one | brother.
okoye is the first person to find you. of course she is. but there is something wrong, you can it in her eyes—they are not focused on you. they are looking beyond you, desperately searching for something (or someone?) as they wildly scan the area.
seeing the shattered glass a floor down seems to snap her out of whatever daze she was going through.
and the way you see her force herself to make direct eye contact with you only pains you more than what was at stake before. nobody said going through each individual nerve of a space stone connected to an android with human feelings was going to be easy. especially when that's the one reason why the grassy fields you once frequented as a child are now ablaze. the mind stone, as much as it was tempting, you resisted the urge to take notes as you did whatever you could.
"your highness."
(you've never heard her say that so stiffly before, but you're too tired to question it.)
"general," you say with a smile and a nod, "how have you been lately?"
"fine. and you?"
"well I can only guess that thanos has caught up to vision, considering the fact that he and the scarlet witch should've come straight back after their scuffle but..." you pause for a moment, hearing a soft keening noise escape okoye. "by bast, what is the matter?"
"your highness..." she looks up from her feet and this time, she looks you in the eye, diamonds glittering in her eyes. "the king is dead."
your smile falls and you wished you never asked.
two | kingdom.
despite your initial shock, you forced yourself up and left okoye behind, only to find the queen mother weeping at the feet of his throne.
she sees you, but just like okoye, she's not looking at you. she's probably searching for the soul of her husband in you. searching for your father's guidance. you can't bear to look at her any longer, so you walk over to her and crouch down to wrap your arms around her. almost immediately, her fingers jerk away from the small, intricate carvings that spiral from the floor upwards and around the armrests and they weave through your braids. they ghost over your hands and arms and face, almost as if she can't believe herself. almost as if...
"you are alive," she says quietly, heaving in another sob.
"mama, of course i am... why wouldn't be?"
"the others..." her sight draws away from you to the rest of the room and your eyes follow. dark patches of soot cover each seat in the room, save for m'baku's, and you don't understand still. you turn back to her with confusion.
"what happened?"
"the council is gone," she whispers, pulling you closer to her. "and now what? what will we do now? we have lost our brothers and sisters to a war we could've ignored and this is the price we paid."
"but our home still stands."
"yes, it does, yet what of its king? where is he? where is your brother?" you swallowed down the lump in throat.
you couldn't bring yourself to tell her; the look she holds in her eyes is lost. so you leave the queen mother where you found her, mourning silently the loss of her old allies and friends in the citadel.
three | diplomacy.
"everett ross."
"shuri."
"what are you doing here?"
"surveying the damage."
"and what about your country?"
"oh, them? there's been a vacuum of power in the last few days, so i thought it'd be best to make the most of my ambassador status and came here and see if aid needed to be sent," he explained, his face ragged and clothes wrinkled. you spied the the pulsing of electric blue curled around his wrist, reminding you of his position as one of the first outsiders to gain temporary identification to come and go as he pleased. you remembered how ungraceful he squawked as it was engraved upon his skin.
it's been more than a week since the war.
you don't blame him for trying to escape the nightmare that is politics.
(n'jadaka's snarl resonates all too sorrowfully now.)
"i see." you return to your work, ignoring the way he seems to glancing around with hesitancy in his actions.
"is... is t'challa alright?"
"... why ask?"
"oh, i just thought... it was strange that general okoye greeted me at the border instead of him. usually, when i do come, he's all smiles and laughter, saying that it's good to see me again." your fingers cease dancing across the keyboard.
"have you not heard?" you ask him.
"heard what exactly?"
"... he's gone." ross splutters.
"what? no! he can't be! i was just talking to him over the phone when—"
you cut him off, "the rouge faction of the avengers came to us with a plead for help. wakanda delivered."
(if he came from the border, there's no doubt in your mind that he saw the charred plains and rustic copper staining the ground and all around. the bodies of brave warriors have been collected up and recorded but what still remains are the shells of those things that took their lives have been left for the jabari to clean up.
from what you know, they'll fashion the creatures' bones into fine weaponry and armor.)
"so, so, so... all this time, who's been leading the people?" you look over your shoulder, tired, yes, but resolute as you rehearse your reply over and over again in your head.
"i have."
four | ascension.
surprisingly, it is not captain rogers who is the first avenger that comes to speak with you.
(some part of you wishes he does come and talk in due time. you don't want an apology from him, you just want to know how he and the rest of his friends are coping. even if it was they who brought strife and loss inside the borders, you are not heartless, they have lost as much as you have. family, friends, allies and enemies alike.)
it is thor.
thor—who apparently, in his absence from earth, has become the monarch of a non-existent kingdom—the man who has also lost his brother in the fight against thanos: the first victim of that monster's terror.
he stands by your side, an arm's width away, as the skies turn a hazy orange. his left eyeball rolls about in its socket wildly, occasionally focusing on something in the distance before it goes back to looking around, which makes you want to pull him aside and check if there's some sort of malfunction with alien technology being implanted without proper calibration. you've tried to do that once. but that racoon (a kind rabbit, as thor claims), rocket, says everything should be fine. it was stolen from some guy on a planet called contraxia after all. anything goes in space apparently.
"your majesty," you start, "what a surprise it is to see you here."
"please, this is your homeland, just my name is fine."
you wonder if there's something bothering him by the way his face is solemn. his arms are crossed together as leans against the railings, something you'd seen your brother doing too much before his crowning.
there are no more words spoken, and for a few minutes, only silence lingers in the air.
"you know, before my own, er, botched coronation, i wasn't afraid of anything. i used to think i could take everything in stride, and with me father's blessings, all would be fine," thor says before laughing to himself. "everywhere i turned, there were always people following behind me, some fighting for what they believed was right and others... well, regrettably, one could say my late brother wasn't as much of a follower as he was a schemer." you join in on his laughter, imaging how affronted loki must have been when he was being dragged around, but only stop once he tone turns serious once more. "but, oh, how wrong i was."
"what?"
"my own blindness was a bigger threat to anyone i knew as it was to me."
"and why are you telling me this?"
"it's because i don't want you to see you going down the same path as i did, or even like my brother, someone who is old i can make the simplest of mistakes, yet you are barely of age in migardian terms."
"i won't." he shakes his head sadly.
"but you already are."
"i'm not."
"or so you say."
"i..." you don't know what to say next. because he is right. you've distanced yourself from okoye and your mother, and you haven't heard from ross ever since the day he left wakanda. tattoo, bag and all. you've distanced yourself in fear that you too will feel their pain for the loss of t'challa because there is no one capable of leading the kingdom but you. m'baku and the temporary leaders of the other tribes refuse to find another that isn't of your kin to be king. actually, scratch that. you think it is their fear for another erik killmonger rising to power speaking. and, m'baku and his people are only just getting up to speed with vibranium, even if he is a prime candidate. but they have made their decision—one you cannot deny, even with your title.
you wish your brother was still here, dealing with the fallout.
you wish it was him standing by your side at this moment, confiding in you with his fears of facing another trail that comes with leadership.
you wish it had been you instead of him.
if it were you, maybe you wouldn't be here, contemplating the ceremony in the coming hours.
nobody would miss you. they would only miss your brain.
(you've never wanted to become a ruler.
ever since you were young, you decided it was not through combat that you would defend your home with. it would be with through technology, genius and wit that your kingdom would be protected from outside forces. you preferred books over spears, and guns to claws. you figured t'challa could handle everything else—yet, you remind yourself quietly when the moon comes out, he is no longer able to do that, and there isn't anything of him left. he's left everything behind without explanation and you cannot pin the blame on anybody but something untouchable.
and maybe that is why the new council want you up on the throne.
before, you had only a passion for advancement.
and now? now, you would hand over your very soul to do everything within your power to bring wakanda back to her feet.
and maybe that is what they need right now—what they see in you.
a good head on a good pair of shoulders.)
"come, young one." thor claps a hand on your back, dragging you away from the thoughts that have haunted your very dreams until now. "the sun is rising and soon, your land will be reborn again as it enters a new era with you at its helm."
(and maybe he's right, you think and allow yourself to be manhandled and wrangled down in front of a mirror. even if you did jokingly bash his head against a pillar after the ceremony.)
you know everything's going to be okay.