "Kennedy!"

She wasn't really expecting her new arch nemesis who had so pointedly ruined her day to be somebody that she was actually kind-of friendly with. After all, the girl game from a decent family. And while Aster's internal dialogue might comment on how fitting the last name was for the older Hufflepuff girl, she was a common source of amusement and entertainment... and Aster had a tendency to do some nasty wandwork on people who were teasing her. At the sight of the familiar face a bit of the anger she'd been feeling faded into some dark corner of her head.

"What in Merlin's name were y-aaaaaaagh!"

The sentence finished in a squeal as Kennedy's spiders rounded the corner and flew directly at her face, one or two of them making it into her mouth as she was talking. Sadly, the other girl's plan didn't work so well... and Aster was regretting her rush to get back on her feet. Shaking her head and waving her arms around she spit out the spiders that had taken refuge in her mouth and started squealing something that sounded vaguely like "getemoffgetemoffgetemoff!!"

BEHIND THE SCREEN:

Alias: Kendra
Codeword: hobbit
Experience: I've been RPing since I was nine, so about 18 years now (damn I feel old, I swear I'm only 27). Started on ridiculous things like AIM chat and Neopets and swiftly moved on to communities such as this one via Avidgamers and Acornrack before both of those went kaput. I've been on hiatus for a wile due to lack of interest/time, but have recently been inspired again!
How you found us?: I saw an ad on Tumblr while going through my tracked tags and was impressed as this was one of the most well put together LOTR set sites I've seen.
Other Characters:
How should we contact you?: email is probably best.