Born in Casablanca, Morocco in 1984, Nadia was born to a fairly well-off family; while not wealthy, they were certainly not impoverished. For the first five years of her life, she grew up happily, enjoying her life in Casablanca. She had a brother, six years her elder, whom she was close to, despite his constant picking on her.
Seeking chances for business opportunities and a better life, Nadia's parents packed everything up in 1990 and with their children, made their way to America, landing in Florida. There, they moved into Nadia's grandmother's house in St. Augustine. Nadia's mother, Johara, opened her own restaurant there, while her father, Hashim, opened up a second-hand book store next door.
Nadia melded with American culture far more easily than her older brother and mother, her young mind absorbing every facet of this new culture she was immersed in. Within a year, she had a firm enough grasp on the English language to help her mother and brother, acting as a translator when necessary. As Nadia grew, she found herself helping out more and more with her mother's restaurant, mostly running the register and putting in orders.
She also enjoyed playing at the beach near her house. One of her favorite pastimes was to play in the sand, and build grand sandcastles, though never nearly as amazing as the structures she had in her head. She always entertained grand designs of becoming an amazing architect when she grew up, and the white sands of the beach offered a perfect medium for her designs.
One day, when she was eleven years old, she was trying to work with the sand, which had become a little too dry to work with. She could get them shaped, but the barest breeze caused them to lose their shape. Frustrated after many attempts to get one tower to stick, Nadia was trying to pack it in with her hands, to no avail. Grumbling her irritation to the wind, she tried to will the sand to stick together. A futile effort, but it was worth a try. And, to the girl's surprise, the sand not only stuck, but formed into exactly the sandcastle she had imagined, a work far greater than her own hands could ever create. Reaching out, the child touched the structure, only to find that it was stable. Even patting it did not disturb the castle.
It was from there that she discovered her Gift. At first, all she ever did was sandcastles, sand buildings, sand sculptures. It was always her little secret; she only ever used the gift when no others were around, and she would always will the sands back down into a simple child's sandcastle when done.
Slowly, she gained better control over this ability, and decided to try other materials. First was dirt. It was much more difficult, much denser, but she slowly began to hone her abilities, learning how to shift the earth, how to form it into shapes and structures, walls and holes. And as always, she would return the earth to its original state when she was finished. Second was stone. This was even more difficult to learn, taking far more willpower than any other; the stones did not come apart as easily as dirt or sand. Slowly, she learned to move the stone, to make it shift to the shape she desired. Starting with a large boulder, she first began to make indents into the stones; these turned to holes, which turned into cracks, and eventually, she was able to shape and move rocks, though very slowly.
It was this way for a while, the girl keeping her mysterious ability to control the earth to herself as she pushed her limits. It never interfered with her life, and she never let another soul know about it, fearing that she would be put under the knife if anyone found out that she could make holes in the ground. She graduated high school like this, in 2004. Then, determined to follow her dreams as an architect, she set out for New York, enrolled in Columbia University's Architecture program.
As a side job while enrolled in school, she began to make sculptures, using her abilities to create works of art and, in turn, turning a fair profit from her works. It was enough to support her during school, putting food on her plate and keeping the utilities running.
She was halfway through her second year of schooling when the bomb hit. Her apartment building was destroyed in the explosion; had it not been for her quick thinking, she would have been just as unfortunate. Instead, she almost instinctively used the concrete of the building as a shield of sorts, piling it over herself to protect her from reaching any further harm than she already had.
Confused, Nadia wandered out of the city, somehow finding her way back home to her parent's home, where she was cared for and brought back to health from the radiation poisoning. There she remained, angry, hurt, and confused by the explosion, for the next three months.
The revelation of the existence of the Evolved to the public brought the girl a sense of belonging, knowing that she was not alone in her abilities. She might be the only one who could control the earth's movement, but there were others like her, who had developed their own superhuman abilities.
After carefully judging her family's reactions to the revelation of Evolved, Nadia decided to make her move. She also carefully judged the outside world's reactions to Evolved, the beatings and hatred directed towards many because of the actions of one. After a month of observation, she finally made her decision.
She told her family of her abilities, and even showed them, turning a small rock she had found in the driveway into a statue of her mother. At first, their reactions were shock, fear even. Her mother disappeared into her room that night, and didn't come back down until the following evening. After some discussion, it was established that though Nadia was very different than many other people, she was still their family, and she would never be turned down because of the way she was born. Thankfully, her family was also open to the idea of keeping her status as an Evolved a secret, both for her safety and their own.
When the Linderman act was passed, Nadia was encouraged by her family to register, as it was the right thing to do. Likely one of the first group to do so, the girl went in and registered, as a Tier 2 Evolved. Hardly bothered by having her name in a government registry, she gladly complied with the registration.
Once Columbia University opened once more, Nadia returned, finding a place to live on campus with the assistance of her parents. She remained in the background, avoiding any real interaction with other Evolved, and avoiding any real alignment with factions. She was far more focused on her studies. She finished her Bachelor's in Architecture in late 2008; after getting a minor job in her field of interest, she decided to continue on her course, and began to pursue her Master's, and is still doing so.
The adventures of the famous Evolved were closely monitored, but for the most part, the girl remained out of the focus of the public's eye. She kept her registration current, and did everything she could to keep out of the spotlight, and keep her abilities under lock and key.
Yet all the while, despite her busy life, she still made efforts to improve her abilities. Creating sculptures from slabs of rock came far more naturally and quickly, and the girl learned that she could build structures from the strips of marble and stone that were left over from her works. Most of the time, however, a stone slab could net her several statues and sculptures, which she typically sold out or donated, these days.
Now, only a year from her Masters, she's suddenly found herself curious about many things; a blossoming, of sorts. Her attention has been drawn to her own abilities, which have grown so much from the days when she created marvelous castles of sand that could stand up to the waves, to creating intricate sculptures of stone without any sculpting tools. There must be more to them.
Her curiosity has also turned towards other Evolved. She knows they're out there, and her interest is rising. She really has no clue what direction she wants to take with her life as an Evolved; she has almost obsessively watched the news and taken in an outsider's perspective, and she can see the merits and flaws of many of the viewpoints that exist in on the topic of the Evolved. A clean slate, an open book that has no true slant one way or the other, Nadia would be what you would call a "wild card."
