Chapter Text
The years had not passed by Godfrey unnoticed. Morgott knew distantly of the campaigns he had led and of the hard-won peace that weighed on him. Liurnia and Caelid remained unconquered, but Radagon's marriage to Queen Rennala had bought Liurnia's alliance if not their allegiance. Caelid lay too far from Leyndell, and Marika's subjects had grown too fond of the story of Liurnia being won with love in place of war, to bother with them yet.
A sense of anticipation, of pacing on the brink, dogged Godfrey's steps. His restlessness had instilled a growing apathy that rendered him harder to predict and harder to read, even if it also left him more easily baited into discussing topics he once avoided. In the instant he activated the binding, Morgott could not interpret the expression he wore, and these days distance has tattered the memory. Each time he recalls it, he takes from it a different emotion.
He had not seen it on Godfrey before and would not see it on him since. In moments he least expects to, he'll catch a flash of it in a mirror, and it will wrench him to a stop as thoroughly as a chain around his neck.
A pointless, primordial part of him will not believe in Godfrey's death unless he witnesses the body burned.
To start from the beginning: Morgott's father came in. He affixed the shackles to three evenly-spaced points around the cell; Morgott let him. The floor blazed gold.
He took a seat.
He watched.
Morgott floundered. The light stung his eye, and standing suddenly took more strength than he had, and Godfrey looked on with no sign of alarm. The connection cost him seconds to reach: he'd never had magic used against him. He scrabbled at the ground, clawed at the edges of the light, tried to heave himself upright and could not.
“What? What did you – ” He couldn't name where the words to blame Godfrey had sprung from, but once he spoke them the thought followed and built it into truth. “Why? What'd I do?”
“Nothing,” said Godfrey. “It's always been nothing, Morgott.”
He sounded as tired as Morgott had ever heard him, as if he had a right after he'd acted first. Morgott lunged, and the seal flared and dragged him prone when he reached the border. He drew back and shoved himself to his knees, shaking with the effort. The fear hadn't quite crept in – he hadn't yet realized this was a permanent arrangement – so his focus was occupied with determining the rules of engagement.
“Give me a reason,” he bit out.
Godfrey remained silent. Morgott sprang for him – if he only moved fast enough, maybe the magic wouldn't notice – and again hit the damp ground as soon as he neared the light's edge.
Godfrey would let him out. Godfrey had to let him out. This wasn't – he couldn't live like this.
His father eventually said, “It wasn't anything you did.”
Morgott, who didn't know any curses, snarled wordlessly.
“It's not always about you.”
“Who else is here?” Morgott demanded.
Godfrey had become Elden Lord for his skill at pummeling foes into submission, not for his diplomatic ability. Sometimes that shone through particularly clearly despite his having never raised a fist to Morgott.
“Only us.”
Then again, he didn't need to use his words with any degree of competence when he held all of the power in the negotiation.
“I would seem to be making this worse,” he rumbled. “I am not sure what to say to you.”
“You might consider an answer.”
Godfrey ignored him, and Morgott rolled his eye and pushed himself onto his forearms for a better vantage to examine the seal from. “How well can you move?” Godfrey asked.
Morgott whipped his head up to stare. “Did you not know what this does?”
“Its maker explained it to me, but I'm asking you.”
If someone other than him had crafted it, then that made for the most direct human interaction outside of Godfrey Morgott had ever encountered. This was absurd. “The very next time it floods, I'll drown.”
“The water level inside the boundary won't rise past where it is now.”
“How does that work?”
“Magic.”
Morgott took a long breath. Since that argument had hit a dead end, he tried for another card to play and came up blank. He had nothing Godfrey wanted.
(Except for his own safety. The thought didn't come to his conscious mind, but some deeper part of him must have noticed it and weighed its value. It's the best explanation he can imagine, in retrospect, for what he did next.)
“You can't leave this here,” he snapped, volume rising. “You can't – Father. What is wrong with you?”
Godfrey's mouth twisted. “You're well enough to be yourself, looks like.” He uncrossed his legs and got to his feet. “That's all I needed to see.”
Morgott tried to reach him for a third time and succeeded as well as he had before. “No, wait, no, no – come back! Father!” The barred door latched shut, and the light outside flickered wildly as Godfrey took the torch off of the wall.
Even if he intended to take the seal down the next time he came, that was a very long time to remain pinned to the ground. And Morgott didn't know if Godfrey would remove it at all. This wasn't sustainable. Morgott wouldn't allow it to be.
He couldn't reach the shackles Godfrey had set around the room. He scooped up a loose pebble to throw at one, and it bounced off without effect. That left him with the seal itself. It seemed attached to the floor, so maybe if he could pull up the floor... he slotted his nails into a crack in the mortar and tugged. The stonework didn't budge, but he tore off half of a fingernail.
He howled loudly enough to hurt his own ears. Though the pain was real, the volume was a choice.
Godfrey didn't answer.
Regardless of Godfrey's idiotic and newfound inability to explain his motives, Morgott could guess why he'd placed the seal. He didn't know why Godfrey had specifically chosen this time to do it, but the base reason he knew. It always came back to the curse in his blood.
He had never considered nullifying the curse, since his father had seemed certain that it couldn't be done. But what did Godfrey understand, really?
He braced one hand around the base of a horn on his head, and with the other he took it by the tip. He didn't give himself time to think it through. He inhaled, and then he wrenched.
The snap of bone breaking echoed off of the walls. The horn remained connected at the bottom half, but he'd managed to shear a long fissure through the top and into the center. It bled freely.
He'd meant to finish the job, but the memory of the agony when it cracked paralyzed him, leaving him with only a fair bit of regret, a half-severed horn, and enough pain that he almost wished Godfrey would return to kill him and be done with it. And his blood gathering beneath him, where the seal's golden light lent it strange colors.
He has to stop talking at this point to lean back.
Mohg has been slowly but steadily sprawling out, ending up with one elbow on the ground, both legs extended, and knuckles propping up the horns on his cheek, but a moment ago he shifted to sit up properly, and now he's raising a hand towards Morgott's face. Morgott catches it palm-to-palm before it reaches him, and Mohg locks their fingers together.
Quietly, Mohg asks, “Which horn?”
Morgott taps a nub before his left ear, brushing the hair covering it aside. “This one.”
“All of those can't be – ”
“They're not. Most are only scales. You don't have to look at me like that.”
Mohg continues to be remarkably expressive for someone with half of his face calcified. “That... that looks treated. He came back?”
“I was screaming. He might have thought I was dying.” He would have preferred it if Godfrey didn't, though. A few more minutes and Morgott would have broken free. Acquiring a sword, a catalyst, and the ability to see grace should have broadened his options, after all, if only he didn't have the former confiscated immediately.
“I did that,” Mohg says.
Morgott shakes his head. “Don't flatter yourself. My choices were my own.” He extricates his hand, and Mohg lets his own fall and laughs a little helplessly.
“He always sounds like he was worse to you.”
“You're easier to get along with.”
“That does seem to be the consensus.”
“And,” says Morgott, “I did it to myself. He had nothing to do with that decision.”
“Certainly,” says Mohg. Morgott narrows his eye: he's being pandered to. His brother half-raises both arms in surrender. “I agree! You're correct.” Mohg is looking at him the way one might at something dear and fragile.
Morgott never has any real idea what to do about him.
“But you must know,” Mohg adds, reaching out again. This time he stops of his own volition, which, while better, leaves Morgott acutely aware of the foreign object existing too near to his face. “Your pain is beautiful, you are beautiful, and this was never a curse.”
...Sometimes Morgott forgets Mohg is with a cult.
Well, so is he when things things come down to it.
He files Mohg's words under religious disagreement to never address. (Nepotism? Of course not, he hates his family equally.) “Right.” He bats the hand away. “I've done my part. It's your turn.”
“After that? Still?”
“Yes, after that.” Morgott sighs. “I'm asking you to.”
Silence answers him.
“It wasn't that bad, and you didn't cause it.” He grimaces and continues, “I agreed to a trade. This has been one-sided.”
Slowly, Mohg straightens. “So it has.”
“Don't – modify what you'll say, either. There's no need.”
“Then I won't do that any more than I already planned to.” Mohg pauses. “Perhaps slightly more. I feel....”
“If you didn't act,” Morgott repeats, “I would have.” For something to do, he downs the remainder of his drink in one swallow and briefly appreciates the distraction of the burn. “You can put it out of your mind.”
“I will try,” says Mohg, “and I expect I will fail. Well, since you insist, allow me to uphold my end.”