#oc: naila el shafei

[xoteajays]

naila & joel & ellie + i, contradiction

i’ve been lost, but i’m here now. you feel like home more than anywhere i’ve ever been.

[xoteajays]

naila el shafei [ tlou ]

“when this is all began, i thought maybe it would bring people together. some big community; people being people, people being kind. i thought, even if the world went to shit, maybe there could be peace amongst the living.”

“you really thought that?” ellie’s voice is incredulous, but naila can’t decide if it’s condescending or not.

“i was nineteen. i wanted to have hope for a better future in a world that was so bleak and only getting worse.”

[xoteajays]

#ovc2023 - day four: Love You Like A Love Song.

you are not protecting yourself by shutting yourself off from the world.

[xoteajays]

the naila + ellie + joel dynamic

[xoteajays]

Alright, I’m curious: ❤️‍🔥 for Naila?? 🖤🖤🖤

so we know joel is emotionally stunted because he’s been hurt before and he’s closed himself off to friends, let alone love. so he realises he’s in love with naila pretty far on in their journey. he’s been trying not to like her, but it’s hard not to like her.

it’s no huge thing, it’s an affection that grows gradually the more time he spends with her, but he recognises it one night when they’re sitting around and he watches her gather ellie up in front of her so she can tidy up ellie’s hair. the two girls are chatting together, smiling and laughing, and he just feels … warm. it’s like having a family again.

naila’s braiding ellie’s hair and she looks over at him across the fire and smiles so warmly and it just … hits him. he’s just like ‘...oh.’

still, he doesn’t tell her he loves her until months later.

a ❤️‍🔥 + an OC and i’ll tell you about the moment their s/o fell in love with them.

[xoteajays]

getting them something (in a totally platonic way for sure) they mentioned like ONCE in a conversation forever ago which holds some sentimental value and being like “ohh you like it? great pfft what do you mean you told me about this i just saw it in a store hahaha ANYWAY” + Naila and Joel PLEASE?? 🖤🖤🖤

joel 'it's not that i like you or anything' miller.

He wasn't looking for it. Really.

He definitely doesn't consider the fact that the building they're heading through seems to have a lot of books in it. He'd overheard Naila talking to Ellie about a book she'd been looking for ever since the outbreak. 'A Wizard of Earthsea', some book she'd read as a kid and was sad about having left behind back in 2003.

They split up as Ellie drags Naila off in one direction and Joel goes to scavenge in the other. They're running low on provisions as it was, they'd been lucky to drag out what Naila had brought with her for as long as they had. It was a shame to have lost a lot from Frank and Bill's place in Kansas City when they'd crashed.

He wasn't looking for it, but if he happens to flip through a stack of books while he was looking for food that wasn't anybody's business. It's got an abstract green cover, something like a face and a hand hidden in the swirls. At the top of the cover is the title in bright green text. It's all faded with age, but flipping through the pages, it's still readable. He shoves it into his bag, hauls it up onto his shoulder and continues searching.

They meet up hours later and Joel says nothing about it. Deciding it's best to hole up in the building for the night, Ellie makes quick work of picking out a room for herself and dumping her bag across the bed. She yanks out one of her comics from her bag and kicks back to read. Naila smiles at her, shaking her head before sitting down at the dust-covered table.

"If I'd known she was such a reader, I would've brought some of my books for her. I had a few good sci-fi ones I bet she would've liked," Naila says, tugging a handkerchief from her pocket to wipe the tabletop down with. Joel sits across from her.

"Are you a big sci-fi fan then?" he asks casually. Naila shrugs.

"I'd say I'm more of a fantasy fan. You know, Lord of the Rings, Narnia, A Song of Ice and Fire, I'd only just started Discworld when everything went to sh*t. We had to run so quickly I didn't get a chance to grab any of them, and I never ended up going back home since then. They're probably still there, just rotting away on my bookshelf." She sighs lightly at the thought.

Joel glances passed her towards the door of Ellie's room. He doesn't want to imagine the teasing he's endure from her if she saw what he did next. She'd already been trying to push him and Naila together.

He reaches into his bag, quickly finding the smooth age-softened book and pulling it out. Wordless, he slides it across the table to Naila, who blinks in surprise.

"Earthsea ... you found it?" Her brows screw together, obviously touched by the gift. Her fingers skirt carefully across the cover, as if it could crumble beneath them. Given the age of it, it probably could have.

"I wasn't looking for it. I just saw it, thought I'd pick it up," He replies, quickly, gruffly. Naila smiles wide anyway, that bright sunny one that made his chest grow warm.

"Right. Of course." Her voice is soft though, and her eyes scrunch at the corners. She reaches across the table to squeeze his hand gently. "Thank you, Joel."

[xoteajays]

Mmmkay, but you know I have to ask for the one bed touch-starved prompt with Naila and Joel. 🖤🖤🖤

aaaaa them. joel still in his grump phase. also whoops got a bit long but i love them.

It's another rundown motel. Damp musty rooms, some broken doors, the entire place looted for anything that could be realistically carried. They find a room with a working lock and two rooms and hunker down for the night. They've still got a long way to go to get to where they're going. It's staring to snow a bit though, getting colder in the day and colder still at night. Ellie kicks off towards one room early, not even bothering to check the other and barely saying good night to the two adults; though Naila chimes it after her anyway.

Naila is sat close by the window, looking at the falling snow, a book in her lap that she'd stopped reading about 30 minutes earlier. She'd always found the snow pretty, even if she wasn't the biggest fan of the cold. The dots of white are like falling tiny crystals, standing out against the darkness when they catch the moonlight. Thinking about it, she worries more for Ellie than herself. If it's getting this cold, the kid's going to need a better coat, something that'll keep her warm. Even Joel could use a better one, she thinks, but somehow she imagines he'd sooner give his own jacket to Ellie than admit he was cold and let Naila hunt a winter jacket down for him while scavenging.

Speaking of, she hears Joel quietly curse from the free room and stands, stretching her tired legs before heading to the door to see what was wrong. She pauses in the doorway, blinking slightly in surprise.

There's only a single bed in the middle of the small square room, flanked on either side by decrepit wooden side tables. It's a queen size bed maybe, but a small one at that with a heavy patterned quilt flung across it's top.

Joel picks his bag up off the floor and Naila blinks at him.

"Where are you going?" she asks. He jerks his head in a motion to the bed. "You take the bed, I'll take the couch," he replies. Naila scrunches her nose. "There isn't a couch. I mean, there's a couple arm chair but they're not even the kind that folds out." "Then I'll sleep on the floor." "You're being ridiculous. We can share the bed." "N-" "Don't argue with me, Joel. You'll destroy your back sleeping on the floor."

They're at a standoff, staring at each other. Naila's unwilling to give in, she'll drag him to the bed if she has to. She knows she's right though and she knows that Joel knows she's right. After a few long moments, he huffs out a sigh and drops it pack back on the ground by the bed's edge. She smiles to herself, pleased, sitting on the bed's edge to pull her boots and jacket off.

"Just stay on your side," Joel says, pulling the covers back. Naila bites back a laugh, instead just nodding back at him over her shoulder. "Yeah, okay."

She slips into bed beside him, ignoring how he pointedly scoots to lay on the very edge of the mattress, practically almost falling onto the floor. Rolling her eyes, she turns onto her side facing away from him, shuffling slightly to get comfortable.

The morning sun bleeds through the gap in the curtains, spilling across Joel's face and slowly waking him up. His eyes blink open, slow to adjust. There's something warmth pressed up against his chest. He can smell the sweetness of shampoo in his face. It takes him a moment to realise what it is.

Naila, her back flush up against his chest, her loose curls tickling his face. His arm is flung over her waist, hand flat against the slope of her stomach. Her own hand rests loosely on his forearm. She's still asleep, her breathing soft through her parted lips. Her lashes are dark and long against her cheeks. At this close, he could've counted every freckle on her face, the darker ones across her high cheeks and the curve of her nose, and the lighter ones everywhere else. Her legs are tangled back with his, he can feel the softness of her sock against his ankle.

It takes another moment to realise he's the one who'd moved in the night.

He's further on her side, almost in the middle of the mattress, tucked up against her. He feels his face redden, hotly flushing over his cheeks in a way he hasn't felt since he was a teenager. He curses himself for the predicament, for the unspoken fact that he didn't actually want to move away from her or the warmth she gave off. This was just supposed to be a job, he wasn't supposed to be getting attached to either Ellie or Naila and yet …

She shifts slightly, bumping back against his chest and her eyes blink open, meeting his own almost immediately. Her gaze is soft, almost princess-y, like snow white awoken with a kiss. He jolts away like he's been burned. He yanks his hand back away from her, rolling over to get out of the bed. He hears Naila moves then, only slightly glancing at her as he grabs his jacket and pulls it on. She's sitting up and rubbing her eye, brows creasing together, slight confusion crossing her features as he leaves to the main room to rustle up breakfast and not talk about it.

touch starved prompts.

[xoteajays]

If you’ve already done this for her then sorry, BUT: WBW for my sunshine baby Naila?? 🖤🖤🖤

B A S I C S

full name: naila hesham el shafei.

gender: cis female.

sexuality: biromantic bisexual.

pronouns: she/her.

O T H E R S

family: single child of a mother and father who both died in the intial outbreak; previously deeply connected with cesar (who is now potentially dead) and then hera (who now lives in a qz).

birthplace: tanta, egypt.

job: none pre-outbreak, was still deciding on a study path for college; farmer/survivalist post-outbreak.

phobias: getting infected, extreme heights, most insects but especially cockroaches, earwigs, and termites.

guilty pleasures: hoarded cherry-cola-flavoured treats at the start of the outbreak.

M O R A L S

morality alignment?: somewhere on ‘good’, can’t decide if lawful or neutral.

sins - lust/greed/gluttony/sloth/pride/envy/wrath

virtues - chastity/charity/diligence/humility/kindness/patience/justice

T H I S - O R - T H A T

introvert / extrovert

organized / disorganized

close minded / open-minded

calm / anxious

disagreeable / agreeable

cautious / reckless

patient / impatient

outspoken / reserved

leader / follower

empathetic / unemphatic

optimistic / pessimistic

traditional / modern

hard-working / lazy

R E L A T I O N S H I P S

otp: naila x joel miller

ot3: in an au world, naila x joel x tess

brotp: naila + ellie in a miss honey + matilda way

notp: naila x ellie

world building wednesday

[xoteajays]

*runs into the room before anyone else can ask* Pokemon Party for naila?

i wanted a ‘living off the land’, farm-y vibe for her team. i was this close 🤏 to putting audino or chansey/blissey on her team for the mom-ish, healer vibes but instead went with miltank.

[xoteajays]

kissing the tears that roll down your lover's cheeks. maybe for Naila?? I don't know if she has a love interest so just feel free to ignore me if she doesn't (😅😅).

naila is a joel ship but i couldn’t think of a reason for this to be nailaxjoel, so here’s naila and her ex, hera.

~~~~~~~

Their little home is hidden away. Naila tends the gardens and fills the house with books she’s collected. She hums as she works, smiles all sunshine, and doesn’t complain even when things get rough. She won’t even admit to ‘roughness’, just pushes on through with this optimism that drives Hera almost mad.

Still, with all of it, it doesn’t feel like home to Hera.

It feels … empty. Lonely.

The only people she’s seen in weeks were the infected; before that, raiders. How many years had it been now? Since the world collapsed in on itself? Since she lost family and friends and even co-workers she didn’t like that much but now missed like siblings?

Naila catches her crying over it one day and kisses away her tears with a kind of softness that Hera thought had been lost with the civilised world. She smooths and comforts and Hera doesn’t say what she wants to.

Naila doesn’t want to go into one of the quarantined zones. She likes her freedom, she doesn’t want to work herself to the bone every day for scraps of rations people could barely survive on, she doesn’t want to be surrounded by the FEDRA.

They fight over it, more than once; Naila questions if she’s not enough for Hera, finally Hera snaps and says ‘yes’. It not enough for her to be here in this place with no one else to talk to, to be worried every day about raiders or infected coming upon them. Hera goes on and on, Naila says nothing for a long while and then just leaves. She sits out in the garden for hours, Hera knows she’s crying.

It comes to a head a week later. Hera gathers up all her own stuff, takes enough food to last her the hike. Naila sits, silently watching before just walking out the door to sit outside.

Hera walks out later, adjusting her bag onto her back.

“Don’t go,” Naila says, voice small, hands clasped together in her lap. Hera sighs.

“You could come with me,” Hera replies. Naila’s hands clutch tighter together, knuckles white. Her head jerkily shakes ‘no’, casting a tear down her freckled cheek until it drips off her jaw. Hera leans in, pressing a kiss over the wet line.

“Goodbye, Naila.”

~~~~~~~

‘KISS ME ..’ kissing prompts

[xoteajays]

“When you look at [trigger], you… what is that?” + Naila, maybe?? 🖤🖤🖤

Naila’s been quiet for a while.

It’s strange, since she liked to talk almost as much as Ellie did. Every since she’s joined them, the pair had gotten on like a house on fire; they could barely manage silence when it was needed to be getting around the infected, but even then they’d usually be back to talking by now. Joel hadn’t minded the peace, but he’s been curious about her sudden silence.

As they sat around a fire, keeping it low to avoid detection, he catches the glassy look in her dark eyes. The fire lights them up, but it’s like she’s not there, hollow inside. Her mouth is drawn in a serious line, it looked odd on her usually peaceful or cheery features.

“Hey, Naila … When you looked at that infected, you… what was that?” Ellie pipes up.

Joel moves to reach across and knock her shoulder, make her gaze shoot to him in that classic Ellie ‘what?’ expression. He’d been wondering too, but he wasn’t so bold as to actually ask her. She’d frozen up back there around the infected, Joel had had to drag her along to keep her moving. Her hand had been clammy in his own, her feet stumbling where’d they usually be cautiously precise.

When they look back to her, Naila’s glassiness is shaken from her eyes and her features have been seemingly forced to relax. She draws Ellie easily into her side, carding a hand over the younger’s messy crown.

“Oh, farashati, it just … reminded me of someone,” Naila says, tone light.

Joel watches her free hand fumble to her throat, her fingers flittering against her skin where a necklace pendant would lay if she wore one. He watches her swallow thickly, eyes quickly blinking when tears welled.

“I thought …” she starts, her voice sounds far away, like she wasn’t really there again, “A man I knew, someone I loved … he wore a necklace just like that infected had hanging around its neck. The way it glinted in the light … I thought …”

She draws in a shaky quick breath, her bottom lip trembling. She squeezes her eyes shut tight, brows creasing in remembrance. Ellie’s big eyes stare concerned at her. All at once with a shake, Naila comes back to herself. She runs her hand over the length of Ellie’s ponytail before landing it on the girl’s shoulder and giving a gentle squeeze.

“It was just a memory. That’s all.”

~~~~~~~

noticing trauma sentence starters

[xoteajays]

and WHO, perhaps, is going to ask me about my naila x joel x anna au agenda?

[xoteajays]

Why wouldn’t the Last of Us fandom like my sweet girl Naila?? 🖤🖤🖤

ooh tough one bc i am So Soft for naila i dont want to consider why she’d be hated.

hmm, comes off as too understanding despite all the circumstances, some people might side with hera on the ‘living in a qz vs being alone’ argument, some might not like the motherly role she takes with ellie, comes off ‘too happy’ when some people think people should be more serious and gloomy in the apocalypse, some might think she manipulated her way into the adventure because she ‘wouldn’t just give joel and ellie her food resources’, tessjoel shippers don’t like her ‘replacing’ tess.

[xoteajays]

5 + naila! -bibaybe

OTP: naila x joel

BROTP: naila + ellie, naila def has mom-ish vibes tho, she’s ellie’s miss honey a la matilda.

OT3: they never actually met but i think naila x joel x tess would’ve been neat.

NOTP: naila x ellie (she’s a child, the only way i’d entertain this if it was ellie having a lil ‘baby gay’ one-sided crush).

alternative love interest: i don’t think there’s a lot of options (at this point at least), so i’d probably set naila back up with her ex, hera.

send me 5️⃣ + an OC and I will tell you their OTP, BROTP, OT3, NOTP, and an alternative love interest for them!

[xoteajays]

could sharing a kiss while sitting by a campfire work for Joel and Naila?

uhm absolutely that works for naila x joel. hell yeaaaa

~~~~~~~

Naila tends the fire with a kind of practiced ease. She’d told him once that the first time she’d tried to make a campfire, she almost burnt her whole arm when her jacket caught the flames that had grown too high. She’d laughed about it and showed him the light scarring up her forearm and the outer edge of her hand, all the way up to the knuckle of her pinkie. Now, she’d continued, she knew just how to keep the flames low … and to always pull up her sleeves before getting too close.

Ellie dozes on the opposite side of the campfire, back turned to it, rolling her eyes when Naila and Joel, at almost the same time, told her to move further away from the fire. The pair usually ended up staying awake later than her. It gave them time to talk. He hadn’t trusted her in the beginning after all.

That had changed by now.

She’s sat at his side, rambling on about some story he’s lost track of, complete with movements of her hands and laughs that she keeps quiet. The fire casts over her face prettily, dancing off the curve of her nose and the freckled apples of her cheeks, the dim orange flame lights up her dark brown eyes.

Thoughtlessly, he reaches a hand out to rub his thumb over a smudge of dirt on her cheek. Her voice cuts off there at his touch, gaze turning to him, blinking. The surprise of her features shifts to something softer. Affectionate even. His hand is still on her cheek. He watches her gaze flicker over his face, dipping from his eyes lower towards his mouth, there’s cogs obviously turning in her head.

Wordless, she leans forward and presses her lips to his. He’s frozen for a moment, but draws her in closer when she starts to move back before remembering Ellie is a bare few feet away and could wake up at any moment. Naila pulls back, grinning in this dreamy sort of way.

“I’ve … been wanting to do that for a while. You looked so handsome in the firelight, I couldn’t resist,” she mumbles out. He could’ve blushed like a schoolboy under the warm affection in her gaze.

~~~~~~~

‘KISS ME ..’ kissing prompts