As the Leader started, I sat back, listening to her speak, my eyes closed just absorbing her speech, she had a husky voice, low and gravelly, you could almost mistake her for a man if you hadn't seen her first.
Her appearance was that of a small round woman, her slightly greying onyx hair fell down her back in waves, her olive skin looked like she has spent too much time in the sun, leathery with deep set crinkles around her mouth and eyes, her eyes were always the feature I was drawn too, deep brown, almost the colour of black coffee, but they were captivating, they held your gaze and seemed to make you feel lost, time stood still and you were sucked into a time warp of you and her eyes, to be honest they were downright freaky.
She began to recount our history with the same lines she always did, it was like she had the speech so ingrained in her mind there was no way possible she could deviate from its set route, I just sat back and let her continue.
"Many, many moons ago, before our history was fully written, before we understood how the world was, there was a King, this King tried to change many things, but the main change he tried to make was to how we worshiped our God"
I could sense the gasps before I heard them, as a culture we were very religious, it was instilled in us from a young age that we believed in Khonsu, the Moon God. It was taught that he would watch over those who travelled at night. He is the God of light in the night. Khonsu gave protection against wild animals, aids us with healing. It is told that when Khonsu took the form of the crescent moon, women became fertile and could conceive. To think that someone would try to change any of that to us, would mean a full breakdown of our culture and how we operated as a community. It was just too unbelievable to imagine, after the gasps she continued.
"This King, broke with tradition, expelled all people who refused to give Khonsu up, even those who had spent their entire lives worshipping him and giving the truth to the people. He cast them out, cast them aside to die, alone to wander the wilderness without protection from the community and without any means of sustenance.
He tore down the temples dedicated to Khonsu, he burned the writings of his words and he destroyed our connection with him.
In his stead, the King brought forth a new God, the Aten. The Aten was by its very nature the opposite of Khonsu, he was the Sun God.
The King said to the people that the Aten was the one true God and watches over his creations. He watches over us in the sky, he shines his light for all to see. He takes his place in the sky for everyone to believe he is there; He shows his love and care with the light. How you can feel him bathing you in heat and love. He is the original and only. Anything believed in before or after would be a falsehood. For he is the God of creation. Without his light we would have no crops, no animals, no water. No life".
I silently smiled to myself hearing the buzz of small voices whizz around the hall, they were shocked to say the least, but they weren't at the crux of the story, no far from it, oh how it was going to get more interesting the further along it went.
"The King, decided that where we lived was no longer worthy for the Aten, he moved our entire life to somewhere new, he built temples with no roofs so the light of the Aten would shine down throughout the day, with golden sheets of material that would cover the gaps in the evening to mimic the golden rays and block out the light of the moon, it was this way for many, many years until war broke out"
More gasps were heard, I took this opportunity to open my eyes and scan across the room, the children's eyes were the size of saucers, inwardly I chuckled, I was the same the first time I had heard our story.
Suddenly, from nowhere Elijah raised his hand and once he was acknowledged he spoke in a small voice asking, "What happened next, and who was in the war?" There was always one soul who braved speaking in front of the group, in my time it had been me, but to his credit Elijah stepped up.
The leader smiled sweetly at him, just a boy of ten years, who was thinking ahead instead of being pulled along by what he heard, he wanted to know the answers, she continued.
"Ah, yes, you may be wondering how the war came about, after all, all that were expelled, cast out were lost, or were they?
No Khonsu, saw what was happening, he could feel it, he gifted those souls with much more, he gave them speed, strength and a reason to fight, he even promised them, if victory was won something that they would cherish more than life itself, though the details of this amazing gift was kept as a mere promise with no further details given.
He saw from the night sky those suffering and knew the only way to restore the balance was to remove the King but to do that he needed a Moon Army"
'A Moon Army' little Lily shouted, she had obviously been spurred on by Elijah's question earlier, although she didn't raise her hand she was not reprimanded, these kind of questions were encouraged, well at this time they were, we had a strict rule that children should always ask to speak, I always found this a pretty dumb notion but hey I didn't make the rules here.
"Yes, a Moon Army" the leader said, continuing with where she left off. "The Wanderers were gathered together when his message was sent, clinging onto life by a thread, and they all responded, he lead them to different lands across our world and asked them to prepare for the fight ahead, this was done in upmost secrecy, the King couldn't catch wind of this or he would have the means and motive to wipe them off the face of the Earth completely.
They were sent to the far corners of this world and were told to train, train hard as this wasn't going to be an easy fight, no this was a battle to the death and the Wanderers needed to come out on top"
At this point a break was scheduled, always at this point, again with an inward chuckle I saw the leader leave her place on the stage to get a refreshment, she had a private room set up for her in the back of the hall. You could hear the children taking amongst themselves and speaking to their families as the usual questions about whether this was a true story of whether it was made up like in the books they read for school.
I walked over to the refreshments table and selected a cool apple juice, sipping on my fruity beverage I noticed that my best friend Kirby was making her way over, Kirby and I had been friends since we were tiny, we were more than friends we were cousins, blood related, our mothers were sisters and though her life was considerably easier than mine and definitely less eventful she was always there for me as a guide, confidant and sounding board.
Kirby was tall, lean and athletic, her pale skin was almost alabaster in colour and looked so very pale against her short dark hair, her hair was almost black, it wasn't until she was in full sun you could see the wisps of red and amber showing through. Big blue eyes adorned her pixie shaped face.
Being the same age as me we did practically everything together, well almost, she had found herself a life partner and slowly over the years, our days and evenings of juvenile madness had faded into more adult focused dinners and coffee meetings, that being said she could still act the rebel when she wanted to.
I was always so pleased that though she had settled down, she hadn't settled in life, she was still the boisterous, tomboy who took no prisoners and was quick to impose herself on her relationship. She also had a foul mouth on her, she didn't hold back with cussing and swearing like a man, myself, though I had no problem with bad language, preferred to keep that sort of language held within, there was very few occasions I would allow my mouth to utter the words Kirby threw out so readily, but I either had to be super annoyed or just forget myself. I may not be a typical female, but I never wanted to sound like a male either.
Within our culture, women always took the role of mother, nurturer and homemaker. While the men in our lives were the protectors and heads of the family. Even though times were changing, this tale old tradition was hard fought against, it was very few of us who pushed these boundaries to make life choices that didn't revolve around being pregnant, wanting to be pregnant or looking after children and the household. Very few jobs were allocated to the females of the group, that were either physical, strenuous or mentally challenging. Females were discouraged from working with their hands, no field labour or blacksmithing only needlework and administration, and of course raising the next generation. That was of course a must for ant well respected female.
Kirby and I were some of the first that chose to do something different, break the mould. She became a doctor, nope not a nurse working under the male doctors but a fully qualified doctor. Well as qualified as you could do in a closed community. She had trained with all the groups other doctors, spent her time absorbing as much as she could, it was clear from anybody's standpoint that she was very capable, and very quickly surpassed them in skill and mindset. She bought forth new techniques and ways of administering care. She was a very intelligent female.
It took a while, far too long in my eyes until the community had no other option than to say she was a doctor. As we had both expected, it was not a favourable decision. None of the males thought for a second a female would surpass them. She quickly moved to the top of our ranks. With her big brain, quick reflexes and potty mouth she forced her way to the top, forced herself to be respected and is now the head physician here. Myself I chose to go down the path of my ancestors and become a Combatant.
Being a Combatant meant training every day, long hours of hand to hand combat, training with various weapons and perfecting one hit immobilisation. The Combatants, where after all the first line of defence for our community. We were the only members that were trained enough both physically and mentally to take a life.
Though our enemies were none, we still trained with gusto, trained to be perfect in all ways of protection and assault. We trained because it was the will of Khonsu.
It was an all-male profession. No female in the history of our community had ever tried to join the group, let alone succeed to be admitted.
Being a Combatant, was one of those titles that you wore with pride. It allowed certain perks through our community and was held high as a level of prestige.
Combatants were tough, strong and above all unshakably loyal. It had taken me seven years to be 'allowed' to get my Combatant tattoo, many thinking that my presence there was some kind of lark, that I was there just to prove a point. None seemed to realise that this decision was made consciously, deliberately.
It was not a popular choice within the community to have a woman with this title but over the years they had either given up trying to persuade me into something else or just despaired that I took no notice of them to even bother speaking about it.
They never fully understood why I had fully committed myself to such a hard undertaking, why I wore my Combatant tattoo with pride and tried to make sure that it was showing at every opportunity. Only Kirby and my family knew that I had been spurred on by the tales that was shortly about to resume. That was my motivation. I wanted to know, not guess or believe I wanted to see with my own eyes whether or not our history was accurate and to do that I needed a way to make sure that I was able to defend myself at all costs, after all what was the use of seeing if I didn't live long enough to be able to come back and say what I'd seen. Nope this was the only way.