Note: fully complete on AO3 (30 chapters).
Thank you ajolotita22 for the art used for the cover, inspired by this fic.
Shuri had never been a fan of folklore.
Where her mother would pull out the tales of old — gods and goddesses and spirits and Bast help her, the gods never listened anyway — she would crawl towards the old books of her father's library. Math, science, geology — she would absorb them all. Her brain was a sponge crafted from ingenuity, her soul a feverish spark that could never be satiated with vibranium as her muse. Over the decade she had run circles around the tribal elders and expert scientists alike, ushering Wakanda into a new era of technological prowess.
Beauty and the Beast. Queen Ramonda would insist. Chujo-hime, the princess who ran away and became a nun. Thakane and the dragon-slayer. The spry nine-tailed fox.
Her mother never hindered her ambitions, resigning herself only to interrupt her frantic moments of sleepless, drunk-like stupors after seasonal eureka! moments, but Shuri was her only daughter, and the Queen was a bit of a romantic, having sacrificed much for her own King. So while she rocked a young Shuri to sleep to princess tales spanning from East to West and everything in between, in Shuri's dreams she wore a lab coat instead of gowns, an AI voice welcoming her home instead of a king. Intellectual obstacles instead of —
Waterpeople.
Now that was one story Ramonda never finished. It was from some old book the then-novice spy Nakia brought from one of her missions, when she still used to be around, be there for her and her family. Except the waterpeople were called mermaids, and the main character was a woman who wanted so desperately to walk on land that she gave up her voice. Shuri didn't want to know what happened after. Her mother would never read to her again. And she had let the man who silenced her walk free.
Show him who you are. Her mother's voice seemed to return only when she spiraled.
What she was, was a coward: someone who couldn't make the right decisions before it was too late and almost led a global catastrophe, someone who'd effectively left her country in the hands of the Jabari tribe, the friendlier relationship with M'Baku be damned.
The tears she'd been holding back rolled down her face. The smoke rising from the still-burning white clothes of both T'Challa's and Queen Ramonda's funerals blurred her eyes. She was 21, a princess without a country to rule, and a Black Panther who could barely protect the people she loved.
Coward.
Damn you, Killmonger.
Namor was many things, but he was a gentleman. Sure, maybe he'd sprung out of the ocean to flood the one country that stood a chance against the global order only to kill their queen (after kidnapping their daughter, Namora reminded him). And yes, he'd stabbed the Princess cleanly through with a spear (hopefully her organs were okay, she made the suit and she was the genius, not his fault it couldn't stop him).
It was only because she took his trust and crushed it in her claws into smithereens.
He looked up at the mural again. The Princess' visage glittered down at him mockingly as he painted the next chapter of his people's history. The mural was a tribute to his history, his enemy — the only one he'd lost to and certainly the only one he's ever yielded to.
His enemies tended to be seasoned warriors, vicious gangs hardened by war, or soldiers brainwashed into serving narcissistic masters; not young women with bleeding hearts and a belief that conversation and tender moments could heal centuries of trauma.
He needed to shatter that illusion. For one moment, too, he'd been caught in her grandeur illusions, thinking that a bracelet exchanged and awe at what he'd built could change the world order. To be strong, he needed to keep others weak. To be independent, he needed to crush others into dependency, like parasites who could not survive without him, and so would never dare harm him. That's why he had taken the isolationist route. There was no game to play, after all, if he was not a player.
But play she did. Her compatriot killed two of his subjects and they ran away with the very scientist she'd bartered for her life with. So he broke her will, and she danced him into a corner until he was quivering on the ground, one wing lost and back burnt within an inch of his semi-immortal life. She did not let him taste the glory of death, either. She strangled him into submission, and then had the nerve to present them as equals ushering in a new era to their people. How could he do anything but accept?
So yes, he was a gentleman. He would not torment her any longer, because in the moments between his taking of life and her almost-taking of his, she'd emerged an equal. A superior, even. But one day she would need him to remind her who she was, would need him like a ruler needed his people.
Namora's eyebrow was still raised and she spoke in clipped tones, breaking him from his reverie. He preferred silence when he painted so that he could remember later the emotions poured into the drawing of his history, but family was owed more of his precious attention.
"You are so sure that this...trust in the Princess you have is not misplaced?"
He noticed her intentional use of "you have" acutely aware that his council would be harder to convince. Namora, at least, thought him a faultless god; no matter, he had the patience of half a millennium behind him.
"You heard the gatherers murmur about her brother. Reckless in opening Wakanda to the world, but a man who let the killer of his own father go free, and then nearly laid waste to the country to fight space-dwellers." He couldn't recall the name as his people spoke in unusually quiet tones when mentioning him. His weakened population had yet to full recover from losing half their tribe for five years, but they remained a powerful army that weakened Wakanda, once. "I have met stronger men who started wars for less. Nobility is in their blood, Namora."
His thoughts continued to churn. She wouldn't understand the finer strategies of war and peace, him a fisherman circling prey and waiting for the precise moment to strike. She was, much like her own mother, quick to anger and uncompromising to a fault. A good trait in a warrior, but a weakness in the game the Americans had dragged Talokan into.
Still, she looked placated as he returned his art materials to his desk. Her eyes flitted over a conspicuously empty corner. "And the bracelet?"
He absently rubbed the cuff on his right arm. "What about it?"
"Why did you give it to her, K'uk'ulkan? You haven't let anyone touch it in decades."
Namor did the first un-gentlemanly thing that week and lied.
"I don't know."
As the month passed, Shuri noticed that there were two times she allowed herself to smile: when Nakia made Border lamb with a rub of her own invention, and when Toussiant refused to change out of his school uniform. The former spy would wrestle him into pajamas every evening, inevitably starting a wrestling match. Toussaint would leave Nakia with no less than three new bruises.
"Ha! He bested you better than our favorite colonizer."
Nakia shot her a warning glance, finally shoving Toussiant into a short-sleeved top. Shuri's jests skidded to a halt as she observed the young boy and how strikingly similar he was to T'Challa's boyhood days, when he would chase her around the palace with an ancient merchant tribe mask on claiming he was a demon.
"What colonizer?" Toussaint bounced on the balls of his feet as his mother ushered him into the kitchen with promises of dessert. He skipped ahead, quickly forgetting his question.
Nakia smoothed down her braids, fraying from the fight. "Speaking of the American, I heard from Okoye that he helped us." She frowned, as if she just realized something. "Surely the Americans don't look lightly upon treason."
"Neither do we." Shuri said quietly, remembering Okoye with another ache. The woman had a husband languishing in prison, had survived the snap, and now banished from the Dora Milaje as Wakanda scrambled to recover post-crisis.
She shook her head. Wakanda would be okay. She'd left M'Baku a surreptitious note detailing her absence from the challenge, hoping the Great Gorilla would take the hint. He hated her life's work, had challenged T'Challa, and made a mockery of their family every waking moment, but Bast execute her if he wasn't the only one to have lingered after her mother's funeral to offer comfort in the slightly comedic, borderline mocking, and begrudgingly respectful way only he could. The man would reinstate Okoye to the Dora if he knew what was good for him.
She joined her nephew at the dining table, familiar with Nakia's my-kitchen-my-space rule. She wondered how often her brother had wandered these very halls, creeping along walls crusting with old green paint in an average, warm home in this coast-side village.
"Okoye called me earlier." Nakia said as she busied her hands with a pot of rice. Her tone was suspiciously casual, too measured. They made sure to never discuss recent events around Toussaint to keep him protected as her brother wished, limiting their conversations to jovial banalities of daily life. What inventions have you been working on and how are the neighbors around here? "She asked about you again."
"Tell her..." Shuri paused as Toussaint reached for her Kimoyo beads. She rarely took them off, too used to their weight, but for over a month now they were turned off and untraceable. "Tell her that I'm doing okay."
"She wants to talk to you."
"I know. I just..." What could she say? That she was a coward, running away?
"It's been over a month."
Shuri inhaled a sharp breath. "Nakia."
"I would never kick you out." She plopped a bowl of rice in front of her with a generous helping of vegetables. "You are my sister, but you are wasting your life here."
"I am not."
"You —"
"Auntie Shuri?" Toussaint poked at his rice. "Why haven't you come before?"
Both Nakia and Shuri turned towards him, a sad smile gracing his mother's face. Shuri reached over the table to grasp the boy's hands in hers.
"You were a wonderful surprise. And now you'll have me around so much you'll get sick!" She flicked him on the nose, and he took a pinch of rice from his bowl to fling into her face. The two erupted into a playful fight while Nakia, aghast, tried to pry them apart. Even the woman's spy skills couldn't keep a growing boy at bay and soon the three chasied each other around the kitchen, Shuri clambering over a set of rusted pans, Nakia pulling Toussaint back by his shirt, and the boy suddenly in possession of a ladle, swinging it around like a sword.
A single knock on the door echoed through the kitchen. It wasn't until the second knock that she saw Nakia's muscles tense in a defensive stance, hard lines engraved into her smooth face. Shuri was not as quick to follow, but quickly realized that this was the back entrance into a wide garden. Any welcome visitors would've come through the front.
Nakia darted towards the door, her hands curling into fists. But Shuri recognized the metallic arm of the visitor before his face even came into view. Because she had made it.
"White Wolf?"