Straight away, Mars noticed that Devi went out of her way to make as little contact as possible with her as she held onto her. When they steered onto the busier streets however, she must have gotten frightened. Mars felt her jump a couple of times when a car got too close to them, and by the time they pulled into the burger joint, Devi was holding onto Mars as if her life depended on it.

She took a big wobbly off the scooter once they came to a full stop. 

“Are you alright?” Mars asked, hanging her helmet on her bike.

Devi gave her a strained smile. “I’m fine. I’m not used to any of this really, but I’m fine.”

That did warrant some mental preparation, and Mars wished that had occurred to her sooner. She apologized, “I’m sorry I should have told you earlier.”

“D-don’t. Don’t worry about me.” Devi said suddenly with a stern voice.

To that Mars said nothing, she must have been wandering onto a touchy subject. Instead, she led the way into the restaurant. 

The first half of their meal was tense. Or at least it was for Devi. Mars didn’t even take notice until Devi had a short fight with the napkin dispenser for a full minute and lost. 

“You can relax, you know?” Mars handed her a spare napkin from her tray. 

Devi took it with a sigh of relief and a small mumbled ‘thank you’. 

She had eaten the majority of her meal awkwardly studying how the people around them ate. It was obvious to Mars that she was trying to appear normal, trying so hard that it was working against her. 

“What do you mean?” She asked, half-distracted, watching a group of youngsters a couple of tables down from them.. 

“You seem… stressed.”

Her eyes darted back to Mars, realizing that her internal panic was obvious, and nodding, “Yeah, I’ll adjust I’m just…”

“Scared? I don’t know how much experience you have with…” She lowered her voice for the next part, “Humans, but for the most part if you don’t bother them, they won’t bother you.”

“I have noticed that, but for some reason that doesn’t make me feel better.”

“What usually makes you feel better? What do you do on your off time? Unless you don’t erm, have off time?” she asked, once again wandering onto topics she meant to avoid, or approach gently. 

“I hang out at my mom’s place a lot.” Her eyes widened and she flushed. “What I mean is that—“ She stopped and sighed in vexation. 

Frustrated with herself, she cleared her throat and tried again. 

“My sisters often entertain themselves with the curiosities of this… realm. They watch your entertainment shows, listen to your music, and read your literature. Which in retrospect is something that I should’ve done, but I think my resentment of anything mortal related kept me at bay.”

That caught Mars’ attention, “You resent um… humans? Erm, aren’t you-?” Human now?

“No, no, it was never humans directly. It’s like…” She rattled her brain for an example, “Say you have a job peeling carrots or something. Imagine doing that for a couple decades. Imagine hating peeling carrots. First, you hate the job. But then, over time you begin to hate carrots too. Sooner or later you start to hate anything orange colored, when in reality orange did nothing wrong.”

She concentrated on the answer and seemed satisfied with it, despite it not answering Mars’ question at all. 

“Odd way of putting it, but I suppose I have a similar feeling about coffee.” Mars took a sip of her drink and processed the thought. “Did you really hate being—“

Devi cut her off before she could finish the question, “I wasn’t cut out for that world. There’s a reason your mythology depicts us as monsters.”