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Nakia watches Okoye in training drills with the Dora Milaje. She admires the way they move as one; their steps in rhythm with each other’s, all following the same rhythm; the sound of Okoye’s hands beating out a complex rhythm that they must follow without faltering.
Step. Step. Thrust. Step. Back. Withdraw. Strike. Step. Step. Back.
Okoye’s voice is lifted, singing against the rhythm she is clapping out. She does not sing for ornamentation, for entertainment, but her voice is strong and rich. It thunders from the pit of her chest as she sings a song about the panther god, his lithe grace and fearsome power. Nakia thinks that Okoye is touched by the panther god too. The rhythm of her song fits against the beat she claps out but it is free of it, also. They are two systems, independent and separate, that wind around each other perfectly.
Step. Step. Thrust. Step. Back. Withdraw. Strike. Step. Step. Back.
The Dora all move in time with it.
Nakia’s eyes follow the red and gold of their armor as they weave the steps, formation perfect, like a cluster of Nandi flame blooming in the trees. And Okoye’s bloom is always brightest to Nakia’s eyes.
Nakia understands music and rhythm as well as anyone in Wakanda. She catches Okoye’s eye for the briefest of moments, and feels the steps, the cross-rhythm, the song, beating in her chest.
Later, Okoye is with her in her rooms above the market district. They have eaten and drunk their fill, but are not ready to go to bed. “What was the song you sang while you were drilling the women today?” Nakia asks, gazing out the wide open window at the giant, pale yellow moon.
“It is my own,” Okoye says. “Why?”
“Because,” Nakia answers after a moment, “I felt it in my heartbeat.”
Okoye smiles. “Did you heart beat with it?”
Nakia considers. “No. Against it. Around it. Not with it.”
Okoye comes to the window and takes Nakia’s hand and pulls her gently away from it. “Let me show you…” And she shows her the steps of the drill. Step. Step. Thrust. Step. Back. Withdraw. Strike. Step. Step. Back.
Nakia is an excellent warrior and an even better dancer, and does not need to be shown more than a couple of times. Okoye begins quietly clapping out the rhythm, standing close beside her, and they take the steps.
“Sing the song,” Nakia urges as they move together, perfectly in sync.
“Not yet.”
“Why?”
“Because I still can feel you counting in your head.”
Nakia laughs and closes her eyes, and trusts the rhythm, and the steps. When she opens them, Okoye has moved, and stands in front of her, weaving a different set of steps that complements her own. Her hands still beat steadily against each other, those complex beats that wrap around Nakia’s heartbeat, fit in the spaces between it without claiming it or subsuming it. When Okoye does finally sing, the song reverberates in the small room. Her voice is not so loud as it was this afternoon, but it occupies space. When Nakia breathes, she feels it. This has become less a drill and more a dance. She cannot help it. She is not sorry for it.
These cross-rhythms that seem like they ought to compete against each other instead complete each other. They fill each other’s spaces. And underneath this, she feels the simplicity of Okoye’s pulse and breath. Thump. Breathe in. Thump. Breathe out.
The moon’s yellow deepens. Okoye is bright and blooms like Nandi flame. Nakia moves to her rhythms, and they bounce off of one another in ways that all feel right.
“You take different steps than I do,” Nakia comments.
“Yes. And yet they fit.”
They move, step, move, strike, withdraw, half combat, half dance, nearly touching but never quite. Their eyes are onyx and their skin is embers and they pulse and feel each other’s differentness. Nakia feels sure that she has never wanted Okoye as much as she does now, as their rhythms interweave and they are so close but do not touch.
“You are a different person than I am,” Okoye explains.
“And yet we fit.”
“That is why we fit.”
Nakia is the one to break the rhythm. She steps closer to Okoye and then closer again, and then their lips are brushing but they do not quite kiss. Okoye just smiles.
“You did well,” she says. “You heard the heartbeat.”
“Do you hear my heartbeat?”
“Yes.”
They stand, silhouettes against the fat yellow moon. They are independent rhythms that complement and fill each other’s spaces. They are separate dances that work when performed together, separate songs that wind around each other’s empty spaces like filling in a broken bone.
Nakia waits, conscious of the gap her waiting leaves.
Okoye sings.