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:

fondofapples

"Already?"

Regina waited until he turned back to slip off the sarong, and then she stepped out in front of him. No, it wasn't a bikini and men did tend to prefer them, but she knew what she looked like in a form-fitting shadow of black and sheer mesh.

"Here I thought I was going to have to work for that, at least a little."

From:

hellorhighwater

Taking her in when he turned around, Neil was pretty sure she had no fucking idea what she looked like--because 'hot' didn't begin to cover it.

"Better--not perfect." he corrected, moving closer to slide his good arm around her waist. "Perfect just happened--fuck, I'm a lucky bastard to be on your arm, have I mentioned that?"

From:

fondofapples

"You're not on my arm. I'm in yours," she protested, oddly embarrassed by the sentiment, as though it somehow turned him into eye candy or a trophy consort just by the saying.

She shoved him lightly in the ribs. "Quit making time and get in the water. I'm as seduced as I'm going to get." Probably. "And we haven't had a bath together yet."

From:

hellorhighwater

Neil narrowed his eyes with a smile, and a raised eyebrow after getting shoved.

"Spoilsport." he teased out of the corner of his mouth, turning to slip into the water with a sigh. "Well, if you're not gonna get any more seduced? There goes my fun--maybe I'll just rest. Bad arm and all, probably shouldn't strain myself..."

From:

fondofapples

As soon as he'd settled onto a stone ledge, Regina slipped into the water to join him. Except that she didn't sit on the ledge, but draped herself over his lap, careful not to jostle his injured arm. "I said I was as seduced as I was going to get. Not as sated," she murmured and then took the deep, sweet kiss she'd been wanting.

From:

hellorhighwater

With his good arm, Neil eased himself into the water, hissing in appreciation of the heat until he was seated comfortably where he could lean back--

--and end up with a lapful of Regina, kissing him, drinking him down in a greedy, gentle kiss that made all the parts of him the water couldn't reach melt.

With a hum of pleasure, he kissed her back, good arm lifting so he could curl his hand around the back of her neck to keep her close, even when they had to part for air. He shifted his bad arm without thinking, making him wince for a moment, but the pain only served to remind him where he'd be if she hadn't come to chew him out: wide staring awake, spots in the edges of his vision--alone and paranoid, like he was every other time this shit went down. Be it his arm or his knee or some other lingering injury from a lifetime spent in combat, it was always his and never different.

It didn't hit him, until his arm twinged, safely tucked between their bodies, that dealing with the pain reminded him a lot of his old life in Queens.

Instead of upsetting him, though, it made him smile as his hand slid away to cradle her cheek.

"Hey," he murmured, brushing his mouth against the scar on her upper lip, "I didn't say it yet, but...thanks for savin' me from..."

He wiggled the fingers of his bad arm--and immediately regretted it as it sent a lance of pain up the whole damn thing.

From:

fondofapples

The clutch around her heart eased with the yielding sweetness in their kiss, both of them needing to reconnect and slaking the need at once. It lasted a long spell, though not nearly long enough for the other needs he stirred in her heart to be soothed; those, she thought, might never be truly eased. She'd had too little of this and craved it too much.

Still, she shifted to tuck herself more closely against him after, moving carefully to avoid further hurting his arm, since she'd felt but didn't remark on the wince--the first time. But when the idiot wiggled his fingers while trying to thank her, her expression became a glare. "Put that arm in the water and leave it there. It needs the heat." And because he wasn't listening fast enough, she lay her hand over the arm and recast the pain relief charm, adding a kiss of magical heat this time.

"It's the dragon fire that does it. Makes the bone cold and brittle when it steals your body heat." She sounded and felt aggrieved by it, that something dared to hurt him, while she had her hands on him even.

From:

hellorhighwater

Neil couldn't quite stop himself from raising an eyebrow at her ire, but lost his battle with accepting her protective fussing when she cast her spell again, adding heat that sank deeper than the water, making his eyes shut and his breath rush out of him on a low rumble of pleasure and relief that bordered on a purr.

Until she assessed his condition--with surprising accuracy--both startling him pleasantly with her grasp of his power and...something else he couldn't name, something uncomfortable that rose at the knowledge that she was upset for reasons he couldn't control.

Shifting a little so he could more comfortably keep his arm submerged, he nodded a little at her reasoning. "Hell of it is, the fire also speeds healing. They told me I'd need surgery when I broke it--pins and shit to fix it--but a few hours later the bone was already knitting. They wrote it off as a bad diagnosis...it's a pain in the ass, yeah. The fire steals my body heat, spikes fevers--even gets in my head sometimes, fuels rage and bloodlust. But the gods gave me this power for a reason--and they balance it out. I knit broken bones faster, disease can't live in my blood, and no man can bleed me against my will. The fire cauterizes any wound."

From:

fondofapples

"All of which I hope I never need to be grateful for," Regina replied, definitely not thinking about anything that might give her cause to be glad of his enhanced physical defenses. She was already agitated enough about him being in sufficient pain that he couldn't sleep.

Not quite frowning, she ran her fingers over his chest and the countless scars there and on his abdomen. "Tell me how you got them? Maybe not all of them right now, but I need to know the things that put holes in you." So that she could know what to protect him from. Not the specifics, but the general class of things. She didn't doubt that anything that had put a hole in him that he had survived was already long since dead.

From:

hellorhighwater

The feel of her hands sliding over his chest and stomach was more than a little distracting, but her request kept his mind from wandering too far afield (and too far below the belt) as her fingers mapped his scars. Add to that the vaguely discontent expression she wore, and that uncomfortable feeling rose in him again.

With a small, fond smile, he caught her hand and guided it across his chest, over his stomach, and down to his side, giving her the start to his story, if not the whole tale.

"These came from a storm lion--assassination in the mountains of Torrel, I made camp too close to a den. Tough as nails, and their roar is like thunder, it can split stone. This one was the dagger of Tiberius of the Deep, youngest son of the Triton king--in all fairness, I was trying to kill him. These were the talons of a Loran guard--nature dragon country, but they're a non-issue now, there's a price on my head in the kingdom of Lora and my king has never sent me back. And this one...reach around there, couple inches above the kidney?...that's the one I told you about on our first date. Caught a barb on the tail of an ice dragon rendering aid to the resistance in Isa, ran me through. Ice dragons are one of the few things that can keep me from sealing a wound--if the bastard hadn't thrown me off, I'd have bled out."

From:

fondofapples

"Ice magic," Regina murmured unhappily, not quite meeting his eyes while her fingers mapped the nasty scar on his back. From today forward, she would hate that wound but love that scar, in particular: the wound for nearly killing him, the scar for the proof he'd survived it.

"It would have to be, wouldn't it?" She lay her head on his shoulder and drew her legs up so that all of her rested in his lap with the water to support most of her weight. "It was an ice spell that threatened Marian's life. Had I mentioned that?"

From:

hellorhighwater

"You just did." Neil half teased, testing his arm and finding enough relief to slide between her drawn up legs and her stomach, just resting while submerged while he lifted his good arm to stroke her hair as her head settled on his shoulder. Resting his cheek against her forehead, he drew a deep breath and shut his eyes for a second, trying to let himself relax a little.

With her curled up in his lap, it was surprisingly easy.

"But you beat that spell, or else Roland wouldn't have his mom." Neil pointed out, reluctant to mention Robin not out of jealousy, but out of fear of causing her greater pain. "So if an Isan dragon that's seen my face arrives? You're my backup, 'kay?"

From:

fondofapples

"I didn't," she told him, but it didn't sound nearly as broken or plaintive as it would have even two weeks ago. She still, definitely, had her hard days and the moments where the thought of never seeing Robin (and Henry and Roland) made her want to scream until she'd scoured the pain from her lungs. But today was a day where it was a quiet sorrow, one that Neil's presence soothed considerably.

"I studied all of my books. Tried everything I could think of or even imagine. I saved her by taking her heart and putting her in stasis until I knew there wasn't any other choice but to take her out of Storybrooke into the Land without Magic where the spell would die because there was no magic to feed it. But once she left, she couldn't come back, and she wouldn't have survived there alone. She didn't know anything. At least Robin knew how to use a cell phone and money that wasn't pine cones."

From:

hellorhighwater

"You still beat it." Neil pointed out, lifting his head to kiss her forehead before he laid his cheek there again with a sigh. "Magic's not always the solution--sometimes to beat death, you gotta lose a limb. I've done that...not lose a limb, but came close once on the coast of the Opal Sea."

He huffed out a sigh, shaking his head a little as he shifted to get his bad arm more comfortable, slip a little further into the water without dislodging Regina from her place in his lap.

"Point is, you understand that. You gave up your mate to save a rival because there was no other choice--and there was no other choice because it was right. Very few people would have the balls to do what you did...that's some flat out heroic shit. It's nothing I could have ever done, that's for fucking sure, and knowing you've got that kind of strength? Ember's Balls, the more I learn about you the more certain I am you're way outta my league. You are too damn good for me."

From:

fondofapples

"I didn't do it for her," Regina protested at first, but then she just didn't care, and sought out his mouth for a quiet kiss.

It felt good to have Neil praising her for doing something that had been unbelievably hard. She hadn't done it for recognition, or even really to make amends, although she'd have been responsible for Marian's death twice over since Swan saved her from Regina's prison. She'd done it because she didn't know what else to do. Because not doing it wouldn't have been better, her guilt and Robin's would've killed what they had as surely as sending him away. It had hurt, worse than losing Daniel, to do it--except that this time it had been her choice. And no one else really understood that. No one but Neil.

When she released him from the soft, lingering kiss, she caught his face in her hands. "There is no league, Neil. There's you. Just you."

From:

hellorhighwater

Neil wasn't sure if she meant it as an I love you--but man, it fucking felt like one. Seeing it in her eyes, how narrow the world became...feeling it in those soft, endless kisses where he forgot things like needing air...and it was a fucking terrifying feeling.

He never wanted it to end.

Running his fingers along her jaw, he spoke without thinking in the tongue of the dragons--and when he realized it, he translated.

"Unto the death of the stars, and the reign of night over all the realms."

From:

fondofapples

Her eyes slipped closed, not to shut him out, but to feel the weight of his words in contrast with the giddy lightness of his touch, the way the two spun, dancing over her skin like deepest night paired with the kiss of flame. It was a peculiar sensation, heavy and heady and frightening, but beautiful.

"You don't usually translate." Her voice came soft and breathless, her head dipped and her lips brushed against his chest over his heart. "Is it always vows that bind you to me for all eternity?"

From:

hellorhighwater

Neil sighed and shut his eyes at the gentle brush of her mouth, swearing as he always did to himself that he could feel it, beneath skin, branding that beating muscle with the warmth of her touch. It made him smile as he shook his head.

"Nah. Not always." he admitted. "Sometimes they're prayers of thanks to the Ember, expressions of emotion that don't translate into English..."

He paused, then ran a hand through her hair and spoke the same words he'd whispered to her on their first date, standing in the middle of his room with her head against his chest and the smoke of her teleportation spell only just vanishing around them. Once he was done, he translated.

"I turn from the sun and surrender myself to the darkness I have seen upon my soul. I consecrate myself to shadow with the screams of your enemy, anoint my heart with the viscera of your pain. If your blood be shed, your tears fall, your sorrow reign, let me turn from my final journey to the sky and carve my name upon the lungs of those who dare take you from the light. This I pledge, this I pray."

From:

fondofapples

Her lips parted as though there were something she might say in response to that. As if there were words, in any language, that could answer that kind of pledge.

In the warm and steamy half-light of the rock pools, Regina's eyes still shone bright with excess emotion. In all her life she'd never felt so much in a single moment, never felt so loved as hearing Neil pledging to destroy her enemies. He was a thousand times too much, like standing at the core of the sun, and yet somehow... that thousand times too much was exactly what she needed.

"If that's how you feel," she finally found the breath and scattered words to say. "Then you understand why I got so mad. I'm not known for being rational when anything threatens what's mine."

From:

hellorhighwater

Neil didn't answer right away, just stared into those jewel bright eyes and felt that labored breath with her still curled against his chest. For a moment, he couldn't find the words, couldn't look away...couldn't quite answer back because he did get that, but for a far different reason.

"I get real rational." he confessed softly, reaching up to run his fingers through her hair again as he looked into her eyes. "Mostly because I've never had much that was mine--and if it was good, it always got taken away from me."

With a sigh, he tucked her head under his chin, shutting his eyes with a sigh as more of the tension bled out of him.

"I sold my soul the night I met you." he murmured. "And I never want it back. Just want this...just want you."

From:

fondofapples

Her eyes went wide, and her heart began to speed and squeeze so hard she thought she might be having heart failure. Because he couldn't possibly mean (could he?) what he'd said, she managed to extricate herself carefully from his grip without jostling his injured arm and then sat back to stare at his face until he opened his eyes.

"Tell me that's an ill-chosen metaphor," she demanded. "Promise me it is."

From:

hellorhighwater

Neil was surprised by the way she drew back, the sudden tension in her--and when she asked him about what he said, he relaxed with a smile.

"Ill chosen metaphor--sort of." he reassured her. Shifting his arm experimentally, he was surprised to find it hurt a little less--above and beyond Regina's charm to dull the pain. It let him rest his bad hand on her knee, still comfortably submerged, as he spoke.

"Regina...everything you believe you were as the Evil Queen? I still am. What wasn't cut out of me as a soldier and a fire mage I killed when I became an assassin. All that's left are...scraps, and I know now that I fought so hard to hold onto them, despite the wrath of my king, because I was saving them for you. We met...and I let those scraps go."

He lowered his gaze, finding her hand with his good one, meshing their fingers together, watching the way they linked.

"In the Five Realms, those who worship the Ember believe that when the Sun Goddess ascends the sky each day with her son by her side, the souls of the honored dead make that pilgrimage with her. It lets those who've passed on look down on the world and the people they loved, to take comfort in a look at the life they left behind. Those who provoke the wrath of the Sky Maker don't get to ascend into the sky. The Sky Maker drags them down into his earth, where they burn when he rages and rot when he's calm. They never see their world or their loved ones again--it's the worst possible fate a soul can endure."

Lifting his gaze to hers again, he smiled--as warm and as fond as it ever was.

"A day may come when someone hurts you, or crosses you the wrong way...and I will fulfill that oath I made. I'll consecrate myself to shadow--fling whatever tattered goodness I still have right out of me, and I will turn from my final journey to the sky. On that day, I'll piss the Sky Maker off good--and I will do it with a smile."

From:

fondofapples

She listened, remaining quiet even when she wanted to protest, forcing herself still when she wanted to scream. And when he finally finished, she shook her head and grit her teeth.

"You think that makes it better, somehow. That you'll give up the chance to spend an eternity... with me... to avenge me?"

She seethed again, and it was tempting, so tempting, to teleport back to her room and leave him here. Let him feel some small portion of what he threatened by 'selling his soul'.

But instead... "You don't understand. You think because you have me now, because we're both here now, there's time. But you're wrong. Or maybe you understand dahgo means whatever you get it's more than you would have and that's enough.

But it's NOT ENOUGH FOR ME."

From:

hellorhighwater

Neil could only watch her face, confused and struggling to understand why she was so angry, even when she tried to explain. To hear her talk, he was destined for the sky already, and it wasn't the case. She'd seen his heart, how could she be so damn convinced that he was anything more than what she saw, what she'd held in the palm of her hand?

He'd consecrated himself to darkness a long time ago, all he'd done when he met her was find peace with it, accept the uncertainty of whether or not the Sky Maker was already coming for him.

But she mentioned dahgo, and her voice shook with a fury that baffled and stung--and he wasn't sure if there was pain in there or not, but there was enough question that for one instant...she reminded him eerily of the Night Dragon.

* * *

"Do you understand why your comrade died today, little Ember?"

The funeral pyre before them burned. Neil was seventeen.

"No, Great Dragon."

"Geynaz. He opened the vein and surrendered to the dark. He battled a foe he could not beat, and he did it so a woman would love him. He could have been a general one day, but he let his heart bleed out."

"Then why have we sent him to the sky? Isn't the Sky Maker pissed?"

The Night Dragon snickered, shaking his head with tattooed arms folded across his broad chest.

"The Sky Maker himself surrendered to geynaz--he carried a love that would not live unless it was returned. It was the Sun Goddess who found dahgo, as did the Ember when he understood the jealousy his father felt towards him for how deeply the Sun Goddess loved their child. Despite the weakness of the Sky Maker, they loved him without restraint in hopes that one day he would forget his pettiness, and so the sky is theirs. That is the root of dahgo: complete submission to the light through an act of faith."

Neil took a deep breath, unsettled by the impromptu lesson without understanding why.

"I will remember, Great Dragon. Light and dark will never touch me--I will cut out my heart, as you've said."

The Night Dragon said nothing for a long time. Together, they watched the body on the pyre burn...until the Night Dragon's familiar hand on Neil's shoulder startled him into looking up.

His king's face was hard, cold...and somehow, touched by sorrow.

"Make no mistake, little Ember--I will find the means to cleanse you of that gentle nature, of that need for weaknesses like love...but there are mated dragons that never achieve dahgo. It is powerful, if one can remove their heart...and you are as single minded as you are weighed down by weakness. Strip your soul, Neil. That is enough for me. You...you keep your heart. I fear, if you were to cut it out...you might actually succeed."

* * *

Taking a deep breath, Neil looked her dead in the eye.

"I won't take back my oath." he insisted, then held up a hand in hopes of forestalling any protest. "But, I...will give that oath over to you. I told you when you met me, Regina, men like me don't have control, they have leashes, and they have them for a reason--I have one for a reason, because the unspeakable is what I do. This is--it's my way of taking the evil I'm capable of and using for something good. And obviously, it won't work because it upsets you. So...dahgo. I'll let you be my eyes--I'll let you hold my leash."

He paused, then with a huff of air he mimed ripping his heart out of his chest, the way she had that first night.

"I'm not--giving you my heart. Just my word." He blinked a little, shaking his head. "And that's...kind of a big deal, because for a long-ass time, it was the only thing I had that I could call my own."

Lifting their joined hands, he brought them to his lips and kissed her fingers.

"And now it's yours. Okay?"

From:

fondofapples

It was proof of how deeply he'd marked her with his love that she let him have her hands when she wanted to fight, kill, flee. Her forearms twitched with the strain of her hands not curling into talons to rake across his face following the ringing slap he deserved. And for the second time tonight, she found herself plunged back into that same shrieking fury that ravaged her will to be good, to be kind, to do right--that fury she'd felt at no one in her life except the people she loved enough to hate.

He kept on about how he couldn't be trusted with control, and it made her think with love and longing of Robin who'd seen Marian and wanted to be good. But even as she did, she recalled how often in a short time, she'd leaned into her love for Robin to be good when she feared herself. Now Neil wanted to lean into her, but didn't he understand how laughable that was? How weak she was?

And yet... here Neil was. Looking her dead in the eyes even though flame had to be wreathing her pupils by now. Trusting her to be the good one, the morality, the wisdom. Maybe not wanting to lose him to the dark would be enough, when they had Evie and Charlie. Arya, bless her, would follow them gleefully into the dark.

The thought of Evie, her bright, beautiful faith, so like Henry's was what saved them both, just then. Because instead of flinging his 'leash' and his word back into his face, she broke fear's paralyzing hold on her ribs and remembered to breathe. And with the air filling her lungs and leaving it again, the steam from the springs quenched her fire. The fingertips he kissed didn't claw but rested lightly against his lips.

Regina sighed and her eyes slipped closed briefly. It wasn't their darkness that scared her, no matter how she wanted to make this into a simple argument about leashes and who was qualified to hold them. It wasn't losing him to the darkness that she feared. It was losing him. Period.

When she opened her eyes again, they'd softened and glimmered again in the half-light, although this time the tears did streak her cheeks. Her voice was likewise soft, resonant with acceptance, but also grief and growing exhaustion when she spoke. "Even if you don't understand it, please remember, Neil, there's nothing that can hurt me more than losing you."

And the children, but both of them understood that.