Somerley

Information

Player: Delta

Character Full Name: Eva Somerley.

Character In-Game Name: Somerley.

Nickname: Not a cat in hell’s chance.

Association(s): Sylvanas, The Ebon Blade, The Black Harvest.

Race: Forsaken.

Class: Death Knight.

Age: 47, including time deceased.

Sex: Female.

Hair: Scraggly clumps of muddy blonde.

Eyes: Runic Blue.

Weight: 136lbs.

Height: 5’9”

Appearance

Usual Garments/Armor: Though Somerley seldom sheds her plate shell, she prefers clothing which covers the exposed portions of her body when she does. You don’t ever really get used to seeing what you’re made of.

Other: While skeletally intact, her flesh has degraded significantly in certain areas. Her armour covers the exposed portions.

Personality

Alignment: Lawful Neutral

Dry, bitter, and cynical is the colour of Somerley’s humour. She speaks her mind, and is usually unapologetic about doing so. She revels in a challenge – prowess with a blade her favoured kind – and enjoys goading others into initiating.

Somerley feels herself above pity, and generally doesn’t extend it to others. Nearly all Forsaken have a sad story to tell, and she’s heard them all before. She is a forward-thinker, and rather than dwelling on history, she constantly seeks to solve the problems she and her people now face.

History

The tomboyish daughter of a farmer, Eva gained a strong work ethic, and a strong pair of arms, too. She grew up playing with the neighbours’ sons, roughhousing and getting into the kind of trouble that only children can get away with. One lad named Jack, who she had always considered her big brother, saw fit to teach her to swing a sword once she was old enough to lift it.

The family was relatively far from Stratholme; the soil was much richer in the midlands, and yielded a better harvest. This meant that the produce had to be transported by horse and cart to the city to be sold, stopping at each town along the way. When she was old enough, Eva and Jack made the journey together, hauling their combined stock. They began to see one another from a different perspective during the long rides to and from the capital; no longer were they childhood playmates, but a man and a swiftly-blossoming woman. He read aloud the poems he had written, and she was quite taken by his performances. Eva experienced her first kiss by the Blackwood Lake, unaware that the Orcs had chosen that moment to reduce Stormwind to rubble.

Despite protests and the difficulties stemming from her gender, Eva enlisted in the military, and spent a while in training. Jack had been conscripted only a few months earlier. The pay promised easier times for her family and a future for herself and Jack. He proposed the night before they were both deployed, at the dawn of the Second War. The ring he had presented was plainly elegant; silver with engravings adorning the outer rim. Eva hadn’t said anything, but smiled, kissed him, and put the ring on straight away.

They survived the battles they took part in, which was more than could be said for a great number of the men and women who had faced the Horde’s might, but they returned weary and shaken by what they had witnessed. Jack’s shoulder had taken an Orcish axe, leaving him unable to work. They decided to postpone their wedding, and Jack promised that once he had saved up enough by publishing his poetry, they would move down to Silverpine and hold the ceremony in Dalaran. He had always wanted to go, and while she never thought much of arcanists, it would be something to say that she had seen the city.

For old times’ sake, they agreed to deliver their respective farms’ last batch of crops for that season. Eva’s father promised to make up the remaining coin for the favour, so that they could purchase a house together. As they passed the lake, Jake idly remarked on the significance of the location. At the time, Eva had smiled and said nothing. She didn’t have the way with words that he had, and that was all right. In that way, they completed one another.

The crates of barley emptied gradually through the day, and the couple took their time, enjoying the last day they would spend on the narrow, cobbled market streets of Stratholme. When a cry went out down the street, Eva had suspected a robbery and ordered Jack to stay with the cart while she investigated. He grudgingly agreed and requested she be careful, to which she smirked and nodded. The poorly-lit thoroughfare ahead revealed little but silhouettes, though. They edged towards her, and as the woman squinted, she found herself reaching for the hilt of the steel sword she’d received as military standard. There was something inhuman about the distorted figures as they hobbled into the streetlamp’s glow, and almost instinctively, she lunged for the nearest. It was deceptively quick, and though she saw no weapon in its hand, she felt it rend through her side with deadly ease. To her credit, Eva managed to avoid dropping the sword as she gasped in pain, swinging again. The sword connected with bone above the shoulders, but the being remained standing. She hadn’t the time to marvel at this, for it struck out again, and Eva had to duck to avoid the blow. She staggered back as more of them closed in on her, and dashed away down the dark streets, holding her side.

…Where had she left the cart, and Jack? Eva struggled to recall. She was vaguely aware of the terrified screams that sliced through the night. People might have passed her, but she wasn’t sure. Fatigue came quickly, and she sought refuge behind a crate. She fell against it, and slid down to her knees. A hand settled on her shoulder, gently but firmly. Smiling, she said nothing.

Things were hazy when she regained self-awareness. Her body seemed to act on orders that weren’t hers, and for the most part, that which was Eva slumbered. In fleeting moments of lucidity, she found that she had taken on a new existence. She was no longer living, nor yet deceased; an undead. The next time she thought with unfettered clarity, she was before the capital city of Lordaeron, and her mind was again her own, for all that was worth.

The years following scuttled by, filled with anger, resentment, and the wrath she unleashed on the Scourge. She hunted them like animals, sure they were responsible for her current state, picking off shambling stragglers and roaming ghouls. All that gave her pause was the odd occasion where one would display a glimmer of intelligence, as she could raise neither claw nor sword against one of her own, the Forsaken. Rest was forgotten, hunger and thirst fading from thought. Pain failed to register, and her only concern was keeping intact so that she could continue her rueful crusade.

She was finally slain in the Eastern Plaguelands, not far from her home. Her body, still viable, was carried to Acherus Hold. A familiar cloudiness descended as she was again returned to life, and made fit for the task of culling. Whispers pushed her thoughts aside once more, and to her revulsion, she recognised the combined resolve that compelled her to action. Though she never took any pride in what she was urged to do, Somerley found that the baleful glares of Scarlets began to cut to the quick after a while, and she was relieved when, one way or another, they were rendered incapable of casting them her way.

Her second stint as a puppet endowed her with power, prowess, and abilities unique to those who’d shared her fate, albeit at great cost. Somerley had become a refined creature, and the mantle of Death Knight suited her well. However, even after the Lich King’s hold on her was finally relinquished, having her will wrenched from her twice seemed to muddle the Forsaken’s mind slightly. She began to experience dissociation with her memories, and they seemed to her as though she had dreamed them instead of lived them. She was free of the desires of others being forcibly impressed upon her, but in a thousand ways, she was no longer who she had been.

Somerley decided to divorce her old self and embrace the new life she had been shunted into. Amidst efforts to rid Azeroth of the Scourge and helping those like her to carve out their place in the world, her thoughts occasionally turned to the woman who lost her life all those years ago. More often than not, they were shrugged off. Coming to terms with your own death is a difficult thing to accomplish, though.