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

As she sank to her knees, Neil wrapped his arms around her and pulled her close, burying his face in her shoulder for just a moment, just to breathe her in, to brand her into his lungs and the warmth of her body into his memory--deep enough to remember even in the grips of fever when the world began to melt and the only thing he could be sure of was the fire and its hunger.

It chilled his blood to realize he was more afraid of what the fever would take from him than he was of the Sky Maker...then realized that wasn't fear chilling his blood: he was cold.

Lifting his head, Neil drew her back just enough to take her face between his hands, resting his forehead against hers.

"Delirium will set in--you can't stop it, so don't try." he warned, trying to get a million things out as fast as he could. "Just keep me warm, and keep me unconscious if you can. I'm losing control of my powers--I won't burn anything down, but I also can't wick up heat fast enough to prevent burns or scalding, so don't let me do anything stupid. I may not speak a lotta Old Common--English, if it gets bad, I only ever used it when I traveled back home. Three phrases to remember: je siccu is 'I'm thirsty,' je dol is 'I'm in pain,' and jon uzan--'don't leave me.' If you can't make me eat, sugar water can help keep me from wasting, my metabolism's still gonna be goin' full speed. Most importantly, if I'm ever cold to the touch...then you get a doctor. That'll mean the fire's winning...and if I'm awake but I refuse to talk? Stay the hell away from me unless you can knock me out--it means I don't know who you are, and I'm probably gonna try and kill you."

He paused, then caught her hand and pressed a kiss to her palm.

"Jon dahgo." He whispered against her skin. "Dahgo inguz, vir qui naz mori."

...no. That wasn't right, that was the wrong words...licking his lips, he tried again.

"The man without a heart...is the man who cannot die." That was it. Looking her in the eye, he wrapped both of his hands around her one and pressed his lips to her knuckles.

"Jon dagho. Jon uraidh dahgo. Dahgo inguz, vir qui naz mori." He needed her to believe it--maybe then he could be wrong.

Maybe then, if the Sky Maker was burning out his darkness, he might survive it after all.

From:

fondofapples

The man without a heart.

Her gaze flicked up to his, a spark of something wild in it. If it wasn't exactly faith, it was still warm and strong and certain. As soon as he lost consciousness, she'd take his heart and she could use it to control him. But she'd wait, because his faith would get him through this, and she wouldn't damage it by showing him the heart he still had.

Je siccu. I'm thirsty.

Juice would be better than sugar water, and soup if she could get him to drink it. If there was protein, even better. Sugar would burn faster than protein. But he would need water, too. Ordinarily, she'd give him ice chips, but he couldn't stand the cold, so it would be syringes and spoonfuls.

Je dol. I'm in pain.

She'd been thinking about this one since the first time. Aspirin had helped a little. She wasn't much of a healer, but she'd had time to visit the shops in Fayren, sample some of the potions, discuss strengthening some of hers.

Jon uzan. Don't leave me.

That one, she almost told him he could forget, but she turned her palm against his bearded jaw and glanced up to meet his eyes again. This one the only solution for was the only thing she could absolutely promise him, because neither of their hearts would let him. And he needed her, so every time he asked her not to leave, every time he said he was thirsty or in pain, every time he cried out, she would be here.

"Dahgo inguz, vir qui naz mori," she repeated for him, because she knew he needed her to believe it. "You're not going to die. Because Charlie will kill me, and Alice will cry. And Arya will try to find someone to kill. And..." I don't want to be without you, please. "I won't let you."

From:

hellorhighwater

He'd heard words fall from her lips before, but there was something about hearing her speak in the language he thought of as his mother tongue that was enormously comforting--something about it that made the words easier to believe, impossible to doubt.

Regina had his heart. The Sky Maker couldn't take him if she had his heart, right?

"I can't die. I have no heart." he agreed with a nod, still clinging to her hand...with fingers that were starting to shake, along with the rest of him. His skin was still hot to the touch, still slick with sweat, but he was trembling--he felt cold.

"Here we go." he sighed, releasing her hand to wipe his face with both of his hands. "This is gonna fuckin' suck. I mean, suck big, sweaty drake balls."

From:

fondofapples

Here we go.

Regina allowed herself one terribly shaky breath, and then she pushed herself to her feet, shoulders square and chin level. She took his hand, tugged gently to draw him to his feet, and then urged him toward the bathroom.

"A bath in yarrow root. The dragon fire can draw the heat from the water and the yarrow root will open your pores to help you sweat," she told him, repeating what she'd been told. "I know it's not a normal fever, but this will help." And it would get the first sick sweat off him.

"I'll order some juice and soup now, while you're still conscious and I'll bring you some room temperature water. Nothing cold, no matter how much you want it, until the fever breaks."

From:

hellorhighwater

Neil let her pull him to his feet, pausing to pull her in for a kiss—hard, hungry, hot, just to feel her, just to remind them both that there was something waiting on the other side of this.

“Sounds like...a plan.” He agreed shakily as his teeth began to chatter.

True to her word, the bath did help. If nothing else, it got the sweat off him, and let him relax a little as she bundled him into warm warm towels after and tried to get some food into him. Thankfully she focused more on liquid—but that was already getting hard. His throat burned for something cooler than the tepid water she gave him, and not long after he’d bathed, the chills had faded into another wave of heat that felt like it was smothering him, scorching him...

Gradually, he started to lose track of things, of her. Some of it was simple unconsciousness, voids where there was nothing, other times he was never sure where he was or where to find her.

But when he called, he heard her voice. When he forgot all but the dragon tongue, she answered when he cried out or moaned.

Time passed. He didn’t know how much, but he awoke at one point, disoriented as he tried to lift his head and find her. It hurt, though—everything hurt, everything burned, he felt dried out and filled with sharp edges.

He couldn’t find Regina...but a face in the low light, radiant and so beautiful it hurt...

Looking into Regina’s face with awe and wonderment—and absolutely no recognition in his fever bright eyes—he could only stare for a long moment before his tongue snaked out to try and moisten dry lips before he croaked out a greeting.

“The hour feels late. You should...be with your Sky Maker, my Goddess.” He blinked up at her, fear taking hold of his features.

“You...haven’t come for her, have you? Regina...my mate—is she okay?”

From:

fondofapples

Time passed. She knew from how he drifted in and out of consciousness, he had no idea how much. But she did. She felt every second in her bones, each slower than the last, and dragging all her years behind them.

If she hadn't sat through Henry's childhood fevers with him, or his red room nightmares, she didn't think she could have made it even this far. Because nothing else in her life had prepared her to exercise compassion so far past her own breaking point, to wait upon another being's every breath, to watch sweat bead on their skin and wipe it away before the air could snatch it and cause them the slightest chill, to levitate them to change sheets mere hours old to keep them dry, to whisk away blankets when fever soared and return them the instant she heard words or sounds or simply sensed I'm cold.

She began to long for the moments when he lost consciousness, as much as they scared her. She'd taken his heart after the first, and now she saw them as moments of release for him, moments when he didn't hurt, which were few and far between. She used them to prepare for the next wave of fever, boiling potions in coffee pots (and ruining more than a few to go to him the second he so much as whimpered), ordering more juice, tracking the timing so she'd know better what to expect if it happened again, marking everything that seemed to make a difference for good or ill, and occasionally to pour half a cup of scalding hot coffee down her own throat to keep herself sharp.

Since the charm she'd used had helped a little, she'd scoured grimoires for others like it, and not finding anything that she liked, she'd pulled apart a bonebreak torture spell and tried to rebuild it. It hadn't worked, and Neil had been unconscious long enough this time for her to pull out her spell notebook and begin working on something else using the properties of some of the healing herbs.

It wasn't a word, or even a moan, just a crackle in his breath when he inhaled that drew Regina's gaze to the bed as he tried to lift his head. And she dropped the spell book to the end table along with her pen and climbed, sore muscled already and headachy, to her feet. She took a glass of juice with her to his side, one she'd poured before she sat down, and immediately set it down again at the nightstand, seeing the fever-bright gleam and blankness in his eyes.

He spoke, voice cracking, but with more clarity than before, and every word...cut like bone shards through her heart. He thought her his Sun Goddess... and worried for her.

She reached deep and found a smile for him, made her kinder than it had ever been, and stroked the hair back away from his face, while she told him, "I'm exactly where I'm needed, dragon knight," and then kissed his forehead. "Rest, and heal. Your mate is well, but she--" Her breathing hitched but she fought past it. "Needs you."

Was it wrong? Did she care? Anything she could do to get him through this, she would do, and if it meant swallowing the biting, slicing pain of non-recognition in his eyes, and letting him believe she was his goddess instead of his mate? Regina would do it without scruple. In fact...

She lifted the glass from the nightstand and quickly glamoured it to look like a deep, jeweled chalice, the orange juice giving off a celestial glow. "Drink this. Every drop. It will help you heal."

It wasn't a lie, was it? Keeping him hydrated would help him heal. Or at least make the convalescence shorter.

From:

hellorhighwater

The use of his title drew a deep, shaky sigh of relief from him—for a moment his head sank back into the pillow and his eyes fell shut, but he opened them again at her bidding and drank from the chalice she held out to him. His body struggled to obey him, ravaged and trembling as he struggled to prop himself up on one elbow, but the nectar she bid him drink was sweet on his tongue, soothed the papery feel of his parched throat and lips when he lay back down again.

His goddess had to have spoken to Regina to know his title. All was well.

“I pray...my arrogance is forgiven.” He replied, eyes still riveted to her face. “For being...less surprised to see you here, helping her. I gave her name to your Sky Maker. I asked him...to tell you about her. To save her. I know...I didn’t need to. But...she needed me to...”

He trailed off, eyes drifting shut for a second as a big, secretive smile curled at the corners of his mouth.

“I know...I know what she is.” He whispered. “I’ve seen...I’ve seen her heart. She showed me—she showed me what your son made for me...the only heart that could ever love me...one made from his own...dragon’s breath...”

Neil trailed off then, his muddled thoughts calling up the memory of his box of souls. Refocusing on her face, his smile faded and his brow furrowed with worry.

“My Goddess...I shouldn’t ask, I...I don’t have a right, but...I did something.” He huffed humorlessly, eyes shutting again. “But you probably know...your Sky Maker, he...he must have told you...I gave him my name...”

From:

fondofapples

"Good boy," she whispered when he finished the juice, and her chest ached with longing to see his eyes open and focus on her, know who she was and hear him murmur to her my Regina, my mate.

But she pushed that thought aside, sat beside him on the bed and took his hand and held it gently between hers while he spoke. As much as she wished he never had to suffer like this, there was something beautiful and humbling to hear him talk to his goddess about her. The way he loved her, it felt like nothing she'd ever imagined; not even Robin had loved her so much he'd shaped his faith around it. She felt she understood him better, understood his faith better, also, hearing him.

She almost missed it, tired as she was and as much as she'd let herself relax for a few moments. But she heard 'ask' and, if he needed something, she didn't want to miss it.

I gave him my name.

It took a moment for her to catch on. Gave him my name. In the box. The box they'd buried. The names of people who had hurt her, given to the Skymaker, to be punished... him.

One by one, the pieces ticked into place. Other things he'd said, or rather croaked, in his delirium, things she'd passed over as the sort of things someone who thought they might be dying would say.

And abruptly she wasn't scared, tired, hurt, she was livid. He'd given the Sky Maker his name and he believed, rightly or wrongly, that this fever was the Sky Maker come to take him.

Oh. Oh. Her gaze narrowed and she shook her head. If he weren't deathly ill and in the throes of fever, she would have slapped him. As it was, she nearly fireballed him, since the dragon fire would steal the heat anyhow.

"You gave my mate your name," she said flatly, keeping to the role to put the fear of the goddess into him. "After you pledged yourself to me. Asked him to take you. After you gave yourself to me, and to her. I should let him take you for that. But I don't give up what is mine. You owe me your service, dragon knight, and I will</em have it."

From:

hellorhighwater

"...that's not what I did."

Something felt...not quite right about her anger, something that his fevered mind couldn't latch onto. The Sun Goddess was benevolent, but filled with passion--and she wanted his soul for herself. It gave him hope, banished all fear...maybe he had a chance.

"I gave him my name...'cause...'f what I did." he slurred. He felt hot again, but remembered shame kept him from kicking away the covers to get cool--he didn't deserve comfort. "What I did...to Regina. I treated her...like her mother did. There's no...forgiveness for that...only hope I had was to ask him--ask him to take my darkness, so she could have the light she deserves."

He swallowed thickly, shutting his eyes and shifting restlessly with a moan of discomfort, shaking his head.

"But there's none...I got no light, it's just darkness...it's all darkness..."

From:

fondofapples

...he did what? Because one time he'd let his passion overwhelm his usually perfect sense of how to talk to her?

Idiot.

Sweet, impossible idiot.

The anger faded into a dull ache in the hinge of her jaw and the blur of tears behind her eyes. She bought herself a moment to speak by dabbing away the sweat from his brow, but when she turned her hand over to take his temperature, correcting his idiocy slipped from her mind.

She leaned down to kiss his forehead and murmured, "Let me be the judge of that," and then stripped the covers off him to help him cool down. "Drink what your mate gives you. As much as you can. Whether you want it or not."

How she knew, she couldn't have said, but things were going to get worse before they got better. Much worse.

From:

hellorhighwater

When she leaned in to kiss his forehead, Neil’s gaze never left her—and his hand darted out to catch her wrist to keep her close.

“Please ask him to give me more time.” He pleaded in a whisper. “I got...I got no right, but...I just need more time...time to find the light...”

His eyes were drooping, but he fought to keep them open. He was so tired, but this was so important...

“...just need...time...”

The words were slipping away from him as his grip on her hand slackened and the fever pulled him back into unconsciousness again.

From:

fondofapples

"You'll have as much time as you need, dragon knight," she murmured, trying to sound goddess-like, hoping the summoning spell wouldn't pull him from unconsciousness. She didn't use his name now, because it definitely would.

As soon as his grip slackened, she slid down the side of the bed with a sob she could no longer contain. She lay her head on her knees and cried until coughing threatened the minimal contents of her stomach.

Then she was up on her feet: testing his temperature, changing the sheets, cleaning him off with a barely damp sponge, laying a fresh, dry heating blanket over him. All the while, she ignored the burn in her stomach from acid eating away at it, the sore muscles in her calves and thighs, and the awareness that the potion she'd been working on had burned to the bottom of the coffee pot and she'd have to start it all over again.

She let renewed anger and frustration fuel her and keep her moving, when she to get into bed with her lover and hold him until he woke, fever broken and body on the mend.

From:

hellorhighwater

Neil drifted between sleeping and waking—fitful slumber plagued by nightmares when he did slip under and waking moments where he saw strange and terrible things when he wasn’t in terrible pain.

Sometimes Regina was there. Sometimes she wasn’t. It blended together in a stream of heat and pain and guilt for what Regina was suffering to care for him.

It was Regina he was thinking of the next time he woke, lucid and shivering. Something felt wrong, something was...

“”Regina,” He croaked, teeth chattering, head lifting to try and find her with his gaze, “Regina...je isa......”

I’m freezing. Even as he said it, he knew what was wrong—what was causing the chill.

He couldn’t feel the fire. He wasn’t chilled—he was cold.

And if Regina touched him, his skin would feel like ice beneath her hands.

From:

fondofapples

Over the past few hours, the sweating had stopped, the moaning had quieted, and Regina had started to believe the worst was over. She'd switched from potions to broth, trying to get a bit of warmth and salt into him instead of the sugar she'd been giving the fire to burn before.

She'd let herself sit for ten whole minutes at one point, drink a whole cup of coffee, brush her hair and touch up her makeup because she didn't want to look a mess when he woke this time, text the children--no promises, but making a point to sound a little more upbeat.

And she knew beyond a shadow of a doubt, it was that cup of coffee, the five minutes looking in the mirror that made her miss it, miss the turning point from lowering temperature to cold.

He'd said to get the doctors then, but there was no time. The time it would take to explain, even if she teleported him in, he'd freeze to death.

"I'm sorry... I'm so sorry," she whispered to him as she cranked up the heat on the heating blanket and piled on a weighted blanket it would be hard from him to spill off if he shuddered too hard. She cursed herself while she waited for the water to boil to make tea.

It wouldn't be enough, and she couldn't trust him to stay conscious to deal with flame if she gave it to him. So when she put the tea in his hands, she did the only thing she knew that would be. She stepped into the living room, and without looking at herself in mirror, plucked her heart from her chest. Then she put it in a box beside his.

She returned less than a minute later with another blanket from the couch, showing nothing on her face, and then draped the blanket around his shoulders. And for as long as he stayed awake, she gave him tea, broth, offered him a hot bath, anything she could think of to warm him even a bit.

The second he dropped off to sleep, she traded her clothes for a thin silk shift and slid into bed beside him. Even though he was cold to the touch, she wrapped herself around him. Layer by layer, she constructed in her mind the feeling that she was fevered, dangerously hot, focused everything on needing to be cool.

And then, heartless, she told him a lie.

"Neil," she called softly, so softly, just loud enough to activate his summoning spell, and let him feel how much she needed to be cool. "Please. I'm so hot. Help me." And then she slumped against him as though she'd passed out.

From:

hellorhighwater

Neil...

Neil’s eyes snapped open, the summoning spell pouring visions of fire and heat into his head, burning skin and fever beyond his own. Turning his head, he saw her there, felt her body slack against his...

In his fever mad mind, she was glowing, a hearth for him—a promise of relief.

With the little strength he had, Neil rolled over on his side, arm draping across her waist. Bending his head, he pressed dry, fever chapped lips to hers with a shaky sigh. His skin was still cool to the touch, his breath chilled as it feathered against her face.

“Jon uraidh ahn.” I’ve got you.

Kissing her, Neil drew her body heat into himself, warming his own body from hers...and once he started, he couldn’t find the strength to stop.

From:

fondofapples

It took every ounce of her will not to pull away or shiver, and instead remain pliant in his arms as though she were unconscious and burning with fever--until it wasn't difficult at all, because she lost consciousness.

In the moments between feeling her life bleeding away with her heat and feeling nothing at all, Regina noticed Neil's body warming. She opened her eyes to see him and smiled. He'd be all right, now. And without her own heart, she faced the unknown of what would come in calm and relative peace.

I love you.

From:

hellorhighwater

The lips against his were turning cold, dangerously so--but Neil couldn't stop. He was warm again, and he couldn't think around it, or the exhaustion, or the comfort of Regina's body tucked safely against his, where it belonged...

Pain ripped through him--a snap of agony as something in him severed, then a chill that shook him with such force that he let her go, falling on his back as his body seized.

Then there was heat--heat like he'd never felt before, heat flooding skin and muscle and filling his blood as the fire released its grip on him and greedily set to devouring the meal he'd given it.

With a shudder, his eyes rolled back into his head and he lost consciousness--and for the first time in nearly four days, finally entered a deep, healing sleep.

* * * * *

Neil's fucking head was killing him.

Groaning, he covered his eyes, groggy and sore and still wrung out. Everything was a haze, but he could think straight, at least. Maybe the fever hadn't been as bad as he thought? He'd dealt with short ones before.

With a grunt, Neil rolled over to fling an arm around Regina's waist--and was dragged from the hazy, sickly fog of sleep by the chill of the body at his side.

Sitting bolt upright, his entire body protested with pain and the noisome lurch of his stomach--both of which he ignored as he looked down in horror at the limp, cold body in bed with him. There were hazy things floating around in the back of his head, but nothing he could piece together with any certainty...

"No...ohhh, no no no--Regina? Regina, wake up." The words were a moan a he cradled her cheek, patting it gently, thinking far too clearly for the fear he felt. It more resembled the place he killed in, the white noise where he comfortably took life and dipped his hands in blood for love of king and kingdom...and sometimes, merely for pleasure.

Slipping his hand under the strap of her shift, he laid his palm against her chest and reached for his fire, channeling heat directly into her body without care for how hard his own was working to accomplish it. Beneath his skin, the veins and capillaries in his hand and fingers glowed like magma beneath his skin, his heart racing with the effort it took to force heat into her body, not merely channeling but forcing it in as deep and as fast as he could.

"C'mon, Regina...c'mon, wake up...mighty Ember, hear me--exaudi me Sol Dea, mighty Sky Maker...I have given you my life, my blood, my salvation--don't ask me to give you this woman..."

Leaning in, he kissed her, quick and desperate, resting his forehead against hers. Her skin was warming...but it still felt too cool.

He kept pouring the heat of his dragon fire into her.

"Beloved...wake up, Beloved. Wake up...I can't be the one to kill you. Don't let me be the one that killed you..."

From:

fondofapples

Cast deep into the recesses of her own mind, Regina had no awareness of time passing. She floated through one nightmarescape after another, no meaning to the sequence, and only the most minimal awareness--

She'd lied to Neil to save him and he wouldn't forgive her.

She wandered a wasteland scorched by dragon fire and couldn't find him, or Maleficent, and the sun neither rose nor set.

Henry called to her across a wreath of flame and she couldn't reach him.

Evie cursed her at what must've been a funeral.

Alice and Arya slaved over shoe leather in a factory.

Emma married Neil and took him home to Storybrooke. Zelena killed her and took Neil for herself.

And those were only the coherent torments. There were nightmare shadows, cthonic deities, blazing goddesses, Fairy Godmother riding a flame lion in the shape of Robin's tattoo. The stench of burned herbs and flesh and coffee pots that never came clean. Sweat turning to ice and choking her to death.

At one point she heard Neil wailing, voice echoing in canyons of ice. She tried to go to him, but the passes were melting, leaving her trapped.

But outside her mind, she remained cold, stiff, and still.

From:

hellorhighwater

It wasn't working. The gods weren't listening...he'd killed her.

Screwing his eyes shut, tears fell hot against her skin as he buried his head against her chest, still pouring his heat into her. He couldn't stop, couldn't stop trying, fighting, hoping. She'd done that to him, taught him to hope and believe and expect better.

Neil wasn't allowed to keep the good things, and this time it was his fault.

He'd killed his own mate.

"Give her back." he begged, the low keening sound of an animal in pain. "Dahgo inguz, vir qui naz mori--give her back to me or I'll turn your sky red with blood, my Goddess. I will cut out the heart of your Sky Maker, and I will burn it in front of your beloved son. I will snuff out every light the Ember has ever ignited if you don't give her back to me."

Even as he said it, he knew he wouldn't. He couldn't--not even his king could command him anymore. Even in death, Regina held fast to his sword arm--as readily as if her fingers were wrapped around his wrist, binding him as powerfully as her word to be still, to be hers, to be better.

Lifting his head, Neil kissed her again, tears on his lips as his free hand cradled her cold cheek--then pressed his face against her neck and let out an anguished, animal howl of pain muffled by her skin.

From:

fondofapples

Everywhere around her ice was melting, making islands amidst a still-cold sea, and they floated apart, too fast. Too fast for her to jump from one to the next, when she didn't know where she was trying to go in the first place. She was too warm, too, far too warm even though she ran across the icy ground barefoot and in nothing but a shift.

The wind howled, and out on a tundra some creature howled with it. It swirled around like... like something she couldn't quite remember, except that the color was wrong.

She grew tired and found a chunk of ice on which to sit. It became a bench and then a glass coffin, and she lay down. In the hands upon her breast, there rested an apple with a single bite taken from it. A crown slipped off her sweat-damp hair and crashed through the wall of the crystal coffin, or the howl shattered it, or perhaps the sea was melting it, she tasted it on her lips.

The howl took on a familiar tenor, and it called to her. The creature making that sound needed her. She sat up in her coffin of melting glass-ice and tried to place the sound.

She remembered the children first. Henry. Evie. Arya. Alice. Charlie. They needed her, but it wasn't any of their anguish that weighed so heavy on her chest and her neck. It was...

Oh Neil.

The winds that swirled changed temperature, became a gentle slinky mist. They darkened, gained visibility and turned purple. She remembered then, she didn't need to run and jump. She could teleport right to him. The mists whisked her away--

And her eyes opened.

One still chilled hand lifted without conscious though to cradle the back of his head and hold him against her. With consciousness came memory and enough anger to get her blood moving.

"You put your name in the box. You asshole," she croaked, voice raw and cracked, but somehow still warm. And then she gentled, stroked his hair. "It's all right, my love. I'm all right."

From:

hellorhighwater

He felt her shift before he felt the hand against the back of his head--keenly aware of the stillness of the body in his arms, shattering when he felt life in it again.

He was relieved, joyous--but still, for some reason, as her hand ran over his hair, as her voice rang in his ears, he couldn't stop the tears. Everything was agony and horror for how close he'd come, everything was jubilation and raw, bleeding relief for having his prayers answered.

Then he remembered how she got here--remembered the fever, and his head shot up to look down at her.

The eyes blazing into hers were still openly brimming with that relief, that anguish--and with blind, screaming rage. It rendered them bright as they had been with fever all over again--but the face that had been either flush with fever, gleaming with sweat, or just plain ashen for days was merely pale, mostly from the shadows of poor sleep beneath his eyes and the remnants of illness borne fatigue still clinging to him.

His hand shook with rage as he cradled her cheek, but his touch was reverent and infinitely gentle.

"Look who's fucking talking, shithead." he snarled softly just before pressing a greedy, desperate kiss against her mouth. "You let me try to kill you--I almost did. Bitch. I fucking hate you."

He immediately kissed her again, covering her body with his, not to seduce but to keep her there, to force more warmth into her still chilled skin--to reassure himself that she was alive and breathing and wasn't going to fucking leave him like that again.

From:

fondofapples

If her heart had been where it belonged, she might have responded to him in tight, bitter fury for the language, the hurtful words, but its absence cut the pain and left her smiling against his mouth. If he could curse her, he would live.

And then she remembered...

Heart or no heart, there was no stopping the tears spilling hot and fast down her cheeks and her cold, stiff arms wrapped under his arms and hands hooked to his shoulders--and held fast. She opened her mouth under his kiss and kissed back, starving for the feel of him alive and conscious and aware again.

It would be worse, too, when she gave them both back their hearts, but she didn't want to miss a single ounce of the joy and relief, gratitude to his faith and his goddess and god for bringing him back to her when she was so sure she'd killed him with her vanity.

Through her tears, she whispered, "In the living room. Top drawer in the desk. Two boxes. Bring them to me?" Because she was far too cold still to get out of bed, and with hearts, she wouldn't risk magic to get them.

From:

hellorhighwater

Neil almost told her to go to hell--not to be a bastard, but because the idea of leaving her terrified him. Getting up meant not being near her, and he was irrationally afraid of her slipping away in his absence.

Deciding on a compromise, he kissed her one more time and slid to the edge of the mattress, getting to his feet--and nearly falling as his knees tried to give way. Catching himself on the mattress before he could go down, he waited and tested his legs until he was sure they would support him, then carefully stood upright. Calling up a small ball of dragon fire, he contracted his fingers around it and then flung it towards the bed. Rather than lobbing a fireball, the dragon fire erupted in a shower of sparks that dispersed over mattress and blankets before disappearing, leaving heat in their wake to keep her warm in his absence.

"If you die, I'm gonna stab myself in the face and come after you!" he growled in warning before exiting the room to do as she asked. Locating both boxes, he obeyed without thinking to stop and look at what was inside, carrying them back into the bedroom with cautious, shuffling steps and setting them on the bed as he sat down on the edge of the mattress.

"Okay. What'd I get these for?"

From:

fondofapples

"I'm not dying!" she called after him, then sank back into the luxurious heat of the bed. For all she'd been near death minutes ago, he'd put so much heat into her that she was just cold, hypothermic now.

If she looked in a mirror, which she wasn't going to do, she knew her lips would still be somewhat blue. The skin beneath her fingernails was and she couldn't quite feel her toes or her fingertips. But she was in no danger as long as her mate came back today.

She closed her eyes -- and almost immediately drifted off, so much so that she was startled a few moments later when he appeared again. Her eyes opened and she had to think about it again, chase down the reason she'd--oh yes.

She propped herself up summoned another pillow to put behind her. With a wiggle of her fingers, she drew the two boxes to her. Which was which? At first, she couldn't recall, but then she remembered and took her own.

After flipping the lid open, she showed it to him, took it again, and slammed it back into her chest. The emotions slammed back at her, but she persevered, took his heart and explained, "I took it when you were unconscious. I didn't want you to see it, and have it damage your faith, but I needed it to control you with if you got violent..."

She felt...so many things about having done it, but regret wasn't one of them. It had worked and they were both still here.

From:

hellorhighwater

The sight of her heart was both disturbing and a relief—he still remembered what she said about her mate’s wife, how removing her heart saved her life. It was smart...stupid, but smart.

The sight of his own heart, however, smoothed that stunned and worried look off his face in favor of a smile instead.

“Seeing my heart don’t break my faith, Beloved—I put my heart in your hands,
course you could pull it out.” He grinned, nodding towards it. “Looks real, don’t it? But you don’t gotta sweat it—it’s an illusion, no one else but you can touch it.”