The road seemed longer and longer with every passing minute. What if he couldn't get there in time? How critical a condition was Fendin in? He reached her door at a dead run, and knocked for the second time today, hoping to get some help here, at least.

He remembered long ago his first delivery job. It'd been delivering wrapped meat to customers of Fendin's. He remembered carrying the brown-paper parcels in his then-ten-year-old hands, almost dropping them a few times; maybe more than a few. The packages bounced in his hands all the way to the uppest of uptowns, where the nice passive ladies at the entrance in the back of the house took the meat, patted him on the head, and gave him a cookie. He remembered liking those ladies with their pretty blue dresses and floury aprons. When he got back to the shop, the butcher had even given him a tip. It was a good day, his first job.

The man who he remembered gave him his first godsdamn tip was not going to die because of some godsdamn crazy golly law.

Eran was not greeted by a healer, he was greeted by a girl, a pretty one, with a mean mouth. She gave him a bored look, then glanced down at his missing arm.

"Yeahhh, whaaattt?" She asked, twirling a finger through her long, brown hair. "Hope you don't want it grown back, we don't do that."

Deb turned behind, looking down the hall behind her and then shouted, at the top of her lungs.

"GRANNY!" She looked back at Eran. She glared.

It was like being bitten by a miniature pony. Not entirely expected but somehow fitting. The girl before him seemed to be composed of one giant personality flaw. She also had lovely legs, clad in form fitting pants. She seemed to be in her late teens.

"No, I don't want it grown back, girl. Hope you're not this rude to the lady what pays you. There's a riot finishing up downtown, and I've got the victim back at my boss's shop. He's messed up bad, and all over a funny writ. I was trying to get Mottoni out since I know him from the Plague War"--he didn't trust him all that well, but did he know of any other doctor?--"but he had a sign on 'is door saying to come over here. She'll be here soon, right? This is urgent. Think there may be something wrong with his head."

He stood impatiently outside, tapping his foot, hoping there was someone other than this awful girl.

Eran could hear the sound of a cane thumping up the hallway, followed by the sight of an old, fluffy-haired witch. Her back was slightly bent but she seemed sprightly enough. Deb's posture was immediately more subservient. Her arms settled down at her sides and her shoulders lowered.

"Maybe there's something wrong with yours." Deb said, voice low and petulant, giving him one last glare before looking down at her feet.

"What's happening?" Granny asked, blinking into the afternoon light.

"Brain injury." Deb replied. "Not him, though someone else. Wants you to go with him. Dunno who it is but."

Granny turned her attentions to Eran.

"So, I imagine you can't move him? Or was somebody a fool and moved him already?" She asked. "Get my bag, Deb."

Deb disappeared down the hall, leaving Granny and Eran alone.

"What's your name then?"

He sent a slight glare that said something along the lines of "If you were my daughter I'd scold you good" in Deb's direction. Kids these days were so disrespectful. He'd have to fix that with his--oh wait. Damn.

"We had to move him to get him out of the line of fire. But yeah, I can't move him by myself, and I didn't think it'd be a good idea. Eran Scully, ma'am. Nice to meet you."

He waited in the hall for that girl to come back with the bag so they could go. They didn't have much time to waste, he was sure.

Granny pulled a cigarette from her breast pocket, clearly one she'd rolled herself from its bedraggled appearance. She stuck it between her lips and muttered a syllable of monite. A light sprung from her finger and winked out as soon as the cigarette had been lit. Granny sucked in air, as graceless as a plough horse.

"Well, what's been done to 'im? Hope you didn't jostle him too much." Granny didn't seem to have much in the way of tact, although perhaps it was just that living with Deb sapped her patience. "Call me Granny. The young woman is Deb, not short for anything, mind. Just Deb."

Eran could hear a loud crashing from within the house. Granny flinched.

"ON THE TABLE, GIRL!" Granny yelled down the hall, taking the cig from her mouth and tapping ash onto the patio, hissing under her breath.

She turned back to Eran.

"Give me the break down, she'll be a minute. I'd rather think of what needs to be done on the way there." She pulled a small book, from another pocket this time, tapped it and then put it back.

"Let's see here." Eran thought of what had transpired during the riot.

"He was hit with this spell; I don't know the name, but he was frothing at the mouth and writhing and he looked like he was in a clocking load of pain, excuse my language. Blood was coming out his ears, I think. Looked horrible, lasted for a long time. An officer eventually stopped whatever that was and cast some healing spell, but it didn't work. He can't move his left side now. Do you think you can do anything, doctor?"

He looked very, very worried. He didn't like it when people were sick or hurt. Too much of that during the war. The bodies of those dead from the plague had been everpresent, those sick with it too close as well. The battle he'd lost his arm in was a blur, but it was a bloody blur. One man just couldn't handle all that in his head.

((this took too long and i am very very sorry miss shark.))

(( No worries Miss Gi! ))

"Sounds like a stroke." Granny said, turning as Deb came crashing back up through the hall.

She didn't dominate the space she was in but she seemed quite adept at making noise in it. Her face was stuck in a surly frown, her feet hitting the floor with a moody slap at every step. She was like a thundercloud, only less effective.

"Come on." Granny continued, ignoring the younger woman. "Lock the door, chip and be quick about it. We've got walking to do."

Granny moved more quickly than might have been expected, given the presence of her walking stick. She stopped once she was off the steps, ready for Eran to lead the way.

"I can't promise much but I'll see what I can do."

"Thank you, ma'am. I appreciate it. The shop's this way."

He led her to Maria's store, carefully avoiding the scene of the riot. He didn't think it'd be a good idea to be seen by anyone who had stuck around.

When he got to the back door, he held it open for her, and said, "Here we are. He should be through here somewhere. Think Ria got him up on a table. I really hope there's something you can do."

"We shall see." Granny said, disappearing inside with Deb close behind.

They did not return for over an hour. The sun was beginning to dip before Deb ducked her head out the door and asked for some water. Granny hobbled out, shifting the girl out of the way with a touch of her hand. The old woman looked worn and her field seemed to be jumping about, like a flinch or a nervous tic.

"He's alive." She told Eran. "I've done about all that I can."

"It's not good..." Deb replied, looking as though what she had seen had affected her, she seemed younger.

Granny was too tired to glare at her.

"It's fine. I'm glad you were able to do that much. Should we just let him rest up? I think that's all we can do, can't we?"

Eran was keeping calm on the outside, but on the inside, this just hurt. He could've done something, he should've stepped in more...he'd just held back from the fray, looked on. What would've happened if he had done what Murmur did? Even done something? His biased view against himself suggested he mattered, that Fendin wouldn't have been hurt if he'd gotten into the riot. Eran had a tradition of blaming himself; one of the few things he hadn't loaded onto his own shoulders was the loss of his arm, and now he was hoping that wasn't his problem too. Logic suggested there must be a happy medium; it couldn't be his fault all the time, could it? But this time, it seemed to him, it was, was very much his fault. Clocking hesitating ass I am. I just ruined a man's life.

"Resting is about all that he'll ever do now. The only time I've ever seen damage even half like his was a someone who fell off a roof and smacked his head on a branch on the way down, then the ground. He's just had about the most catastrophic brain injury I have ever seen in all my days." Granny rubbed her bony fingers into her eyes. "It's not like a stroke or blunt-force trauma or anything else I have ever had the misfortune to witness. It's like everything was fried or cut to pieces from the inside. Whoever he was, he's not with us anymore. His eyes don't respond to light stimulus, his fingers don't twitch if you pinch them... Any test that I could give to check that any part of him works, fails. He's like a vegetable now."

Deb's lips turned down, down and her eyes shone. Her brow became a sea of lines and Granny did not even try to stop her when she turned on her heel and walked off, her steps quick as water. Eran could have sworn he heard a sob.

"Sorry." Granny said. "I wish I could give you some good news but... There's nothing I can do for him. If I knew a healer that might, I'd go look but I don't."

Granny shrugged her shoulders and turned to leave.

"Goodbye, son." She said, then walked away.