Bury me in The Ocean (Erik Killmonger/Black Panther au)

1

"The tribes are still willing to stand with you, despite what has happened." Okoye continued from the throne room, amidst the emerald shimmering trees that loomed over them, casting shadows in their wake, her voice was unsurprisingly low, grave and cautious.

The king hesistantly lolled his head aside, exchanging a knowing look with his kingsguard. "And what of the... Asharni?" He asked, lifting a brow.

"They are as reluctant as they are willing," Okoye answered truthfully, taking a turn toward the gardens. "And they are very willing,"

T'Challa nods. "It is to be expected," he smiled, though rueful.

The mighty Asharni, was a tribe built more as an empire from the gold they kept. Once, many great Asharni nobles bore kings to his throne, many had great influence that lingered beyond their country, and lieges lodged in England and America, France and Portugal, Ghana and Morocco, but Wakanda — no more.

Of course it were to be expected, T'Challa now thought to himself. After the war, their fidelity was desperately desired by a king that slain them from their money, their power and their glory after they aided a usurper into greater power. T'Challa knew Chief Moran's temperament, and he knew a day of rebellion was approaching — if not now, soon — but for the time being, he was still able retain his throne (peacefully), whilst order of the tribes held like an audience in wait.

"But by the princess accepting an audience, is that not a sign of good faith?"

T'Challa simply shrugged, "only time will tell," he said vaguely, though a part of him remembered the princess to have never been praised for her gentility or meekness, yet her appearance said otherwise, she was as her brother, cunning and calculating and ruthless when necessary.

Their chins lifted to the three fingers of sunlight cutting through the trees atop, and the shrill of laughter — light and airy, and childlike. Then a colour akin to yellow and gold flashed past their eyes, the same pair of guileful smiles and thick raven and auburn coloured hair, curled and coiled, whipped past them. Okoye did not want to admit it at first, but she recognised those features. She stiffened beneath her banality of fierceness and looked toward T'Challa expectedly.

"Only time will tell indeed."

Beyond the trees and toward a clearing, a glass table stretched across the water on a landing meticulously built to hold anything above it afloat. The princess, or what T'Challa quickly assumed was the princess, sat idly aside her sister, Princess Farah, flanked by Asharni guards and bannermen alike, thickened with muscle, vital and beast like. When she stands to meet him, she is tall and slender and starkly beautiful.

"Princess," T'Challa head bows expectedly, taking her hand so lightly their skin barely touches. "I pray this seating meets your standards,"

"Wakanda has never failed me in regards to seating," she replied curtly, her gaze washes over scenery in slight scrutiny before matching his. T'Challa smiles politely, — "but in other things, such as loyalty, it has," — before, quickly disappears.

"I'm sure time can soothe those wounds,"

"Time?" The princess tilted her head toward her sister, Princess Farah had stifled an eye roll to hold her expression of disappointment that only T'Challa felt. "I never enjoyed waiting on the bases of time for anything, your highness."

Her words were harsh and the title she provokingly gave him, even more so. Your highness, a title she'd branded him like a slave's brand, red and bloody, holding no true meaning to her, in the mist of her dark sophistication.

The princess leans in closer, her breathe fanning the shell of his ear. "Not even for whatever this is."

T'Challa swallowed unpleasantly, feeling words lodge in his throat. Before he could muster whatever thing to say, the princess' fleet dispersed in their numbers from an idle wave of her hand.

"I pray this is not a waste of my time," she said in her half interested, half bored way, she returned to her seat as T'Challa eased his way toward an opposing one.

"Then I too hope solidarity is not a waste of your time, princess,"

"Solidarity?" She muses in the word, and then the princess smiled, the sort of smile she customarily reserved for aim. She was more like her brother than T'Challa had thought. "Never."

He nods, nonetheless. "Very well."

Hope you like it perlahavern