Character meme

[dreamflower]

Gacked from danachan: Ask any of my characters a question, and I will answer as that character.

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[dreamflower]

Oh my, aren't you the curious one? Let me fetch Paladin, and see what he has to say. No, no come back here, Paladin Took--you are *not* to sneak off and leave me holding the bag.

"Well, if you must insist on humiliating me like this. I really do not care to speak of it, but if I must, I must. When my grandfather Hildigrim moved from the Great Smials onto the farm at Whitwell, his father Gerontius gifted the property to him. However, the Old Took failed to take all the legal steps necessary. The date that the deed was signed over, one of the witnesses failed to show, and so there were only *six* signatures on the deed. This meant that the property actually still belonged to the Took. Hildigrim's cousin Fortinbras always meant to correct the oversight, but somehow never got around to it. It was not a common bit of knowledge; my father knew, but never got around to telling me. If it had gone one more generation without being noticed, the property *still* would have passed into my branch of the family, even without the seventh signature, but unfortunately on Fortinbras' untimely death, his widow Lalia discovered the oversight. She at first said nothing, for she was content to let things go on; after all she expected her son Ferumbras to wed and have a son. But no hobbitess in her right mind wanted Lalia for a mother-in-law, and Ferumbras remained unwed. It was known, of course, that if he did not wed and father children, the Thainship would pass to my branch of the family. It was my fervent hope that this would never come to pass--it was not a duty I cared to have, though I would live up to my responsibility.

And then, the year Pippin was thirteen, there was an outbreak of the swelling sickness in the Great Smials, and the Thain came down with a bad case of it. He very nearly died. And afterward, he discovered that 'his health was no longer what it was'--among the Tooks this phrase was known to mean he could no longer hope to father a child. Tooks kept this knowledge from most of the rest of the Shire, and for a time, Ferumbras even kept it from
his mother. But his health continued to decline, and he grew weary of having to constantly override some of his mother's more outrageous behaviors. When she discovered the truth, she realized I was going to be the next Thain, and she revealed her knowledge about the deed to her son.

The year Pippin turned fifteen, the Thain came to me, and informed me that he would be stepping aside as Thain, and that I would be taking the office over. I was shocked. I thought I had several more years to prepare for the job; it was made clear to me, however, that if I did not agree to this, our family would lose the farm. Lalia threatened to have us turned out.

It was clear to me I had no choice but to agree, but it galled me that it could not be my free choice, and that I had been forced to it in order to keep a smial over my children's heads. I sent Pervinca and Pippin to Buckland to stay with Esmeralda, and Pearl and Pimpernel went to stay with Eglantine's cousin, Dianthus Goodbody. Tina and I moved into the Great Smials, and I was invested as Thain.