Nashuri Collection (Namor x Shuri)

49 - 50

49. Girl Talk

Shuri tried to hide her smile behind her hand. Riri burst out laughing. 

"Ooh, girl he in here caking something awful," Riri told her. "You think he orders his people to help him come up with these lines?"

The young scientists were tucked away in Shuri's private bedroom. What started as a meeting of the minds on a collaborative invention had turned into her recent favorite pastime, Griot reading love letters from Namor.

Shuri noted to add 'caking' to her global slang vocabulary, vaguely thinking of sweets. But soon she strolled her finger down the vibranium scroll. He had his words inscribed on the metal as it could withstand transport from water to the surface.

She pondered for a moment, answering her friend, "Nah, I think he takes pride in coming up with his own words. The purple prose is all him. I cannot for the life of me understand why he doesn't use technology to send this."

Griot continued to narrate like her personal audiobook. "How I will use this detestable language for you, my flower. These words to kiss and caress your mind as if they were my own body."

Riri sprawled across Shuri's bed, having already changed from her outside clothes. Shuri could never admit how starved she had been for girl talk outside of science or really just a friend her age.

"Griot speed past, please. Dude's a broken record. He says this in each of his love bombs. His fault for not learning Swahili by now, right?"

Her AI resisted the command.

"Yeah, he's a very unserious grump of a god," Shuri agreed, not mentioning the other five languages she spoke fluently. For another day.

She was dressed in casual clothing and had a pillow in her lap. The numerous letters of his adoration spread across the bed. Griot would keep reading them until they were tired of it.

"What god you know walking around in booty shorts, anyway?" Riri gave an annoyed snort. Griot's refusal visibly showed on her face. "But, hey, some things ain't right."

"It's fine, Griot. You may speed past his lamentation of colonizer languages." Shuri declared.

Her friend frowned. "Oh, so that's how it is? Griot, I thought we were good?"

"No hard feelings, sis," Griot dutifully replied. "But Princess Shuri enjoys hearing the message in its entirety. She listens to them almost daily now after tea." Riri gave her a look somewhere between rolling her eyes and touched by the familial address Shuri had programmed.

"It's simply a function of my AI, Riri. It defers to me when considering playback commands. There are ways around that I'm sure you've been pondering— and stop that! Griot is my baby who won't be influenced by an unruly aunty!" Shuri laughed. She would have to reprimand Griot later about revealing too much. "Now listen to this!"

"Panther, you and I ... Our souls are predestined. No other equal for me. How I'd lick upon your mouth, then those columns called your shoulders. I'd drift down to your fruits, grab them in both of my hands and lavish their sweetness. Sit upon my throne. I have a space just for you."

Shuri held up a hand, gesturing her to wait for the big finish.

"Allow me to kiss your petals and plant seeds." Griot paused Namor's words for dramatic effect. "I wish to water your garden thoroughly ... Shuri, sit on my face."

"Stop," Riri yelled, holding her stomach. "I thought you were joking, but he does sound like a Harlequin romance novel had a baby with a PG-13 movie that gotta dodge the censors. He's a mess."

She smiled, leaning her chin into her hands. Reading them with someone made them sound silly to her ears. A completely different reaction than when she read them alone. At worst, she felt a bit of affection toward him for the always sweet words. At best ... She never let herself finish the thought.

"These are just the tame ones, sister. Wait to you hear the—"

A cackle now. "Fish man erotica?"

"Never say those words again, but yes."

Turning serious, Riri sat up cross-legged on the bed. Her pajama t-shirt was slightly wrinkled.

"It's total love bombing. How dumb is he that he thinks you would seriously be flattered."

Shuri kept quiet.

She'd take it to her grave (since the ancestral realm likely wouldn't pan out) that she kept copies of every vibranium scroll his warriors delivered her. And found herself actually smiling at them more often than not.

She would never return his affections, but it would be a lie that she didn't like the attention. To be wanted by a god.

Riri continued, unaffected by the silence. "And he keeps signing it under some bogus fake name. Like, we know it's you, sir. Who else? Unless there's another fish king that wants my girl for breakfast, lunch, and dinner."

Before, she could stop herself the words spilled out. "No, Ch'ah Toh is his true name, the one his mother gave him. He had an identity before K'uk'ulkan was thrust upon him."

Riri shook her head. Her brown eyes were wide.

"Oh my God, you actually like this stuff."

"Riri, please you fill your head with delusions. Come make sense now."

She rubbed her temple. "No girl, you didn't see the face you just made. Defensive as hell. Like, you better get my man's name right."

Suddenly, things weren't so funny.

"Enough Riri, let's just continue roasting his letters, or we'll find something else to do."

The young woman shrugged and plopped her head on one of the pillows. Then, she turned her head in Shuri's direction, face full of mischief.

"One question: how often has he watered your garden, my lovely maiden? Is this what gets you going? Does he whisper his Shakespearean pickup lines to get in them drawls? Just asking for a friend."

Shuri narrowed her eyes. Upset at how quickly Riri hinted at something—inconceivable—and the fact that she was still frustratingly funny. "Griot arrange ground transportation for Ms Williams. Uber, Lyft, or Wakandan transport anything is fine. Suddenly, she must go home."

"Oh no, girl, you must us give the tea and the dick report," Griot answered.

Her mouth hung open at Riri's triumphant look.

"When did you program Griot to say that?"

Riri wagged a finger and her brown eyes sparkled. "You're not the only genius here or that hard to figure out, Shuri. I'm so smart that I was ruling out how dumb love could make you. Now, spill."

Shuri sighed. First and last time she'd ever have girl talk.

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50. The End

The waves lapped at their feet.

They were sitting on the sandy beach, seashells at their sides, and the last rays of sun on their brown skin.

How time had changed things. Wakanda had split into two countries, North and South Wakanda. Traditions such as challenge day had modernized in a way that seemed unrecognizable. Vibranium, which was once a coveted resource, now traded through other countries as a common currency. The cycle of war and then peace had kept them in a loop as well for the last few decades. People still loved and remembered her brother, but the illness that took him was forgotten.

One of the biggest shocks was the male companion currently rubbing her back.

100 years could change things even if she tried to hang onto it bitterly so. Far superior Wakandan medicine had kept Shuri agile and fit at 120 years old, and her mother's genes showed in the youthful glow of her face.

Shuri wasn't immortal and didn't want to be. But after completing invention after invention, narrowly bringing world peace (but the genius in her realized the world lent itself to a state of eventual disaster anyway), and raising several sets of children and grandbabies, she got bored. And lonely for someone who understood.

Namor smiled beside her. He moved his arm away and tucked a microbraid that fell out of her turban behind her ear. Physically he hadn't differed much from their introduction aside from gaining a streak of gray in his hair. Shuri had never been able to figure out if it was the first sign of aging effects or if he willed himself to do this. He was sappy enough to want to sport matching gray hair.

Age had a way of changing — not forgiving— an enemy to a trusted friend.

"Ch'ah Toh," Shuri began. Her voice had become more gravelly in her older age. "Do you regret it? Were we right to love each other in this way after it all?"

"You're pensive today, itzia." He stared at the clear, beautiful water instead of her.

"I'm another day closer to death, so answer me, ridiculous fish man."

He clicked his tongue at her but responded in fondness. He massaged her hand.

"No, we weren't. Some things were predestined, and you've found that I'm well apt to play the waiting game."

Shuri smiled and then frowned. "I only just agreed to date you recently." She counted the numbers quickly. "I met you at age 20, and I just turned 120 years old yesterday."

He kissed her forehead and gave a smile of syrupy sweetness. "My love, I would wait 100 years more, to share this love with you."

"You don't make sense."

"You're still so shy."

"Ridiculous!"

He gave her another kiss. This time on her cheek.

"How do you know I'm not just rebounding? My third husband died a few years back."

Kiss on her chin. "Doesn't matter. There won't be another man to return to. I'm your last and final love."

"What if I leave you?"

Kiss between the space between her eyes. "Then, I'd win you back. Always you belong with me."

"And if I leave you soon in the sense of death? Let me guess you'll drag yourself down to the ancestral realm and drag me back? Make me immortal this time?"

No kiss.

He turned toward her, placing his hands firmly on her shoulders. "No, my Shuri. I'd leave you to rest in peace as you deserve. That's why I maximize every moment of our time together. These memories are what will sustain me until my own time."

Shuri leaned forward and pecked his lips. Too touched to comment on it further.

"I love you, Ch'ah."

"I love you from now until forever. More than anyone else, Shuri."