Inbox -- Genessia

[fondofapples]

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)

Comments

11/24 - shortly after his conversation with Alice - ;text (from the other side of the house)

[hellorhighwater]

does red riding hood live in your enchanted forest

and was she eaten by a wolf

Re: 11/24 - shortly after his conversation with Alice - ;text (from the other side of the house)

[fondofapples]

yes.

no.

she is the wolf. she ate her boyfriend.

Re: 11/24 - shortly after his conversation with Alice - ;text (from the other side of the house)

[hellorhighwater]

thank the fucking ember

not that she ate her boyfriend that part is terrible

unless she was defending herself in which case i hope she chewed her food thoroughly

regina we have to do something about alice

the fairy tale she knows is complete bullshit

and i will be fucking damned if any kid of mine is raised on stories that teach her to be fucking prey

also riding hood just fucking died

i mean holy fucking shit

shes seven

Re: 11/24 - shortly after his conversation with Alice - ;text (from the other side of the house)

[fondofapples]

[ From her home office, there's a peal of delighted laughter at "chewed her food thoroughly" and it's a moment before she can respond. ]

Let me guess. She knows the version with the moral of not talking to strangers?

The real moral is "When Granny says wear the cloak, wear the cloak."

It's not the worst thing for Alice to learn that rushing into danger can get you killed. Remember when you met her she was wandering around Everglade BY HERSELF.

She's seven.

Re: 11/24 - shortly after his conversation with Alice - ;text (from the other side of the house)

[hellorhighwater]

yeah but she needs to learn the right version

that when shes grown she will become the wolf

[He’s just emerging into the courtyard when he pauses. He’s come to know his home, to learn it as well as he once learned the labyrinth of Castle Nocturne.

And like Castle Nocturne—sound echoes in a singular fashion.]

if you brought work home im gonna do something stupid like threaten to spank you

Re: 11/24 - shortly after his conversation with Alice - ;text (from the other side of the house)

[fondofapples]

When she's grown she'll become whatever she wants to be.

Threaten away, love. As long as you're prepared to back it up.

[ It's not the least appealing thought he's ever had. ]

Re: 11/24 - shortly after his conversation with Alice - ;text (from the other side of the house)

[hellorhighwater]

she will grow up to be no ones victim

other than that yeah she will be whatever she wants

not only am I coming to spank you im gonna mess up your filing system

fear me damn it

Re: 11/24 - shortly after his conversation with Alice - ;text (from the other side of the house)

[fondofapples]

Of course.

If you mess up my filing system, I'm going to spank you.

Re: 11/24 - shortly after his conversation with Alice - ;text (from the other side of the house)

[hellorhighwater]

that a threat or a promise

Re: 11/24 - shortly after his conversation with Alice - ;text (from the other side of the house)

[fondofapples]

Whichever moves you, love.

Re: 11/24 - shortly after his conversation with Alice - ;text -> ACTION

[hellorhighwater]

What moves me, Beloved, is seeing you take a goddamn nap.

[Says the voice now in the doorway of her office, arms folded, phone in his hand, and eyebrow raised. Busted, Regina. Make peace with your gods, for lo, The Boyfriend is here to abolish working from home.]

Re: 11/26 - shortly after his conversation with Alice - ;text -> ACTION

[fondofapples]

"You just like seeing me in bed," came the retort from the bespectacled version of his girlfriend currently sitting at her desk. She didn't bother to look up from the contract she was reviewing, only raised an eyebrow behind the frame of her glasses.

"I'm fine, Neil. And the mountain of paperwork isn't going to get any shorter with me in bed. So you're going to have choose between sex and naps."

Re: 11/26 - shortly after his conversation with Alice - ;text -> ACTION

[hellorhighwater]

"And here I thought this was gonna be a hard choice." he chuckled, pushing off the door frame so he could walk into the room, cross over to where she sat...

...and then reach out to try and pluck her glasses off her face.

"Nap. Then paperwork, I'll handle the kids for a little while so you can do both. C'mon, I ain't buyin' what you're sellin'. You still need a little rest."

Re: 11/26 - shortly after his conversation with Alice - ;text -> ACTION

[fondofapples]

"Neil." Regina growled a low warning, hints of frustration-born anger lighting up her gaze. As much as she cherished how he took care of her, enough was enough.

"I said I was fine." And she was. Tired, yes, but nothing that a regular night's sleep wouldn't restore. As patiently as she could manage, she added, "I know I scared you, and I let you put me to bed for two days because you needed it. Now I'm going to work and go to bed at a decent hour, because that's what I need."

Please don't turn this into a fight. That she was still too tired for.

Re: 11/26 - shortly after his conversation with Alice - ;text -> ACTION

[hellorhighwater]

Okay, pissing her off. Not good--and not what he wanted. With a sigh, he absently ran a hand through his hair, thought for a split second--then walked behind her desk so he could gently turn her desk chair to face him as he got down on his knees. There was nothing sexual, however, it just gave him easier access to slide her glasses back onto her face, and hopefully he'd diffuse her annoyance a little if he wasn't looming over her.

"Please?" he tried again, folding his forearms and resting them on top of her knees so he could lean against them comfortably. "I'll even owe ya one. Quid pro quo. You can name your price."

Re: 11/26 - shortly after his conversation with Alice - ;text -> ACTION

[fondofapples]

"You're the one who spent four days incoherent with his own body trying to kill him," she pointed out crossly. Less crossly, since he'd given her back her glasses, but he was still inserting himself between her and her obligations. She tugged, or tried to tug, her chair away from him and back to the desk, but he was already leaning on her.

"I've lived more than three times your lifespan. I know when my body and mind need rest. Right now, they need work. I need work. I'm respecting what you say you need to heal. Why can't you do the same?"

Re: 11/26 - shortly after his conversation with Alice - ;text -> ACTION

[hellorhighwater]

Neil didn't answer for a long moment--and in that silent beat, he dropped his gaze with a sigh.

"The Night Dragon probably asks himself the same fuckin' question every damn day." he finally replied, lifting one hand to pinch the bridge of his nose. Because she had a point: concerned as he was for her welfare, he was also trying to manage her the way he managed his king as part of his job. He had scared her, badly, and maybe she did need work to cope...

And she probably didn't need to know about the moments he spent watching her sleep in those two days he'd kept her in bed, hand on her neck to feel that pulse beat, to feel her warm skin--to try and burn away that blue tinge of chill that was his doing, permanently painted into his mind's eye every time he looked at her.

Shifting his weight so he wasn't leaning against her legs anymore, he nevertheless stayed kneeling and took one of her hands between both of his, kissing her fingertips in silent apology before he looked up into her face again.

"Compromise?" he asked hopefully, even as the word itself set his teeth on edge while he pressed her captive hand against his cheek for a moment. "Ten minute break, you let me cast a charm to prevent any eye strain headaches...and I'll bring you a cup of coffee and leave you the hell alone 'till dinner."

Re: 11/26 - shortly after his conversation with Alice - ;text -> ACTION

[fondofapples]

What Regina lacked in being biddable, she also lacked in graceful acceptance of apology and compromise. If she made up for it at all, it was in how much she loved him and knowing she'd put him through a hell not dissimilar to the one she'd suffered watching him burn up for four days if less extended and with less actual fear of her dying.

And because she knew he blamed himself for it, just as he'd condemned himself to the Sky Maker for one relatively minor communications error, she forced herself to lower her pen to the desk and caress his bearded jaw with her free hand. Quietly, she explained, "Putting the welfare of others before myself is part of how I make amends for the harms I've done them. I set that aside for a week to take care of you, because I need you. Selfishness is always a temptation, and it leads me down dark paths. Working on things that will benefit others helps me fight that darkness."

She held his gaze and offered him a different compromise, "Twenty minutes. Your charm, a short backrub, and I'll summon myself some coffee unless you actually want to bring it. Taking care of you is important too." He needed to see she wasn't pushing herself too hard, and the difference between ten and twenty minutes wasn't enough to haunt her sleep later.

Re: 11/26 - shortly after his conversation with Alice - ;text -> ACTION

[hellorhighwater]

The difference between ten and twenty minutes was tension draining visibly out of his shoulders as he smiled and leaned his head into the touch of her hand. It would probably never be enough--not for a long while, anyway--but it was a really good alternative.

And still, it rankled because she kept talking like that--like she had to double check she wasn't making him do a damn thing...

On impulse, he reached for her free hand and very deliberately wrapped his fingers around her slender wrist--a very specific reminder of how easily she could hold power over him, how she always gave it back...how everything he did with her, for her, because of her was a choice, and always would be.

"I'll bring you some coffee." he repeated pointedly, still grinning. "Keep you a step away from temptation--your magic having a price 'n all."

Re: 11/26 - shortly after his conversation with Alice - ;text -> ACTION

[fondofapples]

His fingers around her wrist might be intended to remind her that what power she held over him, she did so conscientiously, and it did that, but it also made the possibly unintentional point that if she ever pushed too hard, he was bigger, stronger, and in some ways equally powerful. He was perfectly capable of saying no, if he ever wanted to, because she'd had his heart in her hands multiple times and she always gave it back. This wasn't Graham, she wasn't being unbearably bossy or coercive. He loved her, and taking care of her was part of that.

Even so, she rolled her eyes mildly at the grin and the reminder of the price of her magic, then smoothed her hand through his hair, a tangible and visible marker of their quarrel, also smoothed over. "Fine. I'll even let you tell me where you want me to sit." In the office, obviously. There was a couch, of course.

Re: 11/26 - shortly after his conversation with Alice - ;text -> ACTION

[hellorhighwater]

Neil lost the thread for a brief moment as her fingers carded through his hair, but once the touch was gone, he shook some sense back with a brisk shake of his head.

"Okay: in bed." he replied to her remark, then immediately leaned in to drop a quick peck against her mouth with a chuckle, rising to his feet at the same time with only a little stiffness.

"Kidding, I'm kidding." he assured her, taking a moment to flex the stiffness out of his bad knee with a couple bends of the joint. "Here or the couch, whichever's better for ya."

Re: 11/26 - shortly after his conversation with Alice - ;text -> ACTION

[fondofapples]

"You're lucky you're hot." To call him 'cute' would be a criminal disservice, and she tended to reserve more effusive praise for when post-coital bliss could cover a multitude of emotional excesses.

As he stretched, she lay her fingers against his knee and cast her pain relief and warming charms on it. No more necessary than the way he channeled heat into her whenever he touched her, especially now, but prophylactic. Keeping him out of pain and warm meant less sleepless nights of agony and less fevers, too.

Then she stood, delicately reversing the arch in her back to stretch it and her hips, before she padded barefoot across the plush carpet to drape herself facedown on her couch.

Re: 11/26 - shortly after his conversation with Alice - ;text -> ACTION

[hellorhighwater]

"Yeah, I'm lucky I'm hot, too--or else you'd never have asked me out that first night, since I'm a goddamn chowderhead in some other universe." he replied with a smile, thanking her for the small use of magic with a hand sliding along her spine as she passed by him--but not without a raised eyebrow, too. He had, after all, been trying to get her to avoid a small and needless use of magic.

Following her over to the couch, he waited for her to stretch out, then knelt next to the couch--her charms would keep the joint limber enough to settle in for a little while without making him limp. Sliding his hands over her back, he let his palms sweep up and down her back a couple of times with a sigh before he started channeling heat into the muscles as his fingers began to apply pressure at her shoulder blades, sliding firmly through knots of tension to ease them once the heat had loosened them.

"Sometimes I wanna bring your ex-husband back to life just so I can slap him for bein' a moron." he murmured, bending to kiss her shoulder. "You are so goddamn beautiful--then you figure out what's all under that fabulous body, and it turns touchin' you into a religious experience. Eh, I take it back. He can stay dead--you're all fuckin' mine."

Re: 11/26 - shortly after his conversation with Alice - ;text -> ACTION

[fondofapples]

At the lift of his eyebrow, she tossed off a small, easy shrug and might have said that she'd willingly pay any price to spare him pain, but then he was running his mouth, and there was neither point nor need.

"Your stupid has taken a turn for the poetic and decidedly sweet, dragon knight," she all but purred and stretched languidly as her muscles went liquid under his hands. He made her feel so good, mind and body and soul, whenever he touched her; she thanked whatever gods or self-awareness had kept her from being too stubborn and angry to let them have this moment.

"I've never been a religious experience for anyone else." She reached back with her trailing arm to touch him, pass love from fingers to whatever part of him she could reach. "I like being yours." His, and his religious experience. Which reminded her of how she'd let him believe she was his goddess during his fever.

"I love you." The words came out soft and low, forever a confession, and forever tinged with the fear that feeling it, let alone saying it, was tempting fate. But not saying it, not letting him know what he meant to her, that was worse.

Re: 11/26 - shortly after his conversation with Alice - ;text -> ACTION

[hellorhighwater]

“Jon dahgo—I love you, too.” He replied quietly, smiling at the confessional tone she used whenever she said it. Paired with that affectionate, half blind caress of her hand running over his leg when she reached for him was both thrilling and calming, settling that cold and restless thing in his chest that he was slowly learning was the thing that gave him pleasure in killing—the heat of blood and the silence that came after a heart stopped beating had been the only thing before Regina that could warm that chill, calm that restlessness.

Now he had the emptiness inside to calm it most times, the warmth of her love instead of fresh blood to give it heat.

Finding a larger knot of tension between her shoulder blades, Neil laid his palm flat against it and channeling heat directly into the muscle. Her whole back was knotted and tight—was it always like this when she was working?

“I might make these breaks mandatory when you’re home workin’.” He murmured, lifting his hand to dig a thumb into the knot he’d been heating. “Specifically for backrubs. Ember’s Balls, you’re tense.”