By Bast -Prologue (Erik x Reader)
so had to post this on a different account cuz homegirl is thirsty and can’t be caught by irl mutuals so here enjoy! (haven’t thought of a title yet and sorry for the lack of erik cuz setup but yeah… )
You had never thought yourself silly enough to truly believe in the goddess Bast like so many other native Wakandans. At least, not until the day she renamed you in a dream.
You had woken up from a slumber deep enough that no earthquake, typhoon or raging fire could arouse you. However, rather than find yourself in the familiar surroundings of your regular sleeping chamber, you came to your senses back nestled against the bark of a low-branching acacia tree. The soft, thin sheets you slept with despite the ever–present summer heat had been replaced by a heavy black covering surrounding you up to your neck, thick enough to be a shag carpet. A few moments passed as your daze wore off, and you shot up to your feet, screaming, when you realized the quivering you felt around you was a multitude of cats, purring against your skin, paws lightly traversing your lap and nudging you gently.
Not only did you not believe in Bast, you were never particularly fond of cats. How sacrilegious.
You had almost reached the treetop in your frantic climb to safety when a larger black cat, large enough to be a jaguar or panther, began to approach from the distance. You knew these jungle cats were great climbers, and your heart started to pound in your chest as quickly planned how best to escape a mauling. However, the jungle feline, appeared to be changing form as it approached.
The cats that had gotten very still, watching you climb the tree with a communal look approaching curiosity, now appeared to turn and file out towards the approaching figure. The figure was now upright, legs lengthening, shoulders broadening, torso shortening, and head molding into the silhouette of a faceless man.
Your muscles tensed and your jaw clenched as it continued to close the distance between you, but you found yourself frozen in place by some unidentifiable external force. The man, or form thereof, stopped only steps away from the tree now, and golden eyes seemed to pop into life on his previously blank visage to fixate on you. You stared transfixed in fear as a mouth split open into a toothy grin, accented with four golden canines, on the black canvas that was his face.
You opened your mouth to scream, but no words came out.
He held an arm out to you, and the rest of his face appeared to fill in recognizable human features – a nose, cheekbones, ears, hair. Warm-hued, brown skin replaced the pure darkness that painted the creature, and he finally appeared fully human.
Don’t be afraid, you heard a female voice from nowhere in particular whisper directly into your ears. Your eyes darted around you in confusion, and you heard a high-pitched chuckle.
Truly, don’t be afraid, my darling. I want you to be prepared when he comes, Nkiru.
Who the fuck was Nkiru?
Before you could continue to question your sanity, you somehow had found yourself on your feet below the tree once again, now face to face with the giant cat turned man. He did not say a word, but looked at you quizzically, the earlier inviting smile now gone from his face.
Take a good look at his face, Nkiru.
He suddenly gripped you by your chin, almost roughly, to look up at him. Those golden eyes that were so monstrous a few minutes ago, appearing out of nothingness, now were almost gentle on an otherwise overtly masculine face. Your fear and apprehension somehow dissipating, you took a few moments to study his facial features – his full, broad lips, his cheekbones, the curve of his jaw, the arch of his eyebrows, the pattern of his facial hair, his crown.
He let go of your face, and you cautiously raised your own hand to touch his cheek. To your surprise, his skin was softer, smoother to the touch than expected. He lay his own hand on top of yours, and your heart skipped a beat. You dropped your hand to your side immediately, your face growing hot. You stepped back, and now taking the time to take in the rest of him, realized he was completely naked. Embarrassed, you averted your eyes away from his manhood, almost tripping over a cat in the process of distancing yourself.
If this was some sort of weird sex dream, you decided you were very repressed and probably needed to lose it to someone real soon.
Remember him, Nkiru. Protect him the best you can.
You took another quick glance at the man that had towered over your own quite athletic 5-foot-7 frame, wondering what threat could be posed to him that you could somehow overcome in his stead. He was now seated cross-legged in the grass, rendered slightly more decent by a black cat sitting in his lap. As he pet the animal, a look of peace and contentment washed over his face, and you could not help but smile for a few seconds, before you realized this whole situation was too weird, and grimaced.
Your name was not Nkiru. You were hearing voices. You didn’t know where you were. There was nothing around you for miles except grassy plains, black cats, this tree, and this random cat who had turned into a person before you.
“What the actual fuck kind of dream is this?” You whispered to yourself under your breath, if not just to know how real your voice would sound coming past your lips.
The airy, feminine voice chuckled softly in your ears again and you suddenly felt a wind pick up from around your ankles, swirling around your body to your shoulders, at which location it warmed and solidified, like the feeling of smooth arms holding you in an embrace. You felt a chill run up and down your spine, and froze.
Don’t fret, my child. When you wake up, you will know this was real.
The man appeared to have gotten bored of petting the cat and rose to his feet. Before your eyes, he flashed a smile again before he reverted back to jungle cat form, much faster than he had transformed into human just a few moments ago. He circled around you once, and walked off into the distance, droves of smaller cats appearing to follow suit. You only now appeared to notice that the sky over the horizon was cloudless, and painted with hues of lavender and orange, accented with stars.
This man could be a great leader, but his heart is filled with hatred and contempt. Teach him what Wakanda has to offer, Nkiru.
“My name isn’t Nkiru.” You said, to no one in particular, now alone on the plains. “I think whoever you are, you have the wrong person or the wrong dream.”
It is now.
With those words, you woke up in a cold sweat, but unlike waking up suddenly from a nightmare, you arose with a serene calm you figured was akin to waking up from the dead. It occurred to you to check your pulse to make sure you had not actually died, and you were reassured by the slow thump-thump-thump of your heartbeat.
You were truly shocked by how little you were unfazed by so vivid a dream sequence. The face that the voice had commanded you to memorize was now firmly etched into your mind, and you were sure you remembered reading somewhere that your brain does not make up faces in dreams. But you were also just as sure that you had never seen that man before in your life.
You clutched your bed sheets closer to you now, reassured that they were no longer a literal swarm of felines, and looked out your window. It was still dark, and a quick glance at the holograph above your end table confirmed that it was still the middle of the night – 2ish am, the witching hour. A cool breeze was wafting through the opening and the fact that you couldn’t remember opening your window would have normally spooked you but you were, again, uncharacteristically peaceful. You didn’t bother to close it.
Instead, you lay back down on your side, and tried to sleep again. For a split second, you wondered if that could truly could have been a visitation from Bast. It certainly included all the motifs – the cats, the acacia tree, the plains, the atmosphere, the voice of a woman.
Then again, that was silly. Maybe you had spent too much time at the Herb Garden and let Papa Zuri convince you of Bast’s presence one too many times. You had just had a weird dream, and would forget about it soon enough.
And you did, until the first person who you spoke to the next day, your tutee turned play sister Shuri, referred to you as Kiki rather than your actual nickname just moments after you woke up. Then again, until you made your daily stop at the spiritual compound to say good morning to your mentor, and he smiled wide at you and welcomed you, Nkiru. As the characters in your life responded with puzzlement at the shock and confusion plastered on your face whenever your new name was called, you became panicked as you became more and more sure that Bast really had appeared to you in your slumber and given you directions.
That night, you prayed for instructions on what to do, but as expected, received no clear answer, no lyrical voice that seemed to be coming from somewhere both deep inside you and around you as you had that night.
You did decide to find out what the name Nkiru meant. The greatest will come, you read. A good future. Future goddess. Maybe scratch that last one. You wouldn’t bother deluding yourself that far.
It was an old name originating from the Igbo tribe of West Africa. Diminutive of Nkiruka. This didn’t make any sense. You knew for a fact that you had come as a child refugee from a country called Cameroon, and the Igbo were primarily from Nigeria.
The greatest will come.
The metamorphosing man suddenly came to mind. Would he be the greatest that is yet to come? The goddess had alluded to him become a powerful leader if not for his hatred.
Yet all you saw were a wide, sincere smile and beaming eyes.
You shook your head, as if to physically remove him from your thoughts, and sat down at your workbench to catch up on some clinical review articles you had neglected to read all day. It would take you a while to adjust to this new name, and now you wondered just how long it would take for that man, your assignment from Bast, to appear.
He was cute, after all. And how hard could showing him around Wakanda be?
[Chapter One][Chapter Two][Chapter Three][Chapter Four][Chapter Five][Chapter Six][Chapter Seven][Chapter Eight]
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