Anissa
"I sits patiently in Jennifa's tent waiting for my twin sister to return after her walk. But it seemed to be taking too long , so i adhere to taking a bit of a stroll, and with that I leave the animal skin tent, once I step out I'm met with warm glare, as the sun has reached it's peak indicating midday and take to walking around the settlement that was our little village. Her little village of the Zambezi tribe, filled almost completely with women.
Apparently, as the stories goes, recalling what she knew from memory. Long ago when the great shifter tribes had dispersed, her tribe had decided to settle in the forest, her ancestors weren't sure exactly where to settle and so wandered many days and nights scouring the land for a place to settle, and soon it started to seem highly unlikely that they were going to find some, so the elders came to an agreement and planned on turning back, but when they tried to that night, they were attacked by the cold one's and almost immediately the battle begun. Their fighters were slaughtered, and now it seemed that all hope was truly lost and they were left to the mercy of the cold one's. At that same moment maybe even to mock them an eclipse coincidentally appeared that night, plunging them into darkness, as they seemed to be at their darkest hour. But a certain member of the tribe Hanissah refused to back down and though having never shifted before gave a cry to guttural to be human shifted into a wolf as black as the eclipse and "apparently" single handedly defeated the cold one's. Impressed beyond belief the elders had made him chief of the village, and settled on the land right below the eclipse. Calling him the legendary eclipse wolf. Though many generations after the great Hanissah, some females in the village began to feel inferior and made an agreement to split the village into men and women, of course with a deal that all boys given birth to would be handed off to the male village and the females to the female village. And the women who did this named the village Zambezi after the first chief in our tribe. Though over the years some of the shifters in our tribe have learnt not to rely on the appearance of vampires to enable our shift, and instead formed some bond with the eclipse.
After remembering that whole story of how the village came to be i couldn't really believe it as their haven't been many shifter's in the village for many years now, apart from maybe some guards, and so the story is merely lore around the village. Apart from the eclipse thing since I've actually seen it before, matter of fact, just remembering their will be one tomorrow if I'm correct, either way i nor any of the settlers had ever even seen a cold one. So that in itself added to my disbelief. I wanted to go on to many more reasons why i didn't believe when i heard the familiar light footfalls of a certain sister trying to creep up on me. And having been through this same scenario, for many years now easily side stepped just as Jennifa lunged towards me, but I certainly wasn't prepared for the hand that grabbed my forearm when i was side stepping and landed with a THUD on top of her miscreant of a sister.
"Ooofff, why did you grab me?",i asked dazed. With a light chuckle her sister replied"Next time don't sidestep me/span", making sure to stick her tongue out. We laughed at and with each other. Then got to dusting ourselves off and then i started to walk towards Jennifa's tent, but when i didn't hear the familiar steps of my sister behind me i looked back"You coming Jennifa". She just looked at the ground, not budging,"Jennifa...Jennifa!", Jennifa snapped back to reality,"I'm sorry it just doesn't feel right, I mean how can I be in the chief's tent, I don't even deserve to be chief,I...I...iiiii...I mean I'm uncoordinated, I have no leadership skills, I'm not even a shifter...", I couldn't take anymore of my sister's self-depreciation,"look,I'm not even a shifter, and you need to stop underestimating yourself, if their were no fine qualities in you then you wouldn't have been chief, but the elders obviously see something great and special in you to have chosen you, like your caring heart that never wants to leave anyone behind, or your wild tactics that always leave your opponents dumbfounded and you always seeing the best in people when no one else can...".
"I stopped once i saw Jennifa tearing up, a tear threatening to spill out of her, i smirked and continued,"cause if you don't see that, then even I'll wonder why they chose you", at that Jeniffa started sniffling and hugged Anissa"you're*sniff* my rock, and I don't*sniff*know what I would do without you".
Then we both smiled and walked back to Jennifa's tent. When we finally reached the tent opening, the animal skin was flapping indicating that someone entered. We both stepped in and came face to face with their elders. The three were quite old, with sunken faces as if the weight of their lives had taken its toll, but like all the other villagers they had a tan that went with their natural brown skin tone. The elders consist of two females and one male. And he is the only male exception in the village, probably for judgement reasons, Anissa thought. We gave a courteous nod towards the elders simultaneously, and they nodded back. Ahem, coughed the male elder everyone called Augustine. "Now down to business, as I'm sure you are aware, the chieftain ceremony is tomorrow, we've chosen Jennifa, and I hope their aren't any problems with that decision?", at that all the elders look at me, their faces querying me, I stare back slightly taken back, "Of course not/span", as if they even have to ask, she thought. Elder Augustine continued, "good, so can we ask how your phasing training has been going, no one knows yet of your delay in phasing. But it may be imperative for the eclipse ceremony tomorrow", all the elders this time direct hard states in our direction, but since Jennifa is being made chief tomorrow the stares were almost solely on her. I reply, "It's going well but honestly we need a trigger, the guards think so to, all the tales they've told us of their first phasing , speak of some trigger to initiate the turn,whether it's a cold one or even during an eclipse."I try to look optimistic, "that's all we need I'm sure". They look unconvinced, so I turn in my sister's direction, "right?", she gets the idea, "riiiggghhhhtt...right, of course, that's all we need". Elder Augustine sighs, still completely unconvinced but too tired to interject, he gives us a trying yet still wary smile, then beckons the elders to exit. The two females rise and leave through the flap of animal skin acting as a doorway, Augustine follows, but before exiting completely says, "I expect you to both still go for phasing training tonight". We both groan, "Of course". And when he finally leaves I walk to the door flap and peek outside, the sun seems to still be high up in the sky"We still have time, why don't we start phasing training a little earlier today", she puts on a shocked face, mixed with terror, "dude, I get your an over achiever but seriously, I am too hyped up on nerves to try and fail at phasing", I roll my eyes at her, "with that attitude I wonder why". She glares daggers in my direction, but I wave them off "then what do you want to do?", here eyes lit up like a child's on the eve of Christmas, and it was then that I knew I would regret asking. Her eyes danced dangerously, "we may have never been good at phasing, but we are good at fighting...so let's fight". I groaned "ffffiiiiiiiinnnnnnnneeeeeee". She got up, and headed out the tent, but as smart and sensible as I was, knew that I would need more padding so I stayed back to put on a thicker animal skin sized bra, and shorts. Then took to exiting the tent, I walked to the guard barracks knowing it was the only place she would love to fight in and found her there, and surprise, surprise found her already picking a weapon of the rack, knowing she may get the good ones speed over there to get a spear, she had taken one too. We then took to walking in a line opposite of each other about ten paces distance, we turned around and then ran straight for each other.
"Being faster I got a good kick right in her gut real hard, she clutched her stomach and fell, but just as quickly as she fell she got right back up, flashing me a grin before punching me square on my nose, I bounced back from the shock but easily recovered, Jennifa grunts aggressively and halfs her spears over her knee, she twirls them around taunting me. Stupidly, I take the bait and lunge spear thrust, and she parries my spear with the bottom half of hers forcing me into a crouch and then takes to slashing me with the top half of her spear right across my bare chest. "Ahhhhhhh/span", I hiss, dropping my spear and once that falls she raises her spear to my neck indicating the spar over.
I huff, "well that sucked" I got up from my position and handed my Spears to the head of guards, Jennifa did the same the head guard raised her eyebrow, but Jennifa just shrugged as if it couldn't be helped. I bandaged myself and with Jennifa went back to the tent for a nap as the sun was soon to set. We got in the tent and Jennifa ran straight for the only actual bed there, it was foldable so convenient. Me, I just draped some animal skins right next to Jennifa on the ground and collapse into it. Sleeping proved hard but somehow I managed to finally fall asleep.