Black Stars – Chapter 1: "Tamaran's Fate"

Starfire sighed. It was late, and she knew she shouldn't be doing this. In fact, it was around midnight when she had wandered over to the Titans' main computer database to take a look at how her planet was faring. She knew, from messages she had received from Galfore, that Tamaran was undergoing hard times. Her home planet, normally covered with fields of majestic purple berries, hanging from bushes, with a beautiful pink sky and friendly people. It was in the midst of a famine, and she had seen the transmissions.

There was a lavender dust blowing everywhere. Where the bushes of zorka berries once stood, there were only crumbled, burnt shrubs. A few rotten berries were rolling around on the ground, falling off their old homes and smashing into rocks, then sliding off to the ground. They were scratched and caked in dirt when a group of miserably thin, bony children came with empty pails to collect what they could find of food. A very young boy, with curly red hair and a purple metal belt tied to a loincloth of a darker color, scrabbled out from the cliff. He stumbled over to the remains of the fruit fields, and collected all of the berries that remained. He left a few, and instead of putting them in his pail, he pulled out a bottle and held them between his fingers. He squeezed them until the juice poured out into the bottle. It was barely enough for a sip.

This was the present Tamaran, and as the images of their poverty, suffering, and starvation raced across the large screen, almost blinding her eyes, she reflected on this... Since she was the princess there, she knew she had to do something to help here home planet from falling apart. And what, exactly, was the cause of this disaster? The Gordanian army, of course. No one on Tamaran knew who was leading their cruel army to send soldiers there. To destroy their crops, to kidnap and murder children, to blast homes apart and steal their valuables.

Raven sat on her round odd canopy bed, uncloaked, just awakening from a nightmare. She knew that this vision was of the past and not the future. For that, she was grateful. She decided that she needed a session of meditation out on the tower's rooftop, and then a drink of tea. So, she raised her hand and a ring of black energy appeared around it, lined in white. A dark pool of the same color appeared on the ceiling, and Raven gently rose off the ground through it. When she came through to the other side, the air around her was cool and a mystic moon peeked out from behind the dark clouds. She sat down on the cool sheet metal and crossed her legs over one another, chanting.

Meanwhile, Starfire had finished seeing the hardships of her people. She got up and returned to her bedroom, where she sat down, crying silently and wondering what she would do.

Raven heard her friend's muffled sobs from below her. She got up and fell once again through a warping mass of shadows. She pulled on her cloak inside her room, and then headed next door to where Starfire was miserable. She smashed the locked door with the palm of her hand, and it slid open with a beep and a hiss. Inside, Starfire was sitting in her pajamas, weeping and muttering to herself in Tamaranian.

"Rah, Gordanian solmorn, plekorph garorph fargnu? Plekorph garorph fargnu!" As she finished her rambling, she looked up to see Raven at her doorway. Raven, without saying a word, wandered over to the alien and sat down next to her on the purple bed skirt. She put a pale grey hand on her friend's shoulder, and looked at her.

"What's wrong, Starfire?"

Starfire did not respond, but continued to wail. She buried her face in a pair of soft, orange hands. Raven urged her to share her troubles.

"Come on. Tell me."

"Well…" she began.

"Go on."

"I have been staying up until the midnight to receive transmissions from my k'norfka, Galfore. He sends me images saying that --" She bawled again. Raven patted her back. Starfire continued.

"… Tamaran is in the midst of a famine." Raven gasped.

"Yes. It is because of the Gordanian army. They are attacking us when we least expect it. They are destroying all of our food and shelter. Children must crawl on the ground to search for what remains of these things; they must search for food and water and caves and scraps of cloth. They are suffering," she told her friend.

Raven couldn't believe it. She replied to her friend in a soothing manner, asking her more.

"Can't they just go to Gordania and capture the leader of the army?"

"They can not. There is a circle of charta stones around the barrier. It shocks us so that we cannot get through. We also have no idea who is doing these terrible things."

Raven was livid. She had no idea why her best friend's planet was being destroyed. She soothed her friend more, holding her hand and reassuring her amidst the darkness that was closing in around them.