DECODY, Nia Alexa

[nia alexa decody]

PARTHENIA ALEXA DECODY

FULL NAME: Parthenia Alexa Decody.
NICKNAMES: Nia. She often only answers to Nia.
AGE: 32
GENDER: Female
SEXUALITY: Straight.
STATUS: Single.
GROUP: Citizen.
GRADE: N/A.
MAJOR: N/A.
JOB OCCUPATION: Archivist at New York Public Library.

HAIR: Naturally a light blonde, but she dyes it often, favouring shades of red and pink the most. The style changes with extensions and accessories, but it naturally hangs just beyond her shoulders.
EYES: Green.
SCARS/BIRTHMARKS: A few she probably doesn’t care to talk about in various places.
TATTOOS: “W14A.” on her upper right arm. This was the reference number she was given as a child in the court system. She has it as a reminder of how far she has come from her fucked up childhood.
PIERCINGS: She does have her ears pierced, but rarely wears earrings.
PLAY-BY: Emilie Autumn!

LIKES: libraries, the city at night, steam inhalers, barre classes, a room with a view, playing around with make-up, Lovecraft stories, loose clothing, but also leggings, peppers, coconut milk, classic movies, creamy pasta, tarot cards, candles, simple designs, blackbirds, thunderstorms, cataloguing, escaping into another character, debut nights.
DISLIKES: drinking alcohol, loud people in small spaces, being rushed, hot weather, rap music, guns, misogyny losing her glasses, sports bars, garish Christmas décor, sleepless nights, blocked sinuses, impatient people, liars, driving, milkshakes, time wasters, people who fuck with emotions, going to the gym, kidney beans.
FEARS: Losing her books, being drunk, being put to sleep for surgery.
SECRETS: Nia doesn’t talk about her life before New York because it’s too much of a sob story in her eyes and she doesn’t want people to offer her endless amounts of sympathy when she’s currently happy and well.
PERSONALITY: Quiet, Nia is primarily a bookworm. She prefers them over the company of strangers. Nia is organised and likes to keep track of things in diaries and on spreadsheets; that sort of thing. Hardworking and disciplined after twelve years of ballet, she’s very much there to get the job done and can be trusted to get on with things. Spiritual to an extent, she enjoys philosophical conversations about life and death, the normal and the paranormal. She’s intelligent but often comes off as cold or aloof thanks to her past leaving her a little closed off from new people who – in her opinion – come across as too friendly. When it comes to her temper, Nia has perfected the glare and often doesn’t need words to get across how she feels about someone who, frankly, she despises. In her mind those people are not worth a moment of her time so she gives them the bare minimum effort if she has to. Romance has been pretty elusive in her life. She made mistakes when she was young, choosing the wrong boys who thought they were men. Nia prefers to have someone who doesn’t mind giving her the space she likes and who can also provide the support and cuddles she does – on occasion – like to have. She’s thoughtful of what might be special to a partner and as such likes the same in return. Equality, to keep it short is what will keep her falling for someone in a relationship.

MOTHER: Zara Annabella Pollock, 53.
FATHER: Jason Benjamin Decody, 58.
SIBLINGS: Barnaby Ross Pollock, 16.
Seneca Leonardo Pollock, 14.
Olivia Jane Decody, 24.
Kyle Jason Decody, 18.
OTHERS: N/A.
PETS: Sherlock, a tabby cat stray she adopted!
HOMETOWN: Rockford, Illinois.
HISTORY: Jason came from a family that had a fair amount of money. They weren’t brushing shoulders with the rich and famous or living in some mansion house, but they were more than comfortable. They could buy their kids cars for their sixteenth birthdays and go on nice tropical holidays. So, Zara thought she had won a pretty prize when Jason took an interest in her. Jason really saw Zara for her looks, which meant their relationship was only ever going to be a short thing. Zara was pretty, yes, but she had a temper and came from a broken foster system where she had picked up bad habits involving alcohol and getting high. When she fell pregnant suddenly and unexpectedly, Jason panicked that he’d be tied down to Zara.

Parthenia was born at thirty weeks, no thanks to her mother refusing to give up her reckless ways. After a long stay in hospital, she was released to, well, probably the most dysfunctional family set-up in Rockford. Jason and Zara were constantly fighting, and the only peace came about when one of them went out to get drunk or to fight someone else.
Jason walked out on Zara and was ready to leave two year old Nia behind, too. It was his parents who ultimately told him to get his daughter. They had raised him better and it was Zara who had led him astray, pushed him to day long benders and bar fights. Zara, as bad a mother as she was, wasn’t willing to give up her daughter without a fight.

It was eighteen months before Jason had won the custody battle, and even then Zara was still demanding every other weekend for visitation. On those weekends though, Nia was left alone for hours, forced to entertain herself when Zara was sleeping off hangovers. Strange men and women came in and out of her life. Thankfully Nia was too young to convert any of those meetings into memories or else she may have been traumatised by the fights she fell asleep too or the way Zara hung off the strange men who brought her fancy gifts.

Over the years they were in and out of court with CPS poking their noses in too. Jason was proving himself to be a settled guy. He had met a woman who made him happy, who also looked out for Nia and they were starting their own family, too. They had a little girl who Nia wasn’t overly keen on. She didn’t really take around other children, and even her teachers had commented on her reluctance to play as part of a group. If she had known how to say it, Nia could have explained that too much of her life was filled with people talking loudly or pushing her out of a room so they could talk. She had only ever known happiness when she was alone in her room with a book or with her toys; the few she hadn’t tired of.

Even when Jason and his new wife upped and moved them all to a bigger house, Nia still felt like an outsider. She knew she wasn’t part of that family, not really. When she was ten she heard her dad talking with her grandparents about how they had been the ones to insist he kept Nia and how they should spend more time with her. The truth was that they did spend time with her, but she wasn’t as forthcoming as they would have liked. She didn’t reach out for them and would prefer to spend her time reading books or watching a history show over cartoons and baking with nonna. From that day she distanced herself from the family and didn’t like going on family trips because she felt like she was only there out of pity or because they had to bring the spare tyre along.

Because of how Zara was, there were constant welfare checks made at school and home. Nia got used to hearing her assigned number which was supposed to protect her anonymity should anyone show interest in her case, but it just made her feel like less of a human. No one ever really asked for her opinion, but she didn’t exactly mind when visitation became a thing that happened every few months in the end.
Zara, too, had settled down with another man. This guy enjoyed a drink as much as she did and when she had two sons they were often in and out of foster care, yet the broken system returned them to Zara each and every time. She didn’t even care when she had Nia. Most of the time she dumped the boys on the older girl and went out to have fun alone. Nia didn’t connect with her brothers, but she tried since she knew what it was like to be around Zara. Still, every few months wasn’t really enough for a strong relationship since they were so much younger than her.

Nia started ballet when she was ten, and it was an escape for her right the way up until she was twenty-one and damaged her Achilles tendon. It was the first thing she felt like she was good at, and even dabbled with the idea of going professional when she was still at school. She was scared the freedom of it would be taken from her if she made a career out of it though. Ballet taught her discipline where school kind of failed. Nia was good at school, made excellent grades and put all the effort into her work, but there were times when she would be defiant or get into scraps with other kids. She didn’t work well with them and with how she dressed in an alternative style there was always someone ready with a cruel word. She went through phases like most kids do, and hers was a heavy rock, bright hair, smudged heavy make up kind of phase. A phase that lasted until she graduated college, nonetheless.

During those transformative teenage years, she made mistakes like everyone does. She had friends from ballet and from around the city and they weren’t always on their best behaviour. She had short lived relationships with guys who would have made Jason lock his daughter away if he knew about them. Jason loved Nia, but there was this underlying tension between them that simply wouldn’t go away no matter what they tried. Jason supported his eldest though, and was happy to pay her way when she went to Sarah Lawrence to study History and Literature. He even understood her need for space and when she refused to come home some nights because of various reasons, he got her a hotel room so she wouldn’t sleep on the streets or end up in any kind of trouble. He knew he had a lot of responsibility for why she was so distant and distrusting, so he wanted to do his best to make her life happy.

After college Nia got her masters in Information Services and after that moved to New York City where she quickly landed a job at New York Public Library. She worked in the archives, helping people with their research and history searches. As the modern age began to catch up she was quickly finding herself digitalising the collection. It wasn’t a quick process and it would take years before everything was sorted and organised both digitally and in the stores. As cuts and resignations often do, Nia soon found herself the solo member of the archives team, but she was entirely happy to stay that way. There were always temporary assistants and students on placement to lend a hand from time to time but for the most part she was content to be by herself for most of the long days. It meant she could get more done and that everything was catalogued and stored in the same fashion and how she liked it.

She’s content, with a small house she’s had work done on in Staten Island. She doesn’t really see any of her family anymore, save for a few calls here and there and presents for the holidays. One month she had her brother Barnaby stay with her when Zara was being unbearable but then he left again. She had actually enjoyed the company since friendships were often a once a month meet up and she didn’t have much luck falling in love. Her social life seemed to be limited to the amateur-dramatics group she joined on a whim after realising she performed musicals in her home when she was cooking. There she tends to be known as a more serious type, but there are a few older members who she’s happy to spend time with outside of rehearsals and performances. Acting is something she got into late, after her ballet days were over and replaced with once a week barre classes for fitness. However, she enjoyed it and liked the escape from her own life into somebody else’s.

YOUR ALIAS: Kim.
RULE WORDS: kidnappedbykim.
WHERE YOU FOUND US: On a rocketship.
SAMPLE:

Zoom zoom!

[kim]