drowning in an endless sea (take some time and stay with me)
TW: grief & panic attack
The flames had greedily consumed her ceremonial mourning outfit. Shuri wondered if her grief could be so easily burned away.
After meeting Toussaint/T’Challa II, Shuri had asked for some time alone as she stared at the waves. T’Challa II had his mother’s smile but his father’s eyes. Her brother’s eyes. His cheeks were full and were reminiscent of her Umama. The strong nose and shape of his face reminded her of her Baba. Other features were reminiscent of Nakia’s family but her nephew was a wonderful and cruel mix of Shuri’s dead.
Tears burned in her eyes as they slipped freely. A sob wracked her chest as she cried for all that she had loss. All that had been stolen from her and she was so soangry at her brother for leaving her. For her father’s death in the machinations of a sociopathic madman. For her mother having been drowned and murdered. For that part of her soul that screamed for the blood of her mother’s murderer but was tempered by her mother’s love and her compassion for the innocents in both her and K’uk’ulkan’s kingdoms.
After all her tears were spent, she sat with her grief and drifted into dreams of purple skies, her father’s proud look, her brother’s laugh, her mother’s gentle caress and a fanged smile that morphed into a predatory smirk.
Daughter of T’Chaka and Ramonda. Descendant of Bashenga. Child Who Scoffs at Tradition. Most Gifted in Wakanda. Black Panther. I will grant your wish but there is a heavy price. You will be my avatar. My sworn protector. My eyes to the mortal realm. Prepare yourself.
***
Shuri’s head felt full of cotton. Her eyes felt swollen from crying and she curled into a small ball. She just wanted to curl on the beach and lay there with all her grief.
She pulled the blankets over her head and wished she could be swallowed by the Earth. Maybe there was another hidden civilization in the center of the Earth ready to take the last of what she had left.
Wait . . . blankets?
Shuri’s eyes snapped open as she realized that she was no longer on the sandy beaches of Haiti. Instead the surface beneath her felt like her bedroom in Wakanda. Throwing her blankets off her body, she bolted up to look at a Wakandan sunrise peeking through the open panes of glass in her bedroom.
Glancing down at her body, she realized that she was wearing one of her dad’s old Jaws t-shirt, black sleep shorts and white socks. Her kimoyo beads were on her wrist but she was missing a few additonal beads.
Her mind rapidly took in the old design of her bedroom, her longer hair and softer, less calloused hands. Scrambling out of her bed, she tapped the wall as the digital interface of the wall turned into camera mode and allowed Shuri to stare at herself.
At her 18 year old self.
Holy shit!
How was this possible? Did she die? Was this all a hallucination constructed by her damaged brain as it slowly shuts down? Did she die bleeding out at the edge of that cursed desert pinned by Namor’s spear?
Before her mind could spiral any farther, the world seemed to slow and the sky turned to the blue, pink, purple aurora borealis that seem to signify the ancestral plane. A single black panther that exuded a divine and godly aura stared Shuri down and Shuri could swear that the panther was smirking at her.
You asked for a chance to save your ubhuti1. Here it is, child.
In a blink of an eye, she was back in her bedroom as she gasped for air. Dazed and panicked she grabbed Banthandwa, a stuffed panther that T’Challa had gifted her when she was a baby, and started reciting the twelve mathematical ways she knew how to say “i love you”. Starting with 143, 831, 721, K3U, n3λ0lI, 2(2X-i) > 4X – 6U, 224 and so forth. After that she went over every digit she knew of pi (π) and it wasn’t till she got to the 100th digit did her hands stop shaking, her breathes steadied and her heart stops feeling like its about to burst out of her chest.
“Princess. Your heartbeat and cortisol levels are at an alarming rate.” her AI, Griot’s voice rang.
So distracted and lost in her panic attack, she didn’t hear the burst of the door as panicked and heavy footfalls entered the room. Didn’t notice the clang of armor and swish of her umama’s2 dress.
“SHURI!” a panicked voice calls her name and cuts through the fog of her distress. In a blink of an eye, her mother lowered herself to the floor and gently cradled her face. Scanning her head to toe, with alarmed but sharp eyes. Finding no physical harm, she gently wipes the tears that had streamed down her daughter’s face.
Her daughter looks at her as if she was a ghost. Her pupils were wide and panicked. Almost in disbelief. Had a nightmare disturbed her daughter’s sleep? Or . . . the proud line of her shoulders and back slumped, was it the recent passing of her husband that had caused such distress? At the news of her father’s passing, Shuri had become subdued and distant. Locking herself in her lab, Shuri had relentlessly buried herself in her work and every day drove herself to the brink of exhaustion. There were multiple times that she had to carry Shuri to the cot she kept in the lab for overnight experiments. Only video calls with T’Challa, testing out new inventions or spending time with her had brightened that dull look in her daughter’s eye. Her son had stayed in Vienna to chase after her husband’s killer and as the transition of power shifted, she had become Regent for the time being.
“Umama” slips out of Shuri’s voice, broken and disbelieving. Was this a cruel dream? A heavenly nightmare? At the moment, Shuri didn’t care as she launched herself into her mother’s embrace and felt her face smooshed against her mother’s. A hand covered her head gently while another soothingly rubbed down her back.
Her mother’s chest starts to rumble as her low and velvety voice sings a lullaby, Shuri hasn’t heard since she was a child.
“Thula thul' baba
Thula sana
Thul' umam' uzobuya ekuseni
Thula thul' thula baba
Thula sana
Uzodlul' entabeni etafeni
Kukho inkanyezi ehol' umama
Emkhanyesela indlela eya ekhaya
Sobe sikhona
Xa bonke besitsho
Besithi beyel' ekaya
Ubuyel' ekhaya
Thula thula thula sana
Thula thul thula mntwana
Thula thula thula sana
Ungakhali sana”3
In her mother’s embrace, Shuri felt safe, loved and stable in a way she hadn’t since her brother’s passing had upended their life. Exhaustion beckons and she slipped into a dreamless sleep.
Ramonda looks at her youngest and concern prickles at the back of her neck. She had planned to call her youngest to breakfast but a notification came through her kimoyo beads of Shuri’s elevated heartbeat and cortisol levels. She was having a panic attack.
One of the Dora, Ayo, was a respectable distance away giving a false sense of privacy. Knowing that the Dora would never divulge her family’s secrets or moments of weakness, Ramonda gently lifted her daughter back in her bed. She huffed in amusement at the stuffed panther clutched in Shuri’s hands. Smoothing down her daughter’s hair, the lines of her face smoothened out and wistfulness lingers in her chest. Shuri despite her proclamations of being an adult and genius intellect is still but a child. We shall let her be a child for a little much longer.
However, Shuri’s haunted and grief stricken eyes stuck in the queen mother’s mind for the rest of the morning. An ominous feeling swirled in her stomach at her daughter’s reaction to seeing her. For a split second, her daughter seemed older than her 18 years.
Before she could pursue that train of thought, her kimoyo beads rang and vibrated, and she sighed. The duties of Regent Queen were never ending. Praying to Bast for her children’s health, happiness and safety, she continued her day.
***
Unbeknownst to the rest of the royal family, Zuri, Elder Statesman and Shaman, went amongst his morning divination of throwing bones. The skeleton key, amethyst, claw, sors bone and feather appeared in a pattern before him. The blood drains from his face as he reads the signs. Crossroads, soul, past, present and future, fate and travel. Bast. What had their goddess done? Who had the power to alter fate? And what did this mean for the future of Wakanda?