Chapter Text
Shuri, who is born with a name already engraved on her wrist, doesn't bother looking it up on any Wakandan registry, already making peace with the fact that she will find no matches. It wouldn’t take a genius (though Shuri prides herself on the fact that she is one) to recognize her soulmate, with his name spelled in foreign characters, is not a Wakandan citizen nor is he of Wakandan descent.
At seven, she starts studying her soulmate’s language in secret. If in case he did not speak any of her languages, then Shuri will be there to communicate with him in his mother tongue. By the end of the month, she has already mastered writing the alphabet and her free time is spent poring over the books in her soulmate’s culture.
By twelve, Shuri grows impatient. She ponders the idea of becoming a War Dog and thinks of being assigned to the offshores of Mexico, dreaming of finally putting a face to the name on her wrist. Ultimately, she decides against it, content to stay in her lab to search for other, more convenient ways to find him, wherever he may be.
When her brother is suddenly taken by sickness, Shuri temporarily holds off the topic of soulmates and trades in her knowledge of history and linguistics for biochemical engineering and medicine.
On the eve of her brother’s passing, Shuri is no closer to finding her soulmate, though she has since stopped looking.
—
Shuri touches the painted walls of Namor’s grotto and starts to recall long-forgotten memories. As her fingers trace the waves, she is reminded of the warriors who speak her soulmate’s tongue. For years she had wondered what he would look like and now…
Now there is a slim chance that her soulmate might be blue.
“It did not help my case when the Spanish priest had seen my bare skin devoid of any mark and branded me as el niño sin amor shortly after. I have reserved that name for my enemies ever since.”
“So, I’m taking you don’t have a soulmate?”
There is a knowing glint in his eye when he says, “I did not say that.” Then his gaze wanders briefly downward, leading to her arm. Where her mark is.
Shuri, remembering that she is without her kimoyo beads, clutches her arm closer to her chest. One of her prerequisites during its early design stages was for the beads to be big enough to hide soulmate marks so as to deter people from asking too many questions. A prerequisite that, up to now, Shuri still thanks her younger self for coming up with.
To her surprise, Namor’s brows do not furrow in confusion, unlike the warrior who had bested Okoye. Nor does he glare at her in suspicion, much unlike the warrior next to him who had killed the American officers in cold blood. No, instead, the edge of his lips quirk up in silent delight as he appraises her.
He moves to grab her hand and brings it closer, Shuri along with it. She frowns at his boldness. The nerve of him, touching her without permission. She has to bite her tongue before any insults could fly, reminding herself that she is still a guest in his home and the probability of her negotiations ending in success depends solely on the extent of her self-control.
“Your warriors took a good look at my wrist back there. They wouldn’t happen to know anyone with this name, would they?” She mentally sends Riri an apology and hopes the young scientist will find it in her heart to forgive Shuri for her selfishness. Surely the younger girl would understand if she delayed the negotiations for a few minutes. Just until she can wean out the identity of her soulmate. Perhaps maybe even his whereabouts if she asks nicely enough.
Namor thumbs the pulse point located below her wrist, fingertips touching the edge of the second character. Shuri notes how big his hand is compared to hers, how easily it encompasses her slim wrist, but thinks nothing more of it. She had to focus. “They had looked at it because you are the first surface dweller in years to have a name borne from Talokan. And a princess no less.” He says simply, nodding like he has confirmed something in his head before letting her go. “But no, they wouldn’t know who it is.”
Her wrist is aflame, but it doesn’t deter her from asking, “But you do?”
Namor shows her his teeth and Shuri cannot stop thinking of a great white shark.
“I do.”
Before Shuri can question him further, he is already unclasping one of his bracers. When it drops to the floor, Shuri watches its descent. When the sound of its clanging reverberates along the walls of his hut as it slowly slides under his hammock, Shuri watches it, still. Namor raises his forearm to her face and the last few echoes of the golden accessory are the furthest thing on her mind right now.
The words register immediately, but Shuri still has to blink—once, twice, just to make sure that what she is seeing is actually real. If her mind has decided that now was the perfect time to start playing tricks on her before she wakes up to find herself in her own bed. But the image does not leave her and the words do not change no matter how many times she repeats them in her head.
There, on his wrist, is her name in familiar Wakandan text, barely legible to anyone save perhaps the author and its wearer. There, between the lifelines and long blue veins, is Shuri Udaku, written in rushed, easy strokes like she had been writing it in haste and proper penmanship was merely an afterthought.
It is a shame, Shuri thinks, her head still reeling. Her soulmate is stuck with the chicken scratches she makes while running on seven cups of caffeine and pure genius, when usually her handwriting was neat and orderly.
In one of her earliest memories, before her parents realize her mind would not be properly stimulated in a normal Wakandan school and decide to switch her to higher and higher grade levels, Shuri is five and showing her father a poem written by her own hand. She is sitting on her baba's knee and starts to talk of the baobab trees that grow strong and tall in Wakandan soil before he takes a peek at her paper and smiles, complimenting her on her shorthand. Five-year-old Shuri smiles too, preening at the praise.
Now Shuri is twenty-four and does not sit on anyone’s knee nor does she write any more poetry about baobab trees. Instead, she stands with her feet planted directly on the ground, her spine ramrod straight, and swallows. The shock, the disbelief, the outrage–all of it goes down her throat, heading towards her esophagus. Her stomach ingests it in the silence.
Her name might be on his wrist, but that does not mean he was her soulmate by default. There were many cases in which one half of a soulmate pair share a name and the other does not, which is rare, yes, but not impossible. On top of it all, Shuri is by no means an idiot and if he takes her for one then he will be greatly disappointed. She knows how to write his name in Mayan lettering and no matter how many ways she can put it, in how many ways she may twist it, K’uk’ulkan will never, not even in a million years, match the name on her wrist.
Because how can Shuri ever accept the fact that this immortal god-king, who has trapped her with him in the cold dark caves he calls his home, and her mysterious soulmate (who, at this point, had practically been a childhood relic left hidden in the recesses of her subconscious) be one and the same?
As if reading her mind, he says, “You don’t trust me, I understand. But I told you this once before, princess, and now I will tell you again. I have many names. For my people, I am called K’uk’ulkan. For my enemies, I am Namor. But for my pixan gemela, for you, I am Cha’ah Toh Almehen."
Shuri blanched. “Can you prove it?”
Namor smirks almost as if he had expected her answer. With gentle hands, he picks up the bracelet Shuri has been eyeing ever since she walked into his hut and places it on her waiting hands.
Shuri’s brows furrow at this, but he only juts his chin in the direction of the bracelet, silently urging her to inspect it. Though her head is still filled with doubt, she starts to examine the bracelet’s intricate jade beading. Her fingers run along its faint bumps and ridges carefully before she freezes in place. She has traced these lines before, hasn’t she?
In her lab, when she pauses her work to rest and takes off her kimoyo beads to massage tired wrists. In sleepless nights, when she tosses and turns in bed and brings a hand to cover her face. In the mornings, when she wakes up and it’s the first thing she sees—
All of a sudden, her head shoots up, almost smacking the side of Namor's skull. She looks at him, eyes wide and full of barely concealed emotion. “It’s really you,” she gasps, and he grins as he closes the distance between them.
Her soulmate might smell of the sea, but she finds that his tongue does not share any of its salt. Shuri is just grateful that her first kiss doesn’t taste like fish.
—
“It would please me greatly if you accept this simple token of affection,” he says, already tying his mother’s bracelet to her wrist without waiting for an answer. “I have kept it close to my heart so that my uláak' chúumuk could wear it and think of me.”
They sit at the entrance of his hut, where Shuri can see her reflection in the water and Namor holds her hand with a certain reverence. It must have been hours now, she notes, since he had shown her his kingdom and yet his grip on her does not once falter. Not even when the bracelet is already safely secured on her wrist.
She notices the size of it first; big enough to fully cover her mark. Almost like it was designed specifically for her in mind. Shuri is reminded of the promise made to his mother and, in a way, that might hold true. “It's very beautiful,” she says, in awe at the way the pearls shine against her skin.
Namor brings her hand up to meet his cheek, and her thumb moves to feel the soft skin underneath. He sighs, leaning into her touch. “For years, I had dreamt of this day, wondering what name you would carry with you. Whether it was the name my people called me or if it would be the name that belonged to my enemies. Recently, I have even toyed with the idea that I may find both. But it is a great comfort to reunite with the name my mother gave me, even after all this time.”
Shuri’s eyes glance briefly at the water, her distorted reflection returning her slight frown, then back to him. “No one calls you by this name?”
His head shakes sadly and his beard starts to dig at her skin following the movement, tickling her. “I only allowed my mother to use it. My ears have grown used to hearing the same two names after she passed.”
Until me. Her brain supplies, but she dare not voice it out.
“Would you like me to call you by Cha’ah Toh, then—only when it's just the two of us?”
Namor smiles then and Shuri thinks, not for the first time that night, how utterly beautiful he looks like this. She has seen his kingdom and even witnessed his vibranium sun in all its glory but none can compare to her soulmate’s kind warm eyes glittering against the low lights, looking contentedly at her like she was something to be worshipped. Like just the mere sight of her was enough to bring joy to his face.
He kisses the inside of her palm, still smiling. “If it would only please you.”
Later, he will have to leave her for the surface, where her mother waits, but not without kissing the name–his name–on her wrist one final time, his nosepiece cooly pushing at the edge of her hand. Playfully, he will start to plant soft kisses on the pads of each of her fingers before she shoos him away, giggling at his antics.
Later, she will be whisked away and leave death at her wake. Later, she will look at her mark in anger and hide the bracelet where it will find no light. Later, Shuri will see him as nothing but a curse to wear for the rest of her life.
But here, in the now, she is with her soulmate who looks at her with stars in his eyes and warmth in his heart. Here they sit in comfortable silence, facing each other, and Shuri starts to envision a future with this man. One where she is not burdened with duty nor is she haunted by death.
In her head, there is already an image of her smiling. This Shuri wears delight on her face like it belongs there. There is no grief to tug down at the corners of her mouth because he is there to kiss it away.