30 Days of Demonfire

Tamaran

I really miss Earth.

It's been quite a while since I left. It's March back on Earth. The beginning of it, I think, but it's obnoxiously hard to keep straight because Tamaranean days are not the same length as Earth days.

And it's even harder than that, because I'm not on Tamaran right now. I'm on Okaara, actually. So's Marras.

My form's been improving a lot. Impossible as it seems, the warlords are even better than Bruce. These guys could probably beat Cass, or Lady Shiva. Plus, it's kind of nice to get advice from guys that aren't dressed like bats.

Marras has been my guide. He's been to Okaara before. Marras has been so sweet to me. Especially when my mother isn't around. But I always have to put the brakes on when he starts flirting, which he does a lot. I'm, like, ninety percent sure that my mom's worked something out with his mom.

I can't really blame her. Yeah, I'm kind of mad, but it's a really logical move. See, Tamarus is the capital of Tamaran. The ruling family of Tamarus—my family—has the most power. But there are other ruling families of other sections of Tamaran. If I married one of the princes of Tamaran, it would solve a lot of problems, especially since I insist on being off-planet so much.

But I really, really can't do that. First of all, being set up is the worst thing ever. I can't have the expectancy of something like that looming over me. Second, there's everything back home.

I miss Damian. There. I said it. I do, okay? I miss bickering and I really miss sparring.

Sparring with Marras isn't as fun. I guess the biggest difference is that Marras treats me like a princess. If he hits me, he immediately backs off. What good does that do? Another thing that I've noticed is that Marras treats me like an alien. He always points out that I'm not as strong aas he is. Apparently being half-human affected that. I'm also a lot shorter than he is. I'm pretty tall—five foot ten; but Marras is six-six.

It's kind of upsetting that on Earth I'm an alien, but here I'm an alien, too. I can't win.

He's not mean about my alien-ness. He just notices it. In spite of that, he's become my friend. He tells me the ancient stories of Okaara. He tells me about things that have happened on Tamaran—apparently, there's a kind of bird that only hatches once every decade, like cicadas, and they all hatch at once and the sky fills with bright feathers. I like talking to him. He has interesting things to say.

But I can't forget about Damian, and being with Marras is not the same. It doesn't make me all warm and fluttery and dizzy and stupid. Anyway, I bet you don't want to hear about my stupid love life that, at this point, isn't much of a love life at all.

This is the last day of my training on Okaara. After this, I'm set to go back to home. It would be nice if I could get my damn eyes to do the laser thing before I go.

I duck under the handle of Marras's solar axe as he spins it toward me, and lob a starbolt at him. The broad side of the axe absorbs it, though. Normal Tamaraneans don't have the ability to manifest starbolts like I do, but they still manipulate solar energy. Their eyes glow and their hair burns when their emotions spike, like mine, and they can summon a weak glow to their hands to warm them or cast a weak glow. It's not like a starbolt. They can't throw it. It doesn't form a ball of light. It just glows over their hands. Marras showed me that they use this ability to heal people, or give massages. Energy massages are nice, actually.

I told you he'd been flirting with me.

Now that I've charged his solar axe for him, Marras just smirks at me and cleaves the air pretty close to me, and at one point I have to block a hit with my gauntlet. But I charge a starbolt in my other hand and continue feeding the axe more energy. This works out, which is good because if it hadn't I'd be screwed, and the light from the weapon flares before it starts cracking the handle. I shorted it out, basically. Marras throws it down and now neither of us has a weapon.