Chapter 2: The King
Five mosquitoes hummed in the humid night air surrounding her. There had been ten. The other five must have given up and moved on to find a creature that did not share their diet.
Bella frowned and went back to watching the delicate patterns on their wings as they flew. At least the mosquitoes did not fear her.
The quietness of her isolation weighed on her like a winter blanket on a frosty morning. She no longer needed to run. Never again would she be forced to relive her past through her dreams. Never again could her unconscious resurrect horrors that woke her in screams and cold sweats. Already, her human memories were fading like the stars at dawn.
A box of warm pizza. The sound of a televised home run. The smell of blood. Three corpses strewn in pieces across the living room floor. The night she lost her world, her life, her reasons to live. Her feet hit the pavement and never stopped running. She had some memories she would not miss.
She wouldn't miss sleeping, or the constant sleep deprivation. She wouldn't miss eating, or the constant hunger. She could live forever in this hut, staring at the thatched grass, and basking in the peaceful stillness.
ooooooooooooo
It rained. The water poured out of the sky in a torrential downpour that seeped and dribbled through the unkempt roof. She didn't mind. She heeded neither the heat nor the cold. Flashes of lightning momentarily lit the inside of her home while the answering thunder shook the ground beneath her.
Home. This was now her home. Had she been here one month or three? She lost count some weeks back, before the rains began.
She heard the footsteps first, then she smelled the rich, pungent scent of human blood again. A flash of lightning illuminated a dark figure entering her doorway. She saw his cat-like mask before the room was once again wrapped in a dim, stormy gray.
"You are still here," a deep voice uttered.
"Yes."
"Why?"
"I have nowhere else to go."
T'Challa crouched on the floor across from her and slowly took off his mask. Bella saw a flash of coffee-colored cheeks before black eyes met hers, piercing her with a quiet intensity. She met his gaze before dropping her eyes to the mask in his hand.
"Do you always dress like a cat?"
T'Challa looked at her in surprise, a laugh quietly slipping into the tremulous shadows.
"No," he replied, placed the mask on the ground, and leaned against the dirt wall. "My father wishes to speak with you. Will you come?"
Five sunrises later, T'Challa returned with a sand-colored Land Cruiser and three companions.
"Hodi," he called out before he ducked his head to clear the shallow door. He came to crouch beside her on the floor of the hut. "Bella, how are you?" he asked politely, meeting her gaze without averting his own.
"Fine, thanks," she answered, sinking her eyes back to the dust beneath her feet.
"The heat is not too much for you here?" he asked, waving his hand to the doorway where the sun glared angrily off the dry, red dirt.
"The weather doesn't bother me anymore," Bella said and shrugged. She fidgeted with the slightly wrinkled kitenge dress she wore. "Thank you for the clothes you brought last time. I needed them."
"You're welcome," T'Challa replied. "Come. You will meet some of the Dora Milaje."
"The Dora who?"
"Dora Milaje. In our language it means, 'adored ones.' We see them as the mothers of the nation and the ceremonial wives of the throne. They are an elite force of our most skillful warriors. They serve the throne and protect our kingdom with their lives."
Bella followed T'Challa out into the midday sunshine. The exposed skin on her face, collarbones, and forearms exploded into a million facets of colored light, dancing along the packed dirt of the walls and ground. Self-consciously, she tried to cover her arms with her equally exposed hands.
Three women stood with a statuesque stillness, clutching spears as if they were scepters instead of weapons. The sunlight reflected off of the gold and silver of their armored bodies, burning into the scarlet and leather of their uniforms. Beads of sweat trickled down their bare foreheads and splashed onto their metal breastplates. They faced Bella with expressionless faces, as if the frigidity of their stares was enough to freeze her in place.
"Bella, this is General Okoye. She is the commander of the Dora Milaje," T'Challa said as he nodded towards the one woman shining in gold instead of silver. Her nostrils flared slightly but otherwise, her posture remained unmoved. "Together, these three soldiers are the most powerful bodyguard to the King of Wakanda."
"I don't believe you," she said, almost in a whisper as she dropped her eyes back to the ground.
"About them being our bodyguards or about them being powerful?"
"No. You said you don't always dress like a cat."
T'Challa chuckled and then shrugged. The motion caused the fierce claws circling his shoulders to glint in the sun.
"This is my armor," he explained. "Just in case."
He lifted one eyebrow and gave her a side glance. She nodded.
"I hope it's stronger than it looks."
"It is," he replied. "Or my father would not have sent me to welcome you to our kingdom."
"Your father?"
"Yes. My father, T'Chaka, is the king of Wakanda."
"Oh!" Bella said. "Wait, so does that mean you are, like, the prince or something?"
T'Challa nodded.
Bella wrinkled her eyebrows, forming a small 'v' indentation between her eyebrows. "I'm a little nervous. I've never met a king before. Then again, I'd never met a prince either. I suppose today is as good a day as any. Where will we meet?"
"My father would like you to come closer to our capital city, Birnin Zana. There is a small homestead on a lake about an hour drive outside the city's suburbs. You will be close enough for the king to not struggle to meet you, but far enough outside of the city to still be near wild game and away from prying eyes."
"Ok."
During the three hour drive, Bella held her breath while her companions held their tongues. Hot air poured in through the open windows as her young senses drank in the passing villages, grasslands, valleys, and hills. The car bumped over uneven dirt roads, forded streams and dry riverbeds, and finally found the smooth relief of tarmac.
"This is all Wakanda?" she asked, her voice breaking the silence like a rock on a frozen pond.
"Yes," T'Challa replied.
"It is truly beautiful."
ooooooooooooo
Bella sat in the center of a colorful woven mat underneath a brilliantly white tent. The brightly patterned green, orange, brown, and cream designs on her dress clashed with the pink, purple, and white zigzags of the mat beneath her. She carefully arranged the folds of her skirt again and picked a small flower out of the grass by her hand. Her skin reflected the sun in a million tiny pinpricks of light as she moved. She was a living disco ball, she thought to herself in irritation.
As the main event, the central attraction, Bella sat surrounded by more than twenty of the Dora Milaje armed with spears. She inwardly chuckled at the thought of being attacked with a spear. She was fairly certain it would be the spear and not her impenetrable flesh that would leave that fight injured.
Lush forest foliage surrounded the little clearing where their tent stood. This new world was a bright, lively emerald green. It nearly danced with the rich, red earth beneath and the pale blue of the shallow equatorial sky above them. Her old world, or what she could remember, was a different green. That world was a dark, mossy green, framed by the impenetrable fortress of gray made by the sky and the sea.
A caravan of vehicles bumped along a nearby road. Car doors opened and shut and footsteps approached. T'Challa stood and warmly embraced a man crowned only in cotton-white hair, surrounded by a dozen or so heavily armored soldiers carrying guns.
The king wore a European-style grey suit with a red Lion King tie. Bella hadn't expected that. She didn't know what to expect in a king, but it wasn't that. Someone brought the old king a chair so he sat above her, about ten feet away, surrounded on three sides by soldiers.
"Baba, this is Bella Swan," T'Challa said after the king finished greeting the rest of the officials in attendance.
"Child, I have heard much about you," came the ruffled, worn voice of the king. Bella lifted her eyes and nodded. "Now, Bella Swan, I think it is time you told us where you are from and what has led you to Wakanda."
ooooooooooooo
Translations and notes:
Hodi: Announcement of one's presence and desire to enter a home. Basically, can I come in? or Here I am!
Kitenge: brightly colored East African fabric.
Dora Milaje: All my information on the Dora Milaje comes from Wikipedia. Apparently, they are based on the Mino, the all-female fighting force of the Kingdom of Dahomey in what is now Benin (West Africa).