The Irony of it All

24

                                2016

                          West Africa

For those of you who haven’t caught on yet, Wakanda borders the very substantial country of Niger. Wakandans often have to travel outside their beautiful country, either for work, visiting family members that have married and moved away (Though why would they want to move from Wakanda?), or just going on a trip. Kuhle was a young woman who had happened to travel to Niger to visit her sister, who had married into a Nigerien family and had just had her first child. 

When she arrived in the village that was just a few miles from Goure, only 24 hours after Nat had been captured, she found that everyone was talking about something big that had gone down in the town over. Apparently, many big vans and men with machine guns had closed in on the small town but no shots were fired. They came, broke into a hostel, and left, taking with them the body of a young Algerian woman with bright red hair. 

When Kuhle heard this, she couldn't help but think that the description sounded like one of the Avengers. All Wakandans take their education very seriously and that included knowing what went on in the outside world.

When Kuhle returned, she told her mother, Bogani. Bogani loved to gossip, and told her friends, one of them being Nofoto. Nofoto was from a different tribe, and she took this new knowledge with her when she went home. Nofoto told Zimkhithe, who told Themba, who told Nomuula, who was from the River Tribe on trading business. She went home and told Fezeka, who told Lulama, who told Akhosa, who was Nakia's handmaiden. Akhosa told Nakia what she'd heard, and Nakia immediately traveled to the capital city, directly to the palace. 

"Nakia!" Shuri exclaimed upon seeing her future sister in law. 

"Hello Shuri." They quickly hugged before Nakia talked again. "Where is your brother? I need to speak with him." 

"He should be in the throne room but he's actually on the roof." 

Nakia chuckled. "Thank you, Shuri." 

When she got to the roof, she found her fiance sitting on the railing with his legs dangling over the side. "Sitting on a railing 33 stories might be considered dangerous you know." 

He turned to her and smiled. "Who ever said that?"

"You did. When we were kids sitting in this same place." He chuckled and helped her up.

After a few moments of comfortable silence, she said,"There's rumors going through the village. I don't know how much is true, but it sounds like mercenaries ransacked the village Goure." 

"Niger? It's such a small town. What could they possibly want with it?" 

"A woman with red hair." 

"Natasha?"

"I don't know. Rumor is the only thing they took was the body of a red head white woman." 

" You think she's dead?"

"I think you should contact her husband and see if he's heard from her."

"When did this happen?"

"About a week ago."

"I'll contact Steve. Last I heard he was somewhere in Eastern Europe. Would you mind going to Niger, ask around? Maybe we can find where they took this red head woman." 

"Of course." She gently layed her head on his shoulder, and they watched the sun set over the beautiful mountains to the West.