The Jabari lord sat next to her on the veranda, watching the fireworks – holograms, soundless so as not to traumatize animals, invented by Shuri on her twelfth birthday. His grand ceremonial garb lay at odds with his slumped shoulders and exaggerated lack of interest in ‘such festive nonsense’.
“We have received a miracle, brother,” she’d said earlier when she’d told him of T’Challa’s plan to hold a countrywide celebration, the most splendid in history, to honor those who had returned to the living and those who’d been forced to endure the world without them for the last five years. “And there’s been so much grief. Isn’t a little frivolity warranted?”
He’d huffed, digging through the mountain of paperwork on his desk, adjacent to hers, in the office they’d shared for the last half-decade. “Wastage. Indulgence. There are a million urgent matters to attend to. How many men and women returned to life only to find their homes had been sold or demolished? How many farmers came back only to find their fields barren and their wives married to other men? We must devise a plan for all of them in this reshaped world; we must…”
So he had continued for quite some time. She, remembering how once he’d barely been inclined to say more than two words to her, had listened and placated and eventually persuaded him to make an appearance at the party.
“The people deserve to see the man who kept them safe in their king’s absence,” she’d said.
Eyeballing her, he’d replied, “Flattery doesn’t become you. I don’t need false accolades. It was you who saved this nation from plunging into chaos.”
“Both of us, brother.”
Now, as the fireworks painted his handsome face green and red and gold, he glanced her way. “Smirking. Hmph. Explain yourself.”
She tapped her shin. “A spot of white in your beard.”
“It’s been there for months. I just stopped dyeing it yesterday. The men have been laughing at me.”
“I’m sure that’s not true.”
“It is! They already mock me for my eating habits, for losing my duel with T’Challa, for weeping at Princess Shuri’s funeral, for babysitting another man’s country only to hand it back without a fight, and now I am an old man. When generations to come learn the details of my reign in school, they will snicker at me.”
Pointedly, she tilted her head and, with it, her elaborately-styled hair. “You are old? Interesting. What does that make me, oh great gorilla?”
At that, he shifted in his seat. “I did not mean…”
“Clearly you did. I am most dreadfully insulted,” she said, folding her arms and mimicking his slouched, sulking posture. “After all this time, I thought we were friends. Now I learn that you see me as nothing but a relic, decrepit and haggard and fit only for mockery. If my husband were alive, he would strike you.”
Finally, a smile. “Your husband was a tiny man. I could swallow him without chewing.”
Gasping, she gave his bare knee a smack, and they both giggled.
Down below, the dancing had begun. Nakia’s ululations reached their ears and Ramonda saw a hundred flickers of light as her daughter posed for a selfie with the new Captain America. A sweet man, she thought, if somewhat riddled with self-doubt. Shuri would wed who she wanted, if she wed at all, but it couldn’t hurt to invite Mister – Officer? She’d need to check – around for dinner now and then. Politically, he would make a fine addition to the family.
“What are you plotting?” M’Baku asked.
Folding her hands in her lap, she said, rather smugly, “I am merely thanking God for my blessings.”
After a moment, his large hand came to lay gently upon her arm and he grunted, “As am I.”