GUARDIANS OF THE WATERS
CHAPTER 9
All Wakanda rejoiced the day their long-lost daughter was returned to them. All Birnin Zana donned their festival garb and turned out into the streets for dancing and celebration the day that Shuri returned home. Every household shared calabashes of millet beer and slaughtered a goat for nyama choma. Music flowed more freely than water and poured out of every street and rooftop.
It was more than simply Wakanda's victory over a powerful enemy or the symbolic idea of the rescue of the captured princess. It was also a moment to inhale. To drink deeply of their own continued existence.
Despite everything, Wakanda continued on. Their sacred Pillars continued to support them. Despite all that had happened, all they had lost, Wakanda had a new king, a fresh start, and, most intoxicating of all, Wakanda had hope for the future.
Shuri became a symbol of that hope.
"Eh, it is good to have a king," one of the tribal chiefs said. "Our Black Panther is strong and worthy of respect. But it is the princess who will build our country. There will always be a new Black Panther. But there has never been nor will there ever be another like Princess Shuri."
It reminded her of a conversation she had with her father, when she was still young.
"Shuri," her father once told her, late at night, around the fire in the center of the small village near the border of Wakanda. "Remember, all the old stories, the ones meant to teach us wisdom, they all agree on one moral: It is not the strongest nor the mightiest who prevail. It is the smaller, the wiser, the one who relies on intelligence over power who overcomes in the end. Jackal defeats Lion. Monkey defeats Shark. It is the very strength of Lion, his reliance on his physical prowess and position that leads to his undoing. It is Hyena's patience and slyness which ensures his victory. Binti, you do not need the might of Panther to stand as strong and brave as Ant."
"Yes, Baba," she answered, her head nestled against his shoulder as her eyes watched the firelight dance off his wizened face.
She never forgot that. Her father had joined the Ancestors, but his voice remained. It was her father that encouraged her to develop her gifts for technology, her passion for innovation. It was her father's encouragement that kept her grounded, kept her moving forward.
Once she was well enough, Shuri reverted to her default mode of programming and hid in the safety of her old self. Her lab felt familiar, it was a place she could belong.
She was home.
She inhaled the sweet scent of Wakanda- the red earth, the sandstone and cement warmed by sun, the spices and roasting meat, the earthy scent of human beings, human bodies. One deep breath was enough to flood her with a lifetime of memories, remind her of her unchanging place in the web of lives that wove together Wakanda.
She was as much a part of Wakanda as Wakanda was part of her. Generations of ancestors had created this moment in eternity and she would use the days left to her to leave her imprint for the generations to follow.
Starting with her nephew. She determined to spend as much time as she could with T'Challa's son and try her best to fill the role only the aunt of the king could fill. Azari humored her and proved equally as curious about her.
"My entire life, I've heard stories of the legendary sister of the king," he told her. "Princess Shuri had the power to make anything out of nothing. She was a sapling of the Creator Himself and possessed magic."
Shuri laughed at this picture of herself - so far removed from her long-standing struggles with her role in Wakanda. From awkward, unconventional teenager to semi-divine legend was a shift in her memory she would have never anticipated. She wondered what T'Challa would have thought, to hear such legends. She thought he would have laughed, too, and then teased her mercilessly over it.
T'Challa, himself, had his own legends grow and sprout. He had his own memories woven by the collective consciousness of Wakanda. T'Challa and Shuri had become the brilliant and yet tragic heroes who sacrificed themselves for their kingdom. They were something more than human, something of myth and legend, something worth remembering. Yet, such rumors and expectations made her feel like she was a creature of the ages, a resurrected ghost of the past. It was as if Mukasa and Kibuuka had returned in human form, only for their worshipers to discover they had never fully been divine. They were human, through and through, and it was only the devotion of their followers and the spirits of the gods that made them anything more.
Her lab was safe. Her lab did not care if she was human or a myth of days long past. Her lab was more familiar than the yawning expanse of change in the world of Birnin Zana and the complicated world she was tossed into. Or so she thought.
The computer interface and software had evolved so much she spent her first month trying to reacquaint herself with the system. Her lab space remained, but not as it was. Some of her old projects would no longer work with the way technology had changed and she could not find her personal computer anywhere. The lab assistants were almost entirely new – fresh out of university, filled with novelty and innovations she was ignorant of.
Shuri, herself, needed to be updated and even she knew how long the downloading and integration of new software could take.
She did not know the names of the young King's Guards or the fates of the Dora Milaje that once guarded her every step. She did not recognize the songs played on the radio or the names of world leaders in the newspaper. New buildings had sprouted to replace some of the old and an entire memorial had been erected in memory of her father and brother. Even the Kikanda slang and mode of dressing had changed. Her old clothes had been worn by a teenage girl who no longer existed. She needed to empty her entire closet and start over again.
There were so many new starts.
Even her mother was not as she had been before. While Ramonda was still as beautiful and regal as she had ever been, she was not the woman Shuri remembered, at least, not quite. In her memories, Ramonda was so strong, so impenetrable - a fortress in any trouble. She was bent now, and oh so tired. The years of grief had chipped away at her walls as surely as the waters chip away at a canyon of sandstone and carve shapes and currents into the tallest stone cliffs. Her eyes were still alight with the warmth of affection that Shuri so desperately craved and her arms proved a greater refuge than even the safety of her lab, but each reminder of the years lost were a sharp stab in her heart. Stolen fragments of years she could never get back.
Wakanda, too, had been forced to weather storm after storm and overcome. They had been carved by the events of years Shuri had not experienced. Their voice, when they spoke, carried farther, and their actions judged harsher. They were expected to rise into the council of global elders and carry the burdens of their neighbors in ways they were not expected to before, when they were supposed to be just a "nation of farmers with nothing to offer the world."
Yet, not all was strange or unfamiliar. The Pillars stood strong, binding together Wakanda as one, thrashing them to their ancestors for thousands of years before them, reminding them of who they were, who they were meant to be. The calls to prayer still sounded five times each day and the King's Drum still sang prayers for the souls of the royal household each dawn and dusk. The celebration of the New Year was as vibrant as she remembered, as full of flowing white garments and crowns of flowers. The yearly cycles of rituals and celebrations continued unceasing, as steady as the tide or the change from the rainy to the dry season.
There were people, too, she knew. Relatives, neighbors, and very dear friends. There were faces she recognized and names she could speak, all the more invaluable on the days she did not recognize her own face and found herself unsure of her own name. She nearly wept with joy when she met with her old school fellows again – now big men and women, all grown with careers and families of their own. Yet, they could reminisce and tell stories together- stories of the old days, the old Wakanda, the days Shuri had lived and remembered. There were too many stories from the days and years she had missed. She could never hear all those stories or understand the reach of their shadows. Even though she could breathe and speak and walk and clasp hands with the people around her, sometimes she still felt alone.
There was change everywhere – subtle and distinct. Shuri, herself, had changed. Ever since she woke and found herself in Wakanda, it was more than the length of her absence that caused her lingering sense of Otherness.
"I do not understand it," the doctors said, while she was still in the hospital recovering. "The princess heals so rapidly; her muscles grow in strength each day. It is as if she has taken our sacred herb and yet she does not show all the effects of the heart-shaped herb either."
It was more.
As she recovered enough to try to forge a semblance of a new life, other little differences niggled at her, reminding her she was not as she had once been.
She craved water. It was not enough to shower twice daily, she needed to swim. She found herself so desperate that she wandered to the banks of the Nile each morning and night and immersed herself in the brown-green depths of those ceaseless, relentless torrents. The currents filled her in a way nothing else could. The deep recesses of that ancient river gave her a peace she could find nowhere else.
It made her thirst for so much more. With a longing beyond words, she thought of the fathomless depths of the ocean so far beyond the land-locked borders of her home.
Someday, she told herself, she would return to the sea. But not now. It was not time yet.
And, Nyanza herself (Lake Victoria) was nearly as great as a sea, that massive body of water was larger than Wakanda or West Virginia or Croatia. When she could make the journey to the great lake, she could and lose herself under the waters.
Because, she no longer relied solely on the air to sustain her. Now she craved the water. Submerged beneath the depths, she did not struggle for breath. Her transformed eyes easily penetrated the murky depths. Her skin never wrinkled or turned ashy. Instead, she gained youth and strength each time she bathed in the wild, untamed waters.
Am I now part crocodile or frog or hippopotamus? She wondered to herself.
Namor knew. He must know. What had he done to her?
Azari had his theories. So did her doctors. Together, they pieced together a working hypothesis, but there was only one who could say for sure. Sometimes she wished she could ask him. Other times, she decided she didn't want to know… not if it meant seeing him again.
She wished she could say she was surprised to find a conch shell lying beside a bend in the Nile that day. They were hundreds of miles from the ocean, yet, an ocean shell appeared before her. When she approached, her heart began pounding when she recognized the script carefully carved into its flesh. However, in truth, she had known that it was only a matter of time before Talokan would creep back into her life.
The thought of that place, that time flooded her mind with memories of her captivity and her breathing increased to the point of near-panic. She leaned against a nearby boulder, clinging to its rock face for support and she fought to calm herself. She drank in the scent of the fresh water, the wet earth, the tall grasses. She listened to the roar of the rapids and the sound of the breeze through the brush. She could count the leaves overhead and drink in the expanse of the blue sky. She was in Wakanda, not trapped in the heart of Talokan. Her roof was carved of clouds and winds instead of rocks and salted waters.
She was home. She was free.
She cast the conch shell back onto the bank of the Nile and pretended she had never stumbled across it. This strategy would have worked, if the curiosity did not burn her like a live coal in her left shoe. It didn't help that she found a similar conch shell three more times. No other message. No other sign of a Talokanil. She wondered if it was a message, a threat, a warning. She did not know. She knew they used the shells – laced with vibranium and their own technology – as a communication device, but she feared what would happen if she opened this door.
The years spent beneath the waves had not dampened her curiosity and after taking apart two of the shells and dissecting each of their parts to the molecular level, she determined that she would use the remaining shell for its intended purpose. There, at the bend in the Nile, in the place she had first seen Namor, there she brought the shell to her lips and blew. It sang out a clear, long note like the sound from an Ankole cow's horn.
Nothing else happened. No projections appeared. Nothing exploded. Not even a bird flew away in surprise.
Shuri placed the shell back on the ground and sat with her back against an acacia tree. The roar of the brown and white waters nearly lulled her to sleep when, some few hours later, she was surprised to hear a voice call her name.
"Princess Shuri."
She startled and looked up to see a man drenched in water, half-submerged in the river. The brown of his chest blended in with the earthy tones of the roiling water and he wore abalone necklaces around his neck and through his ears. He gave a slight bow.
"Namor," she answered cautiously. She looked around, half-expecting to see an entourage of soldiers with spears flanking him on each side, ready to capture her again. She debated whether to rise to her feet and if she should then walk towards him or flee in the other direction. Catching her wary glances, he opened his arms.
"I am alone," he said. "I bring no weapons."
"So speaks a crocodile," Shuri muttered to herself, under her breath. Even without weapons, Namor was deadly. She was relieved when he made no move towards her and remained in place in the river. She remained in place against the thorny tree, her legs buried in the dry grass. The pair stayed as they were, motionless save for the movements of their eyes, each taking in the aspect of the other.
"Why are you here?" She asked.
"You called," he said and motioned to the discarded conch shell.
"Why did you leave the shells?"
"Communication," he answered. At the irritated click of her tongue, he continued. "There are words we need to speak. You know this as well as I."
Shuri sighed and rubbed her hands over her eyes. Her shoulders slumped against the tree.
"Namor, how many more decades must we have the same argument? I will never be queen. I hold very little influence over the King of Wakanda. I am simply another citizen of Wakanda. I cannot force an alliance with Wakanda."
"I did not imply that you should."
"For the many years you held me captive, that is all you ever wanted from me."
"That was then."
"And now? What is it that you want?"
"It is you who summoned me. What is it you wish for?" He answered.
She was about to protest, to argue with his logic, when she realized it was of no use. She could not argue because he was right. Pulling herself upright against the tree and leaning against her knee, she peered at him closely, watching his every reaction.
"Why did you do it?" She asked, finally voicing the question that had plagued her since she left Talokan.
"Of what do you speak?" He asked, knowing full well what her answer would be. She humored him anyway.
"Why did you save me? Why bring me back to life. Azari told me what happened… after…. I died... He said you pierced your own heart with a spear… used your own blood as a remedy."
He nodded once in acquiescence. Then, his dark eyes grew pensive.
"Why did you place yourself between us?" He asked in return. "There was no reason. Your hero had come, in a moment your champion would have freed you. Your moment of victory was upon you. Why did you do it? Why would a mortal place herself as a barrier between two gods?"
She sighed, her fingers running along the dry grasses around her legs. She remembered that last moment in the cave, that moment she had been forced to decide. The last moment she had truly been human.
"I had to," she answered.
He was not surprised by her words, in truth, he seemed to have expected them. "And that, princess, is why I brought you back to life."
The roar of the river mixed with the sound of his voice. The wind whistled through the yellow branches of the acacia tree, sang through the dry grasses of the savannah.
"I am not the same," Shuri said. She lifted up one arm, as if he could see the changes wrought throughout her previously mortal frame. Maybe he could. "Am I still human?" She asked him.
He shrugged. "You are alive. What else matters?"
"I suppose I should thank you. For that, I mean."
His dark eyes met hers, forcing her to keep his gaze. "The fighting stopped. When you fell, the Wakandan army stopped their attack. If you had not…," he said and then trailed off, his voice choked with thick emotion.
"That was a battle neither side could win and both kingdoms could only lose more than we could afford to," she answered, her head held high.
He nodded. "So, you decided the price was yours to pay."
She dropped her eyes. "It was the price I had already paid."
"But not for Talokan…," he pressed.
"The Talokanil did not deserve to die any more than the Wakandans!" She answered vehemently, the passion of her response momentarily overtaking her control.
Namor's lips crept into a half-smile. He bowed before her, draining her of what remained of her fire. "As you say, princess," he said.
Then, he knelt to place another conch shell on the bank of the river.
"What is that for?"
"In case you wish to summon me again. In case you wish to know more of how you were brought back to life, what you have now become. Most importantly, I leave this in case you ever wish to return home."
"I am home," she retorted, a burst of fear-filled anger blooming in her chest.
"As you say, princess," he repeated. "But someday, you may change your mind. Someday, you will become queen."
"I told you. I will never become queen of Wakanda," she replied.
"It does not follow that you will never become a queen," he answered.
Then, as quick as a crocodile, he vanished into the water and was gone, leaving the shell behind him.