. (wakanda) wrote in dunhavenic, @ 2018-05-30 23:14:00 |
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The room was quiet when he stepped through the doorway, ushered in by his father. He knew what was waiting for him -- his mother had a baby, a little girl -- but he was still unsure of his place. The birthing room was such a private place, something so personal, a place of the greatest female power, and there were many rituals that needed to take place to ensure that the newest member of their tribe began her life in the best way possible. There was a certain reverence given to these rituals that T’Challa was humbled by, even though he only knew of them through word of mouth. Everything was tied to the spiritual world and to protecting both the child and the mother from evil spirits. He’d longed to have a companion, someone with whom to navigate the stressors of the royal family. He never once asked why it only happened once he was fully grown; it wasn’t his business, and more than that, he knew that his parents felt the hole in their lives even stronger than he did. Everything happened in the right time and place. That much he believed. That much they all believed. The spirit world was telling them something by not blessing them earlier. The spirit world must have known something they could not see. His mother sat up in bed, surrounded by pillows and blankets. His grandmother was on the other side, along with several aunts. They smiled at him and nodded, and he approached the bed, barely taking eyes off his mother’s expression. She looked at peace, in a way she hadn’t looked in a long while. “My son,” she greeted him, beckoning to him with her left hand. He took it and kissed it with deep respect, as one did for the queen. Even if you were her son, the crown prince. “This is your sister.” Tucked carefully in the crook of her other arm was the baby, sleeping soundly, one hand balled up in a fist near her face. She looked serious, he thought. She looked ready to take on anything. “Shuri.” She held his sister out to him, and he reached out instinctively. She was so much smaller than he’d expected, he thought. She was so light and so fragile. He traced a finger down her cheek and she stirred, opening her eyes slowly. As he stood there looking at her, he made a silent vow: that he would never let any harm come to the child. It was his sacred duty, not only as Prince or Black Panther, but most importantly as her brother. “Hello, little sister.” As his eyes opened and readjusted to the light, David looked down to see that his son had fallen asleep curled up next to him on the couch in a rare moment of affection. The cartoon they’d been watching on the television had stopped, and Netflix had timed out, waiting for him to return to browse or continue with their next selection. Carefully, he shifted his arms underneath his son and lifted him up. The boy mumbled something in his sleep and wrapped his arms around his father’s neck. David had felt the same things he had in the dream before, with his younger siblings, his cousins, and finally his son. Especially as the oldest son, there was a sense of responsibility that came with the role that he hadn’t fully understood until he was older. It was even more true since their father’s death the year before. His family looked to him to lead, which was not at all something he was prepared to do, not in the same way their father had. Maybe, he wondered, he had more similarities with the self he saw in dreams than he'd previously thought. |