Lilac Greensleeves

Personality

Placeholder

Companion

Popcorn, Puffin Familiar

Relationships

Romance

• Kasimir Velikov

Friends

• Finneas McLaren
• Ireena Kolyana
• Gertruda (apprentice)
• Keeper Danika Martikov
• Urwen Martikov

Family

• Sloane of the Feywild, adoptive sister
• Jeny Greenteeth, half sister
• Sycamore Sunflowers, half brother
• Poppy Sunflowers, mother
• Florent Sunflowers, father
• Unknown little half sibling

Backstory

Lilac was chaotic and wild as a spring-inclined eladrin child. Her father, Florent Sunflowers, a summer-inclined eladrin, was filthy rich from inventing sunflowers. Every time a sunflower or sunflower seed was sold somewhere in the multiverse, he received a 3% royalty, which added up to a whole lot. Lilac's mother, Poppy, a winter-inclined eladrin, was Florent's fourth wife. Lilac has few memories of her; she and Florent divorced while Lilac was young. She does remember Poppy was an excellent cook and encouraged Lilac to be independent.

Growing up, Lilac was basically a princess. Her father was more than rich enough for Lilac to have anything she pleased and to get Lilac out of any possible trouble she could fall in. Her childhood was a reverie of getting whatever she wanted and doing whatever they wanted with no mind on cost or potential harm to others. Florent called Lilac "little sprout" and loved to dote on her.

Lilac's childhood best friend was Sloane, a fairy changeling they found on one of the Sunflowers family's many vacations to exotic material plane resorts. Lilac decreed she simply must keep Sloane and dragged her back to the feywild since Florent would never say no to her. It took Lilac about 15 years to realize Sloane was a person and not a pet.

Lilac has an older brother named Sycamore, whom she did not get along with. Sycamore was the son of Florent's third wife, about 50 years older than Lilac, autumn-inclined, and very serious. When he hit 100 he left home to attend university. Lilac felt like Sycamore always thought he was better than her and talked down to her. Whenever Sycamore visited home, Lilac and Sloane enjoyed playing pranks on him and could always get away with it no matter how extreme or collateral damage-causing the pranks were since Lilac was daddy's little sprout. This infuriated Sycamore to no end and one day after a prank that led to a minor forest fire he snapped at Lilac. He said she had never accomplished anything remotely of substance in her life and never would. All she would ever be was a rich girl coasting through life doing nothing but spending her father's money and waiting to die. Lilac told him he was dead wrong. Sycamore asked her to name one meaningful thing she had ever accomplished without her father's help. Lilac froze, unable to come up with anything, and stormed out in a huff.

A few weeks later, Lilac declared she would go off to Robin Goodfellow University, a rival school of Sycamore's, to study to become a wizard. She wanted to prove Sycamore wrong. Lilac worked her butt off on the application. Though for Lilac about 20 minutes of sustained effort counted as working her butt off. Her application was waitlisted. But miraculously, she was quickly moved off the waitlist and accepted. Following a twenty-thousand gold donation by her father, of course.

At age 102, Lilac was going to college. Sloane told her to keep in touch via letter. Florent told her he would miss his little sprout and to remember that she needed to represent the Sunflowers family name with dignity and character when she went out into the world. Sycamore told Lilac he was proud of her for enrolling and that while university may be difficult, she could always reach out to him for help. Lilac interpreted this as him mocking her intelligence and blew up at him, telling him they'd graduate without his or anyone's help.

Lilac had a great time in college at first. She joined a sorority, Silme Numen Silme, a group of like minded rich fey girls. She even got a boyfriend, a satyr Sophomore named Jarrah. Lilac didn't take classes seriously at all her first semester, figuring that it'd all work itself out, and instead immersed herself in a world of partying and drinking. When midterms came around she blew them off, thinking whatever, she'd make it up in finals.

Last month of classes, Lilac buckled down, figuring this was the make or break point. And while she did her best to study, her social circle kept distracting her, and absorbing a semester's worth of material in a month just wasn't possible. She considered calling Sycamore to ask for help, but refused to swallow her pride. Instead, Lilac walked into the exam hall and failed four finals. Her fifth final, Introduction to Evocation, she passed by the skin of her teeth, getting a C- and officially earning three college credits. Her GPA was 0.34.

Florent Sunflowers was very displeased with this outcome. He told her this was unbecoming of the Sunflowers name and that this would not happen again. Not another failed class. Lilac would pass or she would drop out and any records of her attending would be scrubbed. But Lilac didn't want to drop out. She went to school to prove something, damn it. Sycamore tried to talk to Lilac about what happened, but Lilac told him to screw off. She told him he was wrong, she had accomplished something meaningful without her father's help: she had passed a class. Sycamore said he was done with trying to help her and retorted that Lilac only got into the university because of her father's money.

Lilac entered the next semester with a plan to buckle down and succeed. But Silme Numen Silme and Jarrah called and they put off work and before she knew it the semester flew by. Lilac tried to get serious for midterms, but Jarrah interceded. He said that she was getting boring from all the studying. Jarrah pointed out that Lilac was rich. If she really wanted to pass so bad she could just pay someone to do the work for them. Lilac brushed him off and tackled the midterms head on. The results weren't great. Three Ds, a C, and an F.

Lilac knew she could have studied harder, done better, but she really tried harder than she had before in her life and she couldn't even crack 80%. She wondered briefly and bitterly if she might genuinely have some kind of learning disability, but decided it didn't matter because there was no way their father would allow them to seek accommodations for it in fear of tarnishing the Sunflowers family name.

Jarrah pointed out that when she didn't study she failed and when she did study she still failed. So, why study if the outcome is going to be the same? Feeling hopeless, Lilac agreed. She resumed a life of debauchery and partying and when finals rolled around dipped into her trust fund to pay nerds to take exams for her. And she got away with it. Throughout sophomore year, Lilac led a life of great grades, tons of partying, and little to no effort. Everything seemed great. Florent's sixth wife, Chrysanthemum, was even pregnant and Lilac was excited to have a baby sibling.

Everything came to a head after Lilac's first semester as a Junior. A gnome was caught filling out Lilac's exam. Once questioned, it became clear the scale of Lilac's academic dishonesty. She was in deep shit. Expulsion kind of shit. Even Jarrah dumped her. But Florent interceded. Such an expulsion would taint the Sunflowers family name. The idea of Lilac dropping out was floated, but that was no good. Rumors of Lilac's cheating had leaked into the school paper and her dropping out would all but confirm them. As an alternative to expulsion, Florent proposed that Lilac would study abroad on the material plane for two years. She'd think about what she'd done and complete a significant independent research project to make up for the credits she cheated through. Then, once two years had passed, Florent would magically recall Lilac to the feywild and she could resume her studies. The University agreed. Lilac was not asked her opinion.

The night before Lilac was to leave to go to the material plane, Sycamore approached her while they were packing. Sycamore warned Lilac that he believed their father was lying to her: Florent thought Lilac was an embarrassment and had no intention of ever recalling her back to the feywild. Lilac told Sycamore to leave her alone.

Sycamore kept talking and told Lilac there was a lot she didn't know and that a very similar thing had happened before. The two of them had an older sister, Orchid Sunflowers. Orchid was the daughter of Florent's second wife and his first “little sprout.” Orchid was summer-inclined and was training to be a paladin of Angharradh. But one day Orchid was seriously injured in a training accident. She would never walk again and would have to resign from her training. Orchid accepted this and planned to resign and become a simple priestess, but Florent would not let her. He thought the idea of having a visibly disabled member of his family in such a public role would undermine him. Florent pressured Orchid to leave the feywild in exile to preserve the family name. Florent then spread a story that Orchid had left to adventure across the planes as a paladin. The truth of Orchid's disability and exile remained hidden. Soon after Orchid's banishment, Poppy grew pregnant with Lilac.

Lilac didn't believe him. Sycamore begged her not to go to the material plane and promised that despite everything he loved her and didn't want to lose her. Lilac refused Sycamore, believing he was trying to trick and humiliate her. She trusted her father. She left to the material plane with the promise she'd return in two years time.

That was forty-nine years ago. Since then, she has filled twenty-four and a half journals with the same study abroad project, desperately hoping that one day soon Florent will call her back to his side.

While in the material plane, Lilac has still been able to access her bank account (though presumably she won't be able to access it in Barovia) and has relied on a series of butlers and servants to assist her while traveling. Lilac would normally swap them out every two years so they don't get any wiser about the truth of her situation, but she's retained Conrad as her butler for five years now. He's the best butler she's ever had and a real hunk, so Lilac's not exactly in a rush to get rid of him.