Richard, you're not in New Zealand anymore

[Katarina Michalka]

((ooc: Sorry this is crap but hey, I finally replied, haha! I'll bring Rach in a couple of posts down the line.))

Finishing a chapter of the book she was reading, Pride and Prejudice (again), Katarina drank the last of her cup of tea before marking her place with a bookmark and closing it as a quick glance at her watch revealed it was time to return to the ward. She said a quick “bye guys” to the other Healers in the staffroom and, dumping the empty paper cup in the bin on the way out, she slipped out of the room, shutting the door quietly behind her. Humming happily to herself she turned to head back onto the ward when suddenly a figure caught her eye. Looking curiously over at the male, who seemed around her age, she frowned in confusion, he was bleeding, profusely, and yet that didn’t seem to be his main cocnern of reason for coming to St Mungo’s. No, he was looking for ’a woman by the name of Kahlan’ apparently, but for Kat, this was irrelevant because she saw someone in need of medical attention and she was there and ready to help.

Katarina shook her head at his words, “No, it’s not fine,” she piped up, having observed the discourse as she approached her colleague and this young man who was dressed decidedly muggle and outdoorsy, both of which she recognised naturally. But the wound in his shoulder wasn’t so known, it looked like it had been made with muggle weaponry too, as opposed to spell work. “Lucy, I’ll take it from here,” she smiled to the other witch before turning to the man, “I think you’ve lost a considerable amount of blood, yes? And if you let me clean it up for you I’m sure you’ll feel less woozy and so in more of a mindset to find… Kahlan was it?” she pointed out practically before looking at him with a friendly expression. “It won’t take more than five minutes, I promise,” she added.

[Katarina Michalka]

“Well then, don’t be a bother by allowing me to fix up that gaping hole in your shoulder,“ she said simply with a matter-of-fact tone. He seemed awfully insistent on finding this ‘friend’, it was evident that he couldn’t care less about his shoulder. Clouded judgement perhaps? Another reason she should definitely deal with his injury and clean it up for him. Katarina couldn’t help but smile softly in amusement however as she claimed his dog’s name was Lucy and things only got worst-sounding from that point on. Smiling in a friendly manner at him she advised in a jokingly whispered tone, “Quit while you’re ahead, you’re only digging even more,” she told him. When he tried to brush off her concerns her brow furrowed, “You’re welcome, it’s my job… now listen,“ she started but the rest faltered as he made to move away, staggered against one of the pillars and then resumed his quest to rush away from her. Walking beside him, ready to catch him should he stumble she said firmly this time, in a more professional tone, “You are not fine, but you will be if you will just sit still for just five minutes so I can heal your shoulder. Five minutes is not long, and I’m sure in five minutes your friend won’t have disappeared off the face of the earth so let me sort you out and then we can talk to someone about getting you help to find this person.”

Seeing he looked a little woozy still she gently ushered him over to the seated area of the ward, and gestured insistently that he should take a seat. “At least sit down for a minute while your head stops spinning, you’ll do yourself more harm than good by rushing off to try and find Kahlan, you can’t go anywhere in that state, you’ll faint from the blood loss,” she stated practically before smiling briefly. However as her mentor called her name she groaned and called “Coming!” before turning to Richard, “Please, I am asking you now, stay here, okay?” she said, clearly concerned for this young man.

[Rachael Barnes]

Rachael glanced up, eyebrow raised at the guy that ‘that Michalka girl’ was trying to usher to sit down. He didn’t seem to be very fond of the idea. Looking up from the watery contents of her paper cup that had otherwise occupied her attention she assessed him with confusion. Weird clothing and odd injury, she clocked, and he was oddly… quite good looking, but that was irrelevant. “Just sit down,“ she suggested, “Seriously it will only take two seconds to sort your shoulder out,” she said suddenly, looking to Richard curiously, a little too curiously given the disgusting factor of said injury. “So, come on then, how did you get that? Pretty impressive blood loss really, much more interesting than a near miss with a Bludger to the arm I’m sure,” she commented pointing to her bandaged up arm in explanation.

She was lucky it hadn’t been broken. The only injury she’d sustained was a severely sprained wrist from falling off her broom thanks to the overeager Bludger. Very lucky, though her head still felt like it was split in half, hence why they refused to let her apparate herself from the ward. No, she had had to wait, like a ‘stupid little kid’ in her words, for someone to come and collect her to take her back home. Her uncle Alistair was just such ‘someone’ as her parents were out somewhere and Dan was off… being Dan so no one was at home, they’d called the next of kin and voila two minutes later Alistair showed up looking far too concerned- it made Rachael uncomfortable, all this genuine family concern. Glancing over to her uncle, who was talking to the Healer about goodness knows what (see, so overly concerned!), Rachael then focused her attention back on Richard with such a ‘well I’m waiting for this story’, expectant kind of look than anyone could see she wasn’t someone to just polite excuse yourself and then rush away from.

((ooc: I hope that's okay? hehe and I think it's nice to have the background for Richard so I very much enjoyed your post. ))

[Rachael Barnes]

Noting the heavy sigh Rachael merely smiled in amusement- wow he really didn't want to sit and be healed did he? Nodding she added, "Yes, Bludger, you know that bugger of a ball that comes shooting at people to try and stop them. Quidditch," she said simply in case he didn't exactly know the ins and outs of the sport. "I play Beater and well Bludgers tend to enjoy knocking us off our brooms mid-flight," she commented dryly before shaking her head at his question. "It'd take more than a crap-aimed Bludger to break my arm," she said confidently, an assured air about her expression, and then she shook her head with a wry smile, "I was lucky," she corrected, "Just a severe sprain... woo for me."

Looking sideways at him she listened with vague interest (hey that was something for Rachael) but her eyebrow raised even more as he told his story. "Muggles eh? Could be worst, they could be 'mudbloods'," she quoted sarcastically with a roll of her eyes at just such a word which was still so delightfully used by some Pureblood relatives she knew. "You know muggle weaponry is rather, dare I say fabulously, gory though," she commented simply with a shrug of her shoulders. A lot of the plays and TV shows she'd been cast in had been set in medieval times and she was nearly always cast as the bad guy. Weird, that. "Anyways I think your shoulder is proof of that," Rachael concluded, allowing herself a small smile as the guy took off his shirt in order to make himself a make shift bandage. She would have helped but, she didn't exactly have two working hands so instead sat there merely working on maintaining the look of quite disinterest at Richard.

"So, I know this is like 20 questions but you from New Zealand?" she asked, brow furrowed in confusion. She thought she recognised the accent and could place it to that country but she couldn't be sure. "Oh! And just so a complete stranger isn't asking you personal questions like that I'm Rachael, Rachael Barnes," she introduced, it must be the wooziness that was making her friendly all of a sudden. "I'd, you know, be all polite and shit but my wrist won't let me," she joked easily with a small smile.

[Rachael Barnes]

Rachael shrugged and, "I was just saying it just in case you didn't because you'd be surprised at how many people don't know their Quidditch from their football," she commented simply. Smiling slightly she nodded, "Yeah Beating is my calling, helps me to vent my general frustration with the world and the people in it," she said, in what would have been a joking manner but one look at her expression revealed there was a lot of truth in her statement. "Really? You look like a good Beater, you've got the right amount of muscle-weight thing behind you anyway and that always helps. But I guess all Beaters need to have some kind of aggression, a desire to deliberately injure people... yeah you don't seem the type, I on the other hand-" she trailed off jokingly.

"Mmm hmm, Mudblood is a derogatory term, obviously, for people with magic that are born to Muggle parents, it's like... 'muddy blood' you know dirty, wrong... that's what most people who use it strongly believe anyway. Everything else knows it's a load of bollocks," she concluded in a 'well there you go' kind of way. "It's mostly old-school, die-hard 'purebloods' that like to go around calling people mudbloods, but not all of us purebloods use that word," she explained briefly with, for Rachael at least, an almost pleasant smile.

"Yeah, charming," she replied in a jokingly dry tone as he explained how it could have been worse. "Well then I think maybe you and I have been lucky today? Clearly you've won, on the luck front though because as annoying as Bludgers are, I doubt I could have had an artery severed by one," Rachael spoke as she watched him make the bandage for his shoulder.

"Oh, believe me, it can turn into twenty questions pretty easily... I can be nosy when I want to be," Rachael said with an amused smirk at his mocking. "Aah you're a Kiwi-Maori hybrid then?" she joked before nodding, "Yeah nice to meet you too, would have been better away from a hospital you know but hey, I'll take what I am given," she joked lightly. "So Cypher eh? Hmmm, uncommon name," she mused aloud with a thoughtful expression.

((ooc: Hehe it was not! Aww thanks, it's kind of weird because I keep thinking of snarky things she would say and then I have to remind myself 'no, Emma, she's being nice, remember?' haha. That is probably the only reason, hah, aside from the wooziness. ))

[Rachael Barnes]

((ooc: Sorry it's taken me for-evur to reply to this but I figured it's kind of important since Richard needs to bump into Alistair doesn't he?))

"Yeah," Rachael said, looking to him in light amusement, "Except one involves balls being passed with feet and the other involves broomsticks and goals that are at a much higher altitude," she commented. Then, as he asked why she was frustrated at the world but seemed to think it was rude she snorted and shook her head at his apologies, "It wasn't rude, I've heard much worst... and in answer to your question... it's not so much the world as the male genre," she explained as though teasing, but something in her eyes said her statement was quite close to the truth. "Too many blokes have screwed me over too many times, that's basically it and I reckon that's a good enough reason as any to be frustrated." Looking curiously sideways at him, she watched as he seemed to brighten talking of Quidditch and a small smile twitched at her lips due to it.

As the boy said 'oh' Rachael merely nodded, "Yeah, exactly, not exactly a nice world this wizarding lark is it?" she replied sarcastically. "You? Nah, muggle born is the generic term... mudblood's just what a load of jumped up men wearing black cloaks and fucking stupid masks would call you," she referred of course to Deatheaters but not without a slight pang of hypocrisy- her father was, or had been anyway, one of those 'jumped up men'. "Yeah, pureblood but might aswell be half... my parents are both from pureblood families but they're uh... they were a bit of a scandal when they conceived me and my twin brother. Auror-Deatheater match... it's not exactly cheered about in either camps," she said, somewhat carelessly revealing everything about her parents but she didn't think this guy of all people was likely to go shouting about anything she told him. "Anyways, in the eyes of many of my dad's Pureblood relatives, I'm basically on the Pureblood Scum Scale because of it," she said a little callously.

Smiling then as he did, Rachael nodded, "Touche," she said simply, relenting to his judgement that they were both lucky. "Did you now? You're very perceptive then," she commented, a hint of sarcasm creeping into her tone once more, though the almost-friendly smile lingered. As he talked of his mother dying her mouth formed a little 'oh' of understanding- what could you say to that? Nothing, was Rachael's stance on it, no point saying 'I'm sorry for your loss' when you don't even know the person or the deceased. As he agreed it was nice to meet her, the brunette smiled, "That is the right answer," she joked easily with him before nodding, "Yeah, I've never heard it in the wizarding world... odd really, but it's good having a name like that, it means you don't get mistaken for another 'John Smith' or whatever," she supposed aloud before muttering under her breath, "Oh god." Turning to Richard, she quickly explained, "My uncle looks like he's just burst into another round of concern, really you think he'd have ran out of questions for that poor Healer and be ready to just take me home already," she rolled her eyes, but in good nature, for once!