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

The distress is obvious, but Neil can't get his head around it. Frowning with a little tilt of his head, he leans in a little to try and recapture her gaze.

"Why? I don't. Never have." he assured her. "Some things are just--facts. Sky's blue, horny sea dragons are dangerous, you're beautiful, and weapons need a sheath. That's...what I am."

From:

fondofapples

"Because you're not a weapon," she whispered, words trapped in her chest and tearing at the scars over mistakes she could never undo, amends that would never be accepted even if she could make them. "You're not a weapon, Neil, you're a man."

Graham.

From:

hellorhighwater

The way the words were choked out instead of spoken--Neil finally realized it might not be him she was talking about.

For a second, he watched her face, trying to find...something, some clue as to the source of her distress, but couldn't quite grasp it. He just knew she hurt, and that felt unforgivable to him.

"Regina." he murmured, trying to scoot closer still so he could release one of her hands and reach out to touch her shoulder instead, to draw her close if she'd let him.

$fondofapples: (fracturing)$

From:

fondofapples

Graham would've done the same, drawn her to him without knowing what upset her. He wouldn't have felt it like Neil did, but it wouldn't have stopped him from trying to care for her.

Because he'd been a tool. Hers. And she'd destroyed him.

She tensed again, self-loathing in the angle of her jaw and the set of it, and resistance to the comfort he offered in every line of her being. She wanted it, wanted his arms around her and the pain of this soothed in the gentling stroke of his hand against her back, but she couldn't.

"Don't. Neil. If you knew, you wouldn't."

From:

hellorhighwater

Neil just watched her for a long moment, hating that tension in her posture, the tick of her jaw--that familiar withdrawal into oneself, the kind he used too often to get through a bad job, or a failure in the eyes of his king.

"Okay." he soothed, giving her fingers a squeeze. "Okay."

He just held her hands for a second...then abruptly let them go, stood, and crawled onto the bed behind her, resting his hands on her shoulders--a compromise to just dragging her into his arms and holding her until the tension was gone the way he wanted to. Leaning in, he let his temple rest against hers for just a moment as he spoke.

"Leash or no leash, Regina--can't have it both ways. So no leash...I do what I want, you can't stop me, and if you want to try you'll just have to knock me flat and sit on me." Lifting his head, he leaned in further to try and look around and into her face...which put his chest right against her back, all he had to do was loop an arm around her to keep her there.

"And I still win, 'cause if you're sitting on me, I still get to spend time with you. So...bite me."

From:

fondofapples

The shame of what she'd done to Graham would never abate, and even thinking about it now made her sick to her stomach. Her face burned, too, with the desperate urge to flee.

But there he was again, blazing with familiar dragon-fire heat, wrapping around her, arguing with her--she was too raw to resist. "Fine," she said quietly. "Fine."

And let him draw her into his arms again, because he wanted to and she wanted him to, and she didn't have it in her anymore to fight.

From:

hellorhighwater

The moment she relented, Neil looped that arm across her shoulders and pulled her back against his chest, pressing his nose to the top of her head. She smelled really fucking good, the expensive sweetness of beauty products and shampoo, something else that felt cool in his lungs, like some remnant of her Enchanted Forest still clung to her scent. Might be her magic, too--he didn't know, he just liked it.

He liked her. A lot...maybe too much.

For a long time, he didn't say a word, just soaked in the quiet and held on tight, offering no verbal reassurances because she'd ignore them. No hope speeches, no platitudes, just a strong set of arms and a gentle pair of battle worn, callused hands that drifted, offering small touches of comfort--fingers catching hers to send another pulse of warmth through her body when her hands felt cold, rubbing one of her shoulders, running over her hair to smooth it down as he settled his chin atop her head.

"For the record," he informed her quietly after a long while, voice a little rough and almost too loud after so long in silence, "I'm not moving 'less you tell me to--and if that isn't until tomorrow morning, that works. No funny business, just...I have some wards up to bind dreams for uninterrupted sleep. Just sayin'."

From:

fondofapples

Once she gave up, that was it. She didn't deserve this, didn't like what it said about her lack of loyalty to Robin, or how far down she'd let her walls, but the fight had left her completely. If she wasn't a ragdoll to fit against him however he posed her, she was nearly as quiescent.

I'm so tired, made up the bulk of her thoughts, while the rest went to fleeting observations about the situation she found herself in: that the sound of another person's breathing inevitably made the world a less empty place, and that his didn't saw at her already frayed nerves despite being unfamiliar. That even though she'd objected if Robin's beard grew more than a neatly trimmed week past five o'clock, his thicker scruff had the same therapeutic quality as burying her face in a horse's neck or a pet's fur for the way he seemed content with nothing more than being allowed to be here. That he didn't smell like pinecones and loamy dirt, but still rugged, smoky both from the whiskey and the dragon fire, which with constant heat beneath his skin, left her precariously peaceful, like a night beside a campfire with someone else on watch.

At length, he spoke and she didn't want to slap him, which was a vanishingly rare quality in anyone who had bested her this thoroughly, albeit temporarily. For the most part, he skipped nonsense for sense, and there was no need for her to correct him or any of his assumptions or to protest at all. That no wards could block the red room dreams was a matter for if they came, and until then she could at least appreciate that they had been safer together in Dodge, so they would be here, too.

She stretched in his hold, spine popping, hips realigning, muscles relaxing their grip on ancient hurts and tensions, and after, having shifted just so, she pushed lightly against his shoulder. "Lie back, Neil. I don't want to sleep sitting up."

From:

hellorhighwater

Instead of immediately acquiescing, Neil released her with a couple of rough directional noises--c'mon, stretch out here, I got ya--until he could negotiate her laying on her side, his body curled against her back with an arm stretched out beneath her head and the other wrapped around her waist. It gave him a solid view of the door, put her closer to the wards that now lined the floor around his bed--and immediate access to at least three different weapons if he needed them.

He couldn't help the thread of alertness just underneath the strange new comfort of another body in his bed. Neil had never shared it with anyone before--he never stayed with the women he paid for, and his choice of rooms in the castle weren't made for entertaining companionship. No, the servant's quarters he requested adjacent to the Night Dragon's personal bedchamber were good for little else beyond protecting his king, sleep...and enjoying the luxury of his own private space, a far flung dream for the orphan boy whose fondest wish was for just a room of his own with a lock on the door.

In the home, in the barracks, there were always other kids or soldiers breathing in the dark, other bodies shifting and generating heat that his magic attracted, causing fevers that would make sleep hard to find if not sicken him outright. In so many ways, the solitude had always been a valuable thing, even after he'd learned to regulate his magic, control his body--after he'd gained power and prestige enough to lock himself away in the blessed quiet with as much or as little light as he wished for.

For a second he simply lay there, tucked against her back...and he marveled at the strangeness of it. Breath, heat, a soft and yielding body offering nothing more than that.

Lifting his arm from around Regina's waist, Neil flicked a sprite into the air--a small tongue of dragon fire forcibly loaded with enough magic to create an artificial form of temporary sentience--and glanced up as it hovered over them.

"Douse the light and keep vigil." he instructed quietly. Immediately, the sprite divided into two separate flames, one rushing the ceiling as the other hit the door. Soundlessly, the former plunged the room into darkness, while the latter melded into the door, spreading into a wall of energy over its surface that barely glowed, piercing the shadows but dimmer than even a simple child's night light. Wrapping his arm back around her, Neil pressed his lips to the crown of Regina's head and kept them there.

In the dark, she breathed. She barely shifted. She was warm, and Neil let himself soak up just a little of it before he let her have her own body heat again. He shut his eyes, and amidst the unexpected comfort she offered, the hot and poisonous fury that devoted itself to her protection, and the fierce desire to claim some small part of this extraordinary woman, he found one thing that was absolute, an oath he swore against her hair--barely audible, forged in steel, one he knew would not be bent or broken by the loss of his heart, by the death of his king...not by even the blackest sin.

"I'm not goin' anywhere."

From:

fondofapples

No sooner had he drawn her down into his embrace than Regina released her hold on consciousness and sent herself free-falling into sleep. She'd been too tired for the closeness to take on much of an erotic charge, but his taste still lingered on her tongue and rearranging had involved more than a few accidental sensual pleasures; best, then, to use what she'd learned over her lifespan to avoid her body's relentless awareness of his hips against her rear and how much she'd like to turn that into "funny business."

It meant that she'd been unconscious before he spoke any vows, or held her that little bit closer, and yet in her sleep she shifted and nestled more comfortably--not necessarily closer, but always still fitted body to body against him in ways that spoke of trust, comfort, and intimate companionship. Her dreams, too, stayed quiet, whether because of his wards or because she was simply too tired to dream didn't signify.

What did, when she woke hours later, was that she hadn't done it screaming, clawing, with tears on her cheeks, or bed coverings wrapped around her limbs and throat from thrashing. Rather, she woke in the peaceful dark with his arm still beneath her head and his chest still against her back. Far too warm, but that was easily managed by rolling down to her stomach, scooting over, and then rolling up to the other side so she faced him. That introduced other complications, like the awareness that she really wanted to kiss him awake, but she could control that--as long as he was asleep.

A hastily discarded phone flashed within her line of vision, reminding her of her breakfast date. Hours still before that, but Neil had wanted to see the sunrise, she recalled with startling clarity despite the muzzy warmth blanketing her brain.

With barely a twitch, she drew her phone nearer into her line of sight without moving her arms to reach for it. No need to wake him for this. Her lock screen had the information she needed: sunrise in seventeen minutes. Content to wait, she settled herself again, angling the phone so the faint illumination permitted her to watch him in his sleep, study the strength of his jaw beneath the beard that should be ridiculous but was attractive instead, the thick corded muscle of his neck and how it fed into his broad shoulders, and then back to his face and the sweet curve of a smile at the corners of his mouth.

Six minutes passed, then seven. At the tenth, she flickered her fingers through the movements of her teleportation spell. To set them down like this would inevitably wake him, so she slipped her arm around his waist, nestling close, and pressed two fingers over his lips to shush him. When the mist cleared, they rested on a soft, grassy hill, with the rising sun at her back for him to see just beyond her.

"You're safe," she murmured to interrupt the warrior fight reflex and stroked her flat palm along the length of his back. "Just enjoy it."

From:

hellorhighwater

Demons rarely haunted Neil in his sleep--he killed easily, cheerfully when the situation called for a well deserved death. He served his king with honest gratitude and fidelity, he was at peace with what he was and the things he did.

When sleep came, it was not the past that haunted him, give or take a few lonely moments from his childhood. It was the present that stalked him, the dangers of court and the shadows that belonged to his king. It was why he slept with weapons and wards, why he rarely retired for the night without some small measure of light. To sleep, to dream--to be vulnerable or unable to protect his king made his greatest battles those he fought with his own body.

He expected that fight to be doubly more difficult with the precious burden of the woman in his arms. More than anything, he wanted her to feel safe, sheltered--to remain as she was, shifting only to tuck closer, to sink into the safety of his bed. He could lose a thousand nights of sleep so long as he could breathe her in, hear the whisper of her breath...

...until it coaxed him into sleep by her side.

For the first time in his life, Neil did not lose a war with exhaustion, but was seduced into sleep by the body in his arms, scent and sound and warmth pulling away the adrenaline and the hyper vigilance already dulled by the protection of his sprite--even by the safety of his own wards, their magic wrapping around his unconscious mind and locking away all fear and bile and the violent, beautiful things she made him feel.

Blissfully, there was nothing for an indeterminate time.

Then magic stole over his skin, cool and dark, followed by a chill and the sudden, familiar presence of the earth beneath him.

Regina.

He came awake almost immediately, but his body would not readily obey as he drew a sharp breath, eyes opening and head lifting as he tried to blink away the fog of a deep sleep. His heart protested the spike of adrenaline, his muscles slack and warm and reluctant to move--but he forced them, tightening his arm around her as he tried to get his bearings.

She was all but tucked against his chest already, fingers against his lips, her hand a soothing weight as it ran along his back. She was safe.

Only with that reassurance did he allow himself to release her, scrubbing a hand over his face and shaking his head briskly with a yawn pulled from somewhere around his toes. His only clear thought was her beneath sleep and confusion...

He'd forgotten the sun until her words sank in and he looked past her to see the sky.

Slowly, Neil pushed himself to sit up, forgetting to worry about where they were. Shock, awe, and childlike amazement let him slackjawed as he watched with baited breath as the sky began to change. This part he knew, those first early rays that turned black to cobalt to deep and vivid blues that would soon dim and grow dark again, were he at home.

Tugging Regina up to sit with him, to wrap his arms around her again as best he could without looking away, his heart raced as they sat there, watching the light creep in. This was not the light of Nocturne, buried in the dark, but a pale grey that touched the world with gentle fingers. It was delicate, fragile and lovely as grey paled and kissed the sky with shell pink and rose, and the promise of gold that would turn the sky blue one precious inch at a time.

Squinting a little as the light grew, he laughed--a huff of air, almost fearful of escaping lest it chase the light away again.

"I had forgotten anything could be so gentle." He shut his eyes for just an instant, mouth quirking in a smile. "I can--feel the air getting warmer. Can you feel it?"

From:

fondofapples

Although the night's sleep had restored her, soothing frayed nerves and re-sharpening blunted wit, Regina remained, if not docile, then at least obliging, with respect to Neil handling her. Despite his strength and size, he did so with nearly the gentleness he ascribed to the sunrise.

So when he tugged her up, she went willingly, settled into his embrace again with her head resting lightly on his shoulder. She made herself small, still and quiet, so that she didn't impose on his reunion with the sun, but, honestly, she was touched by his desire to have her a part of it, when she would've left him to it alone.

When she did speak it was only to say a soft, "Yes," and smile with a sweet and unalloyed happiness for him that the sun was everything he wanted it to be. So few things ever were.

From:

hellorhighwater

There were no other words, not for a while. Glancing down at her and that smile she wore, it filled him with the light on the horizon before he turned to watch the colors keep changing, the sun burning off a mist that hung in the early morning air, its light growing brighter and sharper as it rose. The Sun Goddess, stretching her arms as she woke to greet her other children and bring them the gift of a new day in walking through her sky.

Thoughts of the Goddess made him remember the woman in his arms, the one who brought him here...the one who remembered.

Looking down at her for a second, Neil smiled, then dropped his head to kiss the top of hers, quick and chaste.

"Thank you--I'd forgotten I wanted to do this." he explained quietly before looking at the horizon again. "Last night happened, and...I guess it makes this feel like my second sunrise. Still beyond words, but it don't quite measure up to meeting you."