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Soulmate have each other’s soul word marked on their skin but none know if it is the first word they ever said to you or if it would be the last word they would ever say to you. Some are lucky it is the first word but most are left wondering about it.
But T'Challa’s, his is “Bury me in the ocean, with my ancestors that jumped from the ships, because they knew death was better than bondage” He thought it is poetic but he knows deep inside this word cannot be a first word. There is no scenario that he could imagine his mate would first say this to him, so he concluded it to be his mate’s last word. For years he lived with this fact burned on his skin, wondering how and why his destined would say such thing on their dying breath.
And then years later, when Erik entered the throne room with all his boiling hatred at the injustice done to their kin, T'Challa knew right at that moment, Erik, N'Jadaka, his cousin is his soulmate and his heart burned at the fact how this battle will end. The thought of it is what made him falter, made him hold back during their ritual fight and also what broke him when he shoved that spear in his soulmate’s body.
It is why he was unable to say much during N'Jadaka-Erik’s final moment, tongue too twisted by the agony of waiting for the inevitable words to be spoken and how it would forever haunt him for the rest of his life.
During the preparation of the funeral, T'Challa requested to be the one who do it. He wanted to be the one who prepared his soulmate’s body for his final resting, to treat it with the tender care it should have been treated with if they had never abandoned him in the first place.
He declined Shuri’s offer of fixing the wound on Erik’s body, not wanting to delude himself of his own misdeed. He has killed his own mate, now he will live with this fact as he cleaned the blood around the stab wound he himself had inflicted.
His hand linger over his own word that branded Erik’s wrist but he doesn’t allow himself to read it, feeling himself not worthy to see something that could have been.
T'Challa adorned his mate’s body with his own clothes, a white royal outfit with hand embroidered designs fit for the King of Wakanda because that is what Erik had been and will always be to T'Challa. He ignored the pang of grief at what could have been if his father had not abandoned N'Jadaka. They could have been a pair of kings, ruling over Wakanda together, side by side.
Despite wanting to bury his mate with their ancestors, to give him the final burial right as a member of the royal family, T'Challa choose to honor Erik’s last wish. He will give Erik at least this much after having been denied so much in his life. He knew by doing this, he would be unable to see him in the ancestral plane that all of their family reside after their passing but T'Challa wanted Erik to have a peaceful rest.
And so T'Challa placed him in the ornate hand carved boat, surrounded by Wakanda’s wealth and what the land have to offer, of things that should have been his birthright and sent him off into the sea to be one with their kin. His heart ached as the boat burned along with the setting sun, the tendril of flame reaching up to orange painted sky.