Chapter 28: The Soldier

Edward drifted around the forest surrounding the small lake. He spent long hours on top of a tree watching life pass on below him. He had to admit to himself it was a relief to return to the side of the lake and be spared the constant supervision of the Dora Milaje. The warriors who guarded him set him ill at ease. Their flawless control over their waking thoughts carried over into medicinally induced dreamless sleep. Their perfectly rehearsed mental trails allowed no margin for slips as they focused intently on guarding him.

The absurdity. That he would be reduced to being watched by human guards. As if they could protect him from the most elite fighting force of his kind. As if they could even protect themselves from him.

Yet still they stood, spears in hand, minds focused on their task, determined to complete their mission. All the gifts of the Volturi did not equate into corresponding harvests of mental discipline or loyalty in their guard. Maybe the Volturi relied too much on their obvious strengths and not enough on the internal powers that this handful of Dora Milaje warriors excelled in.

The soldier's mind proved less impenetrable. Attempts at medicinally altering his sleeping patterns failed to submerge his dreams completely and it was in the dark hours of the night that Edward saw the soldier's unguarded thoughts.

James Buchanan Barnes exemplified exactly the kind of man Edward would have hunted and killed during his rebel days. He could still see the red haze of Bucky's past in flashbacks and dreams that haunted the man, his single-minded intent to kill and destroy with a perfect, emotionless efficiency.

Edward hated him. He loathed each smile, each meal, each night's sleep. The man had everything Edward coveted and then some and he didn't deserve any of it.

Yet, Bucky's waking mind filled with as drastically different a man as ice differs from flame. In his body, he bore two men. The former was not of his own creation-his own inner demon, but that of a man possessed by the vile blood-thirst of others outside of himself.

And Edward hated him even more for that because it made Edward's own tarnished conscience seem even blacker. Edward could not blame his body count on the influence of others or even on his own vampiric nature. The darkness came from within him and so he loathed himself even more than he loathed the one armed thief of Bella's heart.

T'Challa's summons cut their "delightful" sojourn at the borderlands short. The Dora Milaje returned the two men to their lakeside "home" and disappeared. Bella arrived before them, her silencing shield engulfing Edward's mind before they even reached the lake.

Days passed. Bella scarcely spoke with him. He heard her come and go, her quiet voice and footsteps haunted his consciousness, but never invaded his space. Yet she must have maintained a constant awareness of his presence in order to keep his gift trapped beneath her curtain.

From his perch in the high branches of a tree, he could observe the outside world march on around him. He watched as women hoed their fields, men herded cattle, and children played in the forest and fetched firewood. He watched as the soldier worked his fields, prepared food for himself, and talked with his wife. He felt their laughter and it made him feel more acutely his own isolation.

He had much too much empty time in which to think and rethink and overthink his existence. He hadn't realized how much he depended on the thoughts of others to spare him the inconvenience of hearing his own. Now he found himself trapped with his own worst enemy without reprieve or distraction.

"You gonna make a nest up there," the soldier asked him one day. "You've been up there nearly four days."

Edward rolled his eyes and leapt from the tallest branch in one single, graceful movement.

"It has a nice view," he said, his words laced with sarcasm.

Bucky stared at him, as if he were the mind reader instead of Edward, and shook his head. His plaid blanket covered the empty shoulder where his metal arm usually shone and he carried a muddy shovel in his good arm.

"You, uh, have something on your mind?" the soldier finally asked.

"I read other people's thoughts. I always have something on my mind whether I want it there or not," he responded icily.

"Must be a little quieter in there now."

Edward snorted and crossed his arms over his chest.

"Alright. You just seemed like you could use someone to talk to," Bucky said, his overtures at kindness irritating Edward further.

"And you thought you were the best person for the job?"

"Nah, probably not. But I'm here," Bucky said with a shrug.

"Fine. You want to know what's bothering me? It's you."

"Go on," Bucky said with a mild patience.

"You don't deserve her. Your dreams, your thoughts, when we were at the border, I could see what your past life was like. You don't deserve to live, let alone with that woman," Edward spat, kicking the dirt with his boot in anger.

"You're right. I don't," Bucky replied with another shrug and fell silent again.

"That's it? That's all you can say?"

"What do you want me to say? I should be dead, but I'm not. I shouldn't have the life I've got, but I have it. What would you have me do? Refuse all the gifts I've been given simply cause I haven't earned them? Nah, knowing it's all a gift makes me all the more grateful for it cause it's precious and I'm gonna remember that with each undeserved breath I take."

Bucky leaned up against a tree and looked through the green tinted forest light at his companion. Edward continued to glare at him, arms crossed over his chest and his long, elegant legs leaned against another tree.

"And what can you give her?" Edward said. "She deserves the best of everything-the best cars and houses and clothes and opportunities-and all she gets is you and life in a mud hut in the middle of nowhere Africa!"

Bucky laughed and the sound caused Edward to swing his head around in surprise, watching the soldier's bearded face seep with his sudden merriment.

"What if she thinks this is the best of everything?" Bucky said, gesturing his hand in the direction of their home. "Maybe she was different back, you know, before…but the dame I know would kick my ass if I tried to shower her with trinkets or move her back to the high life in the capital. She could have had all that but she chose to be here."

"But I could have given her the world," Edward said. He exhaled an unnecessary breath and slumped back, staring at his shoes.

"Then why didn't you?" Bucky asked, his tone more compassionate than accusing. Edward didn't meet his gaze.

"She was my world, my everything. It was the only way I could see to keep her safe. Her life was constantly in danger from being exposed to my world. I wanted her to live. It was the hardest thing I ever did-leaving her."

Bucky whistled softly under his breath. "And she was better off with you gone?" he asked.

"I thought she would be!" Edward said, his voice increasing in decibels. "Or I never could have gone. When I heard that she was dead…I knew it was all a waste. I destroyed everything with my own two hands, all by myself."

Edward stared at the offending appendages and curled them into fists. Then he continued to kick at the ground in his frustration, his small hole growing increasingly larger.

"I didn't believe she could love me as much as I loved her. How could she, a frail human, possibly understand that kind of love? It would break her," Edward said, his tone muted by his regret.

"I think it did," Bucky responded. "Break her, I mean."

Edward buried his face in his hands, once again listing within himself all the ways he wished he could change the past. Bucky seemed to ponder his words carefully for a few moments then he responded with a voice as calm and as quiet as the smooth lake surface glistening through the trees.

"You thought it was more important to protect her body than her heart."

"What do you mean?" Edward asked.

"You knew your world was dangerous to begin with. But she still chose to be with you. That counts for something. The woman I know doesn't give her heart halfway, even if it costs her an arm or a leg or her life. It makes her an incredible bodyguard-she loves with all her heart and follows through with her actions.

"All she's ever wanted is to be loved. She needs to know she's a gift and not a burden, that the people who love her won't leave her high and dry. I don't know what her family life was like or the people she used to call friends, but I do know she has this deep fear of abandonment that she's never really shaken. But I've got the sense she's had a lot of experiences with feeling like she needs to earn love, that if she's not useful, she'll be thrown away.

"She's gotten better, over the years. Knowing that the family here loves her, that I'm not going anywhere, that even if she wasn't some super-fast powerhouse, we'd still love her for being Bella, ya know? We gotta look past the packaging and love the heart within because that's still fragile, no matter how strong she is on the outside. And the body can't survive long without the heart. A broken heart will kill someone faster than a lot of cancers of the body can."

Edward listened intently, his anger towards the soldier now fizzled into empty air, like a fire when doused with water.

"I'm an idiot," he said, more to himself than to Bucky. "I've made a mess of everything and I don't know how to fix it."

"There's some things you just can't fix. I'd know that better than anyone. You can choose to wallow in the mud or get up and do something else," Bucky said. "You're still alive. Do you realize what a miracle that is? How many times do you need your life handed back to you on a silver platter before you're gonna realize it's a gift? Yeah, life may not be what you woulda hoped, but you still have it.

"None of us here have the lives we thought we'd have. Bella didn't choose to get vamped up and end up in Wakanda, but she's embraced her new life because it's the one she has. I sure as hell didn't choose to be what I am, but here I am. If I sit and mope about it, it still ain't gonna change. So, I might as well make the best of it cause it's all I got and there's gotta be a reason for it. I shouldn't be alive. I shouldn't get so many second chances. But I have them."

Edward nodded. "I just don't know what I want anymore," he said. "I feel like I've already done it all, what else is there to try?"

"You ever lived in a mud hut in the middle of nowhere Africa?" Bucky said with a grin.

"I suppose I can't say that I have."

"See, you haven't really tried everything. Now, you done moping here cause I could use a hand with fixing a roof."

"But I don't know anything about…"

Bucky interrupted him before he could finish. "As I said, you've got more to learn. Come on."

Edward nodded and followed the soldier's orders.

oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

That afternoon, the soldier taught him how to thatch a hut, harvest cassava, and tell which jackfruits were ripe. The soldier corralled him with the same unconquerable patience he used to herd his cattle and plant his maize. Edward grew weary of the soldier's kindness and retreated to the cool shade of his hut. He had barely settled when he heard the sound of a car approaching.

Voices spoke in the local language from across the compound then footsteps neared his door.

"Bella, you are sure he is not going to eat me?" a woman's voice said with a thick Wakandan accent.

"Like that would stop you from your research," Bella responded with a laugh.

"Ni kweli…Hodi," a she called and she knocked.

"Come in," he said, resigning himself to whatever fate befell him.

A tiny Wakandan woman entered and a dimpled smile greeted him. She wore her hair in rows of braids and a dress of a green, orange, and blue in a complicated pattern of swirls and shapes. She held out a hand in greeting and he took a surprised step back.

"Eeeee! Zimwi, I will not bite," she said and shook his hand. She did not flinch away from his cold skin, nor did she seem surprised by it. "I am Shuri, sister of T'Challa. I assume you do not remember me?"

Edward looked her over again and shook his head.

"Ah! We spent some intimate time in a Volterra prison cell together," she said, wrinkling her nose in disgust. "I would be disappointed in your lapse of memory if I were not so jealous of it. If I had a choice, I would not remember it either."

His eyes were drawn back to her again but this time he was struck by how much she reminded him of Alice. Her petite figure, self-assured manner, and the mischievous glint in her eyes all gave an eerily similar impression of his sister. His attention snapped back to her face when he realized he was not the only one scrutinizing the other.

"Bella failed to tell me you cleaned up so nicely…even if you insist on dressing like a mzungu. Now, I am here because I am requesting your assistance with a research project."

"What kind of research project?" he asked, skeptically.

"I would like to scan your mind when Bella is shielding you and when she is not and compare the data so I can understand more how your gift works."

"No," he responded succinctly. "I am not a lab rat or a science experiment."

"Of course you are!" she replied, much too cheerily. "Everyone is a science experiment to me. It's how I show my love. Sasa tuanze, panya."

He stared at the little woman and she grinned her brilliant white smile. She pulled out some equipment from a black back and connected some wires. Her brown eyes met his again and she sighed.

"It's also so I can test Bella's shield capabilities further. I want to see if there are ways to extend her range and strengthen her gift, but I need data to do that and to get data, I need lab rats."

He understood her grin now. She already knew she would win. He sighed and nodded his head.

She gave a high pitch squeak. Bella entered in her red and silver uniform, spear in hand, with an emotionless expression on her face. Shuri fiddled with what appeared to be a small computer of some kind, but one unlike any Edward had ever seen. She poked buttons and used it to scan his body while maintaining a distance from him. She made little noises and grunts as she read the data, all of which flashed across a screen in a language he could not read.

"Ok, Bella, you can drop your shield now."

She nodded.

And the cacophony of mental noises that pummeled him knocked him to the floor with his hands cradling his head. He cursed and felt himself shielded again, the silence nearly as unsettling as the noise.

"Are you ok?" Bella asked.

"I am fine. I was simply surprised by the volume of noise. Is there a city nearby?" Edward asked.

"Yes. We are an hour's walk from the capital," Shuri said. "There are also multiple small villages nearby here."

Edward sighed. "I'll be fine. Give me a couple minutes to adjust. It's been awhile since I used my gift around a large population."

Bella nodded and he felt her shield release him again. This time, he sat motionless and allowed his head to stretch and unravel the multiplicity of voices. Shuri drew his mental ears towards her mind as she returned to him with her device in hand. He forgot about all the other minds as he listened.

He thought he had seen it all in his hundred years of existence, but he had never seen anything like that mind. It twisted and spun in a brightly colored, complicated, layered tapestry of thoughts. Strings and threads of knowledge wriggled and wrapped around projects, hypotheses, theories, ideas, all pulled taught with passionate intensity. She simultaneously thought about five different subjects at the same time in their entirety with a litheness that nearly baffled his own expanded mental capabilities. He sat in awe, realizing that he had spent his time listening to the thoughts of acoustic guitars but here he heard a symphony.

"Sawa, Bella. Nimeisha."

The curtain crashed in upon him with such a weighted silence that he couldn't tell whether he should stand and applaud or ask for an encore.

He continued to stare but the tapestry was hidden once again, already moved on to another dozen sources of inspiration, busily reading data from the computer while working faster in its own computations. She felt his eyes and paused to look at him, one eyebrow raised.

"You have a very interesting mind," he said, feigning nonchalance.

She grinned. "I have heard that before."

She pushed a few more buttons and her eyebrows furrowed in concentration. She muttered incomprehensibly to herself and tapped her computer against her brown arm.

"Sawa. I need to go to my lab and process this data before we can conduct the distance experiments. Asante, Panya," she said.

"Panya?" he asked.

"Yes. You said you were a rat."

"I'm not sure if that is an improvement over zimwi."

"Mmmmmm. You are right. I have another new name for you. Luanda Magere."

"What does it mean?" Edward asked.

"It is Luo and it can mean different things," Shuri said. "It can mean 'the rock that builds' or 'the rock on which I shall build,' or 'the fierce rock.' The Luo have a story about Luanda Magere. They said he was made of stone and so no human weapon could defeat him during battle. Not even their spears could penetrate his hard flesh. He could defeat an entire army by himself with his supernatural powers.

"But he had two weaknesses: his beloved and his shadow. He married a daughter of his enemies and she discovered that, while his body was invincible, his shadow was not. She betrayed her husband to her kinsmen and Luanda Magere died when his shadow was pierced with a spear."

"I think I might prefer panya," he said.

She laughed. "Time will tell. If you continue to cooperate with my research, I might keep panya. If you decide to be hard-headed, I will maintain Luanda Magere. Asante sana, bwana. Ninaenda," she said, shaking his hand again and dancing out the door and back into the glowing afternoon sun. Bella gave him a quiet nod and also left.

He could still hear their voices in the compound.

"Sister?" T'Challa said.

"Eeee, brother, you have brought home a very pretty zimwi ….but this one is far too grumpy. I do not want to keep this one as a pet," Shuri said.

Edward heard laughter and some tongue clicks.

Then they were gone.

ooooooooooooooooooooo

Deep in the vibrant, full night of the half moon, a light knock sounded on Edward's door.

"Edward, come please," Bella's voice whispered through the rough, wooden door. He ducked his head to avoid hitting it on the door frame and walked into the moonlight.

"Bella? Is everything alright?" he said.

"Everything is fine. I need to hunt, but I need you to come so I can keep shielding you. Sorry, it's orders," she said, shrugging.

"It's fine. I could hunt again."

They set out at a full sprint, their only sounds the swishing of the grass and branches retreating from their rapid footfalls.

They neared a river where Edward could sense dozens of heartbeats pulsing along with the crickets' songs and the rushing water. Bella hid in the tall grasses, silently stalking the herds. He targeted some impala and began his approach, but he stopped to watch as Bella lunged upon a water buffalo. She drank for a few moments…and stopped. The buffalo grunted and stumbled up from the ground and disappeared in the night.

He forgot his prey and watched. She continued her strange ritual-capturing an animal, taking a few shallow draughts, and releasing the animal still alive.

"What are you doing?" he asked as she released a gazelle.

"Hunting," she said.

"It's still alive."

"Yeah," she said.

"I don't understand."

"Why kill it when I don't have to? The animals here have enough struggles without a thirsty vampire taking out a few hundred a year. I try to stick to the ones that aren't endangered and I try not to kill them when I can."

"Have you always been able to stop? I thought it was nearly impossible to have that kind of control."

"It's hard, but yeah. I couldn't do it at first. Actually, I didn't really think about it. Then, I went on a mission with the General one time onto the border of Kenya and Tanzania. We spent a week in meetings with a group of Maasai there. They value their cattle and so they try not to kill them. So, they drink their blood, which then keeps both the cattle and their people alive.

"It was comforting…being with humans who shared a similar diet with myself. I felt almost normal there. I'd always assumed that I'd need to kill animals to drink from them, but when I saw them, I realized my assumption was wrong. I'd need to be more careful and I'd need to find more animals than before, but then the animals and I would both be alive at the end of the day."

Edward stared at her. She looked away and tucked a strand of loose hair behind her ear.

"Let's finish up," she said. "I need to return by dawn."

He listened and followed her.

Ooooooooooooo

T'Challa and Okoye paced the marble floors of the conference room. T'Challa's arms crossed behind his back and his footsteps made quiet tapping sounds that echoed off the cream-colored walls of the small room. Their door remained firmly locked.

"We've lost five members of the border tribe already," Okoye said grimly. "The Dora Milaje have lost two. Every time we cross the border, she finds someone and turns them to stone. There are never witnesses, no messages, they are simply frozen."

"She is holding us prisoners within our borders. She does not seem capable of penetrating our defenses or attacking us within our country."

"How long do you think that will hold?"

"I know how long I wish for it to hold."

T'Challa continued pacing even as the General paused to stare out a small window onto the cityscape below.

"My King…let us put together what we already know. This mchawi, by magic, came from her own dying world into a young world and from there into our own. She has Volterra but now she seeks Wakanda. Why?"

"She knows we are strong and if she conquers us first it will ease her conquest of other nations."

"I do not accept that explanation. What does she have to gain?" the General said.

"Is it our technology that she is hungry for or something else?" T'Challa wondered. "She has access to her own magic and her army of mazimwi are a formidable force."

The General's eyes grew wide and she clanked her spear against the floor.

"That is the answer," she said.

"What is the answer?" T'Challa asked, still confused.

"My King, where did our store of vibranium come from?"

"A meteor…but….oh…do you think….are you suggesting?"

"I am saying, we may want to consider it. Do we know where the meteor carrying the vibranium came from?"

"No one could tell. Even our scientists of today cannot tell its origin."

"We can agree that our vibranium came to us from somewhere else?"

He nodded.

"And even with our thousands of years of experimenting, we still are barely scratching the surface of what it is capable of," the General said.

T'Challa stopped pacing and sat in a nearby chair, his head heavy in his hands. He looked across the room at Okoye whose eyes glittered fiercely as her thoughts poured from her mouth like water from a spigot.

"She has inside information that is hidden from most of the world…if so, why attack Wakanda first instead of Ethiopia? Why go after the vibranium instead of the Ark of the Covenant?"

"Maybe she doesn't know?" T'Challa chimed in.

"Or she doesn't need raw spiritual power…but needs the physical power…."

"Vibranium is capable of enhancing magical properties, as our priests and shaman have long known."

"It is possible, but still, that would require advanced information of its properties."

"Tell me your thoughts, General."

"I would like to hypothesize that perhaps this sorceress is familiar with our mineral. It is possible she has accessed vibranium in her old world…or worlds. It is even possible that our vibranium originated from her world. Whatever the case, it is clear that she wants Wakanda."

T'Challa gave a small whistle. "Your idea has merit, General, though I wish it did not. What do we do?"

"We prepare for war, my King."

ooooooooooooooooooooooo

Translations:

Ni kweli…Hodi: It's true…can I come in?

Sasa, tuanze panya: Now, let's begin, rat.

Sawa. Nimeisha: Ok. I have finished.

Zimwi/mazimwi: vampire(s)

Mchawi: sorcerer/sorceress (one who practices dark magic)