"Get up! This is no place to die."
Okoye startled from sleep, her iron grip firm on the force-spear she kept at her side at all times. A prickling of sweat dotted her shaven head and tickled down the back of her neck. Suddenly, she felt cold as she surveyed the gloomy throne room.
Half of her was irritated at her reaction to a simple nightmare, the other half wanted to weep in desperation that any moment T'Challa and Shuri would walk into the room, flanked by the rest of the Dora Milaje. Her eyes wandered to a small cat headed canopic jar that contained Shuri's ashes that sat next to the leg of the throne.
She remained crouched, much like a panther, at the foot of the vacant throne. Her ears trained for the slightest sound but all she heard was her own heartbeat and breathing.
The palace began to automatically illuminate with the dawn. Wakanda having a more advanced power grid that did not shut down when the snap had occurred, continued to hum along unperturbed. The few Wakandans left attempted to keep the jungles and wild at bay but were having a tough time trying to tame the growth with a fraction of their population. For most, it seemed an exercise in futility.
Okoye sat up slowly, feeling aches and pains she had never noticed before and leaned her back against the leg of the throne in the silence that let her mind wander, which seemed to be the only thing she did these days. She wretchedly recalled how after T'Challa's death she was adrift, clinging to one concrete and permanent thought: protect the throne. Closing her eyes and resting her head against the chair while she pondered the memory, she thought it was hard to say who was going to try and take it.
After the snap, night and day, she had stood at attention, not sleeping, not eating and not touching the hallowed throne. The Dora Milaje do not fear, but Okoye was afraid for the first time in her life. She was afraid to close her eyes, lest she sleep and see the horror anew. She stood at attention until a poor surviving soul from housekeeping who had survived found her.
She nearly wept with relief that someone else was alive that she could talk to. The man took her to the kitchens and fed her, told her to rest and held her hand when the nightmares came.
The nightmares were fierce. The Bast statue carved into the mountainside near the palace turned to dust at the snap of Thanos. The screaming of thousands of voices emanating from Shuri's mouth tore at her psyche. T'Challa melted into dust admonishing her this was not a place to perish.
Eventually the night terrors stopped in frequency and intensity, but her sense of duty remained. She was a Dora Milaje. She was a protector of the throne. She did not care if the Avengers went their separate ways, she was not beholden to them.
Sun peaked over the tree tops, streaming into the throne room where motes of dust flickered in the morning light. Okoye, in a different time, once found the way the rays glinted through the glass was beautiful but now she only saw the dust. Her kimoyo beads chimed making her flinch unexpectedly. It had been so long since a message came through the sound was foreign to her.
Lifting her wrist, she saw Black Widow, her face grim in the projected message. "Okoye, we have a plan. We need you."
Okoye looked around the empty space she had been guarding for four years and then down at the jar of Shuri's dust. Her brow furrowed as she felt an awaking of vengeance kindling within her. T'Challa, Shuri and all of Wakanda was going to get justice.
"I am coming."