[hider=Lily-of-the-Valley][table][row][/row][row][cell][center][url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JGb5IweiYG8][img]https://i.imgur.com/Iop2xDT.png?1[/img][/url][/center][center][sub][color=#2e2c2c]________________________________________________________________[/color][/sub][/center][center][h2][color=70CC90]Lily-of-the-Valley[/color][/h2][/center][center][i][url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ibo-f3Q-yJQ][sub]"My life a hell you're making
You know I'm yours for just the taking
I'd gladly surrender
Myself to you body and soul"[/sub][/url][/i][/center][/cell]

[cell][color=70CC90][b]Backstory :[/b][/color] 
	Lily had a full life before trudging her way across the wasteland of Nevada to find herself as a protector of Westside. 

As an ex-tribal-- the light skinned, lithe young woman was trained in the art of tribal medicine practically since her birth, making her a very effective medic on the road. But she's also spent time in New Reno and Vegas, working on her gift of gab and her powers of... [i]more amorous[/i] persuasion. While she puts on a very clean and made-up appearance, the woman can handle herself in the wasteland-- in a city or settlement, or on the road, thanks to her time as a Crazy Horn and her time as a freelancer. 

Lily has lived in Westside for the past two years-- and through all the crazy shit she's seen in her time, perhaps the most crazy to happen to her is becoming a respected member of the community. She has friends, and despite one of her occupations being in trading of her own flesh, suitors-- she can gamble freely on the arena fights, and she is intimidating enough in her speech to put a stop to any fights that may break out outside of the community. The scavenge she brings in helps to keep the community afloat, and the tribal salves, medicines and more 'recreational' drugs she is capable of making have started to give the settlement a bit of a reputation, even.

The freelancer matriarch is keeping her reasons for taking up the courier's call mum. But anyone who knows her well enough knows it has to do with her mother... with feelings of having failed her tribe. [/cell][/row][/table][hider=Full backstory]
	Some say it takes a village. Lily-of-the-Valley both had and didn't have one.

Originally named Lily-of-the-Oasis, she was born in 2270 in the tribe of the Crazy Horns, a dwindling nomadic tribe that primarily operated in Northern Nevada. Her father was a lowly hunter, and her mother was the tribe witchdoctor and resident psyker. Her tribesmen were like family, regardless of blood. With each member doing their part to raise the child. Tribal life is hard in the wasteland-- all the more when you survive not by combat, but by relying on the guidance of spirits, apparitions, dark forces-- the unknown. In this tribe, babies were miracles from the spirits alone, but a child of the tribe's last living psyker? She was practically born a goddess. Surely under the training of her mother this child would bring about salvation! 

So under the training of her mother, Cholla, she went. Starting the day Lily could talk, Cholla set about training her daughter in the old ways of mysticism, herbalism, and living off the land like the Crazy Horns' ancestors of the beforetimes-- teaching her the names of all the flowers and fungi of the region, how to make poultices, potions and poisons and how to use these gifts from the land to keep a body going. By the time Lily was 8, Cholla had Lily serving as the tribe's midwife. By the time Lily was 10 she could be considered an apprentice medium, her mother had her consuming ceremonial herbs on a regular basis to strengthen her connection to the other side. She had communicated with the ghosts of the land itself, had visions of places she was not, and could hear the past. 

Yet she had never spent a day playing with her friends-- she didn't even have any. Children her age of the tribe went on hunting trips with their parents and friends, they were learning ways not just to keep body going, but how to keep a community going. Young Lily made it a point to understand the difference. Still, the little flower could barely fire a bow. Her father's face blended into those of the tribe, all faces that looked at her with love... and fear. Everyone smiled at her from a distance. She had a village, but she was solitary. Cholla was more of a mentor than a mother. One day, Lily-of-the-Oasis asked her mother why the two weren't closer, the tribe's witch cryptically replied, "To live in the world of the living and the world of spirits is to tear yourself in two, the decision has been made for us, little Flower, we must honor our gifts." She had said, "Do not let their reverence and fear that tears you, my young one."

Lily didn't argue, but she didn't agree with her mother either. Cholla saw this, but trusted not the spirits-- but her daughter, to do the honorable thing. Despite a growing uneasiness in Lily, this trust was well placed. Years passed and Lily studied the mysticism and shamanism of Crazy Horn ghosts, the tribe survived-- only barely, as a competing, militaristic tribe, the White Legs, grew in the region-- but they did survive, which, for a time, was enough.

Only for a time.

Cholla told of his coming, a 15 year old Lily saw him as well. A New Canaanite dressed in grays, coming to the Crazy Horns with a proposal. The Tribal chief welcomed the self-proclaimed missionary, Daniel, with open arms. Crazy Horn way of life left allies few and far in between, and an alliance with New Canaan could help alleviate some of the tribes sorrows brought about by the growing threat of the White Legs. After a feast and a tribal ceremony welcoming the Mormon stranger, a meeting was held between the Crazy Horns chief, Daniel, the tribe Witchdoctor and her apprentice. Lily marveled at the man as the adults spoke, sure, she had seen ghostly apparitions and beforetime visions with men who looked like Daniel-- but this was her first time seeing such a figure in the flesh, his clothes were alien to her, and the device on his back... She heard the war-chief talk about those; G-U-A-N-Z. Guanz they were called, like bows, but louder, with small and fast arrows. 

It was all so impressive to her, in recent memory, the only other time she felt such awe is whenever she could parse a message from the land about the beforetimes-- and half the time the land spoke so cryptically she didn't know what it meant! The meeting was fate, she had concluded in her mind-- important matters were being discussed that pertained to the tribe's future, she scarcely understood any of it. But she certainly wanted to look like she did. English was difficult for her at first, but hearing it from a native speaker in the flesh-- someone who wasn't her mother, anyway-- gave it such a beautiful new life to her. The meeting had much more grave meanings for her mother, the Chief, and the tribe as a whole. But for Lily-of-the-Oasis, it was the day she decided she wanted to leave-- to see the world she had only just now begun to learn about, to learn from ghosts and people and experience everything that inspired awe in her, like the man Daniel.

The following months saw major shifts in the Crazy Horns modus operandi. The Mormon missionary, Daniel, assumed executive power over the tribe in all but name. They stopped moving around and made a home near Zion national park. Hunting stopped being the focus of the tribe, guns were introduced, and those who could, learned how to fight as the skirmishes with the White Legs increased as time passed. Daniel was unsure if he was doing the right thing, but he continued, backed fully by the chief of the tribe. 

Cholla spent so much time using her own sight to aid in the coming war with the White Legs that for what felt like the first time in her life, Lily was free. She spent almost all of this free time pestering Daniel, trying to learn of him, the outside, what he called Mormonism, everything-- Of particular interest to her were long range weapons and persuasive tactics of a sensual kind. Guns and boys. Whatever she could gleam from the man, she did. And for a time, she considered the man her friend. Her first real one.

Daniel once famously brought the girl a radio capable of receiving far flung signal, and the girl's head nearly exploded with joy. Ghostly voices that sing for you whenever you want! What [i]*isn't*[/i] to love? They bonded, he eventually taught the girl how to speak proper English. When not with Daniel, Lily felt it appropriate to learn how to properly use weaponry-- Lily preferred the precision of long-range scoped rifles. This and more she did with her freedom, she still felt ostracized by her tribes "Fear and reverence" of her, but even without company, she certainly didn't waste her break from the typical way her tribe ran. That brief moment in history may have been some of the best in her young life.

All good things must come to an end though, this particular good thing came to its end a few weeks after her 18th birthday. Cholla had a single vision the day of the Crazy Horn's march on the White Leg encampment, the land preemptively stained with blood told her of their numbers-- their brutality. Grabbing her daughter's hand, she ran faster than the march of every Crazy Horn fighter, stood in front of Daniel, the Tribe Chief and the full Crazy Horn vanguard, and relayed to them the visions. Relayed the warning. For the first time in the tribe's history, a Chief ignored the warnings of one of its Witchdoctors. He followed Daniel, and the tribe followed him, they had the Heavenly Father in the sky on their side, not a few spirits of the ground-- they couldn't lose.

Without a word, Cholla took Lily, returned to camp one last time to get a single Brahmin carrying everything they needed, and they began the long walk back to Nevada. Lily-of-the-Oasis didn't get to say goodbye to her father. She hadn't seen her the man for weeks.

The entirety of the Crazy Horn fighters were brutally slaughtered that night. Any survivors were sold into slavery, eventually becoming property of the Legion. The rest of the tribe scattered, much like Lily-of-the-Oasis and Cholla.

Mother and daughter traveling alone in the wasteland, vulnerable and weak. They should've been easy prey. But three weeks of walking and they found themselves in New Reno. The two relied on the spirits of the desert to keep them safe, help them hunt and find them a place to settle down, and the reliance paid off. Any differences the two had before were wordlessly forgotten in the journey. Lily cried as the ghosts of the land showed her landscapes skewered with the slowly dying corpses of her fellow tribesmen, and Cholla burned with a cold resentment that she hadn't done enough to prevent what Daniel led her people into. Lily got her wish, to leave her tribe and see the world. 

But, the question was, at what cost?

Despite tribal origins, Cholla and Lily did well in New Reno. Cholla picked up where she left off in regards to her mystic training in the arts of the witch, however this was tempered with more freedom for Lily, and time for Lily to learn about new things and explore her own interests. Lily was young, and so was renamed after the Valley of death she and her mother had escaped from, no longer the oasis her mother had found in the Crazy Horns. 'Lily-of-the-Valley,' shortened as Lily to better avoid a tribal stigma. Cholla kept her name, not entirely stuck in her old ways, but resigned to the fact that, unlike her daughter, she could never belong to New Reno. 

To make caps, the pair charged for holistic, tribal mind/body/soul healing, tribal drugs, poultices, potions, and on occasion poison, and psychic readings. The tragedy brought the two closer with time, and the newfound freedom granted to her by her mother, as well as the life of the city, brought Lily to life. 

The second Battle of the Hoover Dam passed, life moved on, New Reno kept on keeping on. As Lily aged, she healthily began to move away from home, taking on a myriad of odd jobs and learning the in's and out's of more wasteland. At 20 she got paid to advertise for a few casinos and clean up after customers at restaurants, at 21 and 22 she tried petty and not so petty thievery-- it went quite well with the use of her tribal visions, her mother didn't approve. For a few months between 22 and 23 she tried merc work, it didn't fit her-- farmhand work fit her even less right before she turned 24. 24 and 25 saw her working as a Cat's Paw prostitute-- she did quite well at that, being what was essentially a "flower child" raised conservatively, sexual liberation fit her well. Like a glove. Or a well lubricated jimmy hat, in this case. 

Her mother urged her to leave, but even as she neared her 30's and began to dabble in prospecting, scavenging, and career gambling, she'd still occasionally work as a call girl for a hundred caps or two, she was always lucky enough to avoid the dangerous customers. By 28 she could scavenge with the best of them, she was better at finding specialty items, through her own perception, luck and hallucinogenic/psyker assistance. During this time, she happens upon what she considers her most valuable find-- her Pip-boy 2000, and the ability to listen to those beautiful whenever she wanted. 

At the age of 28 her mother's health started fading, she had to stop leaving on prospecting trips so she could spend as much of Cholla's remaining time with her as possible. To stay afloat Lily gambled, cheated, and slept her way from month to motnth. Eventually, she scored a gig that involved serving as a guard-- a sniper in one of the casinos. This, combined with the tribal sales, and an occasional high profile client, allowed her to better reliably afford her mother's medical expenses, and remain close to her mother, watching over her in her decaying health.

Cholla died sleeping next to her daughter, full of regrets the she had failed her tribe, but happy she'd at least succeeded her daughter.

Lily worked through the sadness of her loss. She eventually grow tired with Reno and head south. Impressed by the nation the courier had built, blissfully unaware of how she had missed the man by a few years in Zion. Eventually, the ex-Tribal made her way to Westside. She works for herself-- occasionally as a call girl, mostly scaving so that she can continue to sell the hallucinogens and healing salves of her tribe-- she tries to be a guiding figure in her little corner of the wasteland, but she knows she's not immune to sin or it's temptations. 

In a certain sense: she's content. The caps are good, she lives in a tight-knit settlement under the protection of the Courier, she's a voice of the community with admirers and fans-- she even does well gambling her caps away on fights at The Thorn. In another sense, though, she feels fed up with being where she is-- she never forgot her childhood dream of seeing the world, to honor her gift for her mother, to do... rebuild... or something. 

Ghosts whispered from the lands one night of an opportunity to hear more from the land. Lily-of-the-Valley didn't turn a blind eye to the sign.[/hider]
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