A human got tired of the crew saying that humans are insane, so they decide to show their crew what true human insanity looks like by taking them on a field trip to the nearby insane asylum. (Bonus points if Said asylum happens to be Arkham Asylum.) -- Cheshire
[AN: Punishing the mentally disabled for being mentally disabled is not the best way to deal with that sort of thing. Besides, insanity is a matter of perspective, as I keep stating in my stories. Your perfectly logical is my mentally deranged, as it were. More thoughts on this over here]
"Please stop calling me that," said Human Shay. "They'd lock insane people up and hurt them and stuff."
Companion Lree stopped walking and said, "They do this where you are from?" They were immediately concerned. Not just for Human Shay, but also for her fellow citizens back 'home'.
Human Shay fell quiet, as she was wont to do when someone asked her questions about her place of origin. Companion Lree read the mood and said, "You are free of them, now. You can speak without fear."
Shay took a deep breath. "They never did it to me. They were always pointing to the entertainments, where people like me... people worse off than me... were abandoned to suffer. They'd tell me that's where I'd go if I wasn't good enough. I was terrified."
"Those feelings are valid. You are right to be afraid of such treatment. Remember your litany?"
"Yes." Shay took a deep breath and straightened up from her hunch. "I am free of the bad place. I am safe from their means of harm. I am far from their reach. I am among friends who value me as a person."
"Good." Companion Lree gently patted Shay on the shoulder. "You are safe. You have help. Would you like to see what was actually done to the mentally disabled at your origin point?" Lree was careful to never call it 'home'. Home may be where, when you had to go there, they had to take you in, but for Human Shay, home was where you felt safe and could sleep without fear. For Shay, that home was the Sensitive Whisker.
"No," whispered Shay. "You can look for me and if... if it's okay... you can tell me."
"I'll do that tonight," Lree soothed. What their Human needed, right now, was displacement activity. Helping others in a way that she couldn't possibly feel anxious about. Which meant packing the lunch for the other crew. Human Shay was at peace when she was arranging an artful display of nutritious objects.
That night, Lree looked up what had been happening at Shay's planet of origin. Specifically, what happened to the mentally disabled down there.
Once, in the unenlightened ages of Earth, the people thought that the mentally disabled were cursed by their gods. Therefore, they threw those people into a cage and viewed them as an example of what not to be by everyone else. This had met a revival in the gravity well that was Shay's birthplace. It wasn't just as bad as the media there portrayed it. It was far, far worse.
At the next breakfast, Lree had to choose the truth. Honesty with Shay was the best policy. "You were wise," they said, "to avoid looking. It's all you feared." The only half-truth was in not telling Shay all of the truth. It was just better for her mental health that way.
"I am far from them," Shay repeated. "I am safe from their reach."
[Image (c) Can Stock Photo / alkir]
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