Shadewood the sun's blood on my hands [M]

It was disbelief that settled in her veins then, beginning as an ugly pit in her stomach before writhing through every limb and reaching sinister fingers into her lungs, her heart, her head, her eyes. Mental sickness was a demon that had called her home for as long as she could remember, snatching away her peace and feeding like a cuckoo's hatchling on her fear, her plaguing doubts. The wintry empress felt her chest shiver with a misplaced heartbeat, sharp breaths sucked through her teeth as her gaze fought with the shadow staring back at her-

Raziel, but not Raziel at all.

"I am sick too," a pleading whisper to ripple across the frigid wind, of which spring had yet to thaw; when she looked into the luminous shades of her mate's eyes, she could uncover very little of the man who'd rescued her from a life of misery, of the void, and it cast a spear of uncertainty showering through the plush ivory of her chest. Invisible blood seemed to pour from the skin the longer they stared at one another, but she tried again, because she wasn't ready to give up...

"We can fight it together. I have been through plenty, so have you, we're better off together, not alone-"

"-You shut your goddamn mouth."

The delicate steps in which she'd taken to crawl closer to him ceased in the milliseconds after his snarl, and she was left faltering with an overwhelming urge to crumple to the ground as nothing more than a fold of paper. An origami bird, of the most intricate design, trampled into the earth like dust - she could feel herself flickering, as though she were the dim orange of a fading street lamp. Gwen let her fathomless watch drop before she braced herself to peer up, only to meet not the safety of her ebony king, but the... the...

Storm.

His teeth are wrapping around her throat - his sister's throat, crimson spurting from punctures in her pallid skin and a sickly glimmer of blood-strained jaws. Gwendolyn looks away. His breath slithers down her cheeks, cries droned out by the vicious brewing of his nefarious snarls; his whispers echoed in her ears, and she whimpers as a force shoves her to the jagged stone beneath. "Shut the fuck up. This is what happens when you don't obey", comes the cracked voice, "you're in so much trouble now". 

The empress was dispatched, and from the shedding of her skin came the whimper of a woman in distress - ears tucked tightly against her skull and terror dancing in her eyes. There was nothing from her lips in the first moments, before Gwen fought to regain control and drove herself to meet his gaze - that cold, empty portal; where it led, she could never know, but in there somewhere was the man she loved. She wanted more than anything to rescue him.

But how...?

Her legs seemed not be under her own calling, pulling her back like her ankles were bound with string - she resisted, heart hammering like a war drum against her ribcage, toward him. Always toward him, never away. The snowbird was hanging from the ceiling, and Raziel was presented with two options: to catch her, or let her plummet. "We can... W-We can work through this. Please, give it a chance; we'll find help, a therapist, something... I can't be without you."

Please.