Lady Emmaline Mercier

### Relatives

Lord Randall Mercier (Father), Lady Marissa Dewblossom (Mother), Arthur Mercier (Brother), Gerard Mercier (Brother)

## Biographical information

### Place of birth

Raven's Bluff Priory, Westfall

Lady Emmaline Mercier is a commoner of Stormwind and former heiress whose inheritance was, since it was largely tied up in entailed properties linked to her father's earldom, stripped of her after his various crimes became public knowledge. She currently works as a private music instructor and as a volunteer teacher at the Stormwind Orphanage.

## Personality & Beliefs

Though outwardly, she tends to come off as missish and overly fragile, there's a sort of quiet strength lying beneath that placid lamb's facade. She may be skittish and prone to crying, but she's also dealt with more than her share of trauma, and has the steadfast patience, the gentle kindness, the good humor, and the generosity to prove it.

## Description

Lady Emmaline has wavy, snow-white, ankle-length hair, short, pointed ears, brilliant red eyes, and a creamy, pale complexion. Her short stature and slender build give her a dainty, delicate appearance. She is well-known by many apothecaries and hairstylists in Stormwind for her highly unusual hair, which is reportedly softer than even chinchilla fur and has a strange, weightless quality to it that's more reminiscent of feather down than ordinary human or elven hair.

## Biography

As the only daughter of Lord Randall Mercier, Earl of Raven's Bluff, Lady Emmaline (born Lady Abigail) spent much of her childhood under the careful tutelage of her nursemaid and governess. With their direction, and with the help of her mother, she learned history, languages, music, and all the finer points of courtly etiquette in preparation for her eventual appearance as a young debutante. By age ten, however, those lessons had ceased. Shortly after the sudden death of her mother, both the nursemaid and the governess were reported to have left Raven's Bluff Priory with reference letters in hand, searching for new employment.

During that same time, her family grew ever more estranged from society at large. At the few social events he attended, her father frequently flaunted his money, cursed aloud, abused house staff, drank to excess, and provoked fights, savagely beating any gentleman who dared to challenge him. At home, he behaved similarly, reportedly succumbing along with his sons to a sort of rage-filled madness which Lady Emmaline and the house staff bore the brunt of. At age seventeen, while her father and brothers were away on business, Lady Emmaline ran away from home. Before the reasons for her departure were widely known, the incident earned her an unfortunate spot of infamy in the scandal sheets, which referred to her as the "runaway heiress." Making the weeks-long trek from the Gold Coast on foot, she arrived in Stormwind sun-scorched, starved, and dehydrated, her back covered in awful, festering wounds as she teetered on the brink of death. It was only by the kindness and generosity of a young knight and his modiste friend that she managed to survive the ordeal.

Soon after returning to her feet, she sought sanctuary through the Stormwind Guard at the Cathedral of Light, and it was granted to her in exchange for testimony and any information she had about her father's illicit business ventures. It was during this period that she changed her name from Abigail to Emmaline for her own protection.

Barely a month after her arrival in Stormwind, her father and brothers fell beneath the swords of marauders who had invaded Raven's Bluff Priory. The killings were suspected to have happened at the direction of some unidentified business rival, but no evidence was ever found to support this speculation.

Although the death of her family resulted in the loss of her sanctuary status, she was quickly taken in and adopted by a local tavernkeeper and his wife who'd set up shop in Stormwind's Dwarven District. She lived with them for a time, and then moved to Lakeshire with her adopted father after he and his wife split up. A year later, she suffered a serious injury, and was even widely reported to have been murdered, though recently she resurfaced in Stormwind, apparently none the worse for wear.

Since then, Lady Emmaline appears to have become alienated from her adoptive family, as her mother hasn't bothered contacting her more than once or twice in as many years, and her father denounces her as a fraud and an imposter, insisting that his daughter is dead and refusing to even listen to her speak on the matter.