Chapter Text
Nowadays, Shuri is all teeth and claws. She speaks soft, carries a big stick. It scares her, how naturally bloodthirst comes to her. She's left her grief on a beach in Haiti and comes back a different woman. At first the elders doubt, but she proves them wrong, prowling obediently to wherever M'Baku points. It's lonely at the top, where she's out of reach from her people and her ancestors. She covers all her mirrors, ignores the crimson she washes off of panther claws. Her bloodshed.
But then she visits Cambridge and Riri kneels at her feet. She stares down, disillusioned with power now that so much beats through her veins.
"Stand up." It comes out like a command and Riri's lips quirk into a smile.
"Oh, yes, your highness," the woman teases, getting up. She tries to put it out of her head, leg drumming against Riri in the bleachers later.
"Don't do that again," Shuri breathes, in the car ride back from the basketball game.
"Do what?" the woman asks innocently, all wide eyes and smiles from the passenger seat.
"Kneel for anyone. Especially me."
Riri's silent for a while and Shuri thinks the issue is solved when the woman takes a deep breath, lets it go, asks,
"But what if I want to get on my knees for you, Shuri?"
She slams on the breaks too hard at a red light, chokes back spit.
"Well." She turns to look at her. Riri's lips are smirking at her, eyes dark as she twists a braid around her fingers. "That changes things."
"Look," Riri purrs, drawing nails down between her breasts. She's safe with the woman behind her, pulling apart all her strings, "Open your eyes, Shuri."
Shuri obeys. Her reflection stares back at her; eyes hooded, mouth open, panting. Even from here, she can see the mess Riri's made of her neck and inner thighs. She blinks, but the woman in the mirror doesn't change. She almost doesn't recognize her.
"I don't care who you are to anyone else," Riri's breath tickles her ear as fingers spread her open, brown giving way to pink, "The person who you see now is mine."
"Yours," Shuri tries out. Likes the way it tastes on her tongue. "Yours," she vows. No one else will know her like this. Riri smiles at her from the mirror, all teeth and claws.
It's lonely at the top, but it's safe down here, drowning at the bottom of Riri's ocean.