Blackfire's past

"Get out of me!"

"But of course, Princess."

You do as she says, and put it away in your pants.

"Now let's see if we can get this thing to take us to Earth," you suggest.

You look around for some kind of controls. "Ah, here they are!"

You press a green button, and a computer voice asks "Destination?"

"Earth."

"Calculating time... Time of trip: 15 hours."

"What?!" Blackfire shouts.

"So..." you say. "What else do you want to do?"

Blackfire jabs you in the shoulder and sits still.

3 hours in, your stomach grumbles.

You take out a bit of bread and a small lemon-like fruit.

"You want something?" you ask Blackfire. "Maybe a fruit? I'm sure that McGriddle you had this morning wasn't enough."

She looks at you, still evidently upset, and holds out her hand. You place a fruit that looks like a fusion between a pear and a cherry in it, and she takes a pretty big bite out of it. The fruit was juicy, you can hear squishing as she chews.

You munch on bread as you look at the computer's holo-display. A digital clock counts how much time has passed sinced you first put in a destination. 3 hours and 3 minutes. Boy this was gonna be a long trip.

Blackfire takes another bite of the pear-cherry when you ask her a question.

"If you're a member of the royal family, why'd you become a criminal?"

Blackfire looks at you for a moment, then swallows the bit of pear-cherry in her mouth.

"Hmph, I didn't want to be a criminal, but I wasn't going to be a good little girl like my sister, Starfire." She shifted in your lap a little before continuing. "I don't know why, but I always liked being the mischievous one, the defiant one, the one who did what she wanted to do. Of course, our kanorfka, Galfor, constantly scolded me." (NOTE: kanorfka = Tamaranian for "nanny" or "caretaker". In the case of Starfire's and Blackfire's kanorfka, Galfor was a strong male tamaranian)

Blackfire sits up and puts her hands on her hips.

"Princess Blackfire," she said in a mocking imitation of her nanny, "you must learn to act and behave as a young girl should: kind and sweet, and NOT a trouble maker."

Blackfire slouches again.

"My sister was all of those things... I don't know if our parents favored her over me for that or not, but they assured me they didn't. The Tamaranian children of the capital admired both me and my sister. Being of royal blood made us stronger and faster than the others, and growing up, I was stronger than my sister. Some of them even told me they also admired my rare purple hair and eyes, that I was unique.

But one day, when I was maybe 7 or 8, my sister and I were playing with some of them while our parents were all talking. When we were called inside for lunch by Galfor, I overheard one of them say something to my mother.

'Milady, may I ask, why does your eldest daughter have purple hair? Did berry juice spill on her head?'

'No, no,' my mother replied, laughing it off. 'She was born like that, it is her natural color. It's the same with her starbolts.'

The lady who asked her didn't laugh it off like my mother did. Instead, she said 'Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't know.' She said it like i was sick and dying!"