The return to the white man and the Wakandan woman was less hasty this time. By now, the sky was a brilliant shade of dark blue, the stars twinkling like diamond gems. He preferred jade.
"That took an hour." The tip of Okoye's staff grazed his chin and she seethed. Namor raised an eyebrow in a way that belied his lack of concern.
"We had a lot to talk about."
"So," the white man interrupted, "we have a deal?"
Namor bared his teeth. "Yes."
Two hours passed since his last visit to the beaches above when Tupoc, one of his gatherers, dropped into the catacombs. His hair glistened and skin tanned with the telltale foray onto land. Namor paused in his ministrations around his wing-less ankle, this much travel in one day taking its toll. It still ached from time to time, and the wing hadn't grown any bigger in weeks.
Attuma's brother was smaller and less bombastic than the formidable warrior but it made him a perfect gatherer of information. No foreigners, except Wakanda now, knew of Talokan's existence beyond fables, but that didn't mean Talokan abstained from the necessary measures to protect their people even if it required mingling surreptitiously among land-dwellers. Over the decades, Namor and his gatherers studiously kept an oral record. Some episodes they carved into tablets and he wrote into scrolls, such as those that spoke of world wars that threatened oceans, drug rings and fascists, and at one point the 80s fervor of ridiculous hairdos that even reached their youth.
This time, Tupoc returned with important information that required his unequivocal attention.
"A fever is a disease that affects land-dwellers. The temperatures above fluctuate far more than they do here, and their bodies don't self-regulate as well as ours do."
Odd. He'd never heard of such a term, but his mother had passed down tales from his grandmother about epidemics that burned humans from the inside out. Most medical conditions, he was taught, were attributed to an unbalanced spiritual state or a revengeful god. Fen reminded him over the years that the body was often in need of both spiritual and physical healing.
Shuri's internal state demanded that she be left alone. For now. As for the external...
"How do they fix it?"
Tupoc rubbed his brow. "When their bodies heat up, everything around them feels colder."
That answered why her reaction in his office felt so different from the sweat that had glistened over her dark skin the previous time. "She needs to be warmed." He concluded.
"Yes, K'uk'ulkan."
"Call Fen and tell her to bring some dry blankets."
They weren't savages. Of course they used blankets.
She was bundled up in four layers of blankets when her fever finally broke. Without the sun, her body was confused and erratically trying to adjust her circadian rhythm and in doing so robbed her of a peaceful sleep. Her kimoyo beads helped her count the hours: a few morning hours in Haiti, a couple to reach Talokan and their brief fight — if it could be called that — and another couple to account for being unconscious, the bastard's refusal to see her for another few, and now her body (and kimoyo watch) insisted it was past bedtime. Her stomach grumbled to the guard's chagrin.
"Greedy." The guard eyed her bundled up figure with a harrumph. There was nowhere to sit except on the hammock, drowning in pillows. All of a sudden, it was too hot, and Shuri could feel the thin lining of her dress slide up against sweaty legs. While she dug her way out of the mess, the guard called for another to bring some food.
The damp air hit her body like a salve. Finally. She wasn't sure what had brought on the sudden ailment, but she'd already been struggling to eat and sleep for the past two days, externalizing her stress.
She hobbled towards the guard. "I need to speak with him."
This guard was the worst she's had so far. Bulky in the right places, absurdly pretty behind the feathered warrior headpiece, and above all, mean. Even worse than Namor's cousin, whatever her name was (Okoye cursed her to death and back for days before the final battle).
True to form, the guard scoffed. "He has wasted enough time with you."
"I'm trying to help him." She snapped, adding, "All of you. We don't have time."
Her time awake and waiting to heal had been spent plotting, planning, and trying not to yell at innocent guards — but she was not doing a very good job with this one. It wasn't her fault impudent ladies were frustratingly easy to lose her cool at especially if they weren't on her side.
"You have helped enough." The guard lifted her spear menacingly and scowled through her water mask. When another Talokanil arrived with a tray of food, she set it on the floor like Shuri was some sort of grubby rat. "Your people took my brother from me." She unlocked her mask and leaned forward just enough to spit into her food.
Brother? Shuri had left Wakanda before casualties had been counted, before even all the Wakandan bodies were collected. Some were forever lost at sea. At least a dozen families were in mourning. She estimated a similar amount of casualties for them.
Wakanda promised protection, but she was not so compassionate to feel guilty for the loss of voluntary combatants of war — not when they attacked first without a warning. Her mother may have been hasty, but to kill a Queen would've led to an eternal war with any other country but her's. Talokanil should be thankful.
"Your king took my mother." Shuri knelt to the ground and picked up the tray with her good arm. Her spiteful self wanted to throw the tray back at the impertinent woman, but spite, as she'd learned during the battle, demanded far too much from her to maintain. There was both ice and fire in her veins. She could fight, but not be so hasty that she forgot who she was - not her brother, not Killmonger, but an intelligent Princess. She placed the tray on the nightstand, her back ramrod straight. She was shorter than the guard, but would face her as an equal.
"Yet even if I could leave, I would not. I'm here willingly. Do not do me dishonor of deciding my motivations for me, because my country is fighting a battle out there so no more of you are killed."
The guard blanched.
"What's your name?" Shuri asked.
"Scum."
"Enough, Patli." Namor's voice was as soft as the time he'd sat with her in these very catacombs, tying a bracelet around her wrist with rough fingers. He slinked from the shadows, his eyes adjusting to the brighter lights of her room.
The room he's imprisoning me in, her mind corrected.
He waved the guard away with orders for more food. Shuri objected, arguing that it was a waste and that she'd had worse (in Jabariland, those were times she'd prefer never to remember again), but he shook his head.
"What effect Talokan spit may have on you is unknown. I will eat this."
Shuri watched with a slow-growing horror as the man settled onto the stone slab floor, boring her eyes into the back of his broad shoulders as he dug into one of the avocado dips. Another tray arrived soon after and she hunched over on her hammock in silence, too befuddled to start another conversation or launch a poor attempt at interrogation. Instead, she observed him.
Like swimming, every part of his body moved fluidly with each movement. He ate slowly, savoring every bit of the meal. His Adam's apple bobbed under his dozens of chokers and chains, and whenever he liked a particular bite, his eyes would flicker for the smallest of moments. She wondered how full-blooded Talokanil ate, how water affected their foods. Did they eat like other sea-creatures, chomping into raw fish? How did they cook underwater? Namor clearly had chefs well-trained in the cuisine of land-dwellers, so did that mean he preferred their foods?
Halfway through their meal, she broke the silence. "Why are you so quiet?"
He paused midway through a helping of quinoa and looked up at her. "What would you rather have me say?"
The pointy tips of his ears looked rather elvish from this angle. She fought to keep a straight face. "You've gotten into a habit today of answering my questions with questions."
"You are less prone to anger that way." He took another bite. "It saves my energy then to deal with the council."
"Oh. Thank you for your kindness, then. Where was this last time, when you were telling me about your mother and history asking I go to war with you?"
"You wanted to burn the world then, but you weren't so angry at yourself like you are now."
No. No she wasn't.
"My mother," he started, "spoke so often of avocados that for a time I thought she missed land food more than she missed land people." Shuri set her tray aside and joined him on the floor, finding it uncomfortable to look down at him while he spoke of his dead mother. "I don't enjoy their slimy taste. They are also difficult to bring down here; I encase them in pouches of raw vibranium and keep them in a water cooler to slow down their aging."
"Then why go through the effort at all?"
"Surely you do many things to honor the lives of those who passed."
In that moment, Shuri thought of the elders. How tied down they were to the ancestors and tradition, their reverence for lives once lived and rituals drowning in blood and flowers, sadness and song, love and celebration.
"I was a child who scoffed at tradition."
Namor nodded slowly, his eyes unblinking. He left his food now, turning his face fully towards her. His left hand reached for her hands, clasped in her lap. She could not pull her eyes away to see what he was doing and only felt his fingers encircle around her wrist. His pointer finger just barely met one of the Kimoyo beads. Her breathing hitched as his feathered touch turned solid, pressing down on her skin. His fingers were cool and soft, unlike the waxy skin of the guards, but his eyes felt like she was meeting fire.
"But you are a woman who is the Black Panther."
Her insides clenched. Here she was, taking on a mantle she never would have otherwise, to honor her brother. Somewhere in her brain, Killmonger laughed. Tradition.
She stood up and wrenched her hand from his grasp, busying it by smoothing down her wrinkled dress. "Take me to the Americans," she said hastily. "We might have a chance to fix this before it gets worse, but I need to get back to Wakanda by the end of the day tomorrow."
Namor's eyes were still trained on the spot she was sitting on moments prior, his hands thankfully back where they should be, closer to him than her. "That is no longer necessary."
She felt the blood drain from her face and the beginnings of a headache. Were they going to restart this argument again? "I decide what's necessary. Wakanda is your protector."
"I met with Wakanda. How shall I say — as allies? — to pay off our debt."
Shuri blanched. He met with them? Is that why he was gone so long? The blasted man screwed off to who knows where while she was stuck here?
The beep of her Kimoyo beads dissolved into the familiar clamps of the Black Panther suit faster than he could scramble up. He didn't have his staff with him, but immediately crouched into a fighting position. A man like him would never resort to defense — unless she made him yield.
Which she was about to, stab injury or no. "Explain yourself." She thought she sounded rather like T'Challa, voice low with an undercurrent of threat. Maybe it was the suit.
"Returning you right now would break our deal." He leered, all softness from before gone and replaced by the temper she was better prepared to engage. "It was you or the blue warrior, and you made very clear that you trusted them to handle their side of things."
"What?"
"You and the Americans will be my guests for time being."
Shuri grabbed the nearest object and launched it at him with the full force of the Black Panther. Pillows didn't have sharp edges, but it did the job. Namor caught it with his hands but his body flew five paces backwards, just barely avoiding smashing into the wall.
"I never thought I'd see our favorite colonizer again." M'Baku thumped his chest, bellowing out a set of Jabari chants. If national loyalty hadn't been burned into Okoye's very being, she would've seen him and his ridiculous furs out the door by now.
There was a new throne room on the opposite side of the skyscraper. The old one was left untouched with its overturned throne and artifacts ripped off the walls, a violent reminder of the way their Queen was ripped from them. Instead, a small, thriving garden of synthetic heart-shaped herbs grew where she had passed.
"Enough, M'Baku." Okoye had teased Ross enough, and he'd put up with flying in a dubious metal container to help her (or save himself from prosecution for treason). Okoye didn't care — the man was a valuable asset, as awkward as he was. His only failure was in not bringing Shuri home now, something she would hold against him for the rest of his short life (she'd make sure of that.)
Her and her companion of choice stood tall in the room, ignoring the hushed whispers of the elders. "Where is Nakia?"
M'Baku cracked his neck, rolling his head and letting his muscles ripple. "Still exiled. I was thinking to remand it. The War Dogs must return to their duties, and she really was something."
M'Baku was many things, but he did not trifle with honorable woman and would never lower himself to make a pass at the former King's lover, so Okoye accepted the compliment for what it was. Still, that didn't answer her question. Nakia hadn't responded to any of her kimoyo pings over the last three hours, and that soldier's iPhone proved itself primitive after failing to hold a signal. The River Tribe told her she'd likely gone to the King first, but instead of rapid preparations, she was met with an overconfident King busy debating the uselessness of modern televisions with a Merchant Tribe elder.
"I sent a message to her to get here as soon as possible. We don't have time. Tell the Jabari our armies need to be prepared —"
Ayo rushed into the room, the golden clasps marking a general looped over her shoulders. She looked every bit a fierce, decisive Dora. A rush of pride and sadness welled up in Okoye's heart.
"There's an attempted breach at the south border wall. Two tanks and four airships. American." She frowned. "And a man in a pelican suit."
Ross choked, then pulled his metal mask over his face. He'd adjusted quickly to Riri's suit with a startling ease. The engineer had spent the last two months tweaking and perfecting the Ironman-like suit, and wasn't happy to see it taken for another joyride but had quickly acquiesced when Okoye mentioned Shuri's name.
"I'll go see them." He moved to take a step out of the room but a growl from M'Baku stopped him. "Permission, your Highness?"
"Go ahead. Let us see what the white man can do for us again."
"Clear your name, I hope." The clang of metal armor faded down the hall. Ayo and the other Dora quickly moved to load Talon and Dragon Flyers with warriors. Okoye almost moved to join them in a security routine they had done a thousand times, and had to stop herself. Those days were over. She would honor the justified anger of Queen Ramonda, and never pick up a Dora spear again.
Shuri had crowned her with a new honor. The Midnight Angel.
If M'Baku hated her outfit as another affront to tradition, he said nothing. Him and the Jabari warriors joined the Dora, planning to back them up like they did at the Battle of Talokan. She held him back.
"You are King now. Stay here and protect the throne. We cannot afford another loss."
"The Jabari do not back down from a fight."
"But you must." She swallowed. "Or I fear our Princess may never return."