Shuri in Jabari lands
Shuri wakes up to the rhythmic thump of feet and the harsher call of voices. Seconds later once she’s ascertained the noise is what she thought it was she slumps back into her thin bed with a groan. It was Sunday. Sunday meant challenge day, and even though it was still so early in the day there were already fighters testing their mettle against her ‘White Wolf.’ The name was coined by one of the first challengers Barnes fought and it’s stuck through the months of her stay in Jabari land. Shuri doesn’t care for the name and she cares even less for the stupid challenges her Jabari hosts sent to her every week. She blinks blearily up at the ceiling when a high pitched shout pierces through the din of the morning and contemplates her options for the day. Let’s see, she could get up, eat something, tinker some more with the special Jabari wood she’s managed to gather, practice her terrible Jabari speaking, worry endlessly about her mother, miss her labs for the millionth time. Oh and contemplate the high possibility her brother was dead. What fun. What a lovely day to do the same thing she’s been doing for months. Anger and irritation force her out of the bed. Not too far away, a small table sporting the ugliest kettle she’s ever seen sits, next to it is a familiar small cup. There are dried tea leaves at the bottom, awaiting fresh hot water. Shuri eyes the leaves for a long moment before she lifts the kettle to pour some water. This is a new routine, Barnes didn’t used to set out tea for her before. Another yell from the outside of the small circular room that made up her entire world now, a crashing sound that she would definitely wince at were she closer to see what had just been smashed, and then jeers from an audience she knew very well. Barnes must have won. She smiles for the first time since she woke up and slowly sips at the tea. The water isn’t hot anymore, but the tea is still good. :-: Shuri’s first week in the mountains was terrible. Her mother and Nakia had only expected her to stay in Jabari lands, a lower part of their territory near Border Tribe landsterritory, for a bit. Just long enough for them to resolve the situation with Killmonger. They had not expected for a Jabari party to immediately arrest Shuri and her accompanying white man. They had not expected for said Jabari party to bring her so far or so deep into the Jabari mountains. Maybe if they had, they would have had Shuri hide somewhere else, maybe if they had Shuri wouldn’t be trapped up the mountain for so many months. Shuri remembers being cold and frightened for the entire duration of the trek up the mountain. That fear only began to dissipate, replaced by apprehension and cool appraisal when she was brought directly to Lord M’Baku. The ‘throne room’ if it could be called that is surprisingly vast and were Shuri not so cowed by their journey and the precariousness of her situation would have openly analyzed the room and its fixtures more. In the moment, it’s all she can do to hold her head higher and not burst into exhausted tears, in the face of so many harsh and foreign faces. Chief amongst them, the man that had almost defeated her brother in ritual combat not too long ago. “Well… I did not believe my men when they told me a Panther Tribe child had wandered into our lands. Thank Hanuman, wonders will never cease.” M’Baku’s first words are in common Wakandan and mocking. Shuri almost snipes back, that she hadn’t ‘wandered’ anywhere. But the words dance aimlessly in her head, her tongue is too heavy. M’Baku makes a show of looking at her and then directly behind her to the white man flanking Shuri. His words take on an edge that sets Shuri’s teeth on edge. “And you have brought a white shadow with you. Why? Are you looking to curse me and my people? Because if you are—” “I was brought here by your men. I did not ask to be brought here… in fact I specifically told them to leave me be! I had no intention of coming up the mountain—“ Shuri is quick to defend herself but M’Baku interrupts her partway, leaning forward with a frown. “Then why were you trespassing on Jabari land? They tell me they found you nearly a quarter of the way up the mountain. What was the reason?” M’Baku questions and Shuri flounders between the truth and what was most convenient. Her fingers reach aimlessly for where her kimoyo beads would be and she clears her throat before answering. “I was running from my cousin. I wasn’t planning on staying in Jabari land, if your men had listened to me I wouldn’t be here now.” M’Baku’s eyes narrow at her first sentence and the expression makes Shuri wonder for the first time if the Jabari even knew Wakanda had a new king yet. It had only just happened, it was barely three days since Killmonger arrived. “So, you broke our treaty and encroached on Jabari territory because… a cousin was chasing you?” The Jabari lord sounds skeptical, not for the first time Shuri wants to scream. She had felt this way when faced with a group of fearsome Jabari, none of whom seemed to speak enough Wakandan to speak with her. She had felt like screaming when they had tried and failed to kill Barnes for following her and she felt like screaming now faced with a leader she knew hated her and definitely had no idea what had just occurred. “Wakanda has a new king. My cousin. He was born and raised in America, arrived in Wakanda days ago and successfully challenged my brother. When he won the challenge… my mother made me leave.” Shuri explains with the last dregs of her patience. Keeping her words straightforward and her tone even is much more difficult than it should be but she manages. M’Baku’s expression morphs into surprise and then a more pensive expression. Shuri waits impatiently for what he would say next, all while calculating how soon she could reasonably return to the capital. Surely her mother and Nakia were overreacting, surely she could simply lay low somewhere that wasn’t Jabari territory? She couldn’t be expected to stay here, M’Baku would never agree let alone his people. When the Jabari Lord has still not responded Shuri says, “You haven’t heard?” It’s a rhetorical question. “What of your brother?” M’Baku finally says and all the impatience flies out of her body, replaced by dread tinged uncertainty. “I don’t know. He was alive when I left.” Just barely after they fished him out of the river. “He didn’t yield?” M’Baku sounds… Shuri can’t place the emotion. Impressed? Worried? “No. He never yielded. Not even when Killmonger sent him over the falls.” Shuri says this with bitter pride, her back straightening and chin rising higher. Even beaten as he were, T’Challa never yielded. “And now a foreign cousin holds your goddess’ favor. Tell me, why does this cousin want you dead?” M’Baku’s remarks carve right through Shuri’s burgeoning patience. “Killmonger is not favored by anyone! Least of all Bast.” She refuses to use the name the American gave in the throne room, instead using the name Ross called him. It was more fitting. “If the heart shaped herb does not kill him then your goddess accepts him, doesn’t she?” “No! It means he’s Panther Tribe, the herb doesn’t kill us, it’s genetics.” Shuri can’t keep the derision out of her tone. She knows the priesthood and certainly the temple of Bast wanted Wakandans to believe the Black Panther was ‘chosen of Bast.’ But Shuri knows it’s not so mystical. She and her brother and her father were direct descendants of a long line to Bashenga. She could have taken the herb herself if she wanted and not died, as could Nakia, or any of the other tribe champions. There was enough Panther Tribe blood to protect them from the effects that had killed others in the past. It wasn’t Bast choosing anyone but their own inborn and specially cultivated resistance to the herb. M’Baku raises a hand as if to say ‘have it your way.’ Then his gaze lands once more on Barnes. “You did not answer my first question. Why have you brought this colonizer into our lands?” Barnes can’t understand what exactly she or M’Baku are saying but he seems to be able to sense just fine when the topic shifts to him. Something about M’Baku’s murderous glare perhaps. Shuri opens her mouth to explain, to give the long winded explanation of how they ended in custody of James Buchanan Barnes and then she stops. Bast had it really only been two weeks? How could her entire world have crumbled so quickly? “He is with me and he will be leaving with me.” She declares with more confidence than she’s actually feeling, calling forth the imperiousness that had served her well before. Unless M’Baku wanted a war, or more troubles, he would respect her position as princess of Panther Tribe. She couldn’t remove the programming if Barnes was dead and he definitely couldn’t fight all of the Jabari at once, now could she? M’Baku seems to be doing the same political calculation she just had and Shuri tries not to breathe too obvious a sigh of relief when his glare slides away from Barnes. However what the Jabari Lord says sends her heart racing. “And…where will you be going?” Somehow the fact that M’Baku is not leering or using the mocking tone from before makes everything so much worse. There’s no offense implied in his tone or sharp glances for her to react to. She can only contend with the honesty of his words. “Back to the capital of course. I can’t stay here, I didn’t mean to come here.” Her mother and Nakia couldn’t have been serious when they sent her to seek asylum with the Jabari… surely not. She’s sure they had just meant staying around Jabari land for a bit and not all the way up the mountain. Not that Shuri believed the Jabari would give her sanctuary, in the first place. “The seasonal flooding has already begun, Princess… if you seek a path down the mountain you will be walking to your own death.” M’Baku uses Shuri’s title for the first time and it sounds like an insult. Shuri picks on the most important part. “Surely you have vehicles for this? A little flooding shouldn’t stop all movement on the mountain.” She needed to get back to the capital, she couldn’t stay here. She’s sure M’Baku didn’t want her here either. “It’s not just ‘a little flooding.’ In fact it’s because of this seasonal change and the constraints of travel on the mountain that your Bast-cursed ancestors chose the timing of Challenge Day!” M’Baku is shouting by the end and Shuri leans back in reflex. M’Baku’s expression doesn’t change and Shuri is left to stew in awkward silence. Were she not so tied in her own increasing panic she might have asked how M’Baku was able to make it to challenge day this year. Had the flooding come later? “I can’t stay here. I can’t stay here… I have to return. My brother, my mother, they are waiting for me!” She can’t keep the panic out of her voice anymore. Bast curse the Jabari and their backward ways! How could a little change in seasons stop them from traversing down the mountain? What sort of nonsense was this? “I will not risk any of my people to send you on a fool’s errand. You may go if you wish, your death will not be on my head.” M’Baku pronounces with a swish of his hand and Shuri fights hard not to flinch at his words. He may be lying but she didn’t know enough to disagree. She had never paid that much attention to the weather patterns of the mountains, certainly not enough to know the change in seasons. A little flooding would never stop travel in the capital or mainland. How could the Jabari live like this? “What am I supposed to do while I wait?” How long would she be waiting for a clear path down the mountain? “We, the Jabari, are not unreasonable. My men knew you would soon be stranded and die once the season began. It is why they brought you with them. While you are here, I will host you.” Shuri doesn’t believe this, according to M’Baku’s own words she was only a ‘quarter’ up the mountain when they found her. How could she be stranded from that? But she has more to worry about with the singularity of M’Baku’s offer. “What about him?” She flicks a thumb to the man behind her. “I said he is with me. If you host me you must host—“ M’Baku’s gaze is scornful as he tells her, “The Jabari are not so foolish as the lowlands, we will not host colonizer scum within our borders.” Shuri gives up, she couldn’t not have Barnes with her. They both needed somewhere to stay while they waited for this ‘seasonal change’ to run its course.“Then you can not host me. He is *with* me.” M’Baku’s expression doesn’t even change. It gives Shuri the impression of talking to a wall. A wall that held her life and Barnes’ currently in its grasp. “He’s…” Shuri loses the last vestiges of her reluctance, the situation as it stood suddenly crystal clear to her. “My brother spared your life at Warrior Falls. You owe him a life debt.” For the first time Lord M’Baku shifts in his seat as if he might stand and Shuri pretends she did not want to take several steps back from where he sat. “Your brother is dead, Princess, or he soon will be.” M’Baku speaks as if he were talking to a child, and the surprising gentleness is the only thing keeping Shuri from immediately falling to pieces. She soldiers on. “T’Challa promised this man that he would help him. He gave his word that I would help him. Lord M’Baku, my brother is a man of his word. Are you?” :-: Eventually Shuri leaves the room to join the growing crowd of onlookers and fighters outside. Her appearance causes a ripple throughout the crowd, she ignores the stares and whispers to find herself a seat. She picks a spot not too far from the enclosure the challenges were normally staged in and stares intently at the ground not too far from where Barnes was standing. A milky substance that looked like blood shimmered back at her and Shuri wrinkles her nose in distaste. Her expression turns a little more serious when Barnes looks her way. Despite the rigorous fighting that had probably been going on for hours, he didn’t look too bad, in fact he looked much better than how he had in the early days after they first arrived. There were less bruises too. She didn’t know much about the man her brother had brought into Wakanda to help but so far she hasn’t needed to. Despite being literally thrust into the role as her protector and champion, Barnes has never shown hesitation when it mattered. When Shuri decided weeks into that first terrible month that she would be going down the mountain come rain or landslide, Barnes had been behind her. When they were immediately turned around by the ridiculous Jabari landscape, he had been with her. When she had almost fallen down a ravine after hours of trekking, he had caught and carried her. So when he silently brought her back to M’Baku’s house she couldn’t exactly argue with him. M’Baku’s mocking had been enough. “White Wolf! Prepare yourself!” Someone in the mixed group of warriors and their supporters calls out in mangled English and Jabari and Shuri fights to not roll her eyes. As usual when spoken to, Barnes didn’t speak back but his expression and stance showed a readiness. The warrior goes on to say something else that Shuri does not understand, it’s not the usual threat, insult or goading they all seemed to favor. Barnes probably understood it, at this point he spoke better Jabari than her. An incredible feat for someone who spoke once a week. In the beginning Shuri had worried that someone would die or that Barnes would be hurt since he only had one arm and was still burdened with programming she had yet to be able to analyze properly. Worse, she worried the white man would hate her. For dragging him here, and being surrounded by Jabari who hated him more than they hated her, and the Jabari really hated Panther Tribe. The challenges were to her after all and it was only her ‘youth’ in the eyes of the Jabari that allowed Barnes to be her champion. And in turn his status as her champion was what allowed a pretext for their continued tolerance of his presence here. She inhales slowly and pretends to be very interested in the pattern on a nearby platform when some Jabari children her age walk past. Despite their distance—they all kept their distance from her, as if she had a contagious disease—she could tell from their eyes and snickers she was a topic of discussion. They don’t have the same caution for Barnes for some reason and one of the shorter ones even draws close enough to say something to the man. She assumes one of them is the person who’s been passing tidbits to Barnes. That or who he’s been observing enough to get what passed for news for them. If she didn’t receive offers every so often to have Barnes quietly killed for her, she would think the Jabari liked him. They certainly treated his existence like some immoral novelty and the weekly day people came down to fight him as if it were a holiday event. For her there was polite disdain and distance, for Barnes—who admittedly did all the work she had been assigned upon confirming her decision to remain in Jabari lands after the floods let up and thus ventured out more—there was tepid curiosity, rude propositions and weekly fights. The warrior who had spoken up earlier stands out from the group and Shuri realizes they were a woman. Or maybe not…the Jabari didn’t use the same pronoun or gender markers in their speech that Wakandans did. If she had a proper teacher, or even a regular conversational partner and not just M’Baku talking down to her occasionally in Jabari, she might be able to pick out more than the six obvious pronoun tenses. Based on the calls from the crowd, Shuri decides the warrior was probably a ‘she’ and starts to make a story in her head about the tattoos on her back. She’s not really paying attention to the fight. Even with one arm, Barnes held his own just fine. Besides, this fighter wasn’t like some of the others who wanted to hurt him, she seemed to just want a spar. There were a decent number of warriors like her, Shuri didn’t mind them. They didn’t come to her to posture, they just showed up for challenge day on Sundays. For a time the only sound in the air around her is flesh hitting flesh and the low murmurs of onlookers. Then someone starts growling. Shuri groans as the sound spreads to what seems like every warrior in the area. The sound soon becomes deafening and then it fades once the reason for all the commotion, Lord M’Baku strolls into view. His presence like usual seems to energize the gathered warriors and they go from mostly gossiping and watching the ongoing fight to trying to outdo each other in front of their leader. They were all such show-boats. Even the current challenger isn’t unaffected and Shuri winces now from the force of the attack when her blows connect. Barnes, calculative as he is reads the wind change and doesn’t press as hard as he could nor does he fight as hard as Shuri has seen him fight. It’s not long till the warrior ‘catches’ him in a pin that ends the fight. Shuri watches with a stiff expression, it was hardly noon. If all the fights were like this because of M’Baku’s presence… As if summoned, M’Baku begins to walk her way. “Princess, good morning!” He uses the Jabari dialect when he calls out to greet her and Shuri is forced out of respect to all the eyes watching to respond in kind. “Lord M’Baku, good morning.” Once he’s closer he switches to Wakandan and Shuri is hit with a wave of relief. She hated when he forced her to speak only in Jabari. She knew only so many words and he did it only to laugh at her pronunciation. “There has been news.” Despite the fact most nearby probably spoke minimal Wakandan, M’Baku speaks softly. If they were not standing so close she wouldn’t be able to hear him. But she does and her eyes immediately widen. The only news she cared about was news from the capital, about her brother, about her mother, about Wakanda. “What’s happened? Tell me?” She insists when M’Baku doesn’t immediately follow with more information. “Well, it would appear your brother is not dead. In fact, he is so well he is getting married.” M’Baku’s tone is light but the words are heavy. Shuri just stares, shock and confusion battling for the strongest emotion. “What?” “He’s getting married. He sent a special message to you with the king’s missive to the Jabari on the situation. He—“ “Where is the message? Show it to me!” Shuri can’t focus on anything else. Her brother, T’Challa had sent her a message. Not M’Baku, her. “It is with my council, you are welcome to read it later. Do you want to wait or will you let me finish?” M’Baku sounds childish now and Shuri almost bites her tongue. The man just enjoyed the dramatics, otherwise he would have brought the damned message with him! “Fine. Tell me.” Shuri relents, looking up in time to see Barnes dodge an attack that would have laid someone else flat on their back. “Your brother, prince T’Challa, implores you to decline the king’s invitation to his wedding and to instead wait for his personal invitation after things are more settled. He—“ Shuri suddenly thinks of something. The most obvious question at the mention of a wedding. “Who is he getting married to? Why would… I mean he’s not king.” She starts to trail off when she notices the irritation on M’Baku’s face. “I’ll listen!” She promises and waits for M’Baku to answer. “He’s marrying your cousin, the king.” M’Baku to his credit doesn’t look happy or pleased about the news. Meanwhile Shuri is absolutely lost. “Why?” The last time she saw Killmonger in the flesh he had killed a priest of Bast and thrown her brother off Warrior Falls. What was all this about a wedding? It had to be fake, or a lie or… It just couldn’t be true. “I don’t know. I can only tell you what your brother communicated in his message and, I suppose, the official invitation from your cousin.” Shuri shakes her head. “He’s a liar, whatever he says are lies. Is that all T’Challa said? That can’t be all! Did he explain why a wedding was happening?” Who’s idea was this? “Well if you would allow me to finish I would tell you the full contents of the letter, princess.” This time M’Baku sounds very irritated. Shuri groans. Around them people jeer and shout insults at the ongoing fight. Or rather the fight that just ended, Barnes had won again. Seeing where her eyes were, M’Baku says: “Call your White Wolf. We can discuss back at my house, your brother’s message is quite long.”