Shuri, Daughter of Ramonda's Day Off

Interlude: Riri

Riri woke up with a pounding head and an empty cot. It was perfectly made, as though it hadn't been slept in. But Riri vaguely remembered the princess of Wakanda carrying her home last night.
They had fun, Riri thought cheerfully. But the unslept bed concerned her. Her cold feet touched the floor as she dragged herself down the hallway, rubbing the sleep out of her eye. She looked terrible. Her eyes were bloodshot - at least you couldn't tell that she had overdone it last night. If anyone asked, it was the gluten from the pizza that made her face puffy.
"Mama?" Riri called out.
"I'm here, sweetie!" her mom called out. The smell of greasy fats filled the air. A good bacon and egg breakfast...
which means her mom knew. But she wasn't going to whoop her butt about it. Technically, she was 24 and an adult.
"Where's Shuri?" Riri asked.
"Oh," her mom apologized. "Uhm, Shuri had to go out. Last minute."
Riri's heart skipped a beat.
"Will she be back?" she clenched her fork, but the look on her mom's face said everything.
"No, she said it was a family emergency."
"Right..." It didn't make sense to Riri. Just yesterday Shuri had given her the kimoyo beads to shut off from the world. They were having fun, weren't they?
She looked at the plate her mother lay in front of her. There wasn't a big family emergency that Shuri could have gone to. Maybe she was just having a small morning walk and would be right back.
But then the events of last night came back to her.
Don't need food when I already have a snack," Riri had said to Shuri's face. "I like your face. Too bad you like the mermaid."
Right then and there, Riri had wanted to kiss Shuri. After that small peck on the check, she had thought about it on their way around the city. When Shuri's hand brushed against hers.
The princess, though an extreme genius, was truly clueless when it came to love.
"Are you okay?"
"No, it's good."
"You seem upset.".
"Because I am!" Riri exclaimed. "Because of course, it couldn't go well."
"Are you two dating?" her mother seemed excited for a moment.
"We could never," Riri sniffed. "She's ...a very important person. She's just Shuri to me," Riri let out a sigh and stabbed the bacon. "What was I thinking? I don't belong in that world. Dipped my toes in there once..."
Her mother looked at her apologetically.
"She left a note."

Riri,
Okoye begged me to come back for a Summit with Namor -

Riri didn't read any further. She crumbled up the piece of paper and threw it into the trash can. She hated that Fishman more than anything. He had wanted to kill her and it was only by the grace of Shuri that he didn't.
Riri spent the rest of the day in the garage working on her car. She didn't come out for lunch. Instead, she heated her food in the oven when everyone was out of the house. She finished her assignments and that of the others.
Though Shuri hadn't been there for a long - a whooping 24 hours before life whisked her away back to her world - Riri felt her absence once more. When she had gone back to MIT, it felt too surreal. She finally understood those adventure stories where the main character came back and felt restless. One taste of adventure and adrenaline made her realize how minuscule it was to think about homework.
But she needed it. Or else she would have gone mad.
Christmas came and went. By New Year's eve after many days of no contact, Riri woke up and felt empty. The cot had been moved out of her room, but she felt Shuri's absence. She never forgot how Shuri had calmed her down in that underwater cave, telling her that she would come back.
Shuri looked absolutely beautiful even in the face of a menace making her wear an outfit.
Riri dropped her wrench. Her arm was cramped as she pulled herself out from under the car. The clock read midday.
"Now are you sure you don't want anything from the store?" her mom asked. "Any extra snacks for yourself? You know your cousins will be eating everything."
"I'm good," Riri sighed.
Silence befell the garage when her mom left again. It gave her some time to think about what went wrong. Would Shuri have stayed had Riri not told her? Did Shuri leave because she didn't like Riri like that? There were other options for Shuri, after all.
Did they even do political marriages in Wakanda -
A small bug flew in front of Riri's nose and tickled it. She waved it aside. The fly tickled her again.
Then she saw the faint purple glow of a Wakandan glyph on the thing that was supposed to be a bug. She pulled herself out from under the car again.
The bug flew back into the car, back to the small open compartment where she kept Shuri's kimoyo beads.
"I must be trippin" Riri muttered. Still, she took the beads into her hand and slipped them on.
Nothing happened.
She waited on the news, but there was no news of Wakanda. No good was good news, as people said. Or the bad news was brewing behind the walls of the palace. By the time the dark broke in as early as it did in the winter, Riri was getting ready for a night out in town with a few of her high school friends. She wasn't really up for it but did it either way.
Riri didn't drink that night. She went through the New Year's eve party already sure she would be home even before midnight in a pair of pajamas.
"I don't know, Michelle. It's been pretty darn miserable."
MJ let out a sigh. She was back home in Queens and checked back ever so often to remind Riri that she was still living.
"Boy trouble?"
"Girl trouble," Riri corrected. "I, uh, may have drunkenly told her that I liked her, and then she left the next day."
"Is that all?"
"I think so."
"It doesn't sound like the full story," she could hear MJ shuffling her blankets around. "I mean, you did say that this person was the smartest alive. Smart people tend to be very rash."
"You tell me, Jones," Riri scratched an itch on her head. "Say, how do you feel about a video call when I'm home and we can watch Boxing Day?"
When Riri arrived home, her heels aching from wearing her high heels, she noticed how the porch light was on. Panic rose in her chest. No one was home. Her mother and aunt were over at their other relatives and Riri most definitely did not leave the light on in the garage.
But then, a beep sounded from her - Shuri's - beads. Once more, the little fly showed up. It circled Riri and flew straight into the garage.
Freaking Wakanda, Riri thought to herself. But she didn't trust anyone. So, she held her heels in her hand and very slowly walked into the garage, ready to strike at anything that came her way.