The Landing (Monologue)

Richard gasped for breath as he was violently slammed into the ground by the abrupt ending of his portkey journey. The ground beneath his back was harsh, with several stones poking into his back and even into the entry wounds from the bullets. He tried to move but a surge of pain from his left side persuaded him not to and he slumped sightly back down, biting down so hard that he'd accidentally bitten his bottom lip, causing it to bleed.

For a long time he just laid there, looking up at the sparse canopy of leaves from trees that he was sure were not local to Britain. They seemed to be pine trees but from what he could smell he wasn't in scandinavia or anywhere else where the trees would naturally grow. Swallowing a little, and wincing at the pain it caused his left side, Richard focused on his wounds and identifying the damage. He closed his eyes and focused on the pain in his left side.

He had a bullet in the heel of his left foot and he was sure that was the portkey. It also seemed to have shattered his heel.

The lowest bullet to hit his left side had gone straight through the upper left part of his thigh bone, chipping it if he had to guess from the lack of amazing pain in moving his hips slightly.

Up slightly from that shot, the next bullet had passed almost harmlessly through him, missing all bones and organs. Of course it had clipped some rather large blood vessels but nothing that couldn't be easily fixed.

Then there was the highest of the low-hitting bullets. The last shot to his torso had gone straight through his back, through his left kidney and out the other side, taking most of said kidney with it. And that was what was hurting the most, half of his left kidney had been blown out forcably from his body and the other half was leaking into his body.

He let his head fall back and he let out a shuddering breath as he looked up at the night sky above him,

"God damn it..."

(OOC: Just thought I'd add in some of Richie's troubles )

With a huge amount of effort he dragged himself backwards across the harsh ground until he reached the base of a tree. Letting his head rest against the wood, he took a deep breath and groped around blindly with one hand. After a lot of nothing, his fingertips touched against exactly what he had been looking for. Curling his fingertips a little, the rock rolled slightly closer so that he could wrap his hand around it and lift it up to his face for inspection. It was a small rock, small enough that he could hide it within his fist. He closed his eyes tightly.

Add mass.

He willed, pushing for his magic to respond. When only a trickle of magic ran through his arm into the rock, he frowned in concentration.

Add mass

He willed again and this time his magic responded to his will, pain-hazed as it was. Feeling the warm feeling rush through his arm and into the stone, Richard smiled faintly to himself when the stone began to grow both in size and in weight. With considerable effort he placed the rock on top of the wound which led to his ruined kidney. He opened his eyes and looked at the rock, which was now roughly the size of his two clasped hands. The warm feeling of his magic tingled at the end of his fingertips.

Change.

The rock glowed a little and he felt it reforming under his touch. He let out a dry choking sound which was only vaguely related to the chuckle that it was supposed to be. In his hands now was a fully functioning human kidney, just waiting for a switching spell. With a hopeful smile, he willed his magic into the organ.

Switch.

The kidney in his hand disappeared and he had the strange feeling of a hole inside him suddenly being full again. A second later a tattered mess of red muscle tissue appeared in his hand and he took some time to look at the remains of his kidney. It really was a mess and it made him realise how it was nothing short of a miracle that he was still alive. With a faint smile he threw the remains away to the side and pulled himself up so that he was sat with his back against the tree. He chuckled lightly to himself as he set about slowly healing the wounds from the three torso bullets.

If this was all the attacker had then he'd be back with Briony by the end of the day.

It took him a lot longer without a wand and he had already cursed himself a million times for choosing today of all days to go outside without his wand strapped to his left forearm. After what he could only guess was several hours, all three of the torso wounds were at least eighty percent healed. Enough to not break open but about the extent that he could reach without a wand.

With his upper body as good as it was going to get, he twisted a little to look at his heel. He sighed. The shooter couldn't have picked a more awkward place to remove a bullet from if they'd tried. Picking up two blades of grass he concentrated.

Change.

The two blades of grass glowed briefly before reforming as a pair of metal tweezers. He crossed his legs, as if relaxing, to bring his left heel closer to his eye so that he could see the wound better. Taking a deep breath he lined the tweezers up before steeling his resolve and pushing them into the gunshot wound.

He arced his back a little as the pain ran through him, gritting his teeth as hard as he could to keep from crying out. With a determined glint in his eyes he moved the tweezers around inside the wound, his back twitching to arc upwards with every movement. After what seemed like forever the tips of the tweezers reached something metallic. With urgent movements he gripped the bullet with the tweezers and gritted his teeth once more to prepare himself.

With one yank, he pulled the bullet free of his heel.

He let out a shuddering breath, which also had a small, strangled, cry mixed in there. Throwing the bullet and the tweezers away, he covered the hole in his heel with his right hand and leant back against the tree trunk for a few awhile to get his breath back.