Talokan Forever! - Black Pather: Wakanda Forever

~Colliding Worlds~

Spoilers ahead!

Wakanda

"Wait, so he came from the water?" Kalyna asked, needing to hear the story again to fully comprehend what they were saying. It was difficult to wrap your head around, but in a world where aliens fell from the sky and half of all life disappeared with a snap of ones fingers - literally - and whole nations could be hidden from the rest of the world for centuries,  it wasn't all that difficult to imagine a man living in the depths of the water with an army of thousands more like him.

Shuri and Ramonda had a strange report once they returned from the riverside, about a man who had emerged from the water suddenly past Wakanda's secure borders.

"Yes!"

"Like a diver?"

"No, like a fish!"

"A fish man?"

"Yes, he was going on about how we needed to deliver the scientist to him."

"But we have no idea who that is."

 "I know, but I know where we can find out-" Shuri grinned.  "-This means I get to see my favourite colonizer."

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Talokan

Once settled in back home, Ofelia was in the training wing of the palace, testing out a trident, when she sensed someone enter the otherwise empty room with her.

"You should know better than to sneak up on me when I'm armed," she said playfully to Attuma's familiar form lurking in the doorway.

She was officially betrothed to Namor now, but that hadn't changed her feelings towards her other friend, feelings that were mutual, and yet feelings that both had to hide. 

"I will take my chances."

"Very well, then. But I warned you."

"You did."

Ofelia had been there since the beginning with Namor, all those years, all those centuries ago. Attuma had come along later, and the two had grown close, and closer, and closer still. Until now, here they were, hidden and yet fully visible. 

"You were missed while you were gone. You always are," he declared.

"And I missed you too."

"There is a void when you are gone."

"And now?"

"Now everything feels whole again."

Abandoning the weapons - they would return to them soon enough - close together they swam into the busy centre of the city, fingers gently intertwining every now and then.

"The surface is haunting and yet fascinating at the same time," she admitted. "I have so many questions, and nowhere to go for the answers. Namor sends me up as a spy, and yet I am more in the dark than ever. Namor is so blinded by his hatred for the surface world he doesn't allow himself to truly see it. But I understand where he is coming from." She herself and her whole village had been terrorized by colonizers when she was just a child, leading to her death and then rebirth in Talokan, thanks to Namor and his mother, Princess Fen. 

The princess had tried her hardest to shield her son from the carnage, and had saved the drowned girl, but she could only protect him until her own passing, when Namor had brought her body back up to the surface and saw the horror for himself. 

That had been some four hundred years ago now and yet, it all seemed so close still. She had every reason to hate the surface as much as Namor did, but if she could see beyond the bad, could he as well? After all, things were changing, hundreds of years later, slowly, some progress was being made.  Could he see that? She may never know. 

"What are you thinking about?" Attuma asked gently, pulling her from her trance.

"Everything. But I don't want to think about all that now, I want to be here with you, and think about us." 

Foreheads pressed tenderly together, the two shared a long, silent moment. 

"Ofelia! Attuma!"

They sprang apart. Namora.

She appeared through the archway they had passed under minutes before. Had she seen their shared look? Their hands lingering for too long to be that of a friendly gesture? If she did she didn't comment on it, but that didn't mean she wouldn't pass it along to Namor - he would surely be interested in what was going on between his betrothed and friend. 

"K'uk'ulkan has ordered our deployment. We are to leave at once," she updated them.

Ofelia made herself drift away from Attuma. "Of course. Where to?"

"A city on the surface: Cambridge, Massachusetts."

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Wakanda

"So, when do we leave?"

Following a visit with her favourite colonizer, thanks to Ross's intel, they were being sent after MIT student Riri Williams to look after her until hopefully Namor of Talokan's threat against her had passed.

Okoye was going, of course, but Ramonda was hesitant about Kalyna joining her, and even more hesitant still at Shuri tagging along. 

"My Queen, I will protect the Queen of Sokovia and Princess of Wakanda with my life," Okoye assured her. 

"I know, General. Look after each other."

"And Griot will be with us the whole time," Shuri added.

"I will be, My Queen," the A.I. confirmed. 

Ramonda didn't look so sure. 

(Ofelia and Attuma swimming around the city together is their own Con La Brisa moment (the movie soundtrack and score is giving me life!) 

Thank you so much for reading and I hope you enjoyed! :))