She hadn’t even left yet and already she was looking back.
Haïti had done the work she had not allowed Wakanda to do. It all…hurt less. The broken pieces inside her had found where their jagged ends could fit without her having to try. Her heart would never be as beautiful or as whole as it once was, but she was…okay with its shape.
She was different now. She wasn’t leaving Haïti quietly. And she was accepting the arms that had opened to embrace her. All the goodbyes, all the hellos.
First Toussaint, his wiry arms linking around her waist as they waited for her taxi to arrive, teeter-tottering in the yard in front of Nakia's little pink house as they swayed from foot to foot. It’d be the last time they play together like this for a while. He’d made her promise to visit him again a hundred times.
“Of course. If I don’t stop by sometimes, how can I keep my title as your favorite?”
He’d giggled. He’d pressed his cheek into her stomach harder. “You’re my favorite auntie.”
“I know, but I’m out to win all the titles. I guess you’re going to make me work harder next time.”
She’d kept him giggling until the cab came. And that’s when the crying began.
His tears—“I love you, Auntie Shuri.”
Her tears—“I love you, too, T’Challa.”
And then Nakia’s tears. The ones Shuri hadn’t expected, the ones that came with the embrace she also hadn’t expected but hoped for. She thought she could handle their not agreeing, but if she had left with nothing, with them not saying anything else to each other…
She felt her whole body relax as the other woman’s arms wrapped around her shoulders. And squeezed. She hugged her back as she felt her neck and collarbone get wetter and wetter. “I know,” she’d said to Nakia’s knotted brow and shaking head when they parted, the concession she would not, wouldnot, voice. “I understand.”
“...You will always have a home here in Haïti. With me.”
“Thank you.”
Then there was Wakanda’s embrace. That’s what it had felt like at the end of her 20-hour journey from Port au Prince to JFK to Wakanda International Airport, when she’d opened the plane’s window shade and saw her country before her. The puffy clouds splashed in pink and gold as the sun finished its rising. The mountains lifting their blankets of nighttime fog; the greens of the farmlands and trees. And the rivers cutting through the open plains, their silvery bodies snaking through city after city, and then into The Golden City itself.
It was like settling back into herself again after being away for so long. Even her blood, the Black Panther Spirit in her veins, seemed to…wake up.
“Welcome home,” the pilot intoned above the sniffles, awed exclamations, and the singular claps of joy coming from the old man in the aisle before hers. “Wakanda has been waiting to embrace you.”
And then, the hugs got harder to keep count.
There was (King) M’Baku’s embrace—the only one to lift her feet from the ground (“Eh-heh! A proper Jabari Land greeting for The Black Panther upon her return from Hay-ai-ti!” ).
And then the Dora’s, the most ceremonial. A synchronized Wakandan salute by the dozens of women standing in lines of ten, and a speech from Ayo that had a not-request for her to begin training once she was fully re-adjusted. (“I remember you convincing the late King T’Chaka to let you focus on the initiatives of the science division. But The Black Panther cannot only spend her time with her inventions and machinery. The body itself is a machine, and we will make sure that as you take on the calling of protecting Wakanda and her people, it works as seamlessly and flawlessly as your mind.”)
Hugs from The Council members and her fellow researchers and scientists—back-to-back surprises.
And then Aneka, who wasn’t formal with her welcome at all (“I’m still the only Midnight Angel here; I wasn’t going to plan something big all by myself.” ). Hers was the hug that came with plans—plans to spend a day at the salon, plans to eat at about five new places that had opened or re-opened in the city, plans for suit upgrades—and the reveal of her engagement ring, which only brought on more plans.
Every hug she received was what she wanted.
Except…someone was missing. And her heart wasn’t allowing her to forget it.
Maybe it made more sense to wait. To allow herself to adjust to waking and sleeping close to the same times as everyone else. Or to allow herself to really take stock of how much had changed while she was gone: the new projects in the lab, the preparations for upcoming negotiations. Or just allow herself to…spend more than a moment in the eastern wing of the palace, the space (King) M’Baku left just for her—
“Absolutely not. Absolutely not to your leaving. You are a royal of The Golden Tribe—”
“I’m the only royaland member of The Golden Tribe—”
“Exactly! You are a royal and you are a tribe. No royal of any tribe in Wakanda lives outside of their compounds and palaces, and you have lived here your entire life. I will not have it any other way, and if you force me to make you stay here—if you make me make you accept that you will still live here—I will. As your king and your friend.
“Unpack your things, Shuri.” —
but she didn’t want to wait.
Shuri dug through her bags for jade, gold, and pearls, and left the palace before sundown in a car that she couldn’t imagine M’Baku had ever been behind the wheel of.
She drove through the city and its outskirts. And when the roads and outskirts turned into the vegetation she’d seen from the plane and worn tire paths, she drove through them too. And when the road turned into grass, she did what she had done back when it had been her and her mother to make this journey: she left her car with her spear in her right hand and their old bag of camping items on her back.
But also, under her left arm, a wireless speaker.
She walked until she found the elephant path, and then walked some more. One foot after the other, every step punctuated with the beat of her heart, until finally—finally—she was at the waters where it had all begun.
One blow into the conch shell, cleaned from the dust it had gathered on her chest of drawers back in Haïti, and then one toss of it into the water.
A playlist-and-a-half later on the bit of beach with no sign of him, and it started to not feel like enough of a greeting. So she turned up the volume, kicked off her sneakers and socks, and dipped her feet into the water—and then, hissing at the cold, she reconsidered.
Back to the sands. And then a removal of everything that wasn’t her underwear or her bracelet.
She hissed as the water came up her ankles, her shins, her thighs, her waist. And then there she was: waiting.
She watched the moon make its trek across the sky. She watched the tail of her bracelet ripple the liquid around her and then dipped her hand inside, her motions almost playful.
Her ears caught snatches of the music and without realizing when, she’d begun mouthing the words when she could make them out. Song after song after song, wails and pleas and crooning.
She’d been stumbling over a string of words—
“Locked in for life, on God, no replacin' me
Consequences, repercussions, karma keep on changin' me—”
—when there.
That ripple right towards her, that had stopped with a splash against her stomach, hadn’t come from her. Nor did the one that followed after it.
One moment there was no one in front of her. No god-shaman-warrior-mutant-king; no object of her thoughts her dreams.
And then there he was. As real as the first time he’d emerged from the depths, fully formed, and coming straight towards her.
She had about four heartbeats to take in his every step and action. The push of his hair with his free hand, the other clutching her shell. The glow of his jewelry, the familiar neckpiece and pearls… The cape over his shoulders and his hip cloth were new. His hair looked longer.
“Hello, princess.”
“Hello, Ch’ah Toh.”
“Welcome home.”
“Welcome back.”
He smiled, and she found herself smiling, too.
There was more to say but she was already moving closer to him. Her arms draped over his shoulders; her hand dug into the fabric of his cape. He smelled like the ocean and that other fragrance she’d caught the last time they were this close.
His arms snaked around her. “Kutaj jach perfecta u in paach...”
She pressed her forehead against his, her eyes closing. In their shared silence, she could feel the beads of water dripping from his skin land on her. She could feel the spines of her conch shell that he still held dig into her hip. There were the opening chords of piano keys and bass strings, SZA not waiting to make her voice heard…
I need you poolside, you've been on my mind
Wonder if you're all mine, why do it matter anyway? (Fuck it)
I like your soft side, I like you on top
You make my thoughts stop…
“I have missed you,” he murmured.
“I’ve missed you, too.” Her eyes opened when he hummed but said nothing else. “You don’t seem shocked that I said that.”
“I am shocked. And surprised and pleased.”
A few more moments of silence, of faraway wailing and pleading and crooning until they part—but only just enough to gaze at one another. “You know that I left. And that I left for you—but not why.”His hand lifted to her chest. Paths of water ran down her body and over her beating heart. “Shall I tell you?”
She looks up from his touch and into his eyes. “Yeah.”