maybe that's just the price you pay for the chains you refuse

[thewomanswit]

Characters: Sherlock Holmes and Irene Adler
Rating: PG (Come on, they're Victorian)
Time Period: Modern
Location: The Maze
Relative Date: At least a few days after Irene's arrival and and Holmes and Gene stalking Sawyer.
Status: CLOSED

Comments

[elementrymydear]

Holmes was counting paces, retracing his steps towards the entrance of the maze, as his cane hit the ground. One hundred and twenty five, one hundred and twenty four, one hundred and twenty three.... He had taken it upon himself to begin memorizing the grounds of this castle, now that it seemed the threat from the killer had been momentarily stemmed (though he certainly regretted that there seemed no counterpoint as of yet to the 'vampire' theory). Now that he had opened himself back up to his old line of work, he knew he wouldn't be to turn his back on it again until he had solved the mystery of this castle itself

[thewomanswit]

Irene was aware of great many things. The tightening of her muscles as her lips curved into a smile, the sharp whip of the wind around her cheeks, and the way the snow gave ever so slightly beneath the weight of her body on the ground

[elementrymydear]

Holmes listened to her retreating steps carefully, counting and timing them to mentally calculate and track her speed and distance from him. He yanked the brim of his hat down further to shadow his features. If this was, as he suspected, Miss Irene Adler, (or rather Mrs. Irene Norton) it would be better to prevent her from recognizing him from afar. He waited until she had rounded the next bend, before poking his head out to verify her retreating form. Holmes wasn't particularly worried about losing her in the maze - the vestiges of snow on the ground left plenty of tracks to be followed

[thewomanswit]

Irene walked slowly, listening for the intermittent sound of footsteps over snow that were not her own, attempting to ascertain how far he was behind her.

She was at a disadvantage, however; she didn't know the layout of the maze, and it could prove to trap her just as easily as anything else. Her feet left her mark clearly in the snow, so hiding from her pursuer was completely out of the question. She wouldn't have time to double over her tracks, and the hedges made it impossible to loop back around him.

Perhaps leading him into a maze had not been a particularly clever idea, she thought.

Suddenly, she took a steep left and sped up her stride, rushing around the corner of a hedge until she was parallel with her previous path. Irene lifted her foot and stuck it solidly into the branches of the foliage, and grasped the ice-laden leaves with her already frozen fingers. With a deep breath, she began to pull herself up from the ground, climbing the hedge as quickly as she could.

[elementrymydear]

Holmes had started to feel rather assured that he was on top of this situation, and was so consumed in his internal questions about what to do regarding Irene's appearance here, while continuing to count steps, that he had strayed behind far enough to not hear the footsteps alter into the sound of rustling hedges.

He did however, notice when the tracks abruptly stopped, which brought him to a jarring halt.

It struck him abruptly, and far too late, that if there was one person he should know better than to underestimate, it was Irene Adler, and he looked around quickly, to see what alternate means of escape she had found. Of course she had ascertained that she was being followed. What else had he expected?

[thewomanswit]

Irene had, somehow, managed to make it to the top of the hedge quickly, scrambling over the top and to the other side before peeking her head up to gaze down at her pursuer.

A man, as she had suspected. His hat obscured his face, and she shifted against the hedge, attempting to catch a glimpse of his face. Her hands slipped against the melting ice of the branches, and she adjusted her grip, just as the man moved his head so his profile was, finally, visible.

That face.

She knew that face

[elementrymydear]

Holmes' head snapped towards the sound immediately. She must have scaled the wall, though it sounded distinctly as if she had taken a rather nasty spill. Given the icy condition of the maze, it was likely she had either been hurrying, or, given the lack of rustling, attempting to spy on him. He extended his cane cautiously amidst the brittle branches, shoving them aside so that he might see through to where she lay.

"I hope you have not injured yourself, Mrs. Norton," he said complacently. If she was leaping over hedge walls, there was no doubt that she knew he was there anyways. It was possible she wouldn't recognize his voice immediately. "Are you quite alright?"

[thewomanswit]

Prone on the icy ground, Irene huffed a sigh into the cold air, watching her warm breath float from her frozen lips.

He was speaking to her. Marco said they weren't dead, and this was not the afterlife. How, then, could one Sherlock Holmes be speaking to her?

The obvious answer, of course, was that he was not dead. And that was completely more logical than such fancy as this world being the afterlife. And Irene imagined, if she were dead, she wouldn't be nearly as cold as she was now.

Nor would her back hurt, as a matter of fact.

"Miss Adler, now," she hissed, struggling to her feet. The fall had not seemed to harm her particularly, but her trousers had not been as lucky. She brushed away the snow from her torn trouser legs, trying to regain her composure as she glared through the hedge. "If you don't mind, Mister Sherlock Holmes, I do not know whether to me more disturbed that you are following me through a maze at a mysterious castle, or that you are supposed to be dead."

[elementrymydear]

No longer going by her married name whatsoever implied more than just a premature widowing. There was some degree to which she did not wish to remain attached to the name. Given what he knew about her independent spirit from their last encounter, he did not find himself overly surprised by this realization.

"My apologies, Miss Adler. And if I might make a third suggestion, perhaps you should be most disquieted by the circumstances in which we find ourselves, rather than the particulars of my business in this maze. Or my apparent return from the grave - which I can assure you, was entirely devoid of trauma on my behalf." A smirk twitched its way across his features, now that he could see her quite clearly through the opening where he still held the branches aloft with his cane.

[thewomanswit]

Irene curled her hands into fists at her sides, huffing more deep breaths into the frigid air. Sherlock Holmes, in the flesh, and just as clever and frustrating as she remembered him.

Worse so, he was practically taunting her.

"On the contrary, Mister Holmes, I would argue your business in this maze has all to do with our being here." She forced her aching back to straighten as much as she could before pointing her chin defiantly in the detective's direction. "Now, if you plan to continue this discussion, I insist you come out from behind that hedge and stop skulking about as if I were the subject of one of your cases."

[elementrymydear]

Holmes tipped his hat to her, adjusting it to its usual position. "As you say, madame." He removed his cane from the hedge, obscuring her from vision again, but kept his ears attuned to where she was. "If you would be so kind as to follow the sound of my voice, I believe I can navigate us to a more appropriate position for introductions." He tapped the cane intermittently against the wall, so that she could register where he was, as he began walking further into the maze. "I can assure you that my motivations for being in this maze were coincidental to your appearance here. No more than that."

[thewomanswit]

Irene pulled her coat around her tightly and retrieved her hat from the ground, dusting away ice and dirt before placing it back upon her head.

Following the sound of his cane against the branches that separated them, she considered his words, and more importantly, what kind of force in the universe could have drawn them together to precisely this spot at precisely this moment. It had been years since their previous encounter; one that was so small, so fleeting, and yet had burned itself permanently into Irene's memory.

"I speak not of your motivations, but of those who brought us to this place. The world, as you and I are both keenly aware, is quite large, Mister Holmes. I find it wholly unlikely, with all the world and the span of time to choose from, that you and I have met at this very specific location by coincidence."

[elementrymydear]

"Well, I cannot speak for the motivations of our host, so to speak. But I must agree, it seems some specific design is at work in this instance." As they continued side by side, but separated by the partition, Holmes considered this arrangement something of a challenge - being unable to see the woman, and observe the sort of details that might give him a greater clue as to what had transpired in her life between their last encounter and this sudden re acquaintance. He would have to resort to good old fashioned interrogation conversation, for the moment.

As they rounded the first bend, he spoke again. "I imagine that you, too, received an invitation to this location, specifically tailored to be impossible to refuse?"

[thewomanswit]

As they rounded the bend in the hedge, Irene struggled to catch a glimpse of him through the leaves. It unnerved her, not being able to see his face, and she suspected he not only knew of her discomfort but relished in it.

"I did," she informed him evenly. "I cannot say as of yet the invitation was misleading, but I did find it's message to be curiously... personal."

She tried to push down a smirk as she trudged through the snow. "I do wonder kind of note was penned that would sway the curious Mister Sherlock Holmes from early 'retirement,'" she said wistfully.

[elementrymydear]

Personal. In other words, it would take more than a direct question to extract the contents of that message from her.

"The note itself was in the form of a cipher," he informed her, "an encrypted message, pointing me in the direction of my remaining deadliest enemy. Until the man has been taken into custody, it would be imprudent of me to show my face in London again. It will be easier to spring on a trap on a man who no longer believes the hunter is playing the game."

He paused at the next turn: his only option was to go right, and her only option would be left, if his mental map were correct. They must by necessity go in opposing directions, in order to eventually reconvene. "Follow that wall to the end, Miss Adler, keeping to the right hand side. Take the next right, and I shall meet you in that corridor. Provided you have finished leaping walls to get away from me," he was unable to resist adding.

[thewomanswit]

"I fear it would have to be a incredibly tall wall if I were ever to escape you," she mumbled, just loud enough for him to hear her.

Regardless, she followed his instructions to the letter, pausing just before she rounded the final corner to meet him. Irene straightened her back again, readjusting her cap and resigned herself to a slow count to five before she knew she could stall no longer.

Turning the corner, she paused in the centre of the corridor, crossing her arms and raising her chin regally and she waited for him to appear.