Samiah De La Cruz

== Appearance ==
Samiah considers herself a canvas with which to illustrate her status, and this is a task she undertakes with relish. She stands close to 5’5”, the thick pile of auburn tresses that she elaborately pins to her head adding an extra couple of inches to her stature. Her once milk-pale skin has taken on a sun-kissed tan thanks to many years spent aboard trade ships or hawking her wares at markets all over Azeroth. She enjoys dressing in elaborate gowns even just for day-to-day use, her favoured fabric being mageweave, usually dyed shades of blue or green to enhance the impact of her copper-toned hair. She wears numerous pendants of gold and small jewels (though rarely the same pendant twice). The only constant in her collection is a heavy golden signet ring, which she wears on her left hand.
== Background==
She had never warmed to Menethil.
Stood at the end of a stumpy, inadequate quay, Samiah De La Cruz surveyed the sleepy fishing village. What had been a starless, mist-veiled night (one of many spend aboard The Endeavour as it crossed the blue expanse between the village and the bustling Human harbour city of Theramore on the eastern Kalimdor coastline) was now drawing into a murky pre-twilight. The strange hour when night becomes day yet is neither completely.
Samiah stood out, now. She wore a large, heavy hood of mageweave, the fabric dyed cerulean and hemmed with a gilt thread that somehow managed to shine in the dull glow of a gas lamp. Beneath her floor-length woolen cloak she wore a robe to match her hood, itself bulked with numerous petticoats and skirts that swung and made an elaborate “swush” as she walked. She could feel the beady gaze of half-awake sailors and fisher-folk upon her, but she had neither the time nor inclination to meet their stares.
“We will visit one cottage, before travelling on. You will wait with my belongings. I shall not take long.”
She swept along the quay to the small cobbled path before her aide – a small slip of a girl, all blonde curls and trembling hands – could respond. The girl would never last in the city, Samiah knew, and would set her aboard the next boat to Theramore before she left Menethil.
The cottage was as dreary as she remembered, all chipped paint and cobwebs. Its position close to the stables only added to the bleak atmosphere, the stench of nearby manure and stale hay burning her nostrils. Samiah had spent years at sea on trade ships that sailed from one continent to another and everywhere in between. She was better than that, and this place, now. She checked her pocket watch. Just short of five am. For the briefest of moments she considered waiting, just one hour or so, but before she could dwell on the thought the rickety wooden door creaked open and a short grey-haired woman filled the frame.
“Ah knew you’d be back, Sammy.” Samiah winced at the use of what had been a pet name a lifetime ago, her hackles raising, but kept her mask of composure set like stone. She was no longer the reckless, wild thing that had once also dwelled within the dilapidated cottage, and she would not let the bulging, gin-soaked wretch in front of her drag her back to that level.
“I see you kept your imagined sense of clairvoyance, mother. What woke you, the noise of the ship or your own waterworks?” She swept through the door like a wraith, ignoring any sense of propriety or manners, the sting of her words hanging in the air between mother and daughter.
She did not wait for an answer; the woman who had borne her into the world had far more important things on her mind, and the taste of the first morning’s drink already on her lips.
“I shan’t stay long, mother, I can see you are busy…”
Her mother burped, clapping her hand to her mouth before washing it down with more from the bottle, a motion Samiah had spent the last twelve years trying to erase from her mind.
“I thought I ought to visit, to let you know. I am married. Widowed. Set for life, I’m told. From today I will be living in Stormwind amongst the mages – “
The older woman scoffed between gulps, a raw cackle building in her throat. “Yeh? A mage? You’re having a laugh, Sammy… a dream!”
“Not this time, mother. My aide tells me I have enough gold to my name to put me through the training twelve times or more, plus enough for a Mage District apartment, maybe even some staff… I assure you, this is no dream.” 
The woman’s cackle faded to a hoarse cough; instinctively she reached for a leather pouch, fingers working like a blur to fill a whalebone pipe with greenish tobacco, the acrid smoke coiling around the room. Samiah coughed, fanning her face with her gloved hand.
“So… now you know. I’ll be going.”
She rose quickly from the wooden bench she had perched on, crossing the small room to the door in a few strides. Despite her age, size and obvious inebriation, her mother was at her heels in a flash, one fat hand gripping her daughter’s thin, cold wrist, crushing the silk ribbon-plaited bracelet against her skin. It would be covered in tobacco, spit and grime. Samiah knew she would need to make another as she travelled.
“So… yeh’re rich now. Any room for yer mother in Stormwin’? Ah hear the soldiers say there’s plen’y of work for a whore in the Ol’ Town…?”
Had it been twelve years ago, Samiah’s heart would have broken there and then, her gin-soaked mother still believing she had the allure of a harlot, or the love of her only child. As it was, Samiah’s heart was as cold as the training she was about to begin, and she freed her wrist with a pull, sending her mother tumbling to the far wall.
“You should know, Stormwind has more than its share of drunks and trollops, mother. You should know this, too - this cottage is owned by me now. You can live here until your last breath and drink yourself into oblivion as far as I am concerned, for I shall not be back here. Not in your lifetime, at least.”
Samiah didn’t stay to hear her mother’s response, or the slam of the door when it finally swung shut. The dawn was rising, weak rays spilling through the gaps in the mist like a beacon, calling Samiah to say goodbye to her aide and onwards to Stormwind, leaving the memories of Menethil and the sea far behind.
== Criminal Record==
Theramore records indicate minor charges against a “Samiah Mordren”, most for offenses ranging from petty theft, disorderly behavior and drunk in charge of a steed.
== OOC info ==
Samiah is an alt of Corelei/Nhaera, and makes quite a change to playing wild, scruffy girls.
Category:Alliance
Category:Characters
Category:Mage
Category:Human