AGE: 13
BIRTHDAY: June 16
HAIR: White
EYES: Green
HEIGHT: 4� 11��
GENDER: Female
ETHNICITY: Arabic/African
FAVORITE COLOR: Pink
FAVORITE SONG: �Bump�-Raven Symon�
FAVORITE FOOD/DRINK: Bubble gum
TATTOOS/PIERCINGS/SCARS: She has her ears pierced once in each ear. She also has small scars on her upper thighs and middle back.
LIKES: Singing, dancing, reading, drawing, watching TV, playing games, animals, bug collecting, and temporary tattoos.
DISLIKES: Being dragged around by Zoe on shopping trips, being forced to wear girly clothes and make-up, scary things, bullies, and the dark.
PERSONALITY: Usually a ray of sunshine for the most part, Niobi is jovial and tries her best to cheer people up. Though she is a tomboy and is nothing like her sister, she sees Zoe as a sort of hero for rescuing her and looks up to her, secretly envying her confidence. Niobi hates the fact that she is shy and tries her best to get over her fears to be as strong as her sister. However, because she is still healing from her ordeal with her parents, Niobi can become quiet when she sees someone using drugs or alcohol, pitying them and feeling angry at the same time. She sometimes gets depressed and is not always confident in her own abilities. She always tries her best in school, but does not have many friends because she keeps herself away from most of her classmates. She also feels guilty for what happened to her parents.
BIOGRAPHY: Niobi�s mother Nephthys, was an Arabic woman who lived in Egypt. She worked at a Cairo museum when she met Baingana Oltsego, who was from Uganda and came to Egypt for a vacation. The two wealthy people befriended each other and got married two years later. Baingana took up residence with his new wife in Egypt. They had a son that they named Zebadiah Amun-Ra Oltsego. About a year later, they had Zoe Sahara. Five years after Zoe was born, Niobi came into the world. Baingana�s sister, Auset, was the mother of Tyrel. Their brother, Bakari, fathered Abishai, the daughter of Tyrel�s Aunt Betty. Bakari and Auset left Uganda several years before Baingana and his family did. When Niobi was a year old, the Oltsego family immigrated to America and lived in New York City. Zoe and Niobi were sent to a four star girls academy for a time before transferring to the public school where their brother was being taught. Zebadiah struck out on his own when he was seventeen. Aunt B, who worked at a bakery in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, told Zebadiah to move in with her and Abishai to help with the house. Zebadiah agreed and attended college, finding a good paying job at a local office to help pay for his tuition.
Zoe had always been a high-class girl while Niobi remained pretty low maintenance. In fact, Zoe is pretty much a millionaire, her parents giving their oldest daughter her own bank account with a fraction of the family fortune. Zoe got her own credit card when she was fifteen. She spent a lot of her time shopping for designer line clothing when not doing school work or babysitting Niobi (often she would force Niobi to go to the mall with her and get her new clothes. Niobi had no choice but to be forced into frilly mini skirts and go to the local salon). It seemed like the family was faring pretty well. However, when Zoe was sixteen and Niobi was eleven, they noticed their parents acting strangely. Her father had become an alcoholic and her mother a crack addict. Zoe often tried to shield her little sister from their behavior by staying locked in either of their rooms talking and willingly playing video games with Niobi. Niobi always seemed cheerful, but in reality she was suffering and becoming depressed because of what was happening to her parents. Zoe had finally had enough and things became so bad that she had to leave when she was seventeen. She tried to take Niobi with her, but her parents forbade Zoe from taking Niobi and the court would not allow her to have custody until she was eighteen. Frustrated, Zoe swore to her sister that she would be back to get her and take her to a better place.
Niobi remained with her parents, hiding in her room away from them most of the time. She cried when they argued and she was frequently ill from the smell of alcohol and drugs. Twice she had to go to the emergency room because if the toxic fumes she inhaled, resulting in breathing problems, and another visit because she was physically abused by her drunken father for accidentally spilling the milk (she had to receive stitches on her thighs and back because of this and suffered a broken nose, a fractured arm, a bleeding lip, bruises, and minor cuts from the broken beer bottle that her father used on her. When the doctors asked what had happened, he and his wife stated that Niobi had fallen down the stairs). She was becoming depressed and almost committed suicide once, but she hesitated when she held the knife to her wrist in the dead of night. She remembered her older sister�s promise and held onto the hope that she would return. Niobi was never allowed to tell Zebadiah of their parents� drug abuse; they threatened to hurt her if she did, having become abusive as the result of their drug and alcohol use. Zebadiah was unaware of what was going on because he did not visit often and his parents said nothing on the phone or when around him and always made sure that they did not look or smell suspicious. It was not until Zoe called him up a year later and told him while on her way to New York to gain custody of Niobi that he found out. Zebadiah met Zoe and Hoofamon in court. With Hoofamon there in his human form as a witness to the better life that Niobi would receive, Zoe won custody of her little sister and brought her to Virginia to live at the Imaad house.
QUIRKS: Because of the smell of drugs she inhaled while living with her parents, Niobi has asthma and sometimes gets short of breath, so she does have to take medicine every morning and carries around an inhaler just in case. She usually has a temporary tattoo on her somewhere; most of the time it is a small red heart on her lower abdomen. Having a fear of scary things, she is terrified of Nemesis and Wolf�s werewolf form, but she enjoys chasing the werewolf boy around when he is in his regular wolf form and tags along with him, X, Gemini, or Kenyamon when she has a chance to escape her older sister. When she sees Ryoko transform into her half-demon form, she shies away from her for a time. Since Niobi has a fondness for collecting bugs, she proudly shows off a jar full of crickets to her squeamish sister before releasing them. Though Niobi does listen to "teeny bopper" music, Ryoko has gotten her hooked onto alternative rock and the girl listens to that most of the time much to Zoe's great displeasure. Niobi does not hold a huge grudge against her parents, but she does often reach the brink of tears when she talks about the subject, wondering what went wrong. Like any child, she thinks that she did something to make her parents turn out the way they did. Even though Zoe constantly reassures her that it was not her fault, Niobi still secretly holds herself accountable.
THEME SONGS:
�Behind These Hazel Eyes�-Kelly Clarkson
�Just Fly Away�-Raven Symon�
�I Turn to You�-Christina Aguilera
�Concrete Angel�-Martina McBride
JAPANESE THEME SONG:
�Aosusuki�-Yui Horie
THOUGHTS: At first Niobi was gonna be all hyper and bubbly, but then I got to thinking about her past. The psychological wounds that she suffered from her parents� abuse came into play, resulting in Niobi being a bit dejected. Her trust in people has lessened and it takes her a while to make friends. When she first joins the gang, it takes her a few weeks to become more social with them. Zoe constantly told everyone to give her time to recover and adjust. Until that time came, Niobi sat on the porch by herself or with her sister watching everyone play football in the back yard. She probably warmed up to Kenyamon the quickest out of everybody seeing as how kind she was and how she always offered to play games with the young girl. The fact that Kenyamon was actually a Beast could have helped, too, since she is able to become the size of a small dog in her true form.
