30 Days of Demonfire

Christmas

I like Christmas with my family. Aunt Babs, Alfred, and Steph's mom usually cook. I help out sometimes, and while I'm a fine cook, I'm not really that into it. Jason even comes by. Nell can't come by, because she spends it with her mom, but we exchange presents the next day.

There's a huge array of food. Babs makes all kinds of Asian food—that started out as a tradition for Cass, but now I can't imagine any family-oriented holiday without it—and Alfred makes all kinds of vegetarian things and Middle Eastern foods for Damian, and Steph's mom always makes waffles, among other more traditional Christmas foods. There's always some weird kind of English food, too.

I'm going to skip the video games before dinner and the actual dinner and cut right to the presents. It's the best part. Besides, you don't want to hear about Jason flicking food at Damian until Damian threw his spoon at Jason and the small fight they had after that which escalated when Jason brought up the fact that he'd slept with Damian's mother. You'd think I'd be weirded out by that, but this happens every year.

Cass got me this adorable hat with cat ears on it from a shop in Chinatown. Dad got me a kindle. Bruce got me a laptop (since my old one burned in the dorm fire a few months ago and I'd been renting crappy ones from the GU library). Jason got me a huge Tamaranean gun that he said he salvaged from the days he knew my mom; this did not amuse my father and it definitely did not please Bruce, who confiscated it immediately. Steph got me a jingly collar for Alfred and a kitty playhouse for him.

After we've finished with the presents, my dad wants to say Merry Christmas to my mom with me. I can video call her, although the signal travels through the Watchtower so it's not very private, so we kind of don't do it as often as we should.

We duck into an empty spare bedroom and my dad puts his laptop on the dresser while we sit on the bed.

"Greetings, mother," I say in Tamaranean.

You know, I really don't like talking in Tamaranean much. It's kind of my native tongue I guess, so you'd think I would. But I don't. I know it well enough; I've inherited, to my dad's mortification, the ability to learn languages through kissing. But it's really formal, and I trip over my tongue sometimes. There aren't contractions and there are tons of language gaps—words that exist in English that don't in Tamaranean and vice versa. My dad doesn't speak it well (but he thinks he's fluent and I don't have the heart to correct him).

"Greetings to you both," she answers, and my dad smiles at her.

The situation with my parents is really weird. I don't think I've mentioned it, and that's because I really don't like talking about it. My mom had to go back to Tamaran after my aunt abdicated the throne because she fell in love with a Tamaranean criminal and they ran away together. It was that or let the whole planet tear itself apart.

But even before she had to go back, my parents had been drifting apart, I think. It's hard for me to remember because this all happened when I was younger and they shielded me from it pretty well.

My mom's married to some war general named Phy'zzon, and I've mentioned that my dad is dating Aunt Babs now. But I think that there's a lot they never said to each other, because there's this tangible electricity between them that I think my dad and my Aunt Babs have discussed a few times.

"Merry Christmas," I say in English.

"Oh, of course. It is Christmas. Forgive me, I forgot."

"No biggie, mom," I say, forgetting to speak in Tamaranean. At least I put in the effort initially. "It's hard, I get it." The days and seasons on Tamaran don't match up with the days and seasons on Earth, so she sometimes forgets annual things like Christmas or my birthday. That sounds terrible, but she knows it according to star date, not the dates that we use.