▸ Column · Present-day Wakanda (modern-grounded comic, MCU register)
BLACK PANTHER replies.
Replied to by Black Panther, with a rebuttal from Killmonger.
The letter
I want to propose to my girlfriend Aurora. We've been together four years and I genuinely do want this — I had started saving for a ring and was scouting a private retreat up near the Warrior Falls. The whole thing was coming together in my head.
But everyone around us seems to have decided this is their moment too. Her mother asks "any news?" every single Sunday gathering. My friend Axel (he got engaged last fall, and now he's turned it into some kind of running bit in our group messages — which, fine, but I'm getting tired of it). Even my dentist brought it up because Aurora apparently mentioned something at her last appointment.
And now, honestly, every time I picture it I feel like I'm just performing on someone else's schedule. Like I'm not choosing — I'm caving.
The other thing is Aurora has gone quiet about all of it lately. And I'm scared she's reading my silence as me not wanting to. I don't want to lose the surprise, but I also don't want her sitting there thinking I've decided against her.
How do I get everyone to ease up without looking like I'm stalling? And how do I reassure Aurora without tipping the whole plan?
— Waiting in Birnin Zana
Black Panther replies
This letter requires me to ask you something first: what is the secret actually protecting, and who is paying for its protection?
I understand the impulse. There is something sacred in the private decision, uncontaminated by everyone else's schedule — I have known the weight of choices made before an audience of expectations. But here is what I learned, at some cost, about guarding something so closely that others must sit in silence waiting.
My father kept a kingdom's secret because he believed the guarding served a purpose. The cost of that guarding was paid by a child who waited for a father who never came. The secret was not wrong in itself. The silence was.
You do not owe Aurora the when or the how. Those can remain yours. But she should not be sitting in that silence wondering if she has been decided against. That is not a gift you are protecting. It is a debt she is paying for your perfect moment.
Say this much, and only this much: We are moving toward this. I have not gone quiet because I am uncertain about you. No date, no plan, no surprise lost. Just close the silence.
The families are a simpler matter. You do not owe them a timeline. Meet them with warmth, say nothing, and let a closed door be a closed door — not a hostile one. A king who rules from his wounds rules badly. You are not obligated to perform impatience at their impatience.
— Black Panther
Killmonger weighs in
He just made my father's murder into a parable about your proposal jitters. Let that sit for a second.
Now — he's right that Aurora is sitting in the dark. But notice what he's actually telling you: keep her mostly there so you can still have your moment. That's the part he won't say out loud.
The surprise is the performance. Look at who you're keeping it from: her. Look at who already knows: Axel, her mother, your dentist. You built a gallery, and you're calling it a gift.
Pick her today. Out loud. No retreat at the Falls, no ring reveal, no audience. Just her. The gallery was never the point — stop feeding it and you'll see that clearly enough.
— Killmonger
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