Chapter 2
M’Baku is awake when his beads chime and vibrate against his wrist. Absently he plucks at the bead to answer the call, but does not take his eyes off the tablets in front of him. He quite likes them, the dim glow they provide his private study. A far cry from the handwritten scrolls often used in his homeland. He misses that scent, almost vanillin, not quite—but he appreciates the speed at which he can do work, now. Dipping into ink over and over takes more time than he realized.
It’s ultimately a quiet sigh that drags his attention to his friend. Shuri’s face is slightly pixelated, but clear. The bags under her eyes are deep, but better than their last call. She looks exhausted, but determined.
“Good evening, my Panther.”
“Good morning, my King.” She tilts her bracelet to show him a window in her room, the sprawling cityscape outside. Sure enough, the early morning sun glints against skyscrapers and rain-slick streets. He has no idea where she is, but it doesn’t matter.
“What’s troubling you?”
He knows it’s serious when she doesn’t bother rejecting his concern. Normally, when she wants to be coy about her feelings, she’ll fight him with sharp quips. She is fluent in denial just as he is learning to be fluent in her.
“I have a secret.” Her voice is quiet but the beads are far too advanced to let it go unheard.
M’Baku sets his tablet aside and stares more intensely into the hologram projected by the beads. “I suspect you have many, as all good people do.”
Shuri smiles faintly and some of the tension seems to seep from her shoulders. “Do you believe in the ancestral plane?”
M’Baku nods. “Of course. I pray to the ancestors often.”
“But the plane—seeing them, in the afterlife or upon taking the herb, do you believe in that?”
“Of course,” he says again.
Shuri rolls her eyes, but the expression is more fond than annoyed. “Of course you do, Great Gorilla, lover of traditions and history.”
M’Baku nods. He even goes so far as to stroke his beard sagely and is rewarded with a reluctant laugh. “I take it you do not believe.”
Shuri shakes her head. “I didn’t,” she confirms. He doesn’t react to the past tense phrasing. “No matter what stories Baba and Mother told, or what T’Challa described. It was just too fantastical to believe. Though I knew the powers of the herb, I didn’t necessarily believe in Bast, or the legends.”
It is M’Baku’s turn to playfully sneer. “Of course you didn’t,” he mimics, struggling to stifle a laugh at Shuri’s indignant expression, “Black Panther, lover of science and technology.”
She waves away his teasing. “Gloat all you like.”
“I will, thank you.”
He doesn’t, though. Not really. He falls quiet and watches the pixels move as Shuri breathes deeply and carefully.
“The rituals state,” she begins again, voice soft once more, “that when you take the heart-shaped herb, you will be taken to the ancestral plane. There, an ancestor will give you guidance. T’Challa told me he saw our Baba both times. The history books talk of other Panthers seeing their spouses, parents, best friends.”
M’Baku doesn’t react, though a sinking feeling takes over his gut. He shifts uncomfortably, but Shuri is too lost in her thoughts to notice.
In a hush, words wet with tears, she says, “I saw N’Jadaka.”
M’Baku sighs. He lets her confession sit for a moment. He gives it the time and respect it deserves, and allows her the dramatic moment he knows she’s anticipating. Then, he says, “I know.”
Her gaze snaps to him so quickly he can feel a sympathetic twinge of pain in his neck. Her eyes shine, even through the hologram, with anger and unshed tears. Her look is one of disgust—not aimed at M’Baku, but at herself. His heart aches, but he doesn’t apologize.
“How.” She demands the answer; not a question or a request but a demand, not unlike that night in J’Abariland. The night when she stood before him with her back ramrod straight and vengeance in her gaze. The night when she pointed at him, gold claws gleaming, and demanded his assistance in taking down K'uk'ulkan.
He does as asked now, just as he did before. “You were his spitting image, my Panther.”
Her shocked gasp wounds him, but he doesn’t let it stop him.
“Even your hair. Some might have mistaken it for your styling from your mourning garb, but I know better. Had you let the ends of your braids sprawl rather than tying them back with ceremonial twine, you would’ve been N’Jadaka’s twin.”
Shuri is breathing hard now. He can tell by the way the hologram trembles. Shuri’s beads—in her hand or around her wrist—are trembling too.
“Your suit, those gold accents, the homage was clear whether you intended it to be or not. You were not quite the Golden Jaguar he was, but the resemblance was readily apparent. His rage illuminated you, propelled every single action you took.
“The way you stood before me and demanded my assistance, the way you carried yourself into battle. Even the way you rose to your feet on the bow of the ship and declared war on K'uk'ulkan and his people.”
“But you…” Shuri’s cheeks are tear-streaked now. She looks even more tired. “You never said anything.”
“What would I say?” He looks at her, brow furrowed and lips drawn into a deep frown. “As clear as the resemblance was, I could see your confliction just as easily. You wear your emotions plainly, Shuri, even more so when they are emotions as powerful as rage and fear.”
Her sob is choked and short. Yet, she looks relieved.
“He told me I was just like him. That my brother was weak, but that I could get shit done, just like N’Jadaka. I told him he was right.”
It’s clear she’s searching for something. Absolution, maybe, for her guilt; or perhaps she wants him to chide her, scold her, feed into that traitorous evil voice that surely haunts her at all hours. He will not give either to her. He will speak his mind, and she can take whatever she likes from his words.
“He was right.”
Shuri’s eyes widen.
“You did get shit done,” he parrots. “But you did it on your own terms, just as your brother did. Your brother showed N’Jadaka mercy. You gave the same privilege to K'uk'ulkan.”
“But…”
“But what?”
Shuri looks away. She turns her gaze toward the sunlight. Her lower lip trembles. “Part of me still wishes I killed him. Part of me, it scares me, how much I regret letting him live, sometimes.”
“Hard choices weigh heavily even after they are made.” He waits, but she doesn’t look at him. He continues. “The elders were not wrong. I did want K'uk'ulkan dead for far less than kidnapping, than waging war on Wakanda. And it is natural, perhaps, to think that the death of our Queen Mother would’ve made me more vengeful.”
Or, he thinks, it is natural to believe Shuri’s kidnapping made him more bloodthirsty. He doesn’t voice this thought.
He continues, “But vengeance is not such an easy thing. It is not so simple.”
Shuri sighs. M’Baku keeps going.
“It is impossible to know how our decisions will impact us years down the line. Surely your brother never could’ve foreseen revealing Wakanda to the world would lead to war with Talokan. Your Father could not know that killing his brother would fall back on the nation the way it did.”
She looks at him, curious but quiet.
“I do not know if letting the fishman live will still seem like the right decision in years to come. I do not trust him, and I know you do not either.”
“So why did you discourage me so vehemently, then?”
“Because I knew—just as you did—that killing K'uk'ulkan in the desert would not be the right decision in that moment. Perhaps killing him in the sand would’ve saved us from trouble we cannot imagine yet. Or maybe we are just too paranoid, and he may prove to be a valuable ally should the situation call for it.
“We do not know what the future holds, nor do the ancestors. Had you killed K'uk'ulkan in that moment, it is true that you might’ve saved Wakanda from some terror in the future. But you would’ve lost yourself, my Panther. You would be gone, burned up from the inside out, like the garden of the heart-shaped herb. There would’ve been no way to reach you.”
M’Baku allows himself an uncomfortable shiver. Shuri is intimidating even without the suit, but remembering her anger sparks fear in his chest, in an abstract way. To think of who she might be had she not reigned in her rage…it is not pleasant. His heart aches with grief that doesn’t even exist.
“So what do I do now?”
He gives her a great, exaggerated shrug. “I do not know. What do I look like, a wise and all-knowing leader of the most powerful nation in the world?”
Shuri snorts. It is not as mirthful as it could be, but it’s not as sorrowful either. “What would you do, then, if you were me?”
M’Baku nods and ponders her words. The sun outside her window shifts, glowing brighter. She looks, to put it mildly, wrecked. But she is stunning, too. He hopes after this conversation she can rest.
“You must accept that rage. That feeling in the back of your head,” he absently taps the back of his neck, “that says you should’ve struck K'uk'ulkan down, you must accept it. That voice may have been wrong at that moment. It may be correct in the future. We won’t know until we cross that bridge.
“You are strong enough to make the right choice should you need to. You’ve done it once, and you’ll do it many more times, I am sure.”
“How do you know, though?” Shuri scrubs at her face. “How do you know I am not some foolish child, with all this power and not a clue what to do?”
That answer, at least, is easy. “You are not N’Jadaka. Nor are you your brother, or your Baba. You are Shuri, former princess, technological genius, a young woman who sometimes scoffs at tradition. You are the Black Panther. You have never been a foolish child, no matter what I or anyone else said to you before. You are powerful, and you are smart. You are all the best parts of your brother—his intelligence, his good heart, his sense of right and wrong all live within you. But you are more than that, too. It does not mean you are the best parts of N’Jadaka, or that you are like him at all.
“You are simply Shuri, and that means you are different from all the Black Panthers that came before you. You are smart, but you are not blinded by logic anymore. You have a good heart, but you are not soft or malleable. You have a strong moral compass—though I know you doubt this often—and you refuse to compromise that compass with kindness alone.”
“You make it sound like a good thing, to be cruel.”
“Not good,” he concedes, “but sometimes necessary. Your brother was a fine king and excellent protector, but he was so very kind. It made him a good man, but it is hard for a good man to be king.”
“You’re king.”
“I am not always a good man, Shuri.”
“You are to me.”
M’Baku is glad for the pixelation, because he knows it hides some of his flustered blush. “It is hard for a good man to be king,” he says again, perhaps a touch too loud. Shuri grins at him. “And you do not need to be a good man to be Wakanda’s protector.”
“Or a man at all.”
M’Baku nods, of course conceding her point again.
“If I go too far, or if I seem like I might, will you stop me?”
“If I must, yes.” M’Baku could do it. Despite the power of the heart-shaped herb flowing through her veins, they’d be quite evenly matched. “But I suspect you are better at this whole decision-making thing than you think, so I doubt I will need to.”
“So much faith in me,” she says in disbelief, but her grin is wide. “What did I do to deserve such faith from my King?”
“You are you,” he says simply, “You are Shuri. My Panther.”
Shuri ducks. Perhaps the pixels of the hologram do not hide blushes as well as he thought. “Your Panther,” she agrees before opening her maw wide in a yawn.
“Perhaps you should take a catnap.”
She flips him off but she’s already scooting backwards, sliding under her covers, all things he can just barely see along the edges of the hologram. She doesn’t disconnect the call, though. She gets nice and cozy and despite the sun beating into her room, her eyes are heavy-lidded.
“You should sleep too.”
He leans over and finally darkens his tablets. The moonlight streams in and will guide him easily back to his chambers shortly. He nods to her. “You first.”
Shuri stares at him. Her expression is thoughtful, pleased, a beautiful blend of exhaustion and relief. She burrows closer into her pillow with both arms wrapped tight around the lumpy thing—her beads must be balanced on something beside her, the other pillow maybe. The spot where M’Baku might dare to lay his head, if he was there with her.
“Thank you,” she tells him quietly.
M’Baku stays on the call until her breathing evens out and she is resting. He stays on the call even as he slips out of his library and back into his private chambers. He stays on the call as he readies himself for bed. He stays on the call as he sets his beads on his bedside table.
He stays on the call as he himself falls asleep and dreams of waking beside his Panther come morning.