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"He's a fool. Dramatic, stubborn, acts before he thinks, drowning in notions of love and the heart." Miquella sighed, his fingers tracing the rim of his glass as he watched his husband give some grand sermon to those in the square below.
"And Yet." Malenia snorted. She stood leaned against the wall beside the balcony's door.
"And yet." Miquella agreed, letting himself stew as he tried to listen to what Mohg said, but his words muddled and and failed to penetrate the cloud of indecision in his mind.
Malenia almost let him have his peace, but she'd learned her lesson about letting him get lost to his plotting. "There doesn't seem to be a reason for you to be so grim. Isn't this what you wanted?"
"A battle still lays ahead."
"And it will be won handily. With our accessions complete and the congregations so ready to lay down their lives for us, there is no doubt that the order will fall."
"I will need two great runes to enter the erdtree, and there's no way for us to seperate a bearer from their shard without killing them." he wondered if Mohg could feel the weight of his gaze on him. "Our plan only works if we have the element of surprise. Felling one of the known bearers or stealing Renala's egg would tip our hand... Our relations believe the second eldest son of Marika to be dead, and my fool to be nothing more than an omen with outsized ambitions."
She's quiet for a long moment as the weight of his words settle, "I don't know why I'm surprised. I'll do it for you, if you need me to be your blade once more."
"I meant to kill him the first time he came into my cocoon," Miquella's voice wavered, his words seeming disconnected from the question posed to him. "I meant to take his blood and his great rune and make myself anew with the power ripped from his body. It would have made the metamorphosis so much faster. Everytime I had him within my veins I meant to kill him. When I was finally awake, I meant to kill him as my first deed. When we went to bed that night, and every moment we've been alone since I've meant to end him... But never once have I been able to even think about doing it without feeling sick with grief. Malenia, Why couldn't I do it? Why is this where I'm weak?"
"Why couldn't you act against him even though it would benefit you? Like some strange force has you in a choke hold and on puppet strings at the same time?" she came to stand beside him, her hand on his shoulder and the other braced against the railing, "Wonder what that would feel like."
"Is... Is this really how I make others feel? Is that what you're trying to get at?"
"Yeah. It is. My offer stands. I can make it quick for him-"
"No," he was firm as he looked to her his heart pounding and bile rising in his throat, "No. If anyone is to do it, it has to be me."
She nodded, and Miquella turned back to face Mohg just in time to accidentally meet his gaze. Mohg froze, his smile falling in an instant as he saw the frown etched on Miquella's face. He said something to the white mask at his side, before excusing himself and hurrying to their homes doors. Miquella cursed himself for letting himself slip up like that. He had let his mask slip under the belief no one would see his mistake.
Miquella had once teased Mog for always taking the stairs instead of flying up to their balcony, but now he was so grateful for the few moments he was given to collect himself before facing Mohg. Malenia squeezed his shoulder when she heard their bedroom door open and shut, a quiet reassurance before she departed on her rotten wings to give them their privacy.
"Miquella?" Mohg called as he ducked through the door way, "My lilly, what's wrong?" He took Malenia's vacated spot, wrapping his arm around Miquella and pulling him close.
Miquella rest his head on Mohg's chest. Screwing his eyes shut and refusing to answer. Mohg stroked his back, his hand warm, his body warmer. Miquella would swear he could hear the thick thumping of Mohg's heart through the layers of his clothes.
It would be so easy to make it burst. If only Miquella could make himself do it.
Mohg didn't make him talk, just pulled him away from the railing and into the privacy of their room, his voice rumbling out sweet words meant to calm, but they only made Miquella's heart ache that much worse.
He could make it painless. Could make his beloved's skull erupt with the roses he held dear, a beautiful and poetic end that wouldn't give him any time to hurt. Miquella wanted to pretend all that stopped him was Mohg's potential pain. That's what a good husband would care about. What he cared about was the nights when he couldn't tell if he was awake or dreaming and everything felt too unreal to be true, where Mohg would stay up with him and help him find his grounding again. He cared about the mornings where Mohg kissed him awake, and the private moments where Mohg held him like he was the most important thing in the world. And he cared about the notes in the margins written by Mohg, and the sermons Miquella only pretended to not listen to, and the way Mohg smiled, and his off key humming, and the weight of him in bed beside him and- and a hundred other things Miquella was too selfish to care about less than Mohg's pain.
His hands fisted in the soft velvet of Mohg's robe. His plan had to change. He was wrong to dream of a day where he ruled alone.
He swallowed hard and looked up to meet his husband's gaze. Mohg's face was soft, his brow furrowed with worry. He was so ignorant of what Miquella had planned to do and it burned worse than anything else ever had. Miquella wanted to beg for forgiveness, to spill it all at Mohg's feet and be free of this guilt. But would he still love him at the end of it? Would Mohg still hold him if he knew that he had planned to kill him from the very start.
It used to be so easy to tell Mohg he loved him. When it was all meant to be temporary.
"Are you back?" Mohg asked, he brushed a strand of hair from Miquella's face. His mighty hands calloused and so horribly gentle.
Miquella nodded, "Yes. Sorry. Have you heard any word of Ranni in recent years?" his attempt to deflect and move on from the shrapnel of his former plan were met with a sigh.
"I doubt she was the cause of your sorrows."
"She's not. But she will be the solution. I will need another shard if I wish to enter the Erdtree, and if I could gather hers our plan should be able to proceed without any of our kin interfering. She's been in hiding so long I doubt anyone will notice her death."
"I will send scouts to look for signs of her," his disappoinment is almost tangible, "But please don't hide away what pains you. We can further your machinations when you aren't hurting."
There was something so bittersweet in Mohg caring about his pain while he was too... himself to care about his in turn. "You're soothing it just by being here. I promise it is nothing you need to burden yourself with."
"I want to. I will always want to shoulder your burdens for you, no matter if there is necessity to it."
The declaration was itself a burden Miquella would kill to not have to bear in that moment. Mohg loved so fully, and overwhelmingly that it hurt to be confronted with it all while his own was proving to be some meek and poisoned thing.
"Would you love me no matter what?" Miquella didn't know what he wanted the answer to be when he asked, but in the second it took Mohg to process his question he made his decision.
"Of course, Miquella, has something happened to make you question that? Is it something I did?" Mohg's confusion would have been endearing if his words hadn't been so frustrating.
Miquella pushed away from him, folding his agrivation with himself under the layers of his mask, "Nothing happened. I just needed the reassurance." his words rang hollow.
"Miquella -" Mohg tried to press on.
Miquella loved him for his stubborn loyalty, but he couldn't handle the brunt of it now. "Mohg my dearest," he laced his words with his intoxicatingly sweet spell, "Forget we had this conversation, and come to bed with me. I want to make another attempt at filling the nursery."
Mohg blinked, blank faced. Miquella could feel him attempting to fight the charm, but his resolve cracked as it always did. His hands went to the fastens on his robe, following Miquella to their bed without a single thought of pain or burdens in his mind.
Even as Miquella's drowned in them.