Lightning Strikes Twice [M]

[Lion]

It was strange indeed but he wouldn't let himself become distracted for long when at last she left.  Bishop quickly took those precious seconds to study the intricate display of the wires that wrapped around him.  He slipped the blade carefully from his palm and snipped the first wrapping around his arms and with a twang! they were suddenly free and he carefully moved them up to cut the wire around his body, feeling immediately reliefe where the wire was no long pressing furiously against his flesh.  At last he cut his feet and felt the blood rushing back into them when he dropped to the ground.  It took him precious seconds to come to his feet, feeling them numb and like lead blocks underneath him.

And it was within that time that he could hear the very springs of the doorknob moving and Bishop immediately shuffled into the shadows of the wall, pressing against it to hide behind the door when it suddenly burst open. But he had the blade in his palm at the ready as soon as his eyes caught hold of her.

[visualspice]

The door swung open and Scarlet bird stepped inside, but only made it a few feet before she paused and tensed at the realization that Bishop had gotten free. The white of her teeth glinted as she bared them in the darkness, eyes cleaving through the area as she sought him out. Where could he have gotten to? And as she spun on her heel, she spotted something just out of the corner of her eye int he shadow, but perhaps her reaction might have been too late. She hadn't her weapons in hand and the only thing that could be done was a swift grab for her metal wire, which seemed too far out of reach as she was tripping over her high heels upon the wood floor.
Shit.

[Lion]

Bishop rushed at her, knowing the vital points of a human body all too well, sickeningly so, but sunk the blade hard into her shoulder and raised it again to bury it in the same wound before rolling off of her and bolting out the door, bloody blade still in hand as he went.  He wasn't going to let the weapon go though he still felt his own knives still hidden on his person.  She couldn't see his face, the tears that streamed down them from having to attack her.  But he couldn't let that hold him back.  He rushed up the stairs from the room, and saw all was dark all around.  A door!  A DOOR!

Goddammit, why did it have to be so damn dark up here!?  Bishop dashed for the first door he saw and rammed against it, feeling the locks protest against him.  He bashed it harder, using his boot until at last the wood gave way.

[visualspice]

Scarlet bird felt the cold bite of the steel blade and dropped to her knees in shock. The second stab only caused her to burn in anguish  as she remained there a moment, stunned. But seeing his form blurring past her and towards the door, her heart hardened, even as she had been crying from the unknown shock. It angered her , especially as she didn't understand what was going on as she yanked out the steel threads within the room and stalked after him, heels biting angrily into the wood as she pursued him through the dark.

Seeing him at the door way, she threw her steel strings at him in an angered thrust, but failed and only caught it against the wood. Pissed, she gave a pull, and the pieces of string that caught against the wood sliced through it, and sent the remnants clattering into a pile upon the floor.

[Lion]

He didn't have time to think about it all when at last he broke the door free.  Only desperation burned in his heart then and there.  He heard the wood splinter when the metal wire snapped at it and he yelped audibly in fear of it.  But he fell to the ground in a roll and onto his feet, running through the woods, seeing the ground was still moist from the rain, though most of it had stopped by then.  The moon was full this night and clearly lighted the spaces between the canopy and every step was like the hammer of an anvil.

[visualspice]

The rain might have stopped for the moment, but Scarlet Bird did not. Anger, humiliation and pride swelled through her. She was on the hunt, and she gave a sharp, taunt pull to her threads as she stalked off into the night.  A storm was brewing over head. The winds picking up and rocking the tree limbs, clattering them together while low howls swept across the grounds, kicking up wet leaves and debris.  A flash of lightning lit up the woods momentarily, ad it was just enough light for Scarlet Bird to find her prey. Bishop was scrambling onward, and so she moved, deftly through the woods with a purpose, high heeled boots sinking in and causing hard, stabbing tracks in her wake.

She was going to catch this man. And he was going to pay.
Play time was over. At the next flicker of lighting, she drew out her strings, eyed up Bishop's figure, then cast out the line, the steel weapon cutting easily through the woods-
But did she hit her mark?

[Lion]

Blood seeped into Bishop's legs with even more vigor than before and he no longer limbed as if he were running on stilts.  He had to get as far away from her as possible and the cold wind and rain that pelted down, not to mention the rolling thunder, had to be the furthest thing from his mind.  But it was all culminating in one tense ball that felt as if it were about to snap.  Bishop ran desperately, holding the bloodied throwing knife in his hands.  It was still warm in his palm and the thought of having to take the blade to his wife only horrified him all the more.

He felt sick to his stomach and if he weren't running for his life he would have thrown up then and there without a second thought.  Instead he kept on running, knowing she wasn't far behind him.  She was fast and even faster with the use of her metal wire that she no doubt would use to drag him back to the cabin again. 

Bishop's eyes were suddenly full moons when they at last heard the whipping sting of metal string singing on the air and it seemed as if they were wading through time as if it were little more than water.  He paused for only a moment, turning his head to watch the steel string coming toward him as if it were nothing more than fishing line.  It was coiling at him when suddenly it became alit like a lightning rod.

It all happened so fast.  At first there was a flash in the sky, lightning whipped across the sky from the storm clouds above and then all of a sudden it flashed down to the ground, finding itself connecting to Scarlet Bird's metal string.  It zapped through the line faster than Bishop could blink and struck into her, flashing and sparking through her to send her reeling to the ground.

[visualspice]

They say it's rare when lightning strikes.  Tonight was no different, but the storm was rolling in fast. Had she known her weapons were an easy attracter of lighting, she might have went for a different weapon, but as it were- fate did as it wanted. So when the lightning struck, it surged across the wires, hissing down it in the blink of an eye-
and all she felt was a blast of heat crawlign through her, all of her hair standing on end, and her nose distinctively smelling of metal, before she was blasted into the air.
Not even a moment later, she was laying on the ground, another bolt of lightning show casing her still body, smoking lightly from the strike almost like an eerie mist. Hr hands were scarred with dark, black burns that welded into her skin even through her red leather gloves, and her hands, forcefula nd tense, continued to grip the metal string as smoke curled out and faded through her finger tips.
But other than the smoke, she lay still, and nothing more, as rain waters pelted down upon her skin, and the wild winds tossed lightly the loose strands of her hair.

[Lion]

Bishop watched in horror at the display and stood back as he watched her flying through the air and landing in a still heap on the ground, still grasping her steel wire.  He hesitated for a moment, standing there like a deer in headlights, not sure what to do.  He couldn't leave here there.  That was his wife...but he knew if he helped her she'd only try to kill him.

He stood there for a second longer before he bolted forward and dropped to his knees by her side.  "Helena," he muttered, though knew she wouldn't be able to hear him.  "Oh, Helena say something!"  He touched her then flinched, unsure if he would get shocked himself, but eventually found courage to turn her over gently.  He pulled the wire from her hands and coiled it carefully in hand, placing it in his pocket and searcing the rest of her body for her weapons and more wire before coming to the conclusion that she must be bound carrying her from that spot.

She was tired with her wrists behind her back with her own metal wire and more wire around her boots, expert knotting that would be difficult to break without her own weapon cutting into her and pulled her up and over his shoulder, taking her into the night.

[visualspice]

OOC: I like how she's supposed to be kidnapping him. SO MUCH FAIL

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Scarlet Bird hardly stirred as her own husband bound her up, using her own strings. As she was tossed over his shoulder, his scent alone kept her sated, lulled even between a time of memories and a time she had forgot. She could barely make him out in the meadows, the warm, golden air feeling too perfect when they'd met in the market...
a simple kiss there, a stolen one here, making love and making memories and the pain of child birth came back to her, along wtih the echoing laughter of her child.

Child!?
She had... yes.. she had a daughter- a child, a..
she began to struggle, lightly at first and didn't understand why metal was suddenly cutting into her skin as she gasped out through tears.
"Let me go! My child! I must get to my child! She needs me!" She was in hysterics, sound desperate and obviously did not remember that their child was already dead. "Please!" the woman was begging, hot tears rolling down her face as she continued to move, continued to cut herself and growing frustrated for it but still continued to try.

[Lion]

Bishop kept walking despite her struggles when the woman he knew as his wife suddenly startled awake and began to flail on his shoulder as best she could.  He saw the metal wire was starting to cut into her wrists through her leather and there was nothing more he could do to still her.  All he wanted to do was keep moving, to get as far away from this place as possible.  He didn't know where he was going, but any place was better than here.  Perhaps the only place was to go back to the beginning.  And he figured there was no better place to head as he pressed on.

But he paused suddenly at the mention of a child.  He looked down at her for a moment as she struggled.  "She's dead," Bishop said simply, feeling his own tears threaten to roll down his face, but he said nothing more and kept walking.  He moved his arm above her wrists to still her if he could, but perhaps she might think that he might have been responsible for her death.

[visualspice]

The idea struck her far harsher than the lightning bolt, and in that moment, she let out a sharp cry, bucked within his arms and found herself wrestling out of his grasp. Down to the pavement she went, falling hard as she let out another cry, then lay still, her reddish brown hair, once bound within a long, thick braid, was beginning to come undone as frayed hair pieces were hanging about her head and some lay in streams in the wet cobblestone. Her eyes were hot, tears glistening as she began to shake. She couldn't stop the tears, it was too over whelming.

Her daughter was dead.

[Lion]

Bishop finally stopped amidst the storm and rested beside a tree as he took the struggling assassin in his arms and held her by her shoulders.  "Stop it!  Stop!  It's not your fault," he said, holding her face against his.  "It's not mine either.  She's gone...there's nothing we can do to bring her back.  You were a good mother.  She loved you and she wouldn't want you to be sad.  Please, stop crying.  Please."  He begged with her, pleaded with her, hoping that her own anguish wouldn't offset his own as even he felt the pain twist in his heart at the knowledge they would never see their daughter again.  He just held her and brushed her hair from her face, holding her hard against his chest.

[visualspice]

At his words, she wept. At the idea, she wept, and at the vacant loss of her child, she cried. WHen he looked at her, told her there was nothing to be done- she had been a good mother- but what good mother would let a child die? A child who's name she didn't even know. The very idea set her back into a choking fit of sobs. She jerked her head away and shook it, hair spilling across her face.
"N-no! No! What kind of mother would let their child die!" she cried, and sobs soon became her, her entire body rocked with them. She lowered her face, burying it against him, her hands still restrained, still bleeding, her blood coating well down her arms and mixing with the rain puddles beneath them.
"Gods.. my child, my child.."
and her voice cracked as she raised her head, red eyes still spilling hot tears down her cheeks. And it was then she realized, with a loss..
"My child... my daughter..a nd I can't even remember her name."

[Lion]

Bishop held her tighter to him until his very muscles strained to contain her sorrow.  He didn't understand what she was going on about - how she couldn't even know her own daughter's name - or what had happened to her.  Hadn't she seen her when those men came that day?  Bishop blinked away hot tears of his own, reining himself in lest he fall prey to his own emotions.  "Helena," he said again, holding tightly to her bound arms and legs with all of his limbs, "It wasn't your fault...  There wasn't anything anybody could do.  Stop crying now.  Stop, please.  If I tell you her name will you stop?"

Bishop let her go and took both of his hands to her face and forced her to look at him.  "Her name was Lora.  Lora Rhyas.  And she was our daughter.  She was pretty and smart and looked like you.  She played in the garden and had a little doll that I made her she called Sassy, and she loved you more than me but had the decency not to show it and you taught her how to read and write and draw and be the best little girl we both knew she could be.  Her name was Lora."

[visualspice]

Lora...
The name echoed into her mind, the very memory of it, breaking through and pulling out faint memories through the cracks. She had a daughter. She had a daughter that loved her. And her daughter was named Lora Rhyas. As Bishop held her face, her green eyes stared back at him wildly, still seeming clouded, but enough of her was there that she began to see. And it hurt. So much of it hurt, but she still didn't understand.

She never had the true time to mourn, the true time to realize what had happened-
That everything had been taken from her, even her husband, who should have been dead. She should have been dead, yet somehow.....
here they were...
They had survived.

Lora...
The word echoed inside her mind, memories flooding back along the echoes of Lora's fading laugh. She caught a glimpse of a smile here, the rush of her playing, the long hair, the skirts...
They were holding hands, running across a field, calling back to someone...
someone...
but who?

Furrowing her brows, she recalled the name, but not the face...
a peculiar circumstance considering the name was the same as the man who held her now, the man who told her it was their daughter. The same man she was sent to kill.
Taking in Bishop, she shook her head, tears still streaming down her face, her nose running, lips shaking.
"N-no..." she whimpered through tears. But she was a terrible mess. Her mind disoriented, and the heart necklace bound to her throat began to glow warmly yet again.

She grimaced. Like the swing of a pendulum memories struck through her- barely able to see it, but they were there, strong in the shadows of her mind. A man standing there- they were running to him...
the field, her child, the name...

"Bishop..." she whispered. "But how... why?" SHe trembled, her body shaking in spasms from her tears. "It doesn't make sense. I recall her now, just fragments. Why can't I remember?" She winced, hot tears streaming down her face, but the winds whipped by furiously, seeming to whisk those tears away and feeling good against the heat of her face. Her eyes searched his frantically for answers, answers that were not there. But then her eyes went distant, she tried to see the face, tried to make the connections, but only growle dout in frustration, fighting against her bindings yet again, string tearing into leather and at times, cutting back into her flesh.

[Lion]

Bishop squinted his brows, taken back.  He didn't understand as he watched her struggle against her bindings again, the metal wire ripping through leather and tearing into felsh.  Except this time, he did nothing to stop her.  Nothing was making sense and even as he tried to reason with her it seemed nothing was making any sense to her either.  Bishop let her face go and moved away from her, almost insulted at her lack of memory, but here was more concern in his voice than anything else.

"What do you mean you can't remember?  You can't recall your own husband.  Your own daughter...  This isn't like you...  But I see now there is much I didn't know that perhaps I should have.  I am Bishop.  That is me.  I wish I could say something that would help you but -"

He was starting to get frustrated with her struggles and grabbed her shoulders roughly and shook her.  "Would you stop that!?  Are you trying to cut your hands off?  Stop!  STOP!  I'm doing this because I love you!"  Bishop then struck her hard across the face, in the hopes of disorienting her, or at least knock her out to keep her from cutting herself further.

[visualspice]

The blow struck, shooting white hot spangles into her vision, numbing her mind and causing her to wilt over. Her eye lids hung low, her body settled, but she moved no more. No longer struggling like a fool. But she was hardly unconscious, though she was wavering between that and being awake. So even as the rains poured down upon her, she simply lay there. Simply laid there as a few final tears rolled down her cheek, but were easily carried away by the constant rain.

[Lion]

Bishop wasn't a fighter, this he knew she was aware of so his strike could have very well not have knocked her out.  But it was a relief to find that she was no longer struggling and it was enough to know that she would no longer fight against her bindings.  He used the same throwing knife to cut them again with some difficult and inspected her wrists as he turned her over again.  He turned them over with care and no small degree of affection.

"Look what you've done," he murmured, carefully prying off her gloves.  "You're lucky you didn't sever any arteries.  Oh, Helena, I've got to take care of these right away or you're going to bleed out."

[visualspice]

Scarlet Bird lay there. Wasn't she a pathetic sight to see? She didn't even fight or move or struggle. Only lay there, staring off, tears finally leaving her eyes, but making them red, and her face still hot. So even when she was 'free', she didn't move. And at his mention of being 'lucky', she didn't feel lucky, only confused, as she shivered against the chill of the rain.
She wasn't wearing much, and one thing that was good about her polished red leather clothing was that it kept the rain off,a nd did not soak through. However, the leather didn't cover much, and her clothing was absolutely ridiculous in it's own right, topped off by the leather mask she wore.