"Yeah." AJ replied.

"I was thinking the same thing." he told her.

He then gave her the address, making sure no detail was spared.

"May want to get that done quickly." he then suggested.

"She may try and uproot herself to cover her tracks." he told Dani.

"Beyond that, bounty completed." he finished, a little pride in his tone now.

"Doesn't seem to be." AJ responded.

"She's probably a mage, if anything." he reasoned.

"Regardless, I managed to save her before that dog killed her. Because you know it would have." he went on.

"People are idiots." he then growled. "Sure, let's have a barely trainable hunting dog as a pet, that can break bones with a single snap." he grumbled.

"Anyway, there anything else you need from me?" he asked.

"If not, I'm gonna hit the smoothie bar down in the training area, and then head to the medical wing."

AJ nodded in response.

"Cool." he said.

"Took a LOTTA restraint for me to not let that Dagger-mouth go after that woman." he then told her.

"Ironically, the fact that I needed to hurry because the girl was so injured, saved her." he admitted, before making his way to the door.

"See ya." he finished.

With that, he left the office, got the smoothie he wanted, finished it at the training area, and then made his way to the medical wing, where he sat down in one of the chairs in the waiting area, and... waited.

"Yeah, I'm fine." AJ responded.

"Dog didn't hurt me, and the woman that attacked me didn't hurt me." he told her.

"Not from lack of trying, but still..." he mumbled, taking the knife he'd acquired out of his pocket, and looking it over.

"Nice knife." he commented absently. "TOO nice for someone like THAT to have been holding onto." he muttered further, before shrugging.

"Anyway." he said. "You said you needed to give her something to keep her asleep?" he asked.

"Why?" he asked her. "One would think that, after an attack like that, with the blood loss you say she suffered from, sleep would have just come naturally, at least from exhaustion and weakness." he reasoned.

AJ was silent when he heard that.

"Broken ribs...?" he asked.

"But... the dog only attacked her shoulder..." he said further, before remembering how the woman had acted, and the things that she had said.

"Son of a..." he growled.

"I should have let that canine tear her to pieces." he snarled.

AJ continued to grow angrier upon hearing more of this, but forced himself to remain calm... at least, on the outside. This was the medical wing, the equivalent of a hospital. He needed to respect that, as well as respect Emma.

"Seven..." he muttered.

"So young..." he said, sadness in his tone.

"And her mother didn't want her. She seemed to bare nothing but ill will towards the child." he commented further, looking at the sleeping girl.

"...it'd be enough to traumatize someone." he said, seeming to know what he was talking about. And Emma knew why.

"What's going to happen to her now?" he then asked.

AJ nodded along with what she said, before suddenly pausing at the end.

"Huh?" he asked.

"Wait... hold on..." he muttered.

"Disabled?" he asked.

"I understand traumatised, but... what about her makes her disabled?" he asked her.

"Will her injuries not heal properly? Or is she disabled temporarily, because of them?" he asked further.

"...or is it something else?"

".....deaf?" AJ asked.

"...holy hell." he muttered. "She was abused, about to be killed, she's deaf, and now she has no-one in this world." he commented, looking at the girl again.

"...life isn't fair." he mumbled.

"Is there any way we can speed up the process of her becoming a ward of the guild?" he asked.

"Or can we bypass that altogether and have someone adopt her?"

AJ felt himself freeze when Emma said all that. He felt himself break into a cold sweat, and almost dared not say or do anything at the moment, for fear of angering her.

"Ah... I... uh... r-r-right." he stammered.

"That... makes sense." he said.

"I... I can talk to Dani about it right now, if you want." he then offered.

"Try and fast-track this even more."

"Dani would never wish such a thing." AJ responded.

"I'm just thinking to make sure there's no loopholes or anything." told her.

"Maybe I'm being paranoid, but... well... I like to think of it as having the bases covered." he went on.

He then looked at the girl again, and sighed.

"...hopefully that woman will get what's coming to her."