Chapter Three

As Raven and Starfire helped Blackfire into the tower Robin met them. He raised an eyebrow.

"Starfire? Why is Blackfire here? And why do you look so upset?" He looked more closely at her. "Have you been crying?"

"Yes, I have been. I am in mourning for the sake of my sister who has fallen ill and will soon leave this world for the land of our ancestors."

Blackfire nodded. "It's true. I've got six months."

"I'm...I'm sorry to hear that."

"Are you, Robin?" She sat down on the couch and coughed. "I'll never understand why you humans say things like that. You didn't cause this."

"It's just an expression. If Starfire's sad then so am I. You don't deserve to die so young."

"Death comes to all of us. I've accepted this."

She looked from Starfire to Robin and back again. Then she sniffed and grinned. "You've marked your mate well. I'm shocked I don't see bite marks." She said in Tamaranian.

Starfire blushed and softly giggled. "They're on his neck. He's covering them." She answered back in the same tongue.

Robin looked confused for a moment, but decided to ignore it. "You're welcome to stay here. We have a spare bedroom."

"Thank you."

Starfire left and went into the kitchen. She returned a few minutes later with a bowl of green soup. Though it would have disgusted a human the terminally ill Tamaranian looked positively delighted as she took it from her sister's hands.

"Ah, just as mother used to make." She said as she sipped from it.

"I am pleased, I did not know you liked my cooking!"

"You've improved a lot."

Robin motioned for Starfire to meet him in the kitchen.

"Are you sure she doesn't have something up her sleeve?" Robin asked as she joined him in the kitchen.

She looked perplexed. "My sister is not wearing sleeves."

Robin shook his head. "What I mean is, are you sure she isn't here to somehow get even with you? That she's faking an illness."

"She coughed up blood."

"Oh...oh, G-d, that's horrible. So, she's really going?"

"It is sad, but true. My sister is very ill. Vara-tol is relatively painless, but deadly. We don't have a cure for it. She will become weaker and weaker until finally she'll no longer be able to stand. Then..." Tears filled her eyes. She brushed them away. "Then she will die."

...

That night they slept next to each other. It was something they hadn't done since they were small children. Blackfire told her of all that she had done during her exile. How she had led a band of pirates for a time, how she had narrowly escaped being captured by Gordanian slavers and other foes, how she had escaped a second time from prison.

"My lowest point was sitting once again in jail. I thought to myself 'Well, Blackfire what a fine mess you've gotten yourself into.' I knew I had to escape. Using my feminie wiles I seduced one of the guards. As he slept I stole his keys and quietly fled. Then I got a job at a diner. Every now and then I returned in secret to Tamaran. I fell in with a group of other exiles. We lived together in the desert of the southern continent on Tamaran. It was there I fell in love for the first time in my life. We used to make love beneath the bright full moons." She sighed in pleasure at the memory. "I love him still. He is somewhere right now mounrning for me. He probably thinks I'm already with my ancestors."

"How very sad, but romantic." Starfire said.

"Enough about me. How has my younger sister been? Being good as always?"

"I have been using my own feminine wiles on Robin. We traveled to the land of Japan and faced a terrible sorcerer and his black magic. It was their that I fell in love for the first time. I have also faced a terrible devil." She told her of Trigon, whicnh made Blackfire'sface pail, how he had ravaged the Earth, but had finally fallen to the Titans. She told her of how she and Robin had fallen more and more in love.

"Wow, Sis, we've both led exciting and glamorous lives."

"So we have Sister." For the first time in years they really felt like sisters.