Nahia Schova

nahia has to rely on her personality to be threatening, because physically - well, she's not intimidating. she is five foot six with a lithe body that pulls off a pencil skirt better than it does armor. her hair is a red that looks like fire in sunlight and like dried blood in shadows. it has a wave to it naturally that she tends to straighten whenever she has plans it curls nastily in the humidity. her eyes are gray blue, set in an unemotional face.

on her rib cage, over her sternum, she has a white banded scar from a back alley surgery given to her in her early twenties; its the one scar she'll readily tell the story behind. she has several scars on her back and these she tends to provide a multiple choice history for - everyone receives a different story about how they came to be. lines are tattooed over her chest, black as can be made, the opaque seamless bands caressing the lines of her ribs, obscured in part by the curve of her breast. on her left arm, she has an elaborate design enclosed in a circle, with three pronged leaves in each of the four directions. on one of her thighs, there is a lattice, with arrows that curve around her thigh, ceasing at her knee; on the other, there is an elegant series of curving lines that shine like oil. on her foot, the least noticeable, she has geometrically perfect squares of the flat of her foot.

her tattoos would be the most striking thing about her, if she were in visible places. in lieu of that, it would be her makeup, which she does in a very deliberate way, calling on vague traditions of her country and family. her eyebrows are darkened and gold paint outlines her eyes, winged out and steady - a black line is painted from the crown of her lips to the end of her chin. her clothing is colored likewise, thick black cloaks lined with gold thread.

Nahia is farsighted and critical, though she tends to lean toward purely scholarly intellectualism. with the resources at her disposal, she's managed to obtain much knowledge of the world outside of zhadrah since the wall has fallen, especially that of aquavia. she claims it in pursuit of knowledge that can improve the the nation, but in truth a significant portion of what she reads and takes are things of cultural importance rather than technological. her knowledge and interests are broad and eclectic. she's creative in the way of tactics, able to come up with plans on the fly, but has no overall strategy.

people have died at her hands and at her word. children have been taken from their parents as payments for debts unpaid to serve as examples of disobedience. she is ruthless in all endeavors; those waiting for her to hesitate will find themselves sorely disappointed. she is easy to anger, quick to strike, and vindictive. enemies of her find that an attack on her or her company will be reflected back at them far harder. even in personal endeavors, this holds; when a friend teasingly pushes her unexpectedly, she'll shove them to ground, no questions asked. retribution from her will always be more than expected.

her mood appears to change lightning-quick, but it is rarely the case. she is talented at hiding her emotions, speaking with a calm voice and smile, while boiling over inside. rage presents in her lightly, often mistaken for humor until she becomes overtly aggressive. nahia is an intensely private person; this intrigue adds something to her allure. she has subtle charisma that brings some people over to her side and keeps others interested enough to keep from trying to kill her.

some of her traits, taken together or alone, could be considered neutral. there are others that are not. nahia's self-indulgence is one of them. she eats the richest food and wears the finest clothes; she goes after what she wants without regret. she has no tolerance for stupidity or disobedience from anyone and will not make herself deal with people she doesn't like, leaving it to her lieutenants.

if she ever was idealistic, she's forgotten. perhaps in another universe, in a place less harsh, she would have been a scholar, would have been kind and giving. she is resigned to herself and the cruelties that she is compelled to perform. she has a keen awareness of her initial potential to be a good person; she is very bitter about it.

in a way, she is much more of a zealot, a fanatic, than evil. the way she proposes is the right way, the ideas she holds the right ones. in that way, she's dangerous. nahia is not the most vicious of bosses nor the most cruel, but she's frighteningly unpredictable.

LIKES:

• order
• sleeping
• chocolate
  
• a cool spring day
  
• books
  

DISLIKES:

• intolerance
• sand
  
• anxious tapping
  
• small children
  

GOALS & SECRETS:

• goal::: to put more of zhadrah under her control; she has little desire to go against the other big gangs right now. it's the small ones that annoy her, ones that she sees as aimless groups of children.
  
• secret::: she has a dear cousin, larina, that is still alive. larina is only a teenager, but on her way to becoming a talented chemist.
  

nahia has the ability to manipulate ink, both of the type found in books and the kind put onto skin. she can turn it from dry to wet to solid (the more particulates in it, the harder it is). it takes a fair bit concentration and is limited in its practicality, but doesn't physically tire her. it can be used for subterfuge, wherein she is able to change a written message (she's managed to start at least one feud like this, believe it or not). it can be used much more offensively - she always keeps a small container of ink on her and her tattoos are far thicker than one would expect. her favorite method is using it to drown someone, having it sneak over their shoulder and down their throat. nahia can turn thicker ink into a makeshift dagger, but it's not as effective. large amounts of it can be turned into bonds and quick method of dealing with several people; she has her whole dwelling, and the areas she frequents, painted with walls of ink - under the name of black paint - or her gang's insignia.


strengths:

• hand guns and snipers
  
• stealth
• ruthless
  
• cunning
  

weaknesses:

• over confidant
  
• hand to hand combat - but not necessarily close combat
  
• running
  
• attacking multiple targets
  

she was never poor, let's get that of the way. she wasn't the upper crust either, but her family certainly never wanted for anything (except for power success excellence) . her father and mother were intelligent people, but cunning, not sly enough, to move beyond their place as bookkeepers for one of the biggest drug cartels in Zhadrah, but her parents pushed for her, and all of her siblings to learn, to do what they could not. that will be revisited later.

[1 2 3]

she met mathais iery when they were eight years old. he was the son of one of the suppliers for the cartel. after mathais' father died, her family took him in, with predictions that they would not get along. on the surface they were different people already; mathais was idealistic, talkative, and slightly sickly; nahia was doubtful and reserved, but constantly playing in her family's yard and at their shooting range. however, they were united by one dream - to know of the world beyond the wall. everything else came easily after that. her closeness to him was pushed by the accidental death of her brother.

this has been ignoring the outside influence of the world as well, in some part because as a child, it didn't affect her so much. certainly she knew of it, saw the blood stained money that came to them, knew the lengths the cartel would go to get its due, knew that mathais' father hadn't really died in his sleep. she felt the keen need for friends who were more loyal to her than they were to anyone else and this mathais provided in spades.

when they were teenagers was when it began to get difficult for them, the cartel feeling like it was time they put themselves to use. they were assigned to work together, nahia under the code name adrena to distance her from her family. Iery and adrena were the ones the cartel sent in last to get money or good from people in the cartel's debt. adrena preferred the subtle threat of a gun, while iery favored explosives.

one of their jobs went bad and shrapnel embedded in her back - it put her out of commission for some time. that turned out to be beneficial; it ended up putting her in contact with one of the drug lords, scio, in the cartel, who came to pay his condolences after her mother was killed by a rival gang. he was quite taken with her - nahia felt differently, but thought it would beneficial to cultivate the relationship (everyone else was dying by then).

enamored with her, it didn't take much effort for nahia to convince him to appoint her as one his personal lieutenants. she wasn't secure in her position, enemies left and right, but it was what she wanted, the ambition she had finally being fulfilled. there was more to be had, of course, so much more. she brought iery back to her side, calling him her bodyguard, and together they began to turn the members of the cartel on their side. their influence had insidiousness of rust, complete and corrupting. scio was quietly assassinated and she took his place.

at that point, she could have stopped. she could have decided to change the cartel, to use it to better the city. instead, she deluded herself - her power wasn't firm enough, her tithes not heavy enough to make a difference. nahia and iery consolidated the lower ranking members of the cartel underneath them and became the group in the cartel. she pulled them out after that, tearing up the contracts, spitting on the names of the capos.

the remainder of the cartel was torn between attacking her gang, vautensa, and others in zhadrah. nahia kept out of it. as a result, they were thriving. everything was going her way and her childhood dream had all but faded - until iery came to her with a rumor that the wall had fallen. he begged her to go with him - she couldn't, not on a rumor, not on truth - and when she stayed, he left.




known family:

larina crihton  - 15 - cousin
mathais iery - 28 - dear friend