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Lady DeVoid hated Earth. She hated every single disgusting thing about it.
It smelled, for one thing. The open sewer great near her and Eclipse’s apartment building, the cigarette smoke from the people living under them, her pants that still smelled faintly of mildew from the time she accidentally left them in the washer for three days. The clothes were itchy and ugly, especially her shirts from the Burger Bin that she was required to wear every shift in some kind of stiff fabric that she could swear was giving her a rash. She couldn’t afford a car, so she had to walk everywhere or take the bus, and the stupid bus people kept trying to sit next to her even when she gave them her fiercest glare and she’d gotten off at the wrong stop at least a dozen times.
And yet she had no choice. Eclipse had failed to defeat the Star Guardian in combat time and time again, so now they had to play the long game. Her minion had enrolled at the high school under the name Eric in an attempt to get close to the Star Guardian and her awkward little friend, and the school had insisted that he must have a parent or legal guardian to sign all the necessary papers. Which baffled DeVoid, because somehow the Star Guardian had managed to bypass the system, living alone and unsupervised in her third tree house or wherever she was these days.
But DeVoid couldn’t figure out how she did it, so now she lived here, on Earth, with Eclipse in a small apartment that they could barely afford even with Eclipse getting an after school job and DeVoid working at the only place that would take her with no resume, the local Burger Bin.
Now she wore a polyester shirt in primary colors every day, making pink sludge look like a burger and being yelled at by peasants because she gave them a strawberry milkshake instead of vanilla. And getting ketchup sprayed all over her face when the nozzle on the dispenser broke, like it had that afternoon.
DeVoid downed another shot, ignoring the looks the bartender kept giving her. She was almost certain that Earth’s alcohol would have no effect on her, but she’d heard from her coworkers that it helped them forget their problems, and today she really wanted to forget having to scrub ketchup out of her hair in the Burger Bin bathroom. So far, the only difference she had noticed was her vision seemed a little blurred. Lovely.
She looked down at her ugly shirt and groaned. There was a ketchup stain on the yellow part of the shirt. Stupid shirt was mostly red, but the ketchup had landed on the yellow and now she had to somehow get it off before work tomorrow. She pulled at her shirt to get a better look at the stain and pouted down at it.
“Here.”
DeVoid up, then blinked a few times to make her vision stop swimming. Eventually things cleared up enough that she could see the woman next to her with the round face and green hair holding out what looked like a big orange marker and a couple napkins. “What is that?”
“A Tide pen,” the woman said. “It’s an on-the-go detergent,” she added when DeVoid just stared at her. “It should get the stains out of your shirt.”
“Oh. Alright.” She reached for the pen and then snatched back her hand. “Why are the napkins wet?”
“Um, they’re wet wipes? Do you … do you not know what wet wipes are?”
“Of course I do,” DeVoid said haughtily, even though she definitely didn’t. She avoided them this time and carefully took the Tide pen - and promptly dropped it on the floor.
Fine. So maybe alcohol had some effect on her. Because she could swear that there were three Tide pens on the ground now and she had been on Earth long enough to be pretty sure that objects did not spontaneously multiply.
The woman bent down and picked up the pen, which, after DeVoid did some more blinking, returned to being a single object. “Maybe I should do it for you. If that’s okay with you.”
Too tired and annoyed to keep talking and feeling a bit like if she opened her mouth she might throw up, DeVoid leaned over, pulling the shirt out so Miss could have better access to the stain. She almost fell off of her stool before regaining her balance. This whole world was designed to humiliate her.
The woman didn’t laugh or make any kind of cutting comment. Instead, she opened up the pen and started dabbing it on DeVoid’s shirt. "I'm a teacher at the high school and kids are always making a mess, even the ones that are almost adults. Plus, I've had so many markers leak on me and pens break, I just figured it's better to always be prepared, y'know?"
"How practical," DeVoid said, surprised. She was used to Earthlings being utterly useless, but this one seemed at least a little clever. And pretty, actually, now that she was looking properly.
“My name is Missy. Most people call me Miss, though, ‘cause of the teacher thing.”
“Nice to meet you, Miss,” DeVoid said, and was surprised to find she meant it. “I’m Lady DeVoid.”
“Oh, that’s kind fun. Lady and Miss.” Miss’s cheeks turned pink. “Not that … I didn’t mean that we’re … um, your shirt’s fixed.”
DeVoid looked down. “Huh. Well done. You’re the most competent person I’ve met since I moved here.” Then she hiccuped.
“Thanks, I guess?” Miss squinted up at her. “Are you doing alright?”
“No. I hate this town, I hate all the people in it, and I hate this bar stool that is getting very hard to sit on.” She hiccuped again. “And I look ridiculous.”
“It’s a little … bright,” Miss said carefully. “But it’s for your job, right, it’s not like you’re the only one wearing it. And most of my clothes are from Kohls and Old Navy, I’m not in a position to judge.”
“I don’t know what those places are, but there’s nothing wrong with how you dress,” DeVoid said, looking down at Miss’s dress, electric blue and hugging her curves in all the right ways.
“Oh,” Miss said, blinking. “Um. Thanks. Again. Anyway, do you think maybe you should slow down a little? Not to be a buzzkill or anything, but you seem like you're not doing so hot."
DeVoid scoffed. "I'm fine. This pathetic Earth alcohol has no effect on -"
And that was the last thing she remembered.
When she opened her eyes, she was back in her apartment, laid out on her couch, her feet and her head hanging off either end.
Groaning, she sat up, a blanket sliding off of her. “Eclipse! Get in here!”
A little muffled squeak sounded in the bathroom before the door was thrown open and her minion tripped out. “Yes, Lady DeVoid!”
“How did I end up here?” she asked, gesturing at the couch. “The last thing I remember, I was in a bar.”
“Ah, yes, that’s what Miss said.”
“Miss?”
“My teach - I mean, she is a teacher at the Star Guardian’s school. She drove you home last night, said you drank too much? She told me to give you these.”
He grabbed a bottle of water and a bottle of pills off of the kitchen counter and presented them with a flourish. She thought about smacking them to the floor, because what good could Earth medication do for a superior being like her, but her head admittedly did throb a little, and her mouth tasted like candy and decay.
And Miss had advised it, and so far she was the only person with more than two brain cells that DeVoid had met on this awful planet. It might actually help.
“She also asked for me to tell her if you're doing okay when I go to school on Monday," Eclipse said as DeVoid downed seven or eight of the pills and drank half the water bottle in one go. "What do you want me to tell her?"
The headache began to recede, and her mouth already tasted a little less awful. DeVoid lifted her chin and said, "You may tell her that I'm fine. Now I'm going back to sleep until I have to leave for my shift. Go elsewhere so you don't bother me."
"Yes, Lady DeVoid!" Eclipse said again as she shuffled to her bedroom. She fell face first onto her bed and sighed. Hopefully if she ever saw the pretty, useful woman again, it would be less embarrassing.
*
There were twelve kinds of apples at the grocery store.
DeVoid stared at the fruit display with growing dread. Why did humans need so many variants of the same food? Did they all taste different? Some of them looked different, but others looked almost identical. How was she supposed to choose? Maybe she should try them all.
Red Delicious seemed like a good place to start - delicious was in the name, after all. She picked one up and was about to take a bite when someone said, “You like those?”
She looked to her right and then down, because humans were all so short, and saw Miss. She looked back at the apple. “Is there something wrong with it?”
“No, sorry, I shouldn’t have said anything, it was rude. Everyone can have their favorite apple, even if it’s a little … mealy.”
DeVoid eyed the apple with distaste and put it back. “What apple would you recommend?”
“Honeycrisp or Gala. Maybe Granny Smith if you’re baking.” Miss shrugged, her cheeks going pink again. “I always have a couple students every year thinking it’s cute to give me apples, usually ‘cause they’re hoping I’ll go easy grading a test or something. I’ve developed some strong opinions.”
DeVoid grabbed a few Honeycrisps out of the box and threw them in her cart.
Miss’s eyes widened. “Um, not to be rude again, but don’t you want a bag for those?”
“Of course, but none are provided.”
Miss pointed at a dispenser with a big roll of plastic a few feet away.
“Oh.” DeVoid reached out and pulled at the end of the plastic roll. And pulled and pulled. The line of plastic seemed endless.
“Wait, wait, like this, hold on -“ Miss pushed a semi-perforated hole in the plastic and pushed it onto a metal loop on the dispenser. The long line of plastic bags ripped and fluttered down to the floor.
DeVoid cleared her throat, glancing surreptitiously at their fellow shoppers, some of whom were openly staring at the tall lady with the horns who didn't know how the bag dispenser worked. She put on her saddest pout and raised her voice and said, “I have amnesia.”
The prying eyes all looked away, several shoppers scurrying off to different aisles.
Not Miss. She just separated one of the plastic bags from the long line before folding the rest and putting them in one of the emptier fruit boxes. Then she fished the apples out of DeVoid’s cart and put them into the bag, tying it up before putting it back in the cart. “There. So what’s next on the list?”
“List?” DeVoid asked, and she felt her face start to heat up. She never cared much about the opinions of the ridiculous Earthlings she met, but she didn't want Miss to think she was an idiot. Not when Miss was the only non-idiot human she knew.
“Of groceries you want to buy. Do you or Eric have a favorite fruit?”
“Um,” she said, trying to wrack her brain for anything, “I think Ecli- Eric eats the sweet red berries often.”
“Strawberries, got it. And they’ve got a good selection today.”
For the next twenty or thirty minutes, DeVoid followed Miss meekly around the store, answering her questions and watching as her cart filled item by item that Miss called ‘easy to make basics’ - sweet potatoes, oatmeal, peanut butter and bread, a rotisserie chicken and a frozen lasagna - as well as more day-to-day items like paper lunch bags and Tide pens. Miss chatted the entire time, a steady stream of basic cooking instructions, simple and direct but not condescending. Her own basket was full of interesting things, lots of colorful vegetables and dark chocolate with sea salt and three bags of coffee.
After they paid for their groceries, Miss drove DeVoid home in her car. She'd seemed somewhat ashamed of it, a little round car with chipped sky blue paint that was clearly older than most of the other cars in the parking lot, but DeVoid liked it. It seemed to fit Miss, in a way, even if she'd had to sit with her knees pressed under her chin and her horns scratching the roof just to fit inside it.
"See you later," Miss said as DeVoid pulled her groceries out of the trunk of the car, slightly teetering with the weight of them.
"Count on it," DeVoid said in what she was hoping was a non-threatening manner. Because she was determined to make that happen, but on her terms. She would not make a spectacle of herself the next time they met; she would have her shit together for once.
And she studiously avoided wondering why Miss's opinion was so important to her.
*
DeVoid went back to the bar where she had first met Miss every day for the next two weeks, dressed in a variety of slinky black dresses and suits with no shits underneath, hair and makeup flawless. Miss did not show up once.
Instead, DeVoid ran into her again after another shift at the Burger Bin, smelling of fryer grease and with her foundation half melted off from the heat. She was walking past the park when she noticed someone sitting on the bench, head bowed, shoulders hunched. Normally, she would’ve kept walking, but she recognized the green hair.
“Can I sit?”
Miss looked up, the skin around her eyes puffy, her face red, her lower lip wobbling. It made something in DeVoid’s chest ache. “Yes, of course.”
She sat, trying to figure out if she was sitting too close or not close enough and almost falling off the bench before righting herself. “Are you alright? Are you hurt?”
“My divorce was finalized today.”
“Ah,” said DeVoid, because she was only sort of understood what that meant. Her coworker Roda kept going on about the dissolution of her marriage with her "stupid useless good-for-nothing ex" but she mostly sounded mad. Miss looked devastated.
“And I thought I had accepted it, I really did,” Miss continued, sniffling, “because I know we weren’t good for each other, and she already has a new girlfriend, and I got two cats which I couldn’t ever have when I was with her ‘cause she’s allergic. But it seeing it like that, officially and completely over ... it hurts more than I thought it would."
DeVoid flailed internally for a few seconds, desperate to do anything to help, when she remembered the wet napkins Miss had given her at the bar. All she had were dry Burger Bin napkins but it was better than nothing. Probably. She fished them out of her pocket and held them out in front of Miss.
“Thanks,” Miss said, taking the napkins and dabbing under her eyes. “Ugh, this is so stupid. I haven’t cried to someone I barely know about my relationship problems since college, and at least then I was drunk. I’m sorry.”
“Sorry for what? There is no shame in mourning what you’ve lost, not when it’s important to you. I have lost many things and I - well, I prefer revenge, but I mourn as well.”
“What did you lose? I know you said you had amnesia - unless you don’t want to talk about it,” Miss added quickly when DeVoid frowned.
“No, it’s - I can’t talk about it, because I’m not sure what it was. I lost my memories and most of my pow- I mean, um, my possessions, and there’s no one who's able to tell me what it was that I had before. I suppose I mourn the idea of what I might have had, the dream of what my life used to be.”
“And I’m mourning what I thought my life would be.” The teacher took a shaky breath and dabbed the napkins under her eyes again. “And that’s okay, for a while. But then I need to figure out how to live the life that I’ve got.”
“Like figuring out which apples you like,” DeVoid said, her lips curling up in something almost like a smile. “Or how to stop sticking things with your horns. I’ve killed a half dozen pillows.”
Miss laughed, and the way her face lit up was more beautiful than anything DeVoid had seen on this stupid planet. “I can imagine. Those are impressive, by the way. I’d ask if you knew what plastic surgeon did that for you but I’m guessing you don't know because …”
DeVoid only took a second to realize what Miss meant. “Amnesia, yes. Of course."
“Right.” She looked at DeVoid’s horns thoughtfully. “Have you tried sticking something on them while you sleep?"
"Like what?"
"Not sure. Paper towel rolls maybe? Or maybe wrap them up in fabric or your extra pillow cases or something something?" Then her eyes lit up and she snapped her fingers. "Pool noodles! My sister used them when my niece started walking to wrap around the sharp edges in her house."
A few minutes later, they were walking to the local dollar store while Miss explained the concept of pools and pool floats to DeVoid, and she didn’t even mind that she was wearing her ugly Burger Bin shirt. It was turning out to be a perfect encounter anyway.
And the pool noodles looked ridiculous, but they worked. Lady DeVoid was starting to think that there wasn't any problem on this stupid planet that Miss didn't have an answer for.
*
“So what’s the plan?”
DeVoid frowned at Eclipse. She was lying on the couch, a dull ache in her horns and a stinging pain in her feet. Double shifts were the worst evil ever invented, she was certain of it, and she'd run out of Miss's miracle pills that fixed pain. “Plan for what?”
“For how we’re gonna used Homecoming as a way to further our objective with the Star Guardian.”
“What the hell is Homecoming?”
“It’s a school dance. All the students will be there, even the Star Guardian and Zira.”
“Who the hell is Zira?”
“The Star Guardian’s friend. Y’know, nerd, glasses, kinda funny, really nice -“
She waved a dismissive hand. “Yes, right, the awkward one. So this dance. How would I get in?”
“You’d be a chaperone,” Eclipse said, clearly proud of himself. “They were asking for parents and guardians to do it.”
“Why does a dance need a chaperone?”
He frowned. “Not sure. Probably means it’s really violent, though.”
That perked her up. “Interesting. And these chaperones, are they only parents? Or do the teachers come as well?”
“Uh, teachers chaperone too, I guess. At least my teacher said she’ll be there.”
“Then yes, I will be a chaperone. Now go away.” And she fell back onto the sofa.
“Shouldn’t we come up with a plan? I was thinking that -“
“Get out, Eclipse.”
“Right, got it.”
As her minion scurried off to hide in the kitchen, DeVoid tried to think of a devastating plan to destroy the Star Guardian.
Mostly, though, she wondered what one wore to a Homecoming and if it might be something that would impress Miss.
*
Homecoming was less than impressive, and so far not at violent. It was in the school gym, and only the colorful strips of paper hung from the basketball hoops and the bleachers being put away made it look any different from when she'd last been here for their initial tour of the school. There was also a refreshment table, which the principal had assigned DeVoid to, so she could glare intimidatingly at the students who lingered too long at the punch. She'd accepted because the Star Guardian was there, too, eating everything in sight and declaring all of it "So normal!" and "Perfectly fine!" with bright, unchecked enthusiasm. She looked as helpless and unguarded as DeVoid had ever seen her.
But DeVoid's eyes kept being drawn to Miss, who was by the entrance checking students IDs as they walked in and out. She was wearing the same blue dress she'd been wearing at the bar the first night they met, and she looked even better in it tonight.
DeVoid had expected Eclipse to be more upset that they hadn't come up with a battle strategy, but he'd turned red the second they walked into the dance and run towards a dark corner. And while she'd promised herself that she'd figure something out once they got here, she was glad she'd come up empty when one of the other teachers took Miss's place and she headed towards DeVoid, a soft smile on her face.
"Good to see you again," she said as soon as she reached DeVoid, only stopping when she was standing so close she had to tip her head almost all the way back to look up at her. "I like your suit."
DeVoid preened, smoothing out the lilac suit jacket. “Better than the Burger Bin shirt?”
“Yes, although you looked good in the Burger Bin shirt, too.”
DeVoid raised her eyebrows. “Did I? Does anyone look good in that shirt?”
“You did,” Miss insisted. “But you look even better in this.”
“Well,” DeVoid said, clearing her throat. “Thank you. You also look nice.”
“Thanks. And thanks for chaperoning. Everybody always wants to go on the field trips, not make sure teenagers aren’t making out on the dance floor.”
Her lip curled in disgust. “Understandable.”
“Yeah, but not helpful. At least it looks like your kid is having fun. I was worried about him at first, he’s kind of, um, eccentric, but he seems to making friends lately. Although I am concerned that one of those three is heading for heartbreak, but I'm not sure which one. Probably Eric, though.”
She pointed over to the edge of the dance floor where the Star Guardian's friend was talking with Eclipse. The Star Guardian had managed to stop eating long enough to notice and was glaring at the pair of them. Eclipse seemed pleased to have the Star Guardian's attention, but DeVoid could tell that the Star Guardian only had eyes for her friend.
For the first time, DeVoid looked at them all and didn’t see a useful temporary ally, her ultimate enemy, and a walking bundle of anxiety and hormones.
She saw three kids at their first school dance, trying to navigate friendships and crushes with no idea what they were doing.
Earth was making her soft. Another reason to loathe this terrible planet.
She turned back to Miss. “Maybe they will learn something tonight about how to handle uncomfortable situations.”
“Here's hoping,” Miss said with a sigh. Then she cleared her throat. “I’m trying to learn new things, too. Like how to ask for what I want. I was never good with that in my marriage.”
“Good for you,” DeVoid said approvingly. Taking what she wanted was even better, of course, but this was a good start.
“Glad you think so. So what I want right now is to dance with you.”
“Oh,” DeVoid said, and her face heated up again. Why did that always happen around Miss? “Are we allowed to do that? Won’t the hormone monsters be unchaperoned?”
“We’ll still be in the same room, I think it’ll be fine. Unless you don’t want -“
“No! I mean, yes,” DeVoid clarified, her face getting even hotter. “Please.”
Miss held out her hand and DeVoid took it, and they moved to the outside of the dancing kids. It took them a few seconds of floundering to figure out where their hands would go given the height discrepancy, but in the end DeVoid draped her forearms on Miss's shoulders and Miss wrapped her arms around DeVoid's waist. They swayed awkwardly, too close to even look in each other's eyes very well, until Miss put her head down on DeVoid's chest and they melted together. Because Miss always knew what to do.
In that smelly school gymnasium, dried patches of spilled punch pulling at the heels of her shoes, DeVoid decided that maybe Earth wasn't the worst place in the universe after all.