Okoye glides to the ocean's edge, just close enough that the water laps at her sole and digs her deeper into the sand as it retreats. She dips her toe in the shallow water to trace aimless circles. It's a temptation and she almost feels silly doing it. Who knows if Attuma can see her, let alone cares even if he could.
They'd just shared that one night.
Okoye, newly divorced and finding her way in the world after being stripped of near everything, had ventured to Bubembe Island to assist environmentalists in their efforts at halting encroaching corporations. After ten days of protests and covert sabotage, the company had ceased their bulldozing and Okoye planned on leaving the next morning. Standing at the shore, enjoying the soft swell of the ocean around the small island, Okoye saw him in the distance.
Attuma emerged from the water and under the moonlight Okoye watched his skin shift from soft caramel to cobalt. Okoye’s heart at first raced as she quickly maneuvered into a defensive stance, ready for whatever the general might want. Other than a few civil words exchanged in the throne room as treaty rights were negotiated between Talokan and Wakanda, the two hadn’t interacted since their battle on the ship. A range of reasons for why he would make a sudden appearance rang through Okoye’s head - maybe he wanted revenge or needed to relay an urgent message. Maybe Talokan was tired of hiding in the ocean’s shadows as so much of the world continues to crumble and he was there to demand she pick a side in the surface world war.
“Why are you here, General?” Okoye demands but Attuma does not respond, just continues to march toward her. While Okoye doesn’t brandish her weapon, she keeps a hand tucked behind her back with her fingers wrapped around the hilt of her dagger. Prepared for a fight.
What she is not prepared for as Attuma finally reaches her is for him to hold out a hand to her. In his palm lays a string of pearls and beads held together by vibrant green thread. Okoye looks at him with a pinched nose and furrowed eyebrows, but he doesn’t provide an explanation.
“What is this?” Okoye finally demands, the strained silence getting to be too much for her nerves.
“A gift for an angel.”
She could blame her willingness to accept the necklace on many things - not wanting to jeopardize the already tenuous treatise between their two nations, delirium from the sleepless nights of fighting alongside under resourced people to take back their land, desperation for new experiences having lost all she knew prior.
But there had been a curiosity underpinning her view of the fierce Talokanil warrior. At first she attributed it to the need for revenge, but even after the rage from being stripped of her title as General had waned Okoye couldn’t get the thought of Attuma out of her head. Even before she knew him Okoye had to admit she was intrigued.
He let her learn him that night as they exchanged stilted stories and amorphous ideas in choppy conversation. They did not have sex though there were venturous hands and a few daring words. Attuma left Okoye as the first rays of sun hit the water to avoid the risk of being seen. He left her with the necklace and no promise of returning.
Okoye had ventured to many beaches since then but outside of her imaginations and questionable blurs from the corner of her eye, she didn’t see him again.
Still, she returns to the shore whenever she can.
After twenty minutes of waiting for what she was never promised, Okoye returns to the small village she’d been hiding in for a couple days. The moon was already high in the sky and her body was heavy with exhaustion and disappointment. So it was easy for Okoye to quickly change and curl under the blankets in her cot. She dozes off with Attuma on her mind.
“Angel.” The single word, paired with a strong hand on her thigh, jolts Okoye to wakefulness.
Attuma is there, kneeling so that they are at face level, his breathing apparatus almost touching her nose. Okoye takes a moment to steady her breathing, knowing she is not in any immediate danger. She sits up so she is looking down at Attuma with her knees at his chin level. His hand doesn’t move from her thigh.
“Hello, Angel.” He repeats the name, so many promises hinging upon it. They stare at each other uncertainty warring with desire.
“Hello, Attuma.”