<div class="floatleft">(http://i1105.photobucket.com/albums/h357/daniellex28/evolved%20char%207_zpsvbxkwizk.png)</div><strong>Name:</strong>Julie Lancaster (https://elliquiy.com/forums/index.php?topic=250173.msg12381790er#msg12381790)<br/><strong>City | Date | Time:</strong>Lulekani Township near Phalaborwa, South Africa | March 17 2015 | 04:35 PM<br/><strong>Tagging | Mentioning:</strong>Elena/Nicole<br/><strong>Content:</strong>Meeting new People<br/><hr/><br/>There was a pleasant melody to the voice of the young woman; it distracted Julie to the point where she neglected to pay attention to the way she returned her greeting, and she only caught the last part, which promptly had her burst into laughter. Julie leaned forward on her elbows, glancing briefly away before allowing her gaze to settle on her present company once more. There was an open quality to the girl that she appreciated, a trait that was enhanced by the way in which her azure coloured eyes seemed to take in the world around her. They carried an inquisitiveness that Julie had never before seen; an unbridled curiosity that silently wondered about everything - and everyone - she saw, and beyond that something else; a yearning to find something - something exciting. Perhaps Julianne was simply reading too much into her, but for now her interest was piqued and she gladly indulged in this one-off chance to talk with someone who<em>wasn't</em>a group of down-to-Earth African males with a sense of humour that grew increasingly crude the more alcohol was consumed. And boy, did the rangers know how to to drink.<br/><br/>"Aw, I need to work on my pickup lines, do I?" she smirked, not a moment before a wholehearted chuckle escaped Julie. "I'm sorry, I'll promise I'll try harder next time." Leisurely, Jules leaned back in her seat, allowing her to reach down and unzip the backpack. "I'd offer you a drink," she shrugged casually, "But I'm afraid all I've got are two bottles of icy tap water." She grabbed both bottles from her bag with one hand, settling them side by side in the centre of the wooden table. "You're more than welcome to one of them though. Gonna be another lovely hot African day! Makes you look forward to summer, doesn't it? Oh!"<br/><br/>Already, Julie had been gulping down some of the freezer-cooled water. Even though it was considerably melted, the shrinking chunk of ice inside was still keeping the liquid wonderfully cold and such a treat was more than preferable over a whole bag of Munchies or any of the other junk food you could usually wake her up for in the middle of the night. "I didn't actually introduce myself," she realized, and Julie wiped her, only slightly grimy, hand off on her trousers before extending it across the table. "I'm Julie. Well," she rolled her eyes, smiling sardonically for a moment, "Julianne, actually. Lancaster. But please don't make me suffer that name, I feel the British aristocracy peering over my shoulder every time someone calls me that." She decided that perhaps a bit more of an introduction was in order; foreign people - foreign<em>women</em>- in a place like this ususally raised a lot of questions and Julie wasn't going to deny being curious about the girl. But it only seemed fair that if she wanted to receive answers, she had to offer her own background story as well.<br/><br/>"I'm here with some buddies from the game reserve,  about fifty miles east of here? I don't know if you've ventured out of Phalaborwa, but it's funded by the Care for Animals initiative and set up by this Belgian couple. They are the main black rhino rehabilitation centre, although there's a whole zoo of animals down there needing to be looked after." Julie grinned absently at that. "Don't tell them I called it a zoo though; Petronel will give you a two hour rant on how zookeepers are the second worst human beings to roam this planet. You know, right after poachers. I'm not always stationed there, but there's this baby rhino there that-- Actually, I should start from the beginning."<br/><br/>There were few things that Julianne got as passionate about as her job as a ranger, and it was clear if only by the way her eyes lit up that this was what kept her heart beating. She pulled her legs up without thinking, adopting a cross-legged position upon the wooden bench whilst starting to gesture animatedly as she continued a spirited narrative. "It's a heartbreaking story," she began, and for a moment Julianne looked the girl up and down, wondering if she would be able to handle it. Her appearance was delicate, and she had such soft and sweet features that it was hard to picture her ever hearing stories of pain and death and all things wrong in the world. But then, she was also not the kind of person you'd expect to be sitting on her own in one of the more notorious places this side of Kruger, so perhaps she should give the girl the benefit of the doubt; if things got too graphic she could always ask Julie to stop, right? Or, you know, run off and grab a bucket to throw up that barely digested meal into.<br/><br/>"Me, Beaunard, Kero and Jonathan were out on patrol early evening, almost a week ago. It was twilight, and the savanna was only just coming to life. We were driving the jeep, but even then we could hear this heartwrenching howl. It was, well..." Julianne paused, wracking her mind to find something that would compare to the piercing cries of despair that had pierced the plains that night. Ultimately she just shook her head though. "It was the saddest thing you could possibly imagine. I didn't even recognize it for what it was, and I've done plenty of rhino patrols, right? Anyway, we get there, and there's this calf, barely four weeks old, frantically pacing around this big gray heap. We approached it on foot from all sides, trying to find a proper angle. It wasn't hard to guess what had happened - poachers really are a rotten lowlife bunch of wankers that don't deserve to walk-- but I digress. I don't know how much you know about rhinos, but even a baby can deal a pretty rough punch, and this little bugger was set, small as he was, to defend his dying mum. We had to tranquilize the poor thing, which was agony all in its own; his mother actually struggled to get back up even though she'd been bleeding out in the dirt for what must have been hours. They cut her horn right off and left the two of them to die a slow, agonizing death. It was really..."<br/><br/>An apologetic smile littered her features as she locked eyes with the girl sat on opposite side of the table. "Sorry, getting carried away there. We uh, we had to put the mother out of her misery and brought the calf back to the CFA. Poor thing took a shine to me, although I reckon it's only because I got stuck with first bottle duty. And the second, but that's simply because I couldn't bear leaving him behind. Those big brown eyes, those wobbly knees and his floppy ears... So I'm stuck on the care centre for another month and a half at least, until Khari's old enough to be weaned off the milk. So basically, what I was trying to say is, if you ever feel like cuddling with baby monkeys and slightly heavier animals you should stop by." Julie, looking a little uncomfortable with herself for delving a little deeper into her background than she had intended, regained her composure relatively quickly. She decided that she'd definitely said enough now though, and a sincere interest filled her expression as she turned to her current company. "Anyway, enough about me. What's your story?" she said, keeping up the beginning tradition of cheesy and overused conversational phrases.<br/>