Chapter Text
Earth-3111
5 years ago
Blood drenches the face of the Black Panther as she tears through the throat of another enemy soldier. Everything is crimson. Her vision, her hair, her body, her claws, the grass, the sky…
Of course her husband would pick the night of a blood moon to finish the war.
She lost track of where K’uk’ulkan had gone off to hours ago, trusting that he’ll kill Quetzalcoatl and their nightmare will be over with. Miya is safe with her mother inside the underground tombs. All she has to focus on is fighting Quetzalcoatl’s soldiers as they storm the shoreline.
“Atan.”
Shuri slashes through another soldier as her husband’s voice is heard inside her mask.
“Took you long enough, handsome.”
“Attuma and Namora are informing everyone that the fight is over. I’m dying, love. Come find me.”
Her heart collapses to the pit of her stomach and as she’s on the verge of going into a state of shock, adrenaline pumps through her legs and her body carries her to where K’uk’ulkan’s signal is emitting from.
“H-hang in there, baby. Please. I’m coming.”
“Beads can’t heal this one, Shuri.” There’s a lot of coughing. She runs even faster. “He drained my heart while I was killing him. It’s too late. Come say goodbye, my ilanga. I need to kiss you one last time.”
Every part of her trembles. Her voice cracks. “Shut up, bozo! You’re not dying on me! You can’t!”
There’s weak laughter. Some more coughing. Then nothing.
Shuri’s mask dissolves and she’s running through the woods, her heart louder than her feet pounding through the dirt. She passes a dead Quetzalcoatl and then she finds her husband, slumped against a tree. She falls on her knees in front of him and he barely opens his eyelids.
“There she is…Where’s my kiss, atan?”
She shakes her head, tasting the salt of her tears on her tongue. “K’uk’ulkan… no…”
“Where’s my kiss, atan?” he repeats and Shuri, through all of her intense pain, leans in and gives him what he wants.
He kisses her back and it’s barely felt, nothing at all like the passionate ones she’s used to. She keeps her lips there anyway, holding her big strong man against her, tasting him and feeling him and cuddling him. Her lips remain on his until his mouth turns cold.
Her face contorts in horror as she lets go to discover her husband is no longer breathing.
No longer here.
“No…” She’s shaking her head again as she crawls back. “No, no, no, no, no.” She slaps herself harshly, trying to wake herself up from this nightmare.
But just as it was when her son was murdered days ago, this is her reality.
Her mouth opens wide and she releases a silent scream while clutching the dirt beneath her.
She has lost her son and her husband.
Her boys.
Gone.
Because of him.
With all of her teeth showing, Shuri rises from the ground and approaches Quetzalcoatl’s dead body with her chest heaving. She stomps on his head repeatedly until it’s a pile of blood, flesh, and brain.
And then she collapses.
There’s a village on the surface in the middle of a Yucatán forest where K’uk’ulkan used to take her. Humans knew of his existence and catered to them whenever they visited. They worshipped and loved him just as much as they loved Uuka.
This is where she decided to bury her husband and son.
A place deep down in Talokan or their caves didn’t feel right.
She wanted somewhere with lots of natural sunshine, somewhere that Miya can always visit when she’s older and needs peace from being a princess to an entire underwater nation. Shuri definitely will be needing a break from being a full-fledged queen and protector.
It’s also an accessible area for a grandmother to visit her grandson’s grave.
Shuri leans her head on Ramonda’s shoulder while Miya leans against her. They’re the last ones out here and it’s far late into the night, but none of them can find it in them to leave this spot.
“N’Jadaka said he’s helping the villagers cook up some meat, Mama,” Shuri whispers. “Why don’t you go eat something?”
“I fail to have an appetite, daughter,” she tells her quietly and Shuri swallows.
“I can’t remember the last time I ate.”
“Mama?” Miya asks in that sweet voice of hers and Shuri glances down to see the ten-year-old’s tear-stained face. “Are we really never going to see them again?”
“Oh, Bast,” Ramonda whispers in a broken voice and has to glance away to hide herself crying.
Shuri rubs her daughter’s arm and smiles sadly. “You will when Chaac decides, but that’s not going to be for centuries. Baba and Uuka will always be watching over us until then. We can’t see them, but we’ll be able to feel them and carry them with us.”
“I wish we could see them, Mama. I miss them so much.”
Chaac, she can’t do this.
How can she be strong for her beautiful girl when she feels so empty?
“I miss them, too, baby. Trust me. If I had the chance to bring them back to us, I’d do it in a heartbeat. But life doesn’t work that way.”
Now
“Get here as fast as you can, cuz! You won’t believe this shit!”
That’s the call she received from N’Jadaka, and as soon as she did, Shuri hopped on her husband’s orca with Miya and zoomed through the water. The mother and daughter waste no time once they’re on land. Miya holds her mother in her strong arms and flies her towards the prison.
War Dogs bow to the Queen and Princess of Talokan and N’Jadaka is the only one standing. The general of the Wakandan army salutes his cousin and motions for her to follow him.
“Give me the run down.”
“I’m telling you that you ain’t ready for this.” N’Jadaka stops in front of a glass window and taps it with his knuckles. Shuri peers through and what she discovers inside causes her hand to cover her open mouth and her stomach to churn.
“Mama…Is that…”
Shuri lowers her hand and it clenches into a tight fist as a new emotion stirs through her.
“How is this possible? K’uk’ulkan killed Quetzalcoatl and I made him unrecognizable. How is he tied up in this room? What happened to his eyes?”
“C’mon, girl. You really think I was going to let that fucker keep the one thing that allows him to control our blood? I broke his hands, too. As far as everything else, I dunno what to tell you. You’re going to have to go in there and ask.” N’Jadaka points to a bag on a nearby chair. “He had that on him. All that’s in there is some book in Mayan.”
Shuri looks at her daughter. “Check it out. I’m going in. Don’t you dare get close.”
“Yes, Mama.”
Donning her full Black Panther suit, Shuri is let inside the room. She stands in front of the god-king who took nearly everything from her and stares at his grotesque and disfigured face.
“Tell me who you are and there’s a chance you’ll live to see another day.”
He lifts his head as though he recognizes her voice.
“…u yatan K’uk’ulkan…”
“You’ll address me as the Black Panther and nothing else. Who are you?”
When he’s not responding, Shuri walks behind him to where his wrists are tied together by Vibranium ropes. She tears his index finger completely off and he screams at the top of his lungs.
“If you are wise,” she says calmly over the noise. “You’ll answer all of my questions and do so truthfully. We have technology here that can heal you completely but that won’t happen if you continue being stubborn.”
“My name is Quetzalcoatl,” he grits out. “I’m not from this world!”
“Yeah, obviously. But where did you come from and how did you get here?”
“There’s-there’s a book! A book of spells! I used it to open a portal through a mirror and I’ve been traveling throughout different universes!”
Shuri pulls her eyebrows together. It’s stranger than fiction. Then again, there was a time she didn’t believe in merpeople and now she’s the ruler of an underwater nation.
“What are you running from, Quetzalcoatl?”
“I…”
“On with it, bitch.” She clutches another finger and he winces.
“I killed you and your daughter in the universe I’m from and I’ve been on the run from your husband!”
Shuri releases his finger and takes several steps back, getting closer to the thermostat. Her heart is racing and her head is swimming.
“There’s a universe where K’uk’ulkan lost Miya and me? Is Uuka still alive?”
“Y-yes…Now please, I-“
Shuri can’t hear what else he says, tuning him out as the buzzing in her ear increases. She turns up the heat in the room to slowly torture him and then she steps out into the hallway. Miya is holding the book, and both her and N’Jadaka are waiting for answers.
“Baby…Can you let me see that real quick?”
“Yeah, Mama. Here. Did he tell you something about it?”
Shuri wordlessly takes the book and flips through the pages until she finds one that has been well-loved. She only takes a few seconds of reading it before tears fall from her eyes and land on the pages.
“Oh, baby girl… I might be able to bring your baba and brother back, after all.”
“This shit is wild,” N’Jadaka mumbles as he sits with Shuri and Miya on the floor of Shuri’s old bedroom inside the citadel. “Watch some creature come crawling through the portal trying to murder us.”
“Someone’s always trying to murder us. Shut up; I’m trying to say the spell.”
Shuri reads from the book and then all watch the small mirror in the center of their circle transform. They all gasp seeing there’s no longer a reflection of the ceiling up above, but they’re peering inside of a hut similar to the one Shuri and Miya live in now.
“Hey,” Miya whispers. “I think we’re looking through that little mirror that hangs by the entryway.”
Shuri puts a finger to her lips when they hear voices coming through the portal. Moments later, two men appear and Shuri’s eyes burn.
It’s K’uk’ulkan and Uuka, both of them so much older. Her son is a young man, looking exactly like his baba but with curly hair. And then there’s K’uk’ulkan…
His hair is no longer black; it’s gray as well as his beard. His face isn’t as youthful, either. It’s mature with laugh lines and…
Oh.
Seeing him like this makes her ache in all sorts of places.
The chance to see K’uk’ulkan age was stolen from her and now here he is, in all of his silver fox, delicious glory…
So damn beautiful…
And her sweet baby Uuka…
Shuri starts to cry silently and when she sees Miya doing the same, she holds her close. Together, they observe K’uk’ulkan and Uuka in this other universe.
“It’s okay, Baba… If you like being with Ms. Nenetl, you shouldn’t feel bad about it. Mama would want you happy.”
Um…
No the fuck she wouldn’t!
Who the hell is Ms. Nenetl!?
“I don’t know, Uuka. It’s impossible for me to love another woman. Your mother was my person.”
That’s right, K’uk’ulkan!
Oh, that’s her man! He would never-
“K’uk’ulkan?”
Shuri scowls when she sees a curvy older woman now entering the hut. Uuka whistles and starts moving away from the two of them.
“I’m gonna go check out what’s happening in the capitol. See ya later, Baba… Or maybe I won’t if someone sends me a message telling me not to because he’s occupied with something… I dunno.”
Noooooo!!!
Uuka needs to get his ass back in there!!!! What’s her baby doing!?
K'uk'ulkan quietly laughs and waves goodbye. As soon as Uuka is gone, the god-king wraps his arms around this Nenetl lady and Shuri can’t stomach the rest. She grabs the handheld mirror and throws it all, smashing it into pieces and abruptly closing the portal between the two worlds. N’Jadaka and Miya are staring at her as though she’s lost her mind and after Shuri can breathe normally again, she soothes her dress down and clears her throat.
“Miya Papaya, you’ll be staying with your uncle N’Jadaka and Grandma Ramonda for a bit. I’m going to open a bigger portal and talk some sense into Baba.”
“Yo, yo, yo! Hold up! I don’t think so!” N’Jadaka jumps up and crosses his arms. “I know you want to see K’uk’ulkan and Uuka again, but this obsession ain’t healthy. The ones in that world aren’t yours. Your boys are looking down at you and are always with you.”
The corner of Shuri’s lip twitches and her response to her cousin comes out cold. “My boys are dead, N’Jadaka. Bones inside an embroidered cloth buried under the earth.”
“Mama…”
Shuri grabs her daughter’s shoulders. “Miya, I was losing all faith until I found out those two lost us in their world. I need to at least try to see if it means anything.”
“Okay…” Miya frowns. “But what about that lady we saw Baba with? Maybe he has remarried since you died?”
“Oh? That?” Shuri laughs and waves off her concern. “That’s easy. I know your baba’s weakness. I’ll go through the portal naked and jump on his face.”
The fifteen-year-old and her uncle are mortified. They both look at one another as Shuri walks away, knowing when she wants something, she’ll stop at nothing to get it.
Miya stands in the doorway and watches as her mother paints her face. The last five years have been so hard without Baba and Uuka here. She listens to Mama cry herself to sleep every single night despite pretending to be okay throughout the day. There are times where Miya believes her mother has gone mad from grief and this is one of those times.
“Mama?”
Shuri smiles at Miya through the mirror when she appears behind her. “How do I look, sweetheart? Honest opinion, please. I don’t know how old I was when I died in that universe and I don’t want to look like some hag.”
“You know you don’t age physically, Mama. You look exactly the way you did in your wedding picture at eighteen. Baba is going to think you’re so beautiful…” Miya trails off and looks down at her feet. She’s never been able to hide her emotions well and her mama is always the first to pick up on it.
“What is bothering you, baby?”
“It’s just… I don’t think this is a good idea. What if that Baba and Uuka aren’t anything like our Baba and Uuka? What if…” Her eyes prickle with tears and she sniffles. “What if they don’t like me because their Miya was so much better?”
Shuri gets up from the chair and immediately wraps her arms around her daughter. Miya melts into her comfort spot and cries into her mother’s chest.
“I’m a firm believer that love transcends space and time. I know I would love you in every single universe, and I know they’re just as desperate to see us again as we are. The worst thing that’ll happen is we’re rejected and continue moving forward. Phambili.” Shuri pulls back and wipes Miya’s tears away with her thumbs. “But the best thing that’ll happen is that we’re reunited again, and bring them to this world where nothing will ever happen to them. We’ll be so full of love that we’ll cry tears of joy instead of from pain.”
There’s only one thing Miya can do and it’s what she’s been doing her whole life up to this point.
Have faith in her unhinged mother.
“Okay, Mama… Just don’t get hurt, okay? And if this Baba seems sketchy or whatever, come back quickly and never open another portal again.”
“You got it, my love. If he lays an unloving hand on me, I’ll tear him to shreds.” Shuri flashes her teeth at her and Miya smiles. “Go wait with your Uncle N’Jadaka, honey. It won’t take me long to get my claws into him.”
Once her daughter leaves, Shuri stands in front of her full-length mirror and slowly undoes the tie that’s keeping her robe together. It pools at her ankles and Shuri checks out her naked body.
K’uk’ulkan has always loved a bit of a bush, but she waxed just yesterday. Her breasts and ass are at least perky… that’s something he used to adore. She wonders if the muscles on her arms and her toned abdomen are a turn off… What if his Shuri wasn’t the Black Panther? What if she was a dainty, weak little thing? Is she going to scare him off by pouncing on him like a cat in heat?
“Don’t get nervous now, Queeny,” she whispers, giving herself a pep talk. “You’re a baddie and always have been. Go in there and give him a mouthful of this pussy. Fuck Nenetl. Yeah. You got this.”
She bounces around like a boxer about to fight and while doing so, she recites the spell, opening the portal and getting ready to breach the unknown.
Earth-1113
Uuka clicks his tongue for the thousandth time and Ch’ah glances at his son as they sit on their thrones.
“What is it, mehen?”
“Our people haven’t seen us in two years. You’re surrounded by all this love and worship. Can’t you pretend to be happy?”
Ch’ah sighs and reaches his arm across to squeeze his son’s shoulder. Uuka is far too concerned about his emotional wellbeing.
“Stop worrying about me. I’m your father.”
“That’s why I worry about you, Baba. You’re all I have. It makes me sad seeing you like this. Mama and Miya would be calling you grouchy and teasing you until you smile. I’m not gonna do that. If you don’t smile, I’m not going to make salmon omelets during our next universe travel.”
Ch’ah touches his heart. “My son, how could you cut me deep like that? Your salmon omelets are the only ones that taste similar to your mother’s.”
“No smile, no omelets.”
The god-king’s lips curl back into a grin and not even a second later, Uuka yanks him off the throne by his hand and forces him towards the crowd of Talokanil dancing in the water.
He’s brought to Queen Nenetl, Quetzalcoatl’s estranged wife. Uuka pushes them together using his water bending like they’re his two dolls and he takes a bow.
“Enjoy your celebration, Baba. I’m going to find a pretty girl to spend the night with.”
Ch’ah lowers his eyelids as he holds Nenetl’s hands, watching his son go off and flirt with some young women.
“Chaac, Shuri would call me every name under the sun if she knew I let him act so…bold.”
“K’uk’ulkan,” Nenetl warns and he looks down at her. “You’re doing it again.”
“What?”
“Talking about her when we’re together right now. Live in the moment, King. The past is gone.” Nenetl cups his bearded cheek. “And Uuka is a grown man now. He needs time to explore. Sometimes when you’re only with one person for so long, you don’t know how good you can have it elsewhere.”
Nenetl’s advances aren’t lost on him. They first kissed perhaps a century after Shuri’s passing which in turn led to something more. She’s a woman scorned by an abusive husband who took the life of Shuri and Miya then ran like a coward. Of course Nenetl would choose to start a sexually explicit love affair with Quetzalcoatl’s former best friend.
And Ch’ah enjoys the release that comes with fucking her. She has a beautiful body and she feels amazing to be inside of.
But he could never love her.
His heart died with Shuri.
His soul died with Miya.
Nenetl sure is a nice distraction, though, and one he could use after returning home from yet another universe to find no trace of Quetzalcoatl.
So he wraps one hand around the side of her neck and another is planted firmly on her lower back as he whispers into her ear,
“Let’s go live in the moment then, noyollotl.”
Ch’ah doesn’t know if he’s losing his mind, but he swore the other day he could hear Shuri and Miya talking inside his hut. It has been decades since he heard their voices. Perhaps all of these failed attempts to find Quetzalcoatl is starting to drive him mad.
Tonight, he pushes that thought far out of his mind and sits on his chair, watching Queen Nenetl strip for him. Sometimes, he doesn’t want her completely naked. That’s different now.
“All of it, my king?”
“All of it. Then sit on my hammock for me.”
She happily obliges and Ch’ah admires the way her breasts bounce as she frees them from her bra. After she steps out of her underwear, she sits across from him on the hammock and spreads her legs.
“Do you want me to touch myself, K’uk’ulkan?” Nenetl asks in a breathy whisper and Ch’ah holds up his hand.
“Sit there and relax, beautiful.”
From a distance, Ch’ah manipulates the water inside of her body, creating a vibration in her cunt that makes her moan, writhe, and clutch the ropes. The scent of her arousal fills the hut and Ch’ah gets harder the faster he goes. He can feel her inside his fingertips and as he watches Nenetl succumb to pleasure, he wishes he could’ve done this to Shuri instead of hurting her with it.
“Fuck me, K’uk’ulkan!”
Ch’ah throws her onto the floor and she immediately gets on her hands and knees. He frees his aching cock from his shorts and positions himself behind her. He slides through her slit easily and the squelching sound it creates causes them both to groan.
He holds her curvy ass tightly and rests inside her for a moment, giving her walls time to adjust to his huge size.
“Look in the mirror as I fuck you.”
She does as she’s told and Ch’ah begins pounding into her furiously, knowing that even for a human, she can take it. She birthed way too many children of a god-king to not be able to. She’s fine with it rough and that works for him.
He loves how she clenches extra tight around him when it hurts. He thrusts into her pussy so hard that he knows she’ll be feeling him this time next week and unable to forget him while he tracks down her deranged husband in another universe tomorrow.
This isn’t making love and never will be.
It’s raw, primal fucking.
But somewhere in the middle of that raw, primal fucking…
In the midst of their high…
As they stare at their reflections…
The mirror changes.
Ch’ah has no time to react to the ghost of his fully naked wife standing there.
Shuri emerges from the mirror and his eyes grow wide, his thrusting ending abruptly. She leaps through the air, plants her cunt right in his face, and knocks him clean out of Nenetl. His cum flies everywhere as he lands flat on his back. His nose and mouth are muffled by her phantom pussy and he’s starting to believe this isn’t some sort of hallucination when he can taste her flesh. Her thighs are muffling Nenetl’s horrified screams.
Through his tears, Ch’ah observes the woman sitting on his face.
Her braids are longer and her body is more toned…
But…
There’s no mistaking it.
Somehow, someway…
His wife has returned to him.
With shaking hands, he clutches her thighs and presses her harder against his mouth. Her lips part and a whimper falls as she begins a steady grinding motion. His eyes roll back as her arousal drips onto his tongue and floods his senses.
“Hi, iicham,” she whispers while running her fingers through his hair. “I’ve missed you, my love.”