Characters: Neema, Suhuba
Word Count: 1066

Neema had not been feeling like herself since her argument with Lailah. She was spent, every bit of energy she had to share with the pride was gone.. but that didn't make it any easier to sit still. She was restless and angry. Her heart ached thinking about her mother, wishing she were here, and it only fed her frustration thinking that Lailah was happier without Aysu there. She had spent her whole childhood separated from her twin sister, not as literally as Nketa and Antara but there had always been a division there. Lailah was born first, she was apprenticed to the Shaman. And Neema? She was just there. She had Iah, and eventually all of her younger siblings, to distract her.. but it wasn't the same. It had taken a long time but finally, Neema resented the circumstances she and Lailah had been born into. She felt robbed of a proper sister, a proper twin.

She was wandering the pride that dark cloud hanging over her, vaguely wondering where she might find Antara that wasn't with Lailah.. And then she spotted someone else of interest. A dark-maned lion she was barely acquainted with, another hunter and another twin. She studied him for a moment before calling out.

"Suhuba!"

Suhuba was on his way home from hunting. The pride was more disorganized than he liked but they were managing well as the many leaders within the pride stepped up to squash any chaos that threatened to take over. He hated to say it, but Shangyue had done a good thing, setting them up with Patrol and Hunt Leaders. It was one of few things holding them together now. He was just pondering if he should have tried to become a hunt leader himself when he heard his name in an unfamiliar voice. He straightened up and looked around until he saw Neema staring at him.

He blinked. He knew who Neema was, of course. She was out-going, a fellow hunter and bordered on making a spectacle of herself through much of the rebellion. He had noticed, even if the pride at large didn't seem to.

But.. how did she know who he was?

"Neema," he answered, standing there, dumbfounded, as she walked over to him. He noticed that she didn't look quite like her usual self. Neema noticed that he was confused, but she put it aside.

"Can I ask you something?" she asked, cutting right to the chase.

"Uh, sure you can," he said, raising an eyebrow at her and completely at a loss trying to imagine what was coming. They'd hunted together before but that was true of him and half the pride.

"You and Riktov," she said, suddenly slowing down now that she actually had to vocalize her doubts, "Are you close? Closer than your other siblings?"

Suhuba blinked. She was 100% confident she had the right twin (to be fair, she did) and this was what it was about. Lailah and Neema were twins but not identical like him and Rik.

"Uh, I guess so," he answered, "I guess you kind of have to be, nobody was very good at telling us apart. Still happens with lions outside the family, actually.."

Neema blinked, pondering what he said before realizing what he wasn't saying. How did she know which one he was? She smiled coyly.

"You want to know how I could tell it was you?" she asked.

Suhuba stared, then nodded slowly.

"You're not as well groomed as Riktov," she said, sounding almost like herself again, "I guess I find the twins around here interesting, I noticed that even when it seems like you're trying, your mane just sticks out in funny ways."

Suhuba stared at her. What the hell?? He barely knew her and she had studied him and his brother because they were twins and that was interesting? He'd run into others who thought that, of course, but they hadn't lurked creepily around in the background learning which was which.

Neema could see his alarm and disgust.. And immediately became defensive. She frowned at him.

"I'm not being weird, why shouldn't I know who is who around here!" she cried, "I'm a twin, too. Not identical like you and your brother but I am. It's uncommon, it feels like it should be special. It is special!"

Just not for me and Lailah.

Suhuba's eyes widened, he put on a sheepish grin and he backed up a bit when she started yelling at him.

"Ok, ok," he said, "Fair enough."

There was an awkward silence as he tried to keep smiling and Neema stated him down. Finally Suhuba cleared his throat.

"So, uh, why ask about my relationship with Rik?" he asked, "You are a twin, too."

"Just curious," she answered after a pause, her brief moment of joy gone and the anger replaced by a dull indifference, "My twin is the shaman, I.. don't know if what we have is normal."

Suhuba stared, wondering if this meant the shaman wasn't so close to her family. It was a strange and off-putting thought.. It was enough to keep his mind off trying to comprehend what his life might have been like without Rik, or if he and Rik hadn't been able to be together like they were. Neema could suddenly see what she had done and started cursing at herself mentally. Lailah was her sister but to everybody else she was their leader- their only leader right now. She couldn't talk about her like a regular lioness to just anybody and here she was, asking the first twin she could find, what having a normal twin was like.

"I- I shouldn't have said anything," she stammered suddenly, "Forget that this happened, I'm sorry I'm a creepy stalker."

Still mentally cursing herself, she turned and fled, leaving Suhuba staring after her dumbly and trying to comprehend what happened. They weren't friends but he could tell this was out of character for her.. Maybe- hopefully- it was just her and not the shaman.. But he was just a hunter in the lower-middle class, he had no idea what to do if it wasn't.

Maybe he would just try to forget this whole conversation.

Giving himself a shake, he continued on his way home, wondering if it was strange that he felt more compelled to check in with Ty or Wiktor, not Rik.

Fin