Zahra Was Grateful Violet Had Reached Out, Mostly Because She Was Evidently Excited To See Her, But Also

Zahra had always been a night owl and even more so since she had moved back to the city. Back home she had enjoyed how quiet everything had been when the whole neighborhood slept, had always been thrilled by the thought of being the last one awake, while the opposite was true in New York City. There were always people out and about and Zahra felt a special kind of comradery with the other sleepless wanderers. It could still be loud, yes, but there was also a certain kind of peace that felt familiar and even comforting.

She glanced to the side at the stranger and nodded at her words. She hadn't meant to strike up a conversation, not really, but she also didn't want to move from the spot she had picked for herself. It was surely one of the better ones. "I know," she agreed, dark eyes directed towards the sky. "No wonder people find symbolism and write poetry about it."

status: open (@bhqextras) location: Full Harvest Moon Viewing Party ; Prospect Park

if given the choice, olivia would've travelled to the country for this. perhaps she would have rented a car and driven until she was in the middle of nowhere, and then just parked on the side of the road and watched the moon. it wasn't that the view of the moon from here wasn't fine - it was, decent at least. up north where there was no light to drown out the stars? now that was spectacular.

but olivia didn't like to travel like that alone. she was small, after all, and had done enough research for the next twenty lifetimes that told her how she should avoid rural areas at night, and certainly don't go alone. as she didn't have anyone that was willing to go on an impromptu evening roadtrip, she found herself at the park. it would be good enough from here, the moon was still worth the late night for sure. so she laid back on her towel, arms crossed beneath her head casually.

❝ you know, ❞ she started, pretty much assuming that the person settled on the towel within reach of her own - god, was nowhere in the city no longer crowded? - would no doubt respond. ❝ no matter how many times i watch a full moon rise, it will always blow me away with how pretty it is. ❞

"But wouldn't that be a beautiful way to go? Being flattered to death. That being said, I would very prefer if you were to stay alive." While making friends had always been somewhat of a daunting task to her, Zahra valued the friendships she had immensely. Yes, she still struggled to open up and share, but that didn't mean she actually wanted to push people away. She was making a conscious effort and luckily Vismaya seemed to appreciate it.

The undeniably delicious smell of the pizza reminded Zahra that while seeing Vismaya was definitely her main priority, she was also quite eager to eat. Having come to realize she hadn't remembered to do a real grocery shop in days, she had raided her snack cupboard earlier in the day, but the pizza in front of her certainly seemed far more appealing than the Goldfish and trail mix she had inhaled. Her head snapped up as Vismaya informed she would paying be paying for the evening. "No way. Can't allow it," she replied with a firm shake of her head. Her father had taught her many important life skills, and somehow fighting over the bill was certainly at the top of the list. Admittedly he was far more creative, often faking toilet breaks in order to pay when others least expected it. "But if you insist, you will have to let me pay for the next two times we go out to eat or have drinks," she added, not wanting to draw out the conversation when they were about to have a good time. Not that Zahra was all that eager to talk about herself.

"I'm okay. Having kind of a writer's block," she admitted with a sheepish smile, "but I'm sure it'll pass. Has happened before." It was true, she had struggled with inspiration before, but somehow this time felt different, more final in a way. "Honestly, haven't been doing anything too exciting stuff since I moved back. But I'm happy to be properly back in New York." That was at least true. "How are you? Hopefully your life is more thrilling than my current existence."

Few people made the cut of occupying Vismaya's extremely limited free time as of late, and Zahra would always be one of those people. Though, Vismaya didn't entirely consider her own company a treasure as of late, feeling like she had formed a habit of monopolizing the conversation just to talk about workplace fusses and, as always, her mother. However, tonight, she wanted to truly catch up with her friend, as she thought of Zahra often and fondly, and had a vested interest in the girl's wellbeing. "Z, I swear you are going to flatter me to death one day. My blood will be on your hands. My beautiful, beautiful blood," Vis teased, her nose scrunching as she giggled at her own lame joke. "Pizza is always the perfect place to start. And it's damn good, too." At that, Vis gingerly placed one of the small ceramic plates in front of her friend, and then helped herself to another slice. "So, firstly, order whatever you want, tonight is on me, and I'll be having no arguments about that, so, shh. Secondly, please tell me how you've been doing. I know I saw you a few weeks ago, but it still feels like it's been a full calendar year."

She grimaced visibly before nodding. "Oh, yeah, I'm fine," she hurried to assure despite feeling anything but fine. Still, it was none of this stranger's business and not something she wanted to burden him with. "It's just hot. It was quite the way to get those books here." Despite her resistance, Zahra did eventually sit down, the physical exhaustion catching up with her. "Thank you. I'm Zahra, by the way. Thank you for you help."

The change in her demeanor worried him immediately. He frowned and stepped a little closer but not too much as to invade her space. "Hey, are you feeling okay?" he asked, looking around the library. "Do you want to maybe sit down?" made a move to lead her to one of the chairs nearby, not able to actually grabbed her because his arms were full of her books that they hadn't returned yet.

[cis woman and she/her] Welcome to Aurora Bay, [ZAHRA HAMED]! I couldn’t help but notice you look an awful lot like [AIYSHA HART]. You must be the [THIRTY FIVE] year old [ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF RELIGION]. Word is you’re [RESOURCEFUL] but can also be a bit [RESTLESS] and your favorite song is [MY GIRLFRIEND IS A WITCH BY OCTOBER COUNTRY]. I also heard you’ll be staying in [OCEAN CREST APARTMENTS]. I’m sure you’ll love it!

full name: zahra hamed

date of birth: 11 july 1989

gender & pronouns: cis woman, she/her

sexuality: bisexual & biromantic

family: mother, father

pets: a black cat called circe

occupation: assistant professor of religion @ aurora bay college

place of birth: st. cloud, minnesota

time in aurora bay: around a year

height: 5′10′’

hair colour & style: dark brown, wavy, a bit past her shoulders

eye colour: dark brown

tw: infertility, mentions of religion, smoking

despite her status as somewhat of a miracle child - her parents had already come to accept they wouldn’t be able to have children of their own due to a host of fertility issues - zahra grew up knowing a lot was expected of her. both of her parents had grown up with very little and had been able to use education as their way out of difficult home situations. she doesn’t resent her parents in the slightest, but sometimes wonders what her life would now look like if she been given just a bit more space and freedom to discover and make mistakes. still, she’s grateful for the drive her parents instilled in her as it has helped her to keep going even during times of distress. that being said, she has unfortunately picked up a host of rather unhealthy coping mechanisms for said stressful situations.

while the household didn’t necessarily seem all that outwardly pious to outsiders, religion was always a big part of the family dynamic and something that was discussed often and at great length, partly due to the interfaith nature of the family. zahra was a curious child and loved getting involved in these conversations, even when the concepts seemed far too complicated for her. she loved lingering in doorways when her parents had friends over, keen on sharing her opinions and the facts she had so meticulously taught herself.

she was a bright student. however, despite doing well academically, zahra often struggled with the social aspect of high school. she was kind of an awkwardly intense, gangly teen who spoke too little or far too much and couldn’t really figure out what her crowd was for quite a while. she eventually befriended a group of girls, some of whom she’s still in contact with to this day.

zahra moved to minneapolis at the age of 18 to attend university of minnesota. she went on to receive her bachelor’s degree in religious studies before completing her master’s in philosophy.

unwilling to give up studying just yet, she decided to pursue a doctorate degree, still unsure what she actually wanted to do in the future. she was accepted to princeton and later completed her phd in philosophy and religion.

while her life hasn’t always been easy or uncomplicated, it has been rather streamline. she has struggled and put in an enormous amount of hard work to get where she is now, but things have generally gone well for her. however, she has recently gone through something of a personal crisis and is really struggling to find her feet again. to put it simply, zahra has become wildly disillusioned with the academia and is suddenly really not sure she’s entirely happy with her choices in life.

she accepted a job at aurora bay college before coming to terms with the emotional and professional conflict she was having. she enjoys her job but is certainly very conflicted and is questioning whether or not she made the right decision.

zahra is bilingual and grew up speaking arabic with her father. she’s also fluent in french, can read german fairly well and studied hebrew, ancient greek and latin during her studies. her streak on duolingo is over two years long, but she doesn’t take it all that seriously. she just really likes mobile games and this one just happens to teach her languages, making it just a little more productive than candy crush.

an avid collector of all sorts of trinkets, zahra does not vibe with the minimalist aesthetic. her bedroom is full of knickknacks and keepsakes. she also collects books and dreams of being the sort of person who actually reads the books she buys. to be fair, she does read a lot, but it’s mostly stuff related to her research or the lectures she’s planning. all the new, exciting fiction books have gone unread for years. this fact has not slowed down her buying habits, though.

can be seen chain-smoking and cursing to herself at all hours of the day. when does she sleep? does she sleep? who knows.

some super vague connection ideas!

the stress has led to a lot of sleepless nights, resulting in her becoming a real night owl. she can be spotted frequenting places that are open late, and can be found chain-smoking and scrolling endlessly on social media. she would’ve undoubtedly run into some folks with similar schedules and habits.

any people with fun, interesting hobbies. after forming some sort of a connection, she would undoubtedly pester these individuals to teach her stuff. your girl needs to be distracted from her own thoughts.

zahra enjoys noisy music. so, a person willing to accompany her to gigs around the area. she’s happiest when it’s so loud she can’t hear anything at all.

friends/acquaintances/flings from minneapolis and/or princeton. would especially love to have some of her besties from high school.

people she has dated/hooked up with during her time in aurora bay.

she would have definitely been the sort of teen who had a pen pal. so, one of those would be super duper fun!

a neighbour who is trusted to watch her cat when she's busy or out of town!

"Ah, there we go. That's the attitude I was looking for," she laughed, relaxing considerably now that they were no longer talking about work. She could be fun, right? She had certainly once been. "Can't judge a place by just one dish, right? So better try a few. Besides, all of this looks way better than the bowl of cereal I had earmarked for my brunch." The amount of food options was one of the things she really loved about New York City, especially now that her creativity had ran dry and she couldn't bring herself to try anything new in the kitchen. "So, definitely the eggs and the pancakes. Anything else catches your eye?"

Violet snorted at Zahra's attitude, completely understanding. She was happy her school days were behind her, though she did miss having all those people to play with. Her eyes perused the menu again, before locking onto her friend's with glee. "Ooh, maybe they have a sampler or something? Like you can order 3 different things to try? That sounds like a great idea. But if not, I'm hungry enough to eat more than one thing. I just started a new exercise, so I'm starving."

"I can imagine. Did you like LA? I mean, I feel like it would be vastly different from New York. Never been," she admitted. While she had nothing against he West Coast, California or even Los Angeles, she had never had any real reason to visit. The family she had in the states lived mostly in the Midwest, and she had spent her adult years in the Southeast and East Coast. "Different vibe, right? I guess you could say the weather is nicer."

Zahra didn't have to open the menu to know what she wanted. She could be a creature of habit, often frequenting the same restaurants she had once deemed good. Still, she took a look as if trying to make recommendations. "All of the pasta is pretty great. Can't say a lot about the meat since I don't really eat it."

They took a turn around the corner and he followed her to the place she knew as they continued chatting. He found it really easy to talk to her even though she seemed very serious and wanted to shake him off at the beginning, she warming up to him apparently and it felt nice. Uncomplicated. "I've lived in LA so I'm pretty used to having options of things to do. Too many options actually. When I first got there at eighteen, I wanted to do everything all the time. The last couple of years I was in bed by ten." He laughed at himself. Thirty-nine hit pretty hard.

Once inside the place, he rubbed his hands together, looking around. "Okay, what's good here? I'm actually starving." he chuckled.

When the other spoke, Zahra couldn't help smiling briefly. "I get that. It's not everyday you see someone carrying forty pounds of books in an Ikea bag. Not even in New York city." She had definitely garnered a few odd looks on her journey to the library, but most New Yorkers seemed to have seen far stranger things and didn't seem to be bothered by the sight.

"I guess you could say that." She regarded the books for a moment as if trying to come up with an excuse for dragging them around the city. "I guess I went a little overboard during my last few library trips. Toting around this haul made me really consider switching to e-books," she admitted, slightly amazed the bag had managed to stay in one piece. "They would probably be far less damaging to my back."

stuck on how to finish the small project she'd started a week earlier, jazzy finally had to admit defeat and do the research on how to best turn her idea into a reality. looking up tutorials online hardly helped because it was too easy to get distracted and go down the cute-kitty rabbit hole, so she typically stuck to how-to craft books.

so informative and full of so many other ideas for potential projects, a trip to the library wasn't really as big of a deal as jazmine was making it out to be. it just made her feel like school was back in session, so when she noticed the woman's large bag, she welcomed the opportunity to postpone her entrance. "sorry," she smiled, "but i have to ask, i do." she peered into the big blue bag, the comical amount of books too amusing a sight to keep her grin from widening. "what's happening here? are you training for some sort of reading marathon?"

A sigh of relief. She wouldn't have dared to ask for help and was still eager to object, but there really was no way she would have managed on her own. Not when she was already beyond exhausted.

"Yes, attempt. Didn't get very far," she admitted, despondent. "Work stuff. I happened to be a bit overambitious when I checked them out." It was clearly and understatement and not something Zahra was particularly proud of. In the past she would have been able to make a considerable dent on her reading material, but lately the overdue fees and looming deadlines had not bee able to motivate her to work. "Thank you. I'm not sure how I got this far."

Henry was just heading into the library to try and do some research when he saw the younger woman practically lugging a huge tote bag into the building. Without thinking, he gently nudged her aside ever so slightly before picking it up with ease. "I saw you were having some trouble, so... I guess today's your lucky day, eh? Hopefully you're cool with me bringing it in for you." He chuckled as he grabbed the handle of the library door with ease, holding it open for the other. "Mercy... How does someone attempt to even read this much?"

AIYSHA HART as SAM RAILSTON — Line of Duty, 5x05