When Shuri fell asleep on a cot in one of the training rooms, one adjacent to only one other, the surviving Dora Milaje chose to sleep that night in that adjacent one, a room only now big enough to hold all of them. There’s three other bodies shrouded in the darkness; Ayo’s just outside, having taken the final shift.
Even with Okoye being lucky enough to still have her, it’ll likely take them over a year to rebuild their ranks. They always have a list of candidates prepared, of course, and some of them are still alive, but she doesn’t even know if they’ll be willing anymore. She hasn’t had time to find out yet.
She might not have it today, either. Shuri should have at least one more training session this morning, before they’re both going to see the Avengers off, and even though this is going to be a toned-down coronation, there are still too many preparations to make, and not nearly enough people left to make them. If there’s any time after that, she needs to talk to just about every person still alive who works in the Citadel. And that’s if no one tries to attack it today, and there’s a good chance someone will.
(Although if it’s that crazed man from the Mining Tribe, that’ll be one less problem at the coronation, at least.)
Ayo comes in and walks across the room The two of them sit dully on the bed next to each other, both of them still a little too sleep deprived. “Anything else happen?” she asks Okoye.
“Nakia finally contacted us. She has recovered the stolen vibranium, and she says that unless we want her to do something in particular here, since it is impossible to get her back for the coronation, she would prefer to stay where she is, where she says she can do more good.”
“She probably can,” Ayo notes. “We can send Teela there tomorrow for the vibranium, or possibly Mabhuti. I know you’d want to go yourself…”
“But I can’t. I know.” Okoye’s not sure when she’ll next be able to leave the capital. Even if the monarch she’s serving does, if things are bad enough here, she might have to send Ayo with her. Although that situation really needs Nakia, not her.
Should she demand Nakia come back? She wouldn’t protest. She might not even entirely mind; it couldn’t have been an easy decision, to stay away when Shuri is about to end up the situation she’ll probably more or less be in even if M’Baku ends up king.
The other three women are all waking up now. Feyistan first, as she’s typically been since she and Akanni joined them. Next to her, M’yra’s groaning slightly, but she sits up around the same time Teela does.
Even in the limited light, Okoye can see the exact moment each of them remembers why they’re there, and why there’s only the five of them. For the thousandth time, the names go through her own head: Xoliswa, Nareema, T’Yani…she’ll never forget T’Yani’s death; that sight is burned into her memory… Dalia, Onyeka, Lulu, Zola, Mbali, Folami, Akanni.
“We are all consumed with the same grief, I know,” she says to them. “We will bear it for the rest of our lives. We will remember our fallen sisters until our own deaths. But we must nonetheless continue on, especially now, when we have a country and a monarch to come who will need us even more than they usually do. We will have that monarch crowned before the sun sets tonight, whom we will serve and protect with our own lives. We will give everything we have, and the five of us will make that enough, until we find new women to join us, and then we will teach them and lead them, as others did for us.” She nods slightly at Feyistan, for whom that happened so recently.
“This is not unknown in our history. Four hundred years ago there was a great fire in this city, and only one of the Dora Milaje survived. She made fundamental changes to the group, turned us into what we are today. Those measures are not needed right now, of course, but we will otherwise follow her example, and as long as Wakanda still stands, so do we.”
I will now go and wake up Shuri,” she continues. “Feyistan will stay with us. Ayo, you will take M’yra and Teela upstairs and the three of you will post yourselves where you believe it most necessary. See the Queen as well, once she’s awake.
Wakanda forever.” She whispers it as they all stand up. They all murmur it then, voices trembling, arms jerking into place; it’s finally coming to Feyistan automatically. Each of them feels the strength of it, right down to her bones.