When Shuri was young and experienced emotional turbulence, whether it be a crush on her nanny's son, some upstart kid beating her in math lessons, or finding T'Challa hiding in the kitchen muttering sweet nothings to Nakia, she knew where to go. An airship out to the nearest cliff, down an elevator and two flights of stairs to the laboratory hidden away in Mount Bashenga.

She was a grown woman now, thousands of meters deep under the ocean, surrounded by fishpeople in a hunk of metal, and it was not simply turbulence but a Dragon Flyer ramming against her ribcage at full speed, but same concept. There was one guaranteed method to pass time without falling off the proverbial cliff, and that was in occupying her mind with innovation.

The Talokanil palace, their Sun, was just as breathtaking as the first time she laid eyes on it. Talokanil used vibranium well as anyone could but it wasn't as efficient as Wakanda. Network of tubes and pipes transporting vibranium spiraled outwards from their Sun and around the city. They lived in clusters of domes, each dome assigned to a sub-tribe and each family housed in a section of it. They had no need for internet or the communication systems she was used to; the city was so small that conch shells and glowing rocks embedded with vibranium were enough. If you needed to talk to someone, you visited them via whirlpools that shuttled larger objects, and people, from one side to the other.

The engineers and scientists worked together in one dome. A section in the back was cordoned off for the equivalent of a laboratory, but it was mostly junk.

Shuri's first task was to remove the clutter and rebuild it up by hand but it was only after Juana brought direct orders from Namor that the Talokanil let her go about her business. They were a reticent bunch; their awkwardness not unlike surface-dwelling engineers (Shuri easily won best-dressed in her class every year, simply because she put on earrings), but a hint of resent tinged their standoffishness.

"They think you think you are better than them, because of all your technology." Juana explained.

"What? Our vibranium is the same as yours and some of your technology is better," Shuri frowned, remembering water grenades and Talokanil spears. "And technology doesn't have to change your way of life; if you use it right, it only makes the good parts better."

At this, one of them, Totl, let her pass into the lab. The only problem was her the bulky exosuit. It didn't allow her to do much of anything except float. She needed a lab to improve her suit, but she couldn't do that unless her suit allowed her to tinker around with sensitive materials, and this here was the conundrum.

"Quite the quagmire, my dear," her father would say. If Shuri got her style and kindness from her mother, then her intellect and love for puzzles was from her father. King T'Chaka would often work at his desk, pausing to read her word puzzles and tongue-twisters while she bumbled about in his office.

This puzzle was not too complex.

"If I'm the first visitor to come here, how and why do you guys have exosuits?" Talokanil had no need for an exosuit and its structure was different from anything else she'd encountered down here.

Juana shifted uncomfortably. "It's not ours...the divers of the first American attack used these."

Oh. Shuri tried not to think too hard about whether the diver had been struck dead while in the suit or not.

Eventually, she returned to the catacombs and decided to tear the exosuit apart to use its parts to build a better one. There was a second exosuit in case all else failed but with the help of her Kimoyo beads scanning the Black Panther suit structure, she was able to come up with something passable. The end result was a suit that resembled Ironman in its assembly, but thinner and more flexible. It could hold off the cold and pressure of deep Talokan waters.

The engineers had returned her oxygen tank unharmed and by the end of the day, she was able to make two laps to and from the city safely with oxygen to spare. Her only gripe was that all the air available was murky and damp but there was nothing she could do.

The guards hadn't been instructed yet as to whether they should follow her in her excursions away from the catacombs and she smugly attributed this to Namor's underestimation of her wits. Hah! I'll be out of here in no time. Escaping in the wetsuit crossed her mind more than once, but with the Americans locked up, it was out of the question.

I don't have a choice.

Killmonger appeared less frequently these days, but now she felt his sneer against her neck. You always got a choice, little cuz.

The Talokanil kept songs and carvings about the blue flower, but spiritual odes didn't reconstruct DNA.

Shuri had even less to work with than with the herb. She'd seen and felt and smelt the garden of the heart-shaped herb her whole life. It had just been a matter of getting the right materials to conform to the blueprint she already had.

Here, it was like inventing a new plant altogether. She was a genius, but she was not a god. She told Juana as much, who simply laughed and left for a snack break. Talokanil ate only twice a day, preferring to nibble on an assortment of weeds throughout and leave for a large meal in the evenings.

So it was like this a full three days passed without a single notable thought of Namor: she paced and wrestled with an ancient mask hanging in her room; moped with Atzi about the lack of Netflix; debated Fen on the best method to heal broken bones; learned about a ritual dance preformed whenever a shark carcass was brought to the city ("I can't eat shark, its toxic to humans." "I heard humans cook fish before eating it. There's no flavor then!" "Ever heard of sushi?") that was more enjoyable than a Coachella concert; and learned more about Zuma's dating life than Okoye's. The former general had been notoriously taciturn when courted by W'Kabi (though Shuri wasn't entirely sure it hadn't been Okoye doing the wooing).

As the youngest, Zuma was the target of the others' teasing. Shuri was more confused about the mechanics of it all.

"So he brings you a large fish, and then if you just eat it that means you like him?"

"Just eat it, she says." Atzi clapped her on the back. They were sitting on the floor again, having made a habit of this spot in the catacombs. The guard's spear had rolled away somewhere, and not for the first time Shuri hoped the Talokanil women viewed her as a friend rather than a job. "It's not the fish itself, Princess. It's him becoming a man by swimming into the depths of the unknown, finding the most delectable, sought-after meal, and you spending a whole day to consume it to show your appreciation."

Shuri wrinkled her nose. She preferred lamb. "Okay. Then what? You start dating? Holding hands and all of that?"

Atzi fell over, giggling. "All of that? All of that?"

"C'mon, guys," Shuri rolled her eyes. Zuma was progressively reddening. "I'm curious! Last time you told me about family and clan organization, but who doesn't want to know about romance?" Not her, not really until recently because having crushes on good looking celebrities was better than whatever reality was starting to offer her, but she was stuck in this cave and dating always made for good, spicy conversation.

In the years before the Snap, she and Okoye pestered her brother at least once a week. She'd even made a holographic display of his head on an antelope. Outside of that, the social circles she floated around were limited to high-ranking nobles, palace workers, and scientists, whom didn't really care for spicy gossip. Most of what she knew about romance came from her mother, and trashy Western shows only told her how messy dating could be.

Juana shook her head. "Not me," she muttered, to which Atzi pointed with a teasing finger and something about Totl.

"Well," Zuma gulped, "If other men are interested, they also bring their fish. Then you choose. He must carve you jewelry first in acceptance of your choosing him. When you wear it you become his wife."

Shuri nodded understandingly. Jewelry was an important part of Wakandan weddings too: long earrings, intricate headpieces with tusks and vibranium chains, a full set of listened as the three took turns explaining that families were larger down here; multi-generational, lots of children, with either the wife or husband moving in with their spouse's family, whoever had more space or needed more help. This made sense. Sociology wasn't her best subject, but remembered Wakanda to be the same until recent decades. Many communal societies organized themselves this way.

She really didn't want to ask her last question, but...at least Fen wasn't around.

"So this sleep situation," she internally giggled at the collective hush. Zuma turned puce. "Fen said there's always someone awake to watch the others. Does that mean anyone in the family, or is that limited to the spouse, or..."

Juana quickly escorted Zuma away, shoving her into the waters. The young guard protested until her face was fully submerged by Juana's large hands.

Shuri stared, a piece of seaweed halfway to her lips. "Er, shouldn't we..."

"Oh no, it's fine," Atzi quipped, "It's more comfortable for us underwater anyway, mask or no mask." The Talokanil smirked at her, and she had the sudden feeling of being an antelope caught in headlights. She didn't know where this was going. "So, the finn and the eggs talk? I'll call Fen."

"The what and the what talk?"

Shuri resolved to never talk about beds, or hammocks, or sleep, ever. Fen definitely thought the same, given by how utterly full of bubbles her watermask was. Still, the healer kept choking.

"I could've asked Atzi," Shuri muttered. They were in the room, Fen using an excuse to check her injuries to keep herself busy. The scars on her ankle were gone and the scab over the wound in her arm was beginning to fade. Shuri waved a Kimoyo bead over it every night to be sure but the vibranium-infused bandages worked unexpectedly well. Her arrogance in having assumed otherwise wasn't in thinking Wakanda's use of vibranium was better, it was just that no Talokanil equivalent of Shuri existed.

Well, she thought, if they were going to choose one scientist to trap for this task, then duh, who else would they have picked?

Her respect for efficient technology aside, she watched as Fen examined her ankle for the third time. "K'uk'ulkan asked me to speak to you about this, regardless."

"About my ankle?"

"About your extended stay and any...unsavory rumors that may have reached your ears." Fen trained a stiff eye at her. "Our king is simply being kind. You did not take his life. Any favors on you are in return for what you have done and are doing for us. Nothing more. We are a gracious people to a temporary guest."

Fen couldn't be malicious, Shuri thought, but there was a sudden turn in the air. A tension that made her hesitate to intensify despite the curiosity nagging at her. "I see."

"As long as you understand." The healer's eyes softened, and she immediately changed the subject to stammering about Talokanil sexuality. The only man that could watch a woman sleep was her husband and vice versa — older Talokanil, usually in need of less sleep, watched over the young ones, and each domes had a separate facility when a couple wanted to leave the home and "do even more private business."

Shuri winced. "Fen, I'm good, please stop."

Namor always drowned (hah!) in excursions this time of year. The frequency of fishermen, stray ships, submarines and other water vehicles reached a peak in the summer and early autumn seasons. Security around Talokan was tightened; he had visited six threats in five days, weighing whether sending a whale (or explosives, perhaps), was necessary. The yearly sickness was starting to visit his people again, but one healer had been lost to that Wakandan woman's gun, leaving only Fen and three others. His council asked every few days about the Princess' progress, and as much as he wished to visit and see the lab personally, there was simply no time. Besides, he had survived five hundred years without seeing the woman.

"Are you sick, too?" Fen asked when he returned from another trip. "You have touched your face a number of times since the meeting this morning."

"Have I?" Namor ran his fingers over his lips, struggling not to grin despite himself. The touches of others paled to the feel of his lips on her skin. "I will come see you later today, but a king only ails with the worry of his people. Attuma did not look well. See to him first."

"As you wish, K'uk'ulkan."

The next day, the solution struck like a lightening bolt when she put on her watersuit and a stray fiber nicked her finger.

As a bead of blood pooled onto her skin, Shuri remembered: the heart-shaped herb was inside her. Its effects tampered with her every nerve and cell. If she extracted her blood even now, she could see exactly where and how the herb reconfigured her biology. She had to work backwards, like creating a blueprint of an existing ship by looking at every part and testing what it did. The blue flower had not been around in a long time, but its effects lingered in the hundreds of thousands of people below.

The whirlpool to the city felt like walking through mud compared to rapid-fire of her mind. It could work. Her Kimoyo beads alone didn't have the capacity to sequence an entire genome but she could put together a machine somehow. Juana would be ecstatic to help (none of the others had been told about this project, but she, despite her burly size, was like an eager child trailing Shuri and picking at her brain wherever she went).

So far, their corner of the dome was passable. Not good enough to be called a lab yet, especially by Wakandan standards, but there was enough vibranium whirring in the amalgamation of metals Shuri scrapped together that it felt comfortable. Like home, even. Totl had gotten some of his fellow males to warm up to her, too, but usually he was too busy sending Juana gifts of fish eggs and bouquets of kelp to help. Mostly, he ran errands.

"It's going to hurt a bit, but I just need a couple drops."

Shuri pricked Juana's finger with a clean needle and immediately pressed a vial against Juana's blue fingers before the blood wafted away in the waves. She could now add another first: doing science underwater.

Now was the problem of actually sequencing it. She needed actual computers, ones that Talokanil simply hadn't developed yet. They didn't have computers beyond the capacity of old-school calculators. Without her old lab, or some scraps from the modern world, her project would end here.

Namor would never let her go the surface. Even if she proposed taking a squadron of guards with her, how would she find a computer in a developed city with them around? It was the same problem if she sent any of them, and she didn't think his gatherers had the ability, or even desire, to creep into a local university.

Shuri was not a god, but she was a genius. She beamed at Juana who was still nursing her finger. Oh. Of course.

She hoped for another meeting alone but she wasn't so lucky this time. The guard joined her in the prison-hold, his webbed feet gleaming and a towering spear waving indiscriminately around her. At least he'd relented—Namor agreed to give her the movement and items necessary to do her job and this was part of it.

Val being annoying was unfortunately part of it. "Give me a secret, hon, and then I'll tell you about the submarine."

Shuri rolled her eyes. Val, and a young man named Rick, were the only ones who talked to her now. The others were under strict orders to not speak to her, she supposed, but she still sent them lingering smiles. One woman with shockingly red lipstick on waved back, regretful. The group was starting to reek and Shuri didn't even want to know where their waste was going.

"I know about the submarine, I was there, remember? I can even ask the others where they put it, or if it's still out there. I just need to know what types of machines you had on board."

"You don't think they destroyed it?" Rick looked green in the face, perhaps from all the kelp. "Letting a vibranium-sensor out like that is dangerous."

Val hissed and elbowed him in the stomach. Shuri tapped her foot impatiently. Yes, they probably destroyed the sensor, but that didn't mean everything else was unusable.

"Right, look. I have a way to help you guys out, but I need to do something first."

The brunette chuckled. "And you need military-grade equipment to do it?"

"My toys growing up were made out of American military equipment."

"Touché. The people here have vibranium and still are living in the dark ages. It would be in much better hands with us —"

Shuri's jaw clenched before the guard behind her could growl. "They are a brilliant people. Tell me about the submarine or I won't let you all get a bath."

Val opened her mouth to retort but Rick leaned over, muttering loud enough that Shuri could hear, "We could really do with a bath."

The woman harrumphed. "You've taken my lessons to heart, your highness. Fine, just this once."

Val went on to detail the sensors and equipment their submarine had carried. They were not typical of a military submarine, considering they'd disguised themselves as a civilian one (and on the chance Talokan alone had discovered them, the difference wouldn't matter. Shuri thanked Bast that whatever situation she'd gotten herself into, she'd helped these people, though she could do with Val sinking at the bottom of the ocean).

Val left her with another parting lesson this time, the most sinister of them yet. "Be careful with the equipment, your highness."

"I need to talk to Namor," she told the guard upon her return. The guard, one she didn't recognize, shook her head.

"He will come to you."

"No, he won't." Shuri frowned. "He hasn't, actually, in almost a week." The water-king hadn't used his private whirlpool again nor had he visited his office as far as she knew, despite her long hours in the lab. Was that normal?

"He is very busy with his people. May I help you instead?"

"Tell him it's about the project he assigned me."

The guard left and Shuri returned to her room. Over the days, she had scavenged the cabin, for what exactly she didn't know. Aside from a small area containing a wash basin, the office and room comprised the whole of it. Shelves in the corner of the office contained some carvings in a language even her Kimoyo beads couldn't translate, and his wide catalog of weapons were sprawled around the room in baskets, drawers, and across his desk (not a momentary lapse, considering her vibranium claws alone were more lethal than the pointiest knife here).

Other than the artifacts in the room, there were no hints as to Namor's personal life. Either the cabin had been cleared out of anything damning before she was moved here or he didn't have very many keepsakes to in the first place. He also had his water home, after-all.

She supposed she could ask him directly. He'd never hesitated to open up about his mother and ancestors to a stranger, and these many months in a tenuous alliance should earn her some liberties. But then she wondered why she wanted to know about him, personally, at all. To better understand his people and know what I'm up against, she told herself.

She peeled off her water suit and changed into one of the dresses, patiently waiting. When Namor entered through the lake in the room minutes later, the first thing she noticed were the heavy lines carved under his eyes. Fury contorted his face. She stood up from the bed, her muscles tensing, but he didn't speak.

His fury wasn't directed at her. Instead, she registered the slash on his left hip, stretching from under his golden belt and stopping at his belly button. His trousers were stained with speckles of blood.

The dress swished around her legs as she took large strides towards him.

"What happened?" She pulled a bead out of her Kimoyo bracelet. It glowed red, Griot announcing its healing mode, but before she could press it against his hip he stopped her with his staff.

"I have no need for your technology. Fen will take care of it."

"It'll scar!"

"Gods don't scar."

"Your right foot is still wingless. Sit down and shut up."

Her hand had touched his chest before, but through the Panther suit and with the fire of revenge. She touched him now with the soft pads of her fingers and the intensity of a healer, as though he could break, knowing full well he was carved from gold. He didn't sit down, nor shut up, but stayed silent as she trailed the bead across the seam of the scar, leaving it puckering in its wake.

"To answer your question, a particularly vicious school of stingrays attacked the left district."

She giggled and raised a curious eyebrow at the image of him swarmed by stingrays. He scowled. "A great many were injured severely."

"Sorry," she offered, resuming her ministrations. He would need to rinse out the dry blood but otherwise the scar would heal. "Why did you go personally, couldn't you have sent your warriors?"

"People will not do what their leader does not."

She hummed, speeding up her movements. He sounded oddly like T'Challa, if one looked past blood-thirsty behavior and his more remorseless tendencies. Had he lived not scorned by the surface world and held onto centuries-long need for vengeance masquerading as protection, his loyalty would be begrudgingly...admirable.

A vicious thought crossed her mind, and it was not from Killmonger. I ran away and left my people behind.

She looked desperately for another topic to busy her mind with. "How fast do mutants heal?"

He indulged her. "Talokanil heal at a speed faster than humans. Water keeps wounds clean, but losing blood is the largest risk. I make use of both air and water."

"Sounds like the surface world does more favors than you'd like to admit." Shuri kneeled, prodding at the lower end of the scar where it was thicker. She heard Namor inhale slowly, and he never breathed out of need, but paid no heed, distracting him with conversation. "I could heal your foot too."

"No need, woman."

She looked up and grinned. "Shall I slice the other one off to match?"

At that, he took her by the arm and pulled her up. Her Kimoyo bead still glowed.

"Sorry, that was a joke." Perhaps days away from him had cooled her temper towards him. Look at her, scrubbing wounds and apologizing. Killmonger returned with a violent force, one that made her squeeze her eyes shut to banish.

"You are generous, but I do not need your apologies. What did you call me here for?" He was more formal than he usually was with her. His eyebrows were pinched together and his thick hair sat in ruffled waves, more-so than water naturally made them as though he'd spent a good portion of the day running his hands through it.

She squinted at him, having forgotten to swat his hand away. "Are you...okay?"

He said nothing.

"Namor?"

Something was wrong; she'd never seen him like this. It unnerved her. He was supposed to be constant among variables: dependable to provide obstacles and be a thorn at her side; sharp in battle and slow to follow in other matters; and occasionally warm, like when he spoke about his mother or asked after her health and whether her accommodations were comfortable and told her in a round-about way that she exceeded her brother in some things. That he thought she could restore the sacred to him and his people.

Instead of spouting off like she usually did at moments like these, she mulled over her decision carefully. Weighed the benefits. A stressed feathered serpent would be less amiable to her requests than a happy one. Showing him she cared could soften him up to other humans and allow her to help the Americans more.

These were all the reasons that people like Val and Killmonger would calculate. T'Challa would tell her they were unimportant, because he was noble and she was made of sympathy.

She was beginning to think she was more like her brother than she'd thought.

"K'uk'ulkan?" she tried.

The hand on her arm left for a crushing embrace as he kissed her.