“It shouldn’t surprise anyone when I say that many Samurai would not fall under what would typically be described as normal. The very requirements by which the protectors select the Samurai makes that almost a necessity. Many are outcasts of society, suffering from mental or physical disabilities, although I would like to take a moment to mention that I personally find the term ‘mental disability’ misleading, or simply don’t conform to societal norms. The differences which they show are vast and varied. Some might simply be resolute and steadfast to the point of being blunt and annoying to those around them, many show signs of a disregard for authority. Some may have issues understanding others the way most would. Some might be disinterested in those around them entirely. Figuring out the differences with which each Samurai has to contend with is often a near impossible task, which makes figuring out how to handle them a challenge. In most cases it is best to think of them as a force of nature with the will and the capabilities to do what they think is necessary. Personally, I feel it is important to keep in mind, however, that even Samurai are still people. Treat them with respect, the way you would like to be treated, and chances are you will not have many problems.”

- Dr. Steven Johanson, Doctor of Psychology, in a speech titled “The difference between Samurai and the rest of us” given at the “WilliowCore Inc. Psychology Summit”, 2050

Kaysa’s words left us with a lot of things to think about, even excluding where we would go from here. The thing that puzzled us most was the entire bit about us.

The news that we were a designer baby wasn’t exactly a surprise. Sure, we hadn’t known before, and truth be told we never even thought about it, but it was pretty obvious once we looked at it.

What really made us think was her conclusion that we were damaged. We weren’t normal, not by any metric.

That in itself wasn’t too much of a surprise. We doubted that there were any truly undamaged people in the redlight district. Even excluding the joytoys and their plights, drug abuse was so widespread and common that it could almost be considered a form of local sports.

But we had never thought about it. Thought about how it affected us.

Even taking those of the chorus who had no interest in sexual activities into account, none of us had any sort of inhibition about having sex. No matter with whom, when, where, or how.

Kaysa had been right that there was next to nothing we wouldn’t do. At least as long as it was legal. Although that too was a fine hair to split, since technically getting paid to take drugs while getting railed into next sunday was illegal.

Sure, stuff like necrophilia or similar things were off the board. Anyone who came to us had to be alive and of legal age, there was no discussion about that. Apart from that?

Was there any fetish we wouldn’t agree too, if the terms would be right?

Anything to do with animals. That was the one thing that immediately came to mind. No matter the price, that was something we wouldn’t touch with a ten foot pole.

Maybe anything that would harm us. Blood and gore wasn’t our style, but that was mostly because we had some common sense and a vested interest in our unharmed survival.

Outside of that we had trouble thinking of one. Sure, we might not enjoy it, but at the end of the day, we would do it.

Or would we enjoy it? There are some things we didn’t like, for example feet, but that was mainly because it did very little to get us off. As long as we could enjoy it, have an orgasm or three, maybe even get to cum our brains out, we probably wouldn’t even think about how abnormal it might be.

The thought was… We wouldn’t say troubling, because it really didn’t trouble us. But we had never thought much about it, so knowing it was quite different. We typically just did what we were asked, even before we became a proper joytoy. Fucking around meant drugs, and drugs meant feeling good, that was the simple truth of things.

It made us realise something, though. We might not be addicted anymore after the cleanse, but that only reached as far as the substance addictions. The mental one was still there. We wanted to take drugs, to get drunk and wasted, to get high off our tits. We wanted to revel in the pleasure we felt when we got completely fucked up on the cheapest shit we could find and maybe getting fucked while getting fucked up.

That alone proved that Kaysa had a point. We were not normal. And not only about our sexual interests.

Perhaps we had known, somewhere deep down, that our mental acuity was far from the norm for anyone who took that many drugs. Just taking a look at our friends hammered that point home.

Each of them were just as involved, if not more so, than we were when it came to chugging narcotics down like christmas candy.

But each was probably what most would consider a bit damaged.

Sharon was the easiest to nail down. She was such a sex addicted slut that she put even us to shame. We would hazard a guess that she would let a rabid dog rail her if given half the opportunity, and that was most certainly not normal.

Anything that she touched, did, or thought about, in some way, involved sex. That was the simple truth and, considering that she took Shiver like some drank water, to be expected.

It was the norm, that was just who Sharon was, and we never much thought about it. But now? It made us realise that she was probably much more damaged than even we were. And she didn’t have the kind of childhood and teenage years we had gone through. Not that she talked much about her past, if at all, but we knew she only started late in college, dropped out and became a joytoy. Compared to us, she was pretty normal. And even then it was clear just how damaged she was.

Nobody normal would act like that. Even if they might be a pervert and a slut in their own right. They still had inhibitions and preferences, they were aware of their limits and took great care about to what degree they let themselves go. They didn’t do half the shit Sharon did.

Tina was a bit harder to nail down. She was mostly smart and intelligent, but only in very specific ways. She could organise a whole crew of people for an orgy, or an entire division of joytoys, but she showed very little interest in anything else. In addition to that, the moment things went off the beaten path, she was basically useless. It wasn’t just that she was anxious, although that didn’t help. But she was completely unable to do anything in a situation that didn’t conform to her norms or beliefs.

She couldn’t form the simplest connections to get from point A to B if she was thrown off the deep end. And as did so many of us, rather resorted to taking more drugs to forget the problem even existed.

Looking at her from this new perspective it was clear that she had suffered some mental damage through her drug abuse. She was born and raised in the redlight district, daughter to another Joytoy that had long since OD’d. And it showed. We probably would be very similar to her, if it wasn’t for that weirdness that Kaysa had explained to us.

And of course, then there was Sarah.

It was hard to think about her, but we did regardless, ignoring the fresh tears and the unbending feeling of loss and despair that took hold of us as best as we could.

Sarah had been severely unhappy. She did the job because that was the only thing she could do, or as we now knew, the only thing she thought she even had a right to.

But that statement in and of itself showed just how damaged she had been. Something in her had snapped, leaving her convinced that she didn’t deserve anything else.

Thinking about it a bit more clearly just hammered home how badly we had treated her the day before, even if she wouldn’t have survived regardless. She probably was trapped in a mental limbo of her being at fault, and doing something because she was at fault, which just fed back on itself.

It didn’t help that she had only joined recently, within our tenure as the one in charge of the wing on the brothel. We didn’t know where she had been previously. She didn’t talk about her past and she didn’t seem to have anyone she could go to for help. Or at least, that they couldn’t have helped her and it had sent her down a very, very bad path.

Sarah… She had been so distant from the beginning. Even when we had shown her how the job worked and what she had to do it was so obviously against her liking. She had started drinking basically on her first day and afterwards we had rarely seen her sober. It was why we had started talking to her about changing jobs. At first there was something, some hope that she felt, but it quickly died down.

We didn’t know what else she took. We knew she tried shiver once, it had been the only night she had ever spent fucking herself into unconsciousness with Sharon, and afterwards she had been even more withdrawn.

It made us realise in more ways than one that we had fucked up. Completely and unutterably. But we hadn’t known, not at the time. We hadn’t known how far she would go. The worst we feared had been a proper overdose. Not like this.

Taking a deep breath, wiping away the tears and opening the bottle once more, we drank deeply. It was hard to think about her, so fucking hard and it hurt so fucking much.

But we carried on.

The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

Compared to those three we were mentally much better off. Bella had said that she was high functioning, which we only knew by context, but we were pretty sure that the term could also be used to describe us.

The fact alone that we, half a bottle of pretty damn strong liquor in, could have this clear of a mental dialogue just solidified that guess.

We were drunk, yes, our body was sluggish and we did feel the familiar haze of alcohol that was wafting over our thoughts, but we could think pretty clearly all things considered. That probably wasn’t normal, considering the fact that most people, when drunk, couldn’t even think two steps ahead.

Knowing all of that helped. It gave us a better understanding about ourselves and to what we could compare others to.

We sighed, taking a moment to just… exist.

Kaysa had been right to say that we hadn’t internalised yet just how different we were. For us taking drugs and fucking anyone who came knocking was normal. Desired even. But even we knew that it probably shouldn’t be.

So, where did that leave us?

It took us a moment to consider that question. Eventually though, we did find an answer. A pretty simple one, and probably the one that Kaysa wanted us to reach, but one we had never really considered.

We weren’t fit to judge anyone on how normal or not normal they were. We shouldn’t be the one keeping an eye on things like that, because for us it would feel normal. We couldn’t understand just how violated people felt when they did what we did on a daily basis.

It was there, that knowledge. An intellectual thing, something that we academically understood. Many people felt violated by acts like that, if they’d be done to them, or if they had to do them themselves. We knew. But we just couldn’t grasp it, couldn’t sympathise.

Which, again we had known. But we hadn’t acted upon it. We hadn’t really had that kind of experience, and we hadn’t seen anyone this close to us die from it yet. The rest felt… distant, a tragedy sure, but one we had seen so many times that it had lost all its bite.

When you wake up next to a dead man and had to drag his corpse out of the street so you could find the next person to break the bedframe with a couple hours later to get more drugs, eventually shit like that just loses its intensity. It just doesn’t matter anymore at that point, as heartless as it was to say.

But that also meant that there had to be some kind of system in place to make sure it didn’t happen again. Kaysa’s idea for the brothels was a good one, but not one we would implement just like that.

If we were unfit to judge these kinds of things, then we needed to find someone who was able to do that. Preferably more than someone. The question was who?

It probably shouldn’t have taken us as long as it had to figure it out. In a way, the answer was obvious. People who knew that feeling. Maybe some who were fighting with it at this very moment.

We had to make sure they weren’t too damaged, but if they knew from experience how it felt, then they would have a much easier time identifying if and when someone was in a similar situation.

Logically that was sound. But something nagged at us.

Would they even be willing? It would, even if only by proxy, subject them to their trauma. Not everyone would want that, and in some cases it might even have significantly worse consequences.

So there had to be at least two instances to check. One that knows the feeling and the signs, and one that was normal and wasn’t damaged yet. Kaysa had mentioned a sort of department for it, and that meant finding and hiring people.

To that end we wanted to make it very clear that anyone who tried to abuse that department in any way would get completely fucked over. The people this department was for were under our, under Myriad’s, protection. Anyone who wanted to try something would be devoured wholesale and that was the end of it. No mercy, no remorse, our place, our rules.

We nodded to ourselves and took another swig from the bottle. By this point the haze was getting rather strong, but we carried on regardless.

We had to talk to Tina about it all. She was the one in charge, and as someone who knew the business, she would know how to deal with it. But it might be worth exploring bringing outside people in, who could offer counsel and professional expertise in ways we or the others couldn’t.

One issue nailed down, a couple more to go.

Next up, the drugs. Kaysa had mentioned that banning it was the wrong way to go about it, and we agreed, having seen the results of that first hand before.

Drugs were a fact of life, especially in the redlight district. But with a proper system in place, such as the one Castas was already working on, it would enable us to keep a better eye on things and to prevent the worst case more effectively.

The issue was, just taking away drugs wasn’t the solution. People would inevitably get their hands on some, and if they were already in bad enough shape, they are unlikely to be willing to give up drugs, even if only partially. So we needed either some place they could go to for help, or, since many wouldn’t look for help for various reasons, something or someone to keep an eye on people from the outside.

We already realised that there would be no way to completely do away with overdose and traumatised people. There would always be someone who slipped through the cracks, either willingly, or by accident. We could implement a system to keep an eye open for them, but even that wouldn’t be perfect.

We hadn’t even fully thought about it yet, when the Meerkats of the swarm took off, preparing for just that very case.

It would be a stop gap measure at the very least.

Anything else would have to wait until we were back in the district, which left us with the one topic we had tried to avoid.

Sarah.

We were pretty hardened when it came to death and emotional trauma of that kind. But Sarah was different. She had been a friend, even if she hadn’t thought of us that way. Our outburst notwithstanding, that hadn’t changed even at the end.

Kaysa had been pretty clear that there had been nothing we could have done, but despite all of that, the facts, her theory, and the logic behind it all, we still felt like we let her down. That familiar feel of helplessness wasn’t going anywhere and it hurt like hell.

There was of course the idea to look for that stupid priest and devour him whole.

But Kaysa was right. That wouldn’t get us anywhere. In fact, it might make things worse.

No, we needed to find him, not to kill him, but to see if he knew if anyone else was doing what he did and stop them. The idea grated on us, to let him live.

Maybe we didn’t have to, and once he had told us anything we could devour him, if only for our own gratification.

For the moment we vowed to at least try letting him stay alive.

No matter the fate of that asshole, there was still a Sarah shaped hole in our heart that wouldn’t go away.

We had no idea what to do about it, if there even was something we could do. We only knew that it hurt. It hurt a lot.

We would remember her. As a person, and as a lesson. That was the best we could do.

Taking a deep breath, we emptied the bottle, put it on the table and leaned back.

The last couple of days had been a mess, to put it simply. We just hoped that the future would bring better, happier times.

We sat there for a while longer, the alcohol now fully in effect, bringing us the familiar haze that made so many problems disappear into irrelevancy. Eventually though we took the pill, clearing our head.

Being drunk was nice, but Kaysa was right that it didn’t help anything. We wouldn’t stop, not entirely. Taking drugs was something we enjoyed. But we would at least make sure to do so with a little more care. If only… If only to show that respect to Sarah and how far it had taken her down a path that we couldn’t pull her away from.

Jenna was the first to join us. She wore a simple nightgown, parts of which were slightly transparent giving us a very good look at her figure. She smiled as she walked in, obviously still waking up and rubbing her eyes with one hand.

“Hey,” she said gently, sitting down next to us.

“Hey,” we replied, and for once didn’t suppress the urge to give her a small, gentle peck on the cheek, mainly because her presence was like a healing salve on a burning wound.

“Hope you don’t mind?” we asked, a bit timidly after the fact.

She shook her head with that same gentle smile, “No. Just… don’t overdo things, okay?”

“Of course,” we replied, then nestled into her, just enjoying her body next to our own.

“How are you feeling?” she asked, one arm wrapped around us and slowly and gently rubbing our arm up and down with one hand.

“Better. We talked to Kaysa earlier. I talked to Kaysa earlier, sorry. I know you don’t like it.”

“It’s okay,” Jenna said, “It’s a bit creepy, but I think I’m getting used to it.”

“Thanks… To be honest, having… them there… it helps. We are one, yes, but it still means I’m not alone with my thoughts. Without them I think I’d be a lot worse.”

“Kaysa might have mentioned something like that. How did that talk go?” she asked, obviously eyeing the bottle on the table, which I only saw with my echolocation since my head was nestled gently into her shoulder.

“It went better than I expected. Kaysa did most of the talking to be honest. But she knows how I tick. She gave me a run down on what probably happened with Sarah,” we couldn’t quite suppress a small hitch at the name, “and why. It helped me work through my mental blocks. I always did best with logical explanations.”

“Oh? Care to share?”

We sighed, “It was a case of redlight district bullshittery. I don’t want to go over all of it, she can probably send it to you if you are interested, but basically someone took advantage of her, pumped her full of drugs to the point of near death, then did that a couple more times basically brainwashing her. By the point any of us realised just how messed up she was, she was already basically dead. In Kaysa’s words, ‘It was a miracle that she survived this long.’”

We scowled at the idea, “It’s… it makes it easier to take… a little at least. But it still hurts like a bitch. To know that this had gone on for days without me even realising… And how we exploded on her after the fact… I feel so bad about it…”

We wiped away the few tears that tried to escape down our face.

Taking a deep breath, and nestling ourselves a bit more into her, we continued.

“Kaysa gave me some ideas to make sure stuff like this doesn’t repeat itself. And I thought about them, and a few others. Will need to talk to Tina and co eventually. But I would lie if I said we didn’t have a wish to find that asshole and devour him whole.”

We might have been a bit too aggressive at the end, considering how Jenna tensed up next to us.

“Sorry,” we muttered, “She’s right to say that it doesn’t do us any good. But we need to find him, if only to figure out if there have been others like… her, and if there might be others like him. Not sure yet if I can bring myself to let him go… but I promised myself to at least try.”

She squeezed us gently, “It’s good that you are better. Chloe mentioned that it might take a few days for you to work through it all. To be honest, I’m a little surprised that you are so… normal.”

We chuckled, even if we weren’t really feeling it, “Well, that would be because I’m not normal. Kaysa mentioned that I was quite unlike normal people in many regards. I think this is part of it. It hurts like crazy, yes, but I need to carry on. I will take a day or two, just to calm down a bit. But afterwards I need to do something, if only to make sure shit like this doesn’t happen again. I don’t think sitting around doing nothing will do me any good.”

“Good,” she said, squeezing me again, “We have three days before we have to head out.”

“Oh yeah,” we said, looking up at her, glad for the change in topic, “That meeting. Completely forgot about it. How was it?”

She thought for a moment, “The best I could describe it would be… informative.”