fondofapples | Inbox -- Genessia

Regina Mills
~~Queen~~ ~~Mayor~~ Mother
Sorceress
Fond of Plants

"You've reached the inbox of Regina Mills. Leave a message. If it's urgent, it's probably too late."

(text, voice, video, action, ooc planning if necessary for Genessia only)

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

hellorhighwater

Neil met her gaze, looking for a moment like he'd been physically slapped by the flat, venomous tone, by the way she glared at him like she actually meant what she was saying.

"In what world did I ever give you the idea that I knew a fucking thing about pride, Regina?" he asked quietly, releasing her and taking a step back. "Was it the story about the plethora of beatings I took growing up? The one about the first two kids I ever put in a burn ward for throwing a punch? Was it the stories of the king I love and serve, who has never seen me as truly worthy because I dare to show his enemies mercy? Or is it the god who made my king, the one I pray to every day for nothing more than to be worthy of the queen I have offered what precious little good is left in me, and the path I have chosen to experience the love I have for her?"

Raking a hand back through his hair, he stared at his feet for a long moment, shaking his head.

"I left behind the ideals of the world I was born in when I chose to serve the throne." Lifting his gaze, he glared right back at her. "I am not a packaged product of the world of Man, Beloved. Don't treat me like I am."

From:

fondofapples

It wasn't the words, although she did listen and was reminded that he couldn't be the Sheriff if he wanted to. He didn't have that cold, slithering calculation in him for all the reptile in his history.

And it wasn't the look in his eyes, but that hard glare served to set her back a step. Not in fear, because he would never hurt her, and even in his feral, hissing fury, she was his 'Beloved.' But he hurt, and that was her doing.

No, it was him taking a step away from her that broke through to her. When she'd had her hand in his chest, he'd kissed her, and now he was stepping back.

Her hands went to her hips, defensive, but she forced herself to take a breath. To think over the frantic beating of her heart that she knew for the combination of fury and fear of pushing this too far, finally showing him something he couldn't forgive.

"Pride, fear of weakness, fear of vulnerability, whatever it is, it doesn't change you cooing 'I've got you, Beloved' when I'm scared and telling me it's okay. It doesn't change you telling me not to apologize for being vicious and cutting, and turning around and apologizing for being afraid," she spit out, still angry, but Regina-angry, not Evil Queen-angry. She slashed a hand through the air, but didn't follow it with the magic that boiled up and charged the air between them. "If it's okay for me, then it's okay for you. And if it's not, then it's not."

From:

hellorhighwater

“Dahgo.” he reminded her flatly. “I have removed my heart, I stand weak and vulnerable and immortal. Don’t you get that? I love as the gods have loved, I have real power for the first time in my fucking life because of what I feel for you. A power my own king fears so greatly, he bade me keep my heart when I swore to cut it out for him—and when power is wielded with fear? People get hurt.”

In a fit of pique, and to make a point, Neil summoned a ball of dragon fire and turned, lobbing it at a tree a few feet away, watching as it began to burn with a brilliant red light.

“No one knows that better than me. In the world of Man, there are two dead men and eight mutilated teenage boys to attest to that.”

From:

fondofapples

"No, Neil. I don't understand." The snap had gone from her voice, and for now she'd quelled the manic laughter at his anguish over two dead men and eight mutilated teenagers when she could no longer count the number of souls she'd dispatched, under what circumstances, with what 'reasons'.

"Dahgo is your world. Your faith. In my world, a man without a heart is a pawn in the hands of she who holds his heart."

As simply as he'd set the tree on fire, she summoned a brief deluge to put it out.

"But you're not afraid of that. Or of me. You're afraid I'll be taken from you, but you can't lose because you already won. I'm trying to understand, love. I am. But if you think you're the only one who is dangerous when they're afraid, sweetheart, you haven't been paying attention."

From:

hellorhighwater

“Because I’m afraid you’ll leave.”

The words fell like acid from his tongue with the way they burned, the shame they brought him just for thinking them. For having that fear, for letting it take him when he knew it was wrong, when he knew the faithfulness of the woman in front of him—to entertain such a thought was disrespectful and petty and an insult to her...and yet he felt it.

“Because you’ve loved good men, and now you love me...and you haven’t seen what you love.” He sighed. Feeling suddenly drained and hot and pulled tight with his shame, Neil took another couple of steps away—not to evade her, but to turn away, hide his face and sink into a crouch as he raked his hands back through his hair with his elbows on his knees.

“You’ve ripped out my beating heart and held my life in your hands. I’ve felt your killing touch, but you’ve never seen where those stains on my heart come from. You’ve never seen me kill for pleasure—you’ve never seen me with blood on my hands. I don’t make exaggerated threats to prove how pissed I am...setting hearts on fire, boiling eyes—making trophies or proofs of death from a kill? Those are all things I’ve done. What will happen the first time I slip my leash and I take a life just because I need the taste of death again? No one tried to break me, Beloved. No one hurt me...this is just what I am. I’m not just afraid you’ll be taken from me. I’m afraid you’ll realize just what it is you’ve let into your bed.”

From:

fondofapples

Well. At least he knew she loved him.

Regina sighed, low and shaky with the adrenaline flood. She pushed both hands through her hair, fingers curling to grip and hold while she stood, thoughts aggressively, almost belligerently, single-tracked. There was never a question of what to say or how to answer him, only of whether she had the courage to do it.

Because this thing he feared, she knew it. It stalked her every confession, and those she hadn't made yet. What would be the thing he couldn't forgive? What would be the confession that evoked disgust, disdain, and finally hardened to hatred in his beautiful, soulful eyes?

...trying to memorize how you look right now, with love in your eyes.

I'm not afraid of you, Regina.

But you really, really should be.

Another sigh rattled her ribcage and her hands slid down from her hair and she made the few steps necessary to put her shins against his hips, her heat protectively at his back where it belonged when he exposed himself like this.

Her right hand at her chest, fingers tented against it, and her left resting softly atop his head, she said the only thing she could:

"Put your hands out, Neil."

From:

hellorhighwater

Neil almost moved when she stood at his back—almost, but when he tried all he ended up doing was straightening a little where he crouched, leaning just enough so his back touched her knees.

The question ran through his mind of why, what was she doing, what was she up to—but she stood at his back and she warmed him with her heat, and he felt so painfully exposed that obedience came without his permission, a comforting reflex that brought his hands up and forward in front of him before he could think enough to actually speak.

“Regina, what—“

From:

fondofapples

At that trust in his tone, Regina felt every one of her years in the weight of her breath on her lungs and her eyes in their sockets. Her eyelids, however, those felt paper-thin and painfully light, almost refusing to close when she pressed her fingernails pressed through her chest wall. They fluttered open again, her will, all of it going to keeping her back straight and her eyes wide when she plucked the char-black lump of muscle from her breast. She owed it to the lives she'd taken, and to Neil, to see the evidence of her crimes when she leaned over to put her heart literally into his hands.

As she did, she noted with no pride but true joy that the small patch of ruby red was just a little larger than it had been the last time she saw the organ. Still, the black magic wound all the way through it, darkening the veins and tendons the red exposed, and it would never be gone.

She closed his fingers against her heart, knowing she was terrified but only feeling an echo of it. "This is what you let in your bed," to use his words. He might be a killer, but she was a monster.

From:

hellorhighwater

Neil didn't understand what he was seeing at first when she placed it into his hands. He just stared, feeling the warm weight of it--and it was heavy, strangely heavy in his hands. The dark was too dark, the red was too red, it lacked the heat...

When he finally got to his feet, hands cradling their precious burden--when she spoke...he realized he was looking at her heart, and not...

Turning to face her again, Neil's gaze was riveted to the mass of muscle in his palms, brow furrowed in confusion, eyes bright with emotion that was hard to decipher. He couldn't breathe right, couldn't understand why she'd put it in his hands...if she wanted him to see, he'd look, but she'd handed over her heart for him to hold, to see up close, where he could crush it and kill her if he wanted.

And part of him was curious. It showed, openly, in the way he cupped her heart in one hand, ran his fingertips gently over its jet and ruby surface with the other to feel the magic in it warm his skin, the living beat of it waiting to be taken--what kind of power would he feel if he curled his fingers in and felt the muscle yield--would it be the same as the hearts he'd held before? Would it be soft and hot when it collapsed beneath the pressure? Would Regina feel pain when it gave way beneath his touch?

He wanted...he wanted so badly he burned with it...but something stopped him. Something hot and boiling clawed to the surface--his own oaths coming to collect.

If your blood be shed, your tears fall, your sorrow reign, let me turn from my final journey to the sky and carve my name upon the lungs of those who dare take you from the light. This I pledge, this I pray.

Lifting his free hand to his lips, he kissed shaking fingertips, then laid them gently against her heart.

"...I had no idea it was so beautiful."

Moving back towards her, Neil met her gaze, his own overbright with moisture as a smile tried to tug up one corner of his mouth. As he reached for her hand, he leaned in to kiss her, deep and slow and filled with not just heat, but love he couldn't even begin to put into words.

When the kiss broke, her heart was back in her hand as he curled her fingers gently back around it.

"I was wrong about you. When we met...I said you have the eyes of a dragon. I was wrong."

Lifting his free hand beside hers, where her heart still rested, he called a small ball of dragon fire into his palm. The ball of fire began to shift and change shape, assuming a familiar form just before he closed his fingers around it tight.

When they opened again, the Eye of the Ember sat in his palm--much smaller, but forged into the same shape as the heart in Regina's hand--and with its glossy black surface, with the occasional flashes of orange red that twisted lazily to the surface now and again, the little chunk of condensed dragon fire bore an eerie resemblance to the tarnished muscle Regina held.

"You have the heart of one."

From:

fondofapples

When his fingertips stroked over the top curve of her heart, she felt...something, but not very much. It was doubtful that even had he crushed it--the desire to do which she saw in his eyes--she would have felt much. She could be killed that way, naturally, but not as easily as he. A witch who didn't protect her heart didn't often live long enough to regret it.

She saw but didn't resent the curiosity, and the burning drive to end her life. How could she? When she had very nearly killed him with much less calculation or restraint the night they met? It was who they were, both of them. Which was her point.

The point he seemed to be missing in calling her heart beautiful. She opened her mouth to tell him, but then just like he had that first night, he kissed her--this time giving her back her own heart, and somehow, that silenced her. He was an idiot. Utterly, hopelessly in love, and an idiot. But he was hers, and she only thought I love you while he summoned the dragon fire.

Then she didn't speak because she couldn't. His magic, his fire, it stunned her to silence with its passion and power. Her magic didn't usually look like much, but his, to her, was breathtaking. Except when it was killing him. Then she just wanted to burn it out of existence.

Now, just as she had the first time she'd seen it, in New Dodge, she stood spellbound, breathless, watching him manipulate the fire and it feed back through him. But she couldn't stay away and drew closer, close enough for the heat of it to scald her cheeks and chest before he closed his fingers, effectively shielding her from it.

When he opened his palm, she blinked and tried to speak, but couldn't find words. She wet her lips and her tongue caught at her top lip while she stared at what he'd done. Finally, she lifted her gaze to his, dark eyes shimmering with uncertain emotion again.

This wasn't about her, and her heart. It was about him being afraid she'd leave him when she saw what he was... The heart of a dragon, he said.

She touched her fingers to the inside of the wrist that held the Eye of Ember replica of her heart. Very softly, she replied, "And dragons are uniquely unsuited to the loss of a mate."

From:

hellorhighwater

"They don't survive it."

Neil's gaze flew to her face when she touched his wrist, the words hitting him like a fist to the gut and making his heart skip a beat. It was an acknowledgment, one that had no meaning for humans...save for the fact that he walked the path to mate by choice.

And for a moment, with her heart still in the open air, it felt like she was walking by his side.

Reaching for her free hand, Neil pressed the stone into her palm, curling her fingers around it as he spoke in the dragon tongue--a familiar string of words, the dark oath he'd sworn a dozen times before, but shorter and with some different phrasing--then translated.

"I turn from the sun and surrender myself to the heart of the dragon. With your dagger, I cut out my own, and walk this earth as the Goddess walks her sky: beyond the reach of death. May I draw each eternal breath not from the Ember's lungs, but from your kiss. This I pledge, this I pray."

From:

fondofapples

Oh, Neil.

Fighting back another round of tears, Regina took the stone and held it to her breast. She wouldn't let it go anymore than than she would let go of her magical heart. He'd given it to her; the gift of his perception of her, like when he'd first called her 'Angel'. He'd seen her heart and still loved her, thought it beautiful (and not merely resilient), and everything in her swelled toward him for it.

Heart in hand, she reached out to him again. It was past time she put back in her chest, but he'd given it back to her--not Dahgo but something like it. "Help me put it back." It belonged to him now as much as to her. And as a practical matter, it would be good to know if he could feel the magical energies involved.

From:

hellorhighwater

The brightness of tears in her eyes made his chest tight, and he would have bent to kiss them away had she not reached for him then, asked him to help her put her heart back into her chest.

Giving her his hand, he curled his fingers gently around the wrist of her hand still holding that beating heart. It was strange, but he was vaguely aware of the magic there, that same cool touch of power he’d felt inside his body the night she’d ripped out his own heart.

“What should I do?”

From:

fondofapples

"Just don't pull when I'm pushing and don't let go of my wrist until both of our hands are clear of my chest," she said, far more evenly than she felt. It was one thing to let him hold her heart; another entirely to have someone else's hand inside her chest. Even his.

And without waiting for a response, because she wasn't sure she'd hold her nerve if she tried, Regina pressed her fingertips and her heart against her chest. Hard as it was, she kept her eyes open and watched both her hand, her heart, and then his hand pass through her ribcage into her chest.

Her breathing quickly grew erratic, unsteady with the unaccustomed pressure of an extra hand in a very small space, but she glanced up at him and asked quietly, "Kiss me?" Because she wanted to know what he had felt.

From:

hellorhighwater

Nodding, Neil kept his fingers around her wrist, watching as she pressed her fingertips against her own chest--and then just like that her hand and his were inside, and for one split second Neil was terrified because it was something he'd done to others, torn out hearts with blade and fire and gifted them to his king, made trophies of them. He knew what the heart, as blood and flesh, felt like, the slick heat of blood and how it felt to squeeze--how tough a heart could be to crush when it was whole and living, not protected by the magic that let it separate from a body without killing the one it belonged to.

He swallowed thickly, and for a moment he was afraid--because he understood where the darkness in her own heart came from. To have this skill, to use it not for purification of the spirit but as a weapon...he could taste the promise of it on the back of his tongue, and it was a heady thing to a man who wore the name of Kingslayer with pride.

But she asked him for a kiss--breath shaking, voice so quiet, with his bloodied hand inside her chest, she asked him for a kiss like the one she'd given him the night she tried to frighten him away with the sight of his own beating heart.

For a very long moment, he didn't move. He couldn't--couldn't breathe, couldn't move, couldn't even let himself feel lest his own darkness take him, and with it Regina's life.

...that is the root of dahgo: complete submission to the light through an act of faith.

When he'd heard the lesson as a boy, it had unsettled him, and he hadn't known why. He'd always believed it was his own struggle, his own faith...yet this woman stood before him, drew a killer's hand into her chest, and still she drew him further in.

Because she had faith. Faith in his goodness, where he had none.

It was that faith that drew him in, had his heart racing and his own breath stuttering as he looked into her eyes. Bringing his free hand to her cheek, he bent and claimed her mouth with his, breathing a shaky sigh of surrender into her as he did.

He tightened his fingers obediently around her wrist, pushed bloodlust aside, and gave himself over to the light.

From:

fondofapples

As soon as his lips pressed to hers, the panic stopped rising and fell flat. His shaky exhalation filled her lungs, expanded her chest well beyond its anatomical capacity to make room for both of their hands. Her free hand echoed his, cradling his cheek, to draw him closer and seal the kiss.

It didn't matter a whit that his hand was magically in her chest. He'd been in her heart almost since the moment they'd met.

From:

hellorhighwater

Neil wondered if it was supposed to feel different--to pluck out his heart and offer it up to the light, if the power in the act was something tangible or just a symbol, as the commoners of the Realms who worshiped the Ancients claimed. He didn't feel different, not at first. Not until her fingers touched his cheek, and the world went suddenly, eerily quiet.

It felt as if he could hear every single thing around him--every crawling thing, every rush of air, every footfall in the distance on the main thoroughfare that passed by the Drunken Monkey. Thoughts danced through his head with alarming speed and clarity, yet his mind was a pond on a windless day, still as death.

As the kiss broke, he found himself smiling just a little because he knew, in his gut, that it was the stillness of a mind undisturbed by the distraction of a beating heart.

"I love you." he whispered against her mouth, forehead resting against hers, his thumb sliding along her cheekbone as he stared into her eyes with his hand still locked inside her chest. "And I'm sorry I was afraid."

The words came without shame or hesitation this time, an honest apology, heavy with extra meanings.

I'm sorry for doubting. I'm sorry for taking so long to understand that you were right, that I don't do these things alone now that you're here. I'm not afraid anymore, and I may forget, but I will always remember to let your hand be the tether that guides me out of the dark.