EVERMORE ─ marvel ⁷

XVIII. Two Kings

Chapter Eighteen
Zy'aire

I wake up at dawn this morning and hurl my guts up. I spend the next half an hour hunched over the toilet bowl, with Livy sitting beside me rubbing my back. I haven't eaten much in the last few days, so most of what I'm hurling is bile, it burns my throat, makes tears spring into my eyes. I let those tears fall, and I let more fall as I leave the bathroom, as I start to get ready for today. For the funeral.

A knock comes to my door soon after I begin getting ready and in comes Stevie and Lee. Ten minutes later Jo appears at my door as well. They don't do anything to help me get ready, only Livy does. Instead they just sit there, trying to be supportive, trying to be here for me.

"When I was still trying to get used to things here in Wakanda," Jo begins, smiling to herself as she leans against my dresser. "Uncle T'Challa would take me to the market and introduce me to the people, trying to make me feel more comfortable in such a strange land. I remember he took me to a booth that sold leather bound journals and he bought me one with the Jabariland mountains on the cover. That was the journal Aunt Shuri taught me how to write in."

"Uncle T'Challa was the one who taught me how to fly a ship," Stevie says with a low chuckle. "I remember after our first lesson, he said 'you'd think someone who could actually fly would be able to avoid hitting so many trees'."

"I remember that day," Livy says, helping with my panther claw necklace. I'm wearing a black long sleeve shirt, black pants, shoes, diamond earrings, a gold panther ring, Baba's vibranium ring, and a near floor length black sleeveless coat. "Didn't you cause him to throw up?"

"I was eight! No one can fly a ship well at eight." He says defensively.

"I knew how to fly by six." Livy mumbles to herself. She and the others are wearing black as well, their shirts and coats embroidered with the story of the ancestral plain, detailing the journey each fallen Wakandan goes on, of the ancestors they reunite with. My own coat is embroidered with it as well, it's traditional to wear these designs during a time of mourning.

"I don't know if I can do this." I admit. In about an hour I have to go outside and give a speech, I have to look at my father's dead body, I have to watch him be buried in the City of the Dead, in the Hall of Kings where all the past monarchs have been buried. I have to say goodbye once and for all.

"You can," Livy assures me. "And we will be there with you the whole time."

"You won't be alone, Zy." Stevie adds.

"Never." Jo says with a nod.

"All for one?" Lee begins with a sad smile.

"And one for all." Stevie continues, leaning his head against Lee's shoulder.

"United we stand." Jo says.

"Divided..." Livy says, brushing the back of her hand against my cheek.

I grab onto her hand and kiss it. "We fall."

-

Everyone is gathered in the City of the Dead, a place I have not been very often. I remember the first time I was brought here by Baba, I think I was maybe six years old. He told me the story of the heart shaped herb, how it used to grow in the gardens here until Killmonger destroyed everything. This destruction cut off our access to the ancestral plain, because you needed the herb in order to cross over while your heart still beats. I was the first monarch in Wakanda's history to not enter the ancestral plain as part of their coronation. I never resented that until now. I think I would be more at ease if I could see the place Baba will be traveling to. I wish I could see him again, not dying on a hospital stretcher, not struggling to take breaths. I wish I could see him whole, see him happy. Just one last time.