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's free hand drifted up to cover the one she laid on his chest, humming appreciatively against her mouth as he deepened the kiss. For one brief moment when he could still think clearly, he decided he might have to apologize because she was evil as hell: insidious with the way she tasted, diabolical in her complexity, and cunning with how it felt like they fit together. She made him want more and want it now, want it like he wanted water that first brutal day of training when the new recruits were pushed to the breaking point, then pitted against their instructor hand to hand just to see who could stay on their feet when there was nothing left to give.

He wanted it enough that he was able to break the kiss, to stop when stopping was still possible--but he didn't pull away, nose bumping against hers as his mouth traced the bow of her upper lip, lingering on the shallow little scar at its edge as he tried to calm his hammering heart and remember how to breathe again without the taste of her on his tongue.

"I should get you home." he sighed, voice heavy with reluctance, making no move to loose the hold he hand on the hand he pressed closer to his chest, the nape of her neck he still cradled, thumb straying back and forth over the delicate shell of her ear.

From:

fondofapples

Robin forgive her, but his mouth was a perfect sin, soft when a kiss began with the gentle brush of his lips, clever when her open mouth asked for a deeper kiss, hard and heated when she got what she asked for, and yielding just enough when she pressed back to take it for herself. And his hands... those big, strong hands said all sorts of things she needed to hear but wouldn't have listened to, like you don't have to be lonely and I don't just want you, I like you.

She told herself he wasn't good for her, look at her out here in public (with a glowing ball of light at his shoulder no less), kissing like two teenagers in rut. But she couldn't believe it, not with the way his lips ghosted over her mouth when he drew back, and not with the way, somehow, her fingers had ended up tracing the shape of his jaw, rubbing softly against the trim of his beard and mustache for the sheer sensual pleasure of it.

"No one's waiting up for me," she returned, lips caressing and clinging to his before her fingers stopped his mouth from speaking. "I don't want to be alone with my thoughts now. Take me down to the beach or back to your room, but don't take me home."

From:

hellorhighwater

Not wanting to be alone with one's thoughts--a sentiment Neil understood all too well. With some of those tear tracks still fresh on her face, he couldn't find a reason not to agree--didn't want a reason. He wanted to do the right thing...but he wanted to stay with her. He didn't want this to stop.

"Okay." he whispered after kissing the tips of the fingers laid against his mouth, catching her hand and pressing another kiss to the inside of her wrist as he pushed off the wall and securely threaded her fingers through his. "Okay, c'mon--we'll go back to my room."

This wasn't the Five Realms, he knew that in his head--but the idea of the beach just made him leery of Triton dragons coming to shore, gripped by the mating drive and heading inland to claim their intended.

Last thing he needed was to get twitchy and accidentally kill someone out for a night swim.

From:

fondofapples

A shiver brushed the length of her spine, more from Neil's lips against the inside of her wrist than from the night air, but she could blame the latter and would. She lifted their joined hands, in part to get his attention and in part to indicate she'd need to be touching him--

"Would you mind if I cut the walk short? I'm--" Ready to be sheltered from prying eyes. "A little chilled." It was plausible. They'd barely remembered to collect her jacket, let alone to put it back on.

From:

hellorhighwater

Neil glanced between her face and their joined hands, then smiled and nodded. "Go for it."

And even though he knew it was bullshit, a ripple of light ran through his fingers, subtle and shimmering like coals, and into hers--a soft pulse of heat to warm her from head to foot.

From:

fondofapples

It might've been bullshit, but she appreciated the gesture, the quiet caretaking without making her feel foolish or weak for needing it. And she was chilled, if not from the night air then her brush with her own darkness, and having and seeing light running through her meant more than he could possibly have known.

That was probably why instead of being content with their joined hands, she turned into his body and slipped her arm around his waist. Her teleportation mist curled, slinky and cool around their feet and then up to close them in. Although she felt the magic channeling through her, she doubted he would. It was fast and elusive for all the show it made of itself, and when it dissipated, leaving them in his room, instead of speaking, she shivered and lowered her forehead to the center of his chest.

From:

hellorhighwater

He felt the chill, only barely--so fast he thought he imagined it, but when they appeared in his room, he definitely felt the shiver that ran through her body with the way she tucked herself against his body to complete the spell.

What rose in him as she dropped her head against his chest was hotter than dragon fire, stronger than bloodlust, and blacker than the darkest magic he'd ever touched. It boiled in his chest and rose to clog his throat as one hand lifted to cradle the back of her neck protectively, sending another ripple of heat through her body to keep back the chill.

His arm curled around her waist to keep her close, his head fell forward as he pressed his nose against the top of her head, drawing in her scent with a shaky breath.

In that one moment, without an oath of fealty or a debt to pay, Neil knew he'd kill for this woman as he killed for the Night Dragon--for her safety, for her happiness, for the glory of her name...for the protection of this one second in time where she leaned into him as if he were a man whose heart was unstained, whose hands were free of blood, who could be trusted with anything remotely good.

Tightening his arms around her, he shut his eyes and let the bile of that blackness settle on the back of his tongue, of darkness he didn't know he could yet reach for, and his mouth moved softly around a sibilant tongue punctuated by sharp, breathy consonants--and in the old tongue of the Five Realms, where he'd learned some of his first spells, he pledged every stain he'd seen on his own heart that night to the slow and bloody end of any soul stupid enough to ever again cause Regina pain.

From:

fondofapples

Regina didn't know what he spoke with those soft-sharp sounds, only that he did, and that the sounds weren't for her to know but they were for her. There were some things didn't require explanations, and the strength of a man protecting a woman who seemed to require it was one of them.

She should protest, pull herself up with queenly poise and tell him she had no need of his protection. But she was alone, and she'd gone toe to toe with the worst of herself for no good reason and almost lost. She needed... someone to believe in her, and he had. When it mattered the most.

So she let him feel what he felt, and say what he said, and after he quieted, Regina said quietly, "I'm so sorry. I shouldn't have..." The words trickled to a stop, the first three true, but the others only noise. So she started again, and said another true thing, "I have a son."

From:

hellorhighwater

A son--that felt like a promising topic. Someone she loved, someone she missed...he didn't have anyone like that, but he envied the kid a little.

He was dead certain Regina was a great mother, the kind he'd have wanted to know when he was a kid.

"Yeah?" He sighed, drawing back just a little, smiling down at her as he gathered up her hands and started to back towards the bed--the roomiest seat for two in his small room--and tugged her along with him.

"Tell me about the lucky guy I'm fightin' for the number one position on your dance card." he teased gently. "What's his name?"

From:

fondofapples

While she followed in his steps, Regina knew it wasn't like her to be so docile. Something in her had broken badly tonight, and she still didn't know quite where it had come from.

"Henry," she answered as she sat, and felt the tears well up again. "Henry Daniel Mills. Named after my father and my first love. The two best men I ever knew." And both of them had died for her.

The tears splashed over her lashes and earned a growl of self-disgust from her as she dashed them away with the back of her wrists. "It's been a month and a half since I've seen him. And Robin took his boy, Roland, with him when I made him go." In so saying, she was both claiming and disclaiming Roland. In her heart, he would always be her son, even if she'd never see him again.

From:

hellorhighwater

Once she wiped her tears, Neil took her hand again, threading their fingers together, enfolding hers between both of his--wishing he could perform the magic she could, so that he could reach into her chest and mend that fracture caused by love and loss of not one son, but two.

He wished, ached to build for it a fortress that no darkness could breach, no enemy could penetrate to cause her pain.

"The dragons believe that names are power." he observed, watching her face as she struggled with her composure. "Sounds like you branded your firstborn a hero--and Roland will do well. You're mated to his father, your love will follow him to any world."

From:

fondofapples

"Names are power." Such as Rumpelstiltskin's name on the Dark One's dagger. Or the name of Snow White and Prince Charming's daughter that allowed Rumpelstiltskin to carve her into Regina's Dark Curse. "In my world, only love has more powerful magic."

And she did love her sons. Both of them. But he needed to understand...or she needed him to. "I didn't give birth to either of them. I can't." Her lips pursed together tightly, but there were no tears for this. The story of how that had come to be was not for now. It was too much, too humiliating, and always too raw--especially now, because of Evie.

"Henry... Henry is the son of Snow White and Prince Charming's daughter, Emma. My step-granddaughter. Which makes him my step-great-grandson as well as my son. Henry and Emma are the story of how the curse I cast on my kingdom unraveled, and Henry..." A small, sweet smile broke through her pain even as her fingers trembled in his. "Henry is why you still live. He's the reason there is a Regina and not only the Evil Queen. It's not my love that's the power there. It's theirs, Henry and Roland. They believe in me."

From:

hellorhighwater

Her answer made Neil smile, but even so, he leaned over to bring his lips close to her ear...

"Bullshit."

He straightened his smile growing as he shook his head. "That boy isn't the reason there's a Regina, Regina's the reason there's a Henry. I'm not dismissing how hard it must have been to turn from darkness--that takes a strength I know I'm not capable of, I've never known the light. If there's one thing life in a land of eternal night has taught me, it's that you can't light a fire without tinder. The flint those boys struck needed something to catch. That's all you. And if it wasn't them, it would have been you. Even tinder itself can start a blaze with enough pressure and enough time. Don't ever doubt that you fed into your children. They never would have had the faith if you hadn't given it to 'em. Think about that."

From:

fondofapples

And what had she given Evie? A smile? A half second's understanding that touch wasn't always welcome? Evie loved her because Evie loved. Like Henry and like Roland. It was who they were.

I know you, Regina. You feel everything with your whole soul. Even without your heart, no one feels more deeply than you.

Mary Margaret loved too. If Neil wasn't full of shit, Snow had gotten that, in some part, from her, too. For the first time she could remember, she wished she could talk to her stepdaughter and ask her, is that true?

"Maybe," she finally allowed, a small smile replacing the grief-stricken expression she wore. "We can ask the... the daughter I found in New Dodge. Evie." She lifted her head to kiss his jaw. Her smile stretched wider and sweetened, the simple joy of acknowledging to someone that she thought of her that way eclipsing the ache of loss and uncertainty for now. "She's here."

Already, she wanted Neil to meet her. But not tomorrow. Tomorrow's reunion was for Evie--and Jack.

From:

hellorhighwater

"You have a daughter? And she's here? Hell yes." Neil laughed, glad to have some good news to excuse the way that brief, chaste brush of lips against his jaw made his heart do a goddamn barrel roll in his chest and splashed his cheeks with color. Even still, he felt genuinely good about the revelation--he hadn't been kidding about the value of children in his world, knowing she was separated from hers was egregious.

"That's fuckin' amazing." he declared as he started to turn to face her, bending a leg up onto the bed so he could sit comfortably--then remembered he still had his boots on and scowled at them.

And because he was feeling lazy, another of those alien words left his lips with a sharp, monosyllabic huff of air. A barely there flash of orange-red was visible in his pupils if one was paying attention, then his boots began to vanish off his feet with a ripple of matching energy, as if being burned away with ashes floating into the air, carried towards the door where they reassembled themselves with the same orange-red glow.

By the time he'd shifted up onto the bed to sit facing her with his legs drawn up on the mattress, arms folded across bent knees and toes a breath away from brushing her leg, his feet were bare.

"I hope I get to meet her sometime. Evie Mills--that's a gorgeous name."

From:

fondofapples

His magic took her breath away, not from its power, but from the beauty of fire doing all the things he put it to use to do, and for the moments of it moving his boots, it distracted her utterly from the story of her and Evie.

Her own magic was utilitarian, a billow of white smoke to disappear her boots, but they didn't reappear beside his. They were simply gone, returned to summoning space from which they'd come. Glamours required more maintenance than putting on clothes that actually existed.

Then she turned, tucking her feet beneath her and shifting to lean against his bent-up legs, wanting without acknowledging the want, for him to touch her, stroke her hair, or maybe pull her into his arms again. Once settled, she repaid his excitement on her behalf with a pure and pretty smile, one that said she was also thrilled for herself and Evie to have found her here.

"Evie Queen is the name she goes by, or Evie Grimhilde," Regina corrected the assumption, but gently, because she wished she would call herself Evie Mills. "She's not my biological child either. But unlike Henry and Roland, she might have been."

Her lips pursed tightly holding off the awfulness of the story that made that 'might have been,' but her tongue pressed up behind her teeth, then pierced through that sealed space. Against all probability, she found herself wanting to tell him. Or at least willing to.

"I met her in the same place I met you. The connection between she and I, she doesn't know anything but that I'm an alternate version of her birth mother, who is much more like the Disney version of me. But I believe..." Her gaze flickered upward to meet his. "It's an ugly story, but I think I'd like to tell you. Do you mind?"

From:

hellorhighwater

Neil wasn't sure she had a fucking clue how goddamn sexy or how goddamn cute she was. Her magic was elegance personified, smoke and gestures and layered constructs he could barely fathom, not the primitive elemental control he used to channel the raw magic in his body into the world, then shape to his will with words of power and brute force. Her magic was as classy and as refined as she was.

And when she leaned against his legs, held the sun in her unguarded smile, trapped her story behind pursed lips and that moment when she might or might not have been chewing on her own tongue--it was a force of will not to kiss those lips, to tangle his fingers in her hair and maybe catch a little of that bonfire she tried to light when she grabbed his heart.

He couldn't, though--not when he was so sure of what he wanted.

She was too much temptation for one man, though, and so he reached out, pushing his fingers through her hair, testing the waters of what she'd allow him to take.

"Anything you wanna tell me, I wanna hear." he replied honestly, emphatically, tucking a lock of that lustrous dark hair behind her ear...lingering a little as his fingers traced the shell of that ear--thumb straying just far enough to run lightly over her cheekbone.

Goddamnit, he couldn't fucking stop.

From:

fondofapples

Already she'd let him have more of her in one night than most of the world, even those with whom she'd shared a bed, would ever have, and somehow she wanted more. Loneliness, loss, lust - she could blame a lot of things for that longing, but she didn't feel like lying to herself or to him, so she simply let it happen. Tilted her head into the sweep of his fingers through her hair, and against her face, and allowed it to carry her away from the emotions the story she meant to tell conjured.

"My mother." Any story that began with those two words, she felt he'd already know went nowhere good, but she lifted her head to mesh their gazes briefly to emphasize not pretty. "After I had my husband murdered, she convinced the Green Fairy, Tinkerbell, to tell her about the Man with the Lion Tattoo, my second chance at love. Because she believed me to be lonely." For tonight, she chose not to tell Neil that her second chance, the Man With the Lion Tattoo, and Robin were one and the same. She didn't mind if he knew or worked it out, but she hadn't known then, and he didn't need to now.

"Once she had learned of the tattoo, she used magic to fake it onto the arm of his mortal enemy. His job, for which she intended to pay him handsomely, was to get me pregnant. I discovered the ruse as soon as he tried to kiss me. He was loathsome, no one I could ever love." And a coward, on top of it, all too willing to grovel when she turned the tattoo into a roaring construct.

"I confronted Mother with it, and she claimed she'd made a mistake in teaching me to live without love, that I could never be happy that way. But I knew her to want me to bear a child, a daughter, who would be more biddable than I was. I believed she'd kill me as soon as the child was born. So on that day, I cursed myself with a potion, made it impossible for me to ever give birth to a child she could manipulate to control the throne."

She was doing better than she would've expected in telling him this. Her stomach still twisted and tears tried to come to her eyes, but she looked to his face past them. "I believe... Evie is the child I would have had, either if I'd slept with mother's choice, or if I'd found my man with the Lion Tattoo then, or with my Huntsman, later.

"Evie is not my biological daughter, but she might have been, and she accepts that freely...and, strangely for me, welcomes it. I'm lucky to have found her."

From:

hellorhighwater

He'd known her a night, but already he knew: those two words bled all light and softness out of his features, putting the killer in his eyes--even as the hand on her cheek slipped to her shoulder, down her arm, found her fingers and lifted them so he could enfold her hand in both of his, press his lips to her fingertips and just leave them there while she told her tale.

By the time she finished, Neil was choking on his own rage, that poisonous black bile from before bitter on the back of his tongue.

"She sounds amazing." he replied honestly, once he lifted his lips from her fingertips and tucked her hand against his jaw for a second, just to feel her close. She would be able to feel it working with tension, clenching and unclenching, his dark eyes still brutally hard. "Your daughter, I mean, but--your fucking mother, man...I'm an irrational asshole. Remind me she's dead. Bonus points if you lie and say she died badly--that she can't hurt you...or your boys...or that sweet kid."

Sighing, he gestured helplessly with one hand, the other still hanging onto hers as he stared into the middle distance and shook his head.

"Or--I dunno, I'm gonna do something macho and stupid, like sneak a protection ward on your door. Then teach you the ward so you can sneak it onto Evie's door. Then sneak more protection wards on both your doors 'cause I'm a prick..."

From:

fondofapples

"Why?" came the quiet question that might've been for him needing to hear her mother was dead and had died badly, or for why Evie sounded amazing even though she was, amazing and smart and wonderfully talented and sweet, so sweet, from the minute they'd met, or why he felt so strongly about her and Evie being safe, or needed to feel her hand against his jaw that worked tight with anger.

She caught his gesticulating hand, folded her fingers with his and drew their hands down together to rest between her breasts, against her heart, because the motion unsettled her when she wanted, badly, to settle with and into him. The hand still against his jaw curved and, fitting to his face and her thumb curved up to rub against his facial hair, a caress she made no attempt to hide.

From:

hellorhighwater

The action surprised him--not just her touch, but that action after what had happened before. She'd been so unsettled by the act of trying to scare him with the removal of his own heart, now she brought his hand to cover hers, that same spot that was, by her magic, a vulnerable one.

Both of their hands, fingers linked, pressed to her heart...maybe it was another form of magic, but the venom of that hot and clawing thing she'd kindled in him didn't burn so badly anymore.

Shifting his position, Neil stretched his leg out on one side of her, hanging the other off the bed to plant on the floor so he could scoot closer with a sigh. The hand of hers he pressed to his jaw, he instead settled on his thigh, threading their fingers together much the same way she'd done when she reached for his free one.

As he did, he gave the question serious consideration--tried to sort out what it meant, what the answer would be...and he felt like that was important somehow, the knowing.

"Because men like me don't have control, Regina." he said simply, quietly as he looked down at their joined hands, resting atop his leg. "They have leashes, and they have 'em for a reason. And it's worse--it's so much worse--when something good comes along, 'cause then I'm not just a killer with an itch, I'm...a skinny orphan outta Queens who couldn't hold onto anything good 'cause some bigger, meaner kid was gonna take it. Sometimes...the Night Dragon, he tried to shake me of that, of the needing or the wanting--but sometimes I think that's part of why I'm so good at what I do. The things I believe in, or the things I'm stupid enough to care about--when shit rolls downhill in their general direction, the world fucking burns."

From:

fondofapples

It wasn't like her to invite this kind of contact with a man, at least not one who wasn't Robin, and yet she couldn't say it felt wrong to sit between his thighs, draw as close as he would let her. Especially because, if she were honest, she'd wanted something from him since the first time she saw him, in New Dodge. If they'd 'met' for the first time today from his perspective, it wasn't that from hers; she'd even somewhat missed him since he'd gone.

So while the intimacy came quick, it didn't feel forced. She'd asked why, and she was comfortable listening. Listening while in touching and kissing range.

"Men like you," she murmured, something tentative in her tone. "You're not a guard dog or a monster, Neil, and your heart..." She shook her head firmly, although silently amused that she should be the one telling him this after needing so often to hear it herself. "Your heart is not a weakness. Your Night Dragon got it wrong. You're not an assassin. You're a protector."

From:

hellorhighwater

Her praise made him smile, even brought a touch of visible color to his cheeks, but he only shook his head at it. "I'm really not, but thanks. And--I mean--I'm okay with that, I have been most of my life. It's why I was chosen, what I was raised and trained for. I am the left hand of the Great Dragon...people fear me, as they probably should, and that can suck sometimes but the things I do? I sleep at night, no matter how bad it gets."

He would have said more--about just how weak he was, how badly he disappointed his king every day with his capacity for mercy, compassion, that constant lingering desire for meaningful connection...but he had a feeling it wasn't the time. It was nothing she needed to hear, nothing she needed to worry about talking him out of.

Instead, he lifted their joined hands off his thigh and kissed her fingers--a swiftly forming habit he decided he had no intention of ever trying to break.

"Knowing that the things I'm capable of can be put to good use for people like you? Makes me kinda glad there's people like me out there. Doing the hard things so you can be safe."

From:

fondofapples

Where were you when Greg and Tamara tortured me? part of her wanted to ask. The same part that sported rising hackles over anyone doing for her what she could do for herself. Her jaw clenched, ticking at the assumptions he was making.

"What makes you think I can't take care of myself?" was what ended up slipping out, less hostile than mildly annoyed. Had she given him the impression at any point tonight that she couldn't handle whatever the world threw at her? Besides, it made her think of Graham, and Graham would never be a comfortable subject.

She blew out an agitated sigh. "Never mind. That's not the point. The point is that maybe you were kept on a leash, but you shouldn't be." A tight shrug, because the more she thinks about this, the more her past with Graham needles at her, slipping beneath her skin like bamboo slivers. "I don't need an Enforcer anymore. I don't want one."

From:

hellorhighwater

"Of course you don't--because you don't need one, and that's why you do." he replied...then really listened to himself and huffed out a sharp sigh of discontent. More of the stupid leeching out.

"Look, maybe I'm an idiot--I'm sure as hell no brain trust, I never even made it to high school--but there's this--saying from the world I was born in. The bigger they are, the harder they fall. And the Night Dragon taught me that there's no such thing as invulnerability. Everyone has a weak spot, powerful people just have very small ones--but the smaller a weak spot, the more debilitating it is when it gets hit."

Taking both of the hands he held, he drew them into his lap as he watched her face.

"Don't you get it? The stronger and more capable you are, the more hits you can take--and the more hits you do take, 'cause you're built to withstand 'em. Still, every single shot hurts, and every single shot does damage. It's not that I don't think you can't take care of yourself: it's that I think once in a while? You shouldn't have to."