Namor of Talokan/Shuri of Wakanda
“We have to find a way to protect her,” Namor tells Namora and Attuma while he paces in front of his throne while the both of them stand on the steps leading up to it.
“What do you mean “protect her”? Send her back to the surface where she belongs!” Namora exclaims looking at her cousin with the familiar fire of a long-lived warrior burning within her eyes.
Namor shakes his head as he continues thinking about what he could do, “I can’t.”
Attuma, ever the one to say so much in so little, asks, “Why not?”
This causes Namor to pause in his pacing as he looks at both of his most trusted and fearsome warriors to reply with, “She is with child.”
Those four words caused both Attuma and Namora to become rigid in their stances as they processed the words that had just come from their God-King's mouth.
Namora was clearly furious with this announcement while Attuma was stunned into silence.
“Force that surface-dweller to abort the child! It will never be accepted into Talokan as your successor or blood! It’ll be a disgrace to your name and status! It could very well cause the downfall of Talokan if it should breathe oxygen from either the air or water!”
Namor shook his head, “No, I will not cause the death of the only child I’ve ever been able to create.”
“You can recreate the process with a proper Talokan citizen!” Namora shouted at him as if she had any right to do so.
“How, Namora? How do you propose something that I haven’t already tried for the last 500 years? I have tried everything that science in our society could suggest as well as trying the practices that surface-dwellers have had success with, and yet, I still remained childless until now! This could be my only chance, and I am not going to allow it to slip through my fingers just because you or the rest of the Talokanil aren’t happy that the child is part surface-dweller!” Namor shouts back at her, getting right in her face when he does.
“It’s because it’s part surface-dweller that causes me to feel the shame you are refusing to feel. The fact your body wouldn’t allow you to bless some Talokan woman with your seed that I feel the shame you’ve never felt” Namora growls back at him looking him right in his eyes.
Pushing his forehead against hers while not backing down from their staring contest, he admits to her and Attuma softly, “You don’t think I’ve ever felt the shame of knowing that I could never have children of my own these long years? That I haven’t looked to the universe and asked the ancestors why they’d cursed me? That me, the God-King of my people, could never have a child that was part of me? Do you think I am truly so heartless that knowing it took me falling in love with a surface-dweller to finally achieve what I’ve been wanting for most of my life? If I could’ve, I’d have had dozens of children sired by countless women in Talokan if I could’ve made them, but I wasn’t able to and that shame will live with me until I see the eyes of my child. When they are born, I will finally get to be, not only God-King to the Talokan people but also a Father. The final achievement in any good God-Kings life.”