The comment earns Liir a laugh and a small, rueful headshake. "You know, I've been in America for less than a year, and already I understand that joke a bit too well. Not that I'm saying it was better back home, because bastion knows I'm not that much of a liar."

He shrugs lightly. Medical care in Volstov had been advanced as well as available to the general public, true - unless you happened to be Ramanthe, or the wrong kind of foreigner, or a mutant, or someone who spoke their mind. Then you just had to make do with back alley clinics and superstition.

"At any rate, it's no big thing. It's more or less healed already, and I've felt worse."