Command • T'Challa

Wakandan Overture

OHMYGOD YOUGUYS WE HIT 30K.   I can't believe how far this little fic has gone since last summer. I'm sorry about how long it takes me to update anything, but with full time work, school, and other book writing, it's a miracle I can update at all.
 Sadly, until the Black Panther movie comes out or I can come up with some other interum adventures or mysteries, this fic will be on hiatus until Black Panther's release. rawr.   Grace has been looking backwards at life through the funhouse mirror distortion of what HYDRA has told her life is.  T'Challa has to find a way to help her (and consequentially, Bucky) smash those mirrors. ......

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Clear her mind?  It was an ancient temple, a thick fog rolling in and hiding half of what T'Challa was describing to her. She saw no long halls that would fill with sunlight and with colorfully dressed people. SHe could almost hear the swishing of robes- the whispering and the chanting- but she saw nothing.

"Ukukhumbula yaye uyihlonele," T'Challa said softly, "To remember and revere, that is what my father used to say of this temple. That is why he and my mother would come here, to think, to better rule the nation. A place of rest and escape from the noise."

Escape from the noise. A place of rest.  Escape.

Escape.

Oh, the fog looked so dark and so familiar, Grace thought, reaching a hand out toward it, as if she could manipulate it in her hands. She could see the bright robes in patterns and colors, the flashing smiles, the happy laughter and the bowed heads. She could see a tall woman in a long purple gown with a robe overwrap. Perhaps it was the brilliant shade of purple that made her stand out, or her height, beauty, and long train of braids that fell behind her angular shoulders that attracted Grace's attention.

N'Yami

Queen N'Yami.  Grace stared in awe at the bejeweled headband that was woven into her hair, a huge diamond decorating the center of her forehead. This was T'Challa's mother- he could see her, too- he went ahead of Grace, calling after his mother, but she paid him no attention- Grace knew that this was only going on because of her own projections- in her mind, to see the rememberances, some of them coming from how T'Challa felt, and some coming from the temple itself.

It was too strong this time- the Queen of Wakanda dissappeared into the thickening fog, out of her son's reach, out of her son's memories.  Grace knew there was something more to this- why it all felt so familiar, and every second that passed by filled her with dread. 

"She's not there, T'Challa, it's all in our minds." Grace said, as T'Challa called after his mother again.

"She was always here- sometimes it feels as though she still is." he said,

"Come, let me show you the great hall."  he said.  Grace followed him into the dark mass of fog, into the heart of the temple.

The darkness wasn't total- little snippets of light illuminated the edges of the hall, the fog seeming to have dissipated inside of the hall.  Grace sensed a warmth in the hall- not an icy cold of stone, sucking the heat from any living thing that came here. No- it seemed to actually be generating a comforting warmth. Grace started to sweat, her suit sticky at her neck and back, Thing was, she wasn't sure if it wasn't a combination of the heat and her edgy nerves.

"So, your mother was once with the Dora Miljae..." Grace said.

"She was. She was the most graceful and noble of my father's royal guard. She was honored to be chosen by him, and ultimately, honored with his love. How I wish she could see me now." T'Challa said.  Grace heard happy laughter- like that of a mother with her child. Yes, there was the sound of a child, speaking in that language that Grace couldn't understand.

"What are you doing?" T'Challa asked Grace, his voice hoarse,  "I-I don't know, it's just coming up, I'm sorry." Grace said.

"I know you do not mean to do harm, Miss Alburn," T'Challa said.

There was a lot that Grace had never meant to happen- much that she could not control. Every happy and bittersweet memory of this place that T'Challa had seemed to flow from him like a river, one that came from this rich history, coming from his parents and from all those who went before them. 

 Grace and T'Challa were still walking through the dark great hall, and Grace spotted a glimmer, like that of glass, about thirty feet in front of them. Was this the end of the hall at last? What was the glimmer?

Grace was about to ask for an explanation, but T'Challa's steps became slower, cautious, and in an instant, she could see a very small T'Challa, perhaps nine or ten years old, standing with a man and a woman in front of the glass. All three were looking up at it, silhouetted by a shaft of white light that came from the ceiling.

"This was the first time my father showed me what was kept here- the guardian."  The present, adult T'Challa said to Grace, as he stared at the memory.  Grace's heart seemed to leap into her throat as there was a roar, and a shape was thrown against the glass. It was a huge black panther, its golden yellow eyes glinting, two huge paws with claws that looked like a curved set of knives, and its huge white teeth.

 the present collided with a past memory as the same thing happened to Grace as she approached the glass- there was the panther, kept in an enclosure, trying to get at her.  She turned away from it- falling to her knees.

 This was not the first time she had seen the creature- she had seen it before, in her own life and her own eyes- and this was why she was afraid.

"He will not hurt you, he is secure behind the glass. You do not need to be afraid." T'Challa said, offering a hand up.

"How did your mother die?" Grace asked him, point blank.

"What?" T'Challa asked, surprised.

"What happened to Queen N'Yami?" Grace said, sure that there was sweat dripping from her forehead.

Grace heard nothing. No scream, no struggle, nothing. She felt only stiffness, her back aching from spending hours pressed against a statue, hidden from all eyes. Like a ghost, she moved through the temple, always staying in the shadows, always waiting, always prowling.  Now, she saw her chance.  The mission target was in her sights. Just then, the woman bowed her head, some of her long braids sliding along her shoulders, her mouth muttering a silent prayer, or chant. The Ghost didn't care.  She adjusted her sights, and took the shot.

 SO as an immovable marble statue is toppled, so the Queen of Wakanda collapsed, dead, on the floor of the temple.  The date was 23 April, 1996.

The Ghost vanished into the shadows, her rifle slung over her back, her footsteps silent as she left the scene. Director would be most pleased to hear her mission report when she got back to base.  Really, Ghost had been surprised at how easy it was to take the target down. She had been alone, by her request, apparently.

But the Ghost knew absolutely nothing. In a matter of an hour, she was out of Wakanda and making her escape, even as Queen N'Yami's body grew cold, and her son the prince, and her husband the king, wept bitterly over her.

Grace did not accept T'Challa's offer of his hand up.  He was too shocked to withdraw it; and tears streaming down her face, Grace turned and ran, ran out of the temple as fast as she could, running from the truth that something in her had suspected all along.

 So this was why she didn't want to go to Africa....

 She had to escape this- maybe she didn't want to know the truth. Maybe she wanted to hide forever from the danger like James did- to get lost in some other happy memory of her real life, the life she was robbed of, and the monster she had unwillingly become.

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I know I'm being a little bit of a bitch to leave you guys with a cliffhanger, but holy shit, even I
didn't see this coming. Apologies for butchering canon- Queen N'Yami died in childbirth with T'Challa and so he never knew her, but this was just too good to pass up.

And sorry it's so short!!