nadiaparekh

[nadiaparekh]

— FT. EMMELINE ALEXANDER.

The solstice was a busy day for Emmie, people came in for hair and make up all morning before the festival was officially started, after all in days as important as this everyone wanted to look their best.

She was just closing when her phone rang, Nadia sounded desperate, her words were racing to the point that Emmie only caught something about an emergency and a hair straightener. She quickly locked the doors and went to her beetle, where she knew she had an emergency hair&makeup toolbox. A hair emergency might not sound that bad to some people, but as a stylist she knew just how much damage a straightener could do if not used correctly.

She got to Nadia’s in record time, the ambulances at Sacred Heart had nothing on her beloved Terry. She knocked and was relieved when the woman appeared on the door with no sign of burnt hair or ears, just a very bad tangle of black strands.

Not waiting for an invitation, she got inside the apartment and guided Nadia to the nearest chair. “This is why I always tell you that if you aren’t going to a professional at least get quality appliances” She ran her fingers through her hair, trying to see if there was any major damage. “Well, bad news is you did burn the ends a little, good news is it could have been a lot worse.”

-

“I know, I know.” She allows Emmie’s fingers to reach towards the visibly devastated half of her hair to assess the damage. She’d never claimed to be skilled at anything that had to do with beauty; the idea of using a hair straightener didn’t seem like rocket science, and she definitely was no rocket scientist, so she figured she could just put two and two together and see where to go from there. It had seemed easy enough, although it’s not so much a lack of proper handling that’s the problem as it is her poor bargaining skills that’s put her in such a position.

She finds herself on the living room couch, hands promptly on her lap while she lets the expert take care of the mess on her head. “Do you think there’s still time? I could just… wear a cap or put my hair up in a pony or something…”

#closed. #int. thread #ch. emmeline alexander #emmeline alexander. 001 #event: solstic #IM SO SORRY THIS IS SO LATE

[nadiaparekh]

— FT. OSUN BANG.​

➼

Nadia says, so gently, they’re all the same size. Osun replies not so gently: “They’re not.”

Osun is not proud enough nor—in this moment—observant enough to not accept Nadia’s help as patronising. They want that damn, over-sized teddy and they are going to get it. It would seem obvious that Osun would be used to Nadia’s little the tricks, the way she would slip into Teacher-Mode when a student was having a tantrum during the tours of the hospital. There is far too much anger at the stupid game and it’s stupid rings, though. 

Osun accepts the rings with the slightest of put on pouts. It is difficult to pout when you’re trying to not smile.  Nadia is very sweet and very even-tempered, which works out great in their favour. The  attendant and Nadia speak. The moment the attendant gives in Osun beams. Oblivious to it all, the same trick for dealing with her young sibling’s tantrums work a treat on Osun.

They focus far too carefully on the bottles and the two rings in hand. It’s about as still and quiet as Osun has looked… ever. They flick their wrist. The ring hits the tip of a bottle and rolls off. “Fuuuu!” Osun catches themselves mid-curse. There’s little ones about. They mumble something that sounds like ‘rigged’ before taking the last one.

In Osun’s mind, it’s cinematic. Everyone holding their breath. Slow-motion moment of the ring spinning on the lip of a bottle, looking close to falling. Then it lands. Osun, quite literally, jumps for joy. “YES! Ah-ha! I beat your rigged game!” They call out a little too enthusiastically, finger pointed at the attendant accusingly.

 -

Her elbows dig into the edge of the booth and she takes this time to stretch her back as she does, watching the way Osun aims for the bottles with the concentration of a hunter aiming for game. “Come on, Osun. You’re so close!” she encourages, mostly just to get the game over with and let the people behind have their turn. The discerning eyes don’t seem to bother Osun, though— if anything, it’s like they thrive off the attention and the way people seem so invested in the result of her final throw.

And victory. Nadia can’t help but beam at Osun’s success, applauding her friend. The attendant rolls his eyes and boosts himself up on the footstool to retrieve their prize, unceremoniously handing it over to Osun, all but shoving it into their arms. Nadia leads Osun and the giant bear away from the booth before people can start to complain about why Osun was allowed to merge points and they can’t.

“What are you gonna name it?” Amusement doesn’t wear off her features just yet, seeing how such a seemingly small triumph can bring such a big smile to someone’s face.

#closed. #int. thread #ch. osun bang #osun bang. 001 #event: solstice

[nadiaparekh]

— FT. OSUN BANG.

summer solstice ☉ osun + nadia

@nadiaparekh​.

Osun loved  fairs. Honest. This is the reaction of someone who’s having a great time. They had looked into all the tricks people used to swindle people out of their money, vowed to not fall for any… and then promptly fell for them. Far too quickly. They pushed their sun hat back, as though its wide brim was obstructing their view.

“It’s rigged!” Osun yells, gesturing wildly at the stall owner and the solid ten bucks they’d lost to his rigged freaking game. “These rings are not big enough — no, no, yours landed cause you’ve got a bigger ring! C’mon, give it here. Why won’t you show me? Cause it’s rigged.”

—

There’s so much about Osun that reminds Nadia of her brother. Her little brother, forever little in her mind, for how long has it been since she’d last seen him? Too long. In her mind, Jai is still a snotty-nosed kid and is throwing a hissy fit in their living room because he thinks she’s cheating at charades. A game where he couldn’t use his abilities in his favor, and that’s precisely why she chooses it.

But this isn’t 1999 and they’re not in Washington and Osun isn’t Jai. Jai is somewhere and Osun is here, right next to her, wailing about how the game was designed not to be won. “Osun,” Nadia urges, suppressing a smile lest they think she’s mocking them. “They’re all the same size.” She glances at the small crowd of onlookers behind them, waiting for someone to win the highly coveted giant teddy bear on display. “Here, you can have my rings. I landed two. So you just need one more, right?” Jai just loved it when people did that. He loved to be given extra special attention so he’d stop throwing a tantrum and it worked every damn time.

That’s not to say that’s what Osun is doing. For all she knows, they could be right, and the game could be rigged. But frankly, she’s starting to feel bad for the people in line, and she knows just how Osun’s temper can get...

“We’re allowed to merge points, right?” She raises her brows at the attendant, as if telling him to just agree so they take the damn bear and leave. Once she gets that tired nod, she shoves what’s left of her rings into Osun’s hands. “Finish it. You can do it. Just one more.”

#closed. #int. thread #ch. osun bang #osun bang. 001 #event: solstice

[nadiaparekh]

STARTER FOR: @kxelena​ LOCATION: NEAR THE FOOD STANDS.

“I don’t really have much of a sweet tooth,” she tells the woman beside her after the embarrassing display of her trying to get the cotton candy to stop sticking to her fingers, eventually making a mess out of her entire hand. “I honestly don’t know how my kids go crazy for these things.” Her gaze pointedly shifts to one of her students in line at the booth for a blueberry-flavored one. In just a couple of hours, he, along with a handful of her students, will be initiated into their Houses. She wonders if they’re aware of the implications of being a young Gifted. She wonders if she’ll stop feeling envy. 

#closed. #int. thread #ch. elena kao #elena kao. 001 #event: solstice

[nadiaparekh]

STARTER FOR: @emmiealexander​ LOCATION: NADIA’S APARTMENT.

Nadia normally doesn’t bother with her hair. Her natural curls are usually tied up in a ponytail when she’s teaching, and it’s not like she goes out enough to do anything special with it. However, she did recently purchase a hair straightener for cheap in the event that it could be useful. Just when the Solstice had given her a reason to bust it out from its packaging, it turned out that it was inexpensive for a reason, and that it worked for no more than a couple of minutes before it decided to give up.

With hours to go just before the ceremony, she dialed Emmeline’s number in a panic, knowing that her friend would know just how to save her more than anyone in her contact list. The knock comes as a saving grace after about half an hour of trying to get the damned thing to work (causing a spark in the plug that she’s sworn not to touch it again).

“Emmie!” She pulls the woman inside her apartment and gestures at the mess of black hair on her head. “Look at me! Oh, I should’ve never thought that straightener was a bargain!”

#closed. #int. thread #ch. emmeline alexander #event: solstice

[nadiaparekh]

[text - from Teddy] YOU’RE RUDE AND I HOPE YOU STUB YOUR TOE LATER TODAY

[ TEXT ] Very mature, Teddy [ TEXT ] I gave you my number for when you’re ready to talk like adults, not to send me hate mail [ TEXT ] Try again and this time, lose the 13-year old-girl-angry-tweeting-Miley-for-breaking-up-with-Liam impression. It doesn’t suit you.

@theodoreclairmont

#ask meme. #ch. theodore clairmont #selwyndalessi

[nadiaparekh]

— FT. EVANDER CROSS.

“really early or really late - it pretty much blurs into the same thing.  casino’s are the gambling equivalent of shopping in ikea…”

a quick grin and he looks up - attention drawn from the menu for a moment.  he hadn’t exactly expected company on his breakfast run, but he’s not about to refuse it - luck, chance… he’s still not sure it’s actual ‘magic’ ( at least not in the same way those of the more powerful houses portray ), but sometimes it does pull the strings of the universe to land things decidedly in his favour… like now.

“no windows.  no natural daylight.  no concept of the passing of time… or the amount of money you’re throwing into the pit.”

the waiter comes to take their order with a coffee top up - one evan accepts happily before slightly more dubiously ordering grits.  and pancakes… just in case they do turn out to be a food-type tragedy.

“plus - some of them have 24 hour licences - depending on what state they’re in… the casinos that is… not ikea.”

they send him footage.  security reports.  and evan scours the evidence to see if those wins are genuine ‘luck’ or if there are more calculating hands at play - trying to fix the odds in their favour… something he knows a - lot - about.  something he had - at one point - taken significant advantage of…  less so these days.  ( though he’s not entirely abstinent… )

“don’t think i’ve ever had a 4am urge for a boklok bookshelf.  ikea and other peoples bad decisions aside - this is supposed to be a catch up so…  c’mon… what’s new?”

She smiles at the server when they come by, opting for the breakfast platter and a cup of black coffee. It’s only then that Evan chooses to shift the subject away from himself, and it’s really quite extraordinary how easily he tends to do that. Like a magician, he distracts her with the cards while his hands are elsewhere. It truly is a gift in itself.

“I don’t know, I was actually enjoying you getting a little poetic about IKEA there.” She smiles kindly and folds her arms over each other on the table, hugging her elbows. Sucking in a breath through her teeth, “Well, school’s out for the summer, so I haven’t really been doing much except editing lesson plans, but that took… three days at most?” Her life as a non-gifted dulls in comparison to her Magi friends. She doesn’t want to think about how jealous she was of her brother whenever she’d have to spend weekends with a tutor to prepare for decathlons while he would spend hours upon hours outside the house training.

Every now and the, she’ll catch herself feeling ever-so smug about the thought of her brother at the Institute. Serves him right. Then she’ll hate herself for a little while.

She blinks a few times as if to snap herself out of whatever spiral she was about to fall into, offering yet another smile, sheepish this time, almost coy in the way that she just never is. “But, uh… yeah. I was thinking of going on a little vacation somewhere. Maybe you might have some suggestions?” She knows she couldn’t leave Asphodel, not when this is the longest and safest she’s been since leaving the Institute. They’ll never think of her hiding in plain sight in a population of Gifteds.

#open. #int. thread #ch. evander cross #evander cross. 001

[nadiaparekh]

starter for: @leoxvandoren​ location: lou’s diner, 3pm

The first time she thought she saw Leo, she dismissed it as a figment of her imagination, an inkblot of a person that she must’ve mistaken someone for they weren’t. He disappeared into the crowd, anyway, and she wasn’t in any place to chase after him when she might end up making a fool out of herself.

But then she saw him a second time just as she was about to leave Voodoo some night after. She attributed it to her lightly intoxicated state and chose not to pursue the rabbit that would drag her back into the hole she’d just barely escaped out of.

And now, as she’s sitting near the window at Lou’s, working on her lesson plan for when the schools open back up, the man that passes by is unmistakable. It may have been a couple of years since they’d last seen each other in person, but there’s no way she’ll forget that face.

Dark curls are pushed out of her eyes as she contemplates on whether or not to go after him, then bolts up from her seat, startling the few other patrons around her. Pushing through the door, she nearly stumbles out into the street in the most dramatic fashion that one could reunite with an old acquaintance.

“Leo!”

#closed. #int. thread #ch. leonard van doren #pretend that.....they're farther fhdjhs

[nadiaparekh]

starter for: @irenehqs​ location: the witches’ brew

"Okay, remind me again: do I swipe left or right if I like them?”

It’s embarrassing that she’s had to resort to an app to find her a companion—saying it like that makes her sound like she’s retiring at the age of thirty-three, but ‘lover’ doesn’t sit quite right with her—but it’s been highly recommended by a colleague of hers and out of pure boredom, decided to give it a try. She’s had to enlist the help of Irene, who doesn’t seem like the type to judge her for something like this. Or maybe she just doesn’t know the girl all that well.

#closed. #int. thread #ch. irene caruso

[nadiaparekh]

— ft. evander cross.

where: lou’s diner.  when: early morning.  who: open starter!

a coin rolls easily between his fingers.  a fluid motion performed with the effortless absence of decades of practice.  it’s something evan barely notices - a habit formed - but now and then he catches other people glancing at the coin as it moves, glinting in the light.  

it’s almost tempting - a wink of a promise - toss the coin and guess, i’m sure you’ll get it right.  it’s a lie of course.  in most peoples hands, those odds are even.  you truly have a chance at winning.  in evans hands… less so.  you call heads and nine times out of ten, it’ll land tails in his favour.  you call tails - and the man quietly drinking his coffee just says ‘edge’ and there’s suddenly a physics defying moment when that spun disc falls to land - improbably upright - balanced perfectly.

…what are the odds?

not today though.  there are no games. just a seat in the diner with the smell of pancakes and sweet syrup.  a solitary coffee cooling in front of him - immersing himself in the sounds of busyness from the kitchen, the casual chatter of a few other early risers as he browses the menu - that coin still turning between his fingers.

“don’t suppose you have any recommendations?”  

just an offhand voice to the nearest ear.  a voice with an accent clearly not local - not anywhere close to it.

“been here nigh on a decade and i still don’t have a clue what ‘grits’ are.”

Waking up early had never been a problem for Nadia, especially when classes were still ongoing. She’d carried the habit over even in the summer, regularly waking up when it’s still dark out so she can clear her head for the day and go on an early morning run. It’s only by chance that she runs into Evan, and it’s really quite apt, too, considering what the guy does for a living. Or the gift that he harbors, for that matter.

She invites him to grab some breakfast, which is how they end up sitting on opposite sides of a booth at Lou’s Diner, perusing a menu she’s read over a thousand times in the four years she’s been in town, but she always has trouble deciding. She lowers the book to send a peek towards Evan, chuckling softly when he speaks. “Well, there’s always a first time for everything. I say order it and find out,” she advises, though she’s hardly the person to ask when it comes to taking risks. She’s learned to be cautious over the years— perhaps too cautious. It’s a wonder she doesn’t just order the same thing everytime she comes in here. Maybe a part of her longs for the thrill, for the chances, for the risks. And maybe that’s why she’s here getting breakfast with him when they’d made no prior plans.

“Why are you up, anyway? I didn’t realize casinos operate so early.” Come to think of it, she’s still not totally clear on what he does, and maybe she never will be. Maybe he’s just another mystery.

#open. #int. thread #ch. evander cross #i assumed some friendly connection i hope that's cool ! #also if his abilities aren't common knowledge pls let me know and i'd be happy to edit this for u!

[nadiaparekh]

face claim: tina desai full name: nadia parekh (roshni thakar) gender & pronouns: cisfemale, she / her age: thirty-three house: n/a tier and role: null  gift: n/a occupation: elementary school science teacher 3 positive traits: perceptive, nurturing, astute 3 negative traits: insincere, fickle, skeptical

Born Roshni Thakar in Washington, DC to a Null father, a dentist, and a Gifted mother, who was blessed with empathic abilities. Her younger brother was also Gifted.

Had always been at odds with her brother especially as he grew more and more powerful. In a way, it led to Nadia resenting the Gifted.

Led a relatively normal life, did everything a good daughter was supposed to do. Breezed through college, then medical school, after which she received an offer to work for the Institute. Believing that this was the perfect opportunity to show up her brother, she accepted and worked at their headquarters.

The work she did for the Institute was both everything and nothing she imagined. She thought that it was simply a pursuit to understand Gifteds better, but what she was struck a chord within her and immediately she recognized that something didn’t feel right. 

An opportunity arose to redeem herself from the inhumanity— one of the Gifteds that she grew close with and hatched a plan to help him escape. The day they were to leave, she thought she saw heard her brother in one of the labs. She didn’t have enough time to look, and she only seeks assurance in the thought that she may never know.

Spent about a month on the run with Leo, the Gifted she helped until they eventually parted ways. She’d go from state to state trying to find work but never staying there for more than a couple of months at a time. Still kept in touch with Leo and would help each other out with money if they needed it.

Had adapted the name Nadia Parekh and had since then been using it. She hasn’t heard the name Roshni in forever, especially since she’s cut off communication with her parents, but with the help of Leo and a few Gifted friends, are able to ensure that they are safe.

She was told about Asphodel and figured that she could do with a community of Gifteds as her allies and hopes that her knowledge of the Institute may help their deliverance. Now works as an elementary school science teacher and tries not to draw much attention to herself.

#asphodel:intro

[nadiaparekh]

#muse. #photos. #<3