Nadira Sana Karim was born into a unique family and living situation.
Her mother, Leila, was a half-Egyptian archaeologist born to a British archaeologist and a wealthy Egyptian relic hunter. Leila, raised in London, ended up following in her mother's footsteps and returned to her father's homeland in order to pursue archaeological studies. One of the workers on the dig, however, caught her attention and soon enough, Leila and Basir were married. They hadn't planned on having children right away, especially since they were in the middle of a breakthrough, but soon enough, the two found themselves raising a pair of children in the midst of broken pottery and tents.
Nadira grew up with her life torn between city and desert. While her parents' work interested her, the tales were really all that she found interesting and not all of the physical work. She'd always though archaeology would have been more exciting. So Nadira preferred it when they were in the city, where she could be around people. She enjoyed socializing and attention, and when her and her brother were dragged to the dig sites, she found herself bored and restless. If not for her brother, Nadira would have found the dig sites entirely unbearable.
As Nadira reached her teenage years, the city became a much more enjoyable place. There was plenty of trouble the attention-seeking and flirty Nadira could get into, which always left her brother in the position of having to try and keep her from getting into /too/ much trouble. Unfortunately, with a city positioned near archaeological dig sites, there was quite a bit of black market trade, and with access to the digs, Nadira found herself a favorite with running a few errands here and there. She saw no harm in it—bits of broken pottery and the like weren't terribly important.
It was about this time that Nadira saw her powers manifest. When a group of Nadira's friends went swimming, someone made the comment that the water was scared of Nadira, as it always shook when she got close. They laughed it off, but the comments interested Nadira, who took to the water to try and figure out what was up with her and water. She soon discovered that she could 'feel' the water in a different way—she was keenly aware of the water's location, how it could move, how it could flow. While she kept this mostly a secret to herself, she did have to practice it…
Nadira convinced her parents later to allow her to study at the University. Mostly, that was how she was able to stay in the city longer, pursuing a degree to follow in the footsteps of her parents. However, she mostly skimmed through the classes just to pass and cut as much of it as possible. She was able to balance a bit more smuggling on the side, finding herself deeper rooted in the depths of the black market. Now, most of her friends aside from the few who knew her at the University were those she knew from her side jobs. As most of their deals went down in bars, Nadira grew to love the environment—secrets were slipped, and the bartenders were the dealers of the social lubricant that gleaned them. Plus it was fun.
So Nadira proceeded to study bartending under a particular older gentleman who had grown fairly fond of the girl and took her under a protective wing. He taught her the bartending skills she needed to get by and allowed her to help in his bar. It was in said bar that Nadira's secret of hydrokinesis slipped out. It was with a few close friends, who she didn't feel would take too much of it, and so passed it off as it was no big deal. The secret, however, was something the bartender noted as well. Nadira's friends, however, saw the potential in this and passed it farther up the food chain.
Some of those who had a bit more weight in their smuggling ring probed Nadira's friends to get more information on how her ability worked, and the potentials for it. After a bit of badgering, Nadira gave them a bit of a demonstration, pulling droplets of water out of a nearly empty glass then proceeding to spray them at one of the group. They all laughed about it and once again, things seemed just fine, but everything was passed up to those who had grander schemes. Soon enough, the organizers of some of the bigger schemes had concocted a plan involving smuggling some artifacts that had already been discovered. Through an elaborate operation, they would smuggle an actual mummy out of a museum display, and replace it with a carefully replicated one that Nadira would help them form. At first, it didn't bother her too much. At least it didn't until she realized what this mummification process would entail.
While the plan was being set up to extract the real mummy, Nadira was brought to come help with the fake mummy's preparations. It wasn't until she was instructed to go ahead and dry out the body of one of her friends that she knew there was any real danger to this plan. The friend, who happened to be leaking information to the authorities about some of the lesser deals, had become just obnoxious enough to warrant a "disappearance". The suggestion was the Nadira could simply… remove the water from his body, drying him up, and then they could simply work on it to make it look older so that it would be long enough before anyone would be able to tell there was any difference.
Proceeding to pulling from the nearest water source, she used what water she could to blast those around her while she made her escape. She barely had enough time to head back to her apartment to grab a few things before she already began to spot faces in the crowd who had ties to the organization. Knowing that she had gotten herself in far too deeply, Nadira realized her only choice was to get as far away from the reach of the smuggling operation as possible. And considering their wares were Egyptian, she'd simply have to go somewhere that clearly wasn't a desert—New York City. She fled the city and jumped on the next flight out.
