#meimun got me thinking of the baby bros so here have some depression

[bloodrosebriars]

ringlets | gemini i | mohg, morgott | 1193

tw: graphic eye trauma

How fast do Omen horns grow?

Were they able to see the cycle of day and night within their prison aneath Leyndell, Mohg and Morgott would certainly know. Like parents marking their children’s height on the doorframe with chalk, the two brothers count the growth rings on each other’s horns and keep track of the tallies like birthdays. A gradual but speedy process, they never seem to notice the appendages growing when they are, yet always add three or four lines to the count when they finally tally them up again.

It’s nothing to be ashamed of, Father said. As if they weren’t locked underground.

There came a day, long after their father stopped returning, when Morgott grew sick of counting lines. A trail of blood, thick and hot, sticky and wet, plush as a blanket, led to his frail, sickly body curled against the cold, damp ground at the very end of his shackles’ chain. Crimson pooled as he ached and whined, trying not to cry out for help.

Mohg found his brother surrounded by splintered keratin and cut quicks, shards of bone and a discarded wire saw. His once-grey face was red as a rotting rowa, drenched with ich and streaked with tears. Golden eyes had never looked so bloodshot. He said he was fine. He wasn’t.

It took seven hours and twenty minutes for the bleeding to stop. Woozy and tired, guilty for the panic he’d caused his brother, but not apologetic for the action in of itself, Morgott was asked why he did it, and his only answer was, “Because I hate them.” Mohg was mad on the inside — the first time he thought he couldn’t stand his brother. How could he do something so foolish? Doesn’t he know what the Omenkillers say?

Morgott was silent as Mohg scolded him in tears. He said he was sorry, but he wasn’t. He slept in a nest of black feathers that night, clinging tight to his brother’s dark wings.

Days and nights pass, but neither of them could say how many. Morgott collected six Erdtree petals. Mohg filled three pots with blood. They counted rings, and they counted crabs, and they counted on someone to drop food down the storm drain.

Once, on an uneventful day, Mohg was sitting against the wall with his eyes crossed, and Morgott snickered at his expression. Mohg loved Morgott’s laugh — a seldom-heard sound in this dark, wretched prison — but it irritated him on this day. He frowned, eyes darting gold in the older twin’s direction, before they cross towards his left once more.

Mohg said, “It’s getting closer,” and Morgott knew exactly what he was talking about.

That one curling black horn, now about twenty rings long, ever-approaching his eye, as if targeting the gold of grace within his iris like a hawk surveying a field. He lifted a hand, trying to fit clawed fingers between the pointed tip and his anxious face, but it just wouldn’t fit anymore. He whined.

Morgott still had a wire saw tucked away in their little horde of trinkets. He said, “Thou ought to cut—” and Mohg interrupted, “No.”

“Brother, it is fixing to pierce thine eye,” Morgott had argued as Mohg continued trying to fit his fingers into the space between cornea and keratin, with no luck. Mohg said no. They bickered. They argued. They slept on opposite walls that night.

Morgott had collected yet another petal of the Erdtree by the time Mohg awoke from slumber whining like a lost pup, wheezing shallow breaths and mewling like a babe.

“I can feel it,” Mohg said, horrified as one who’d just witnessed a bloody crime. “On— on my— i-it’s touching—”

Morgott was irritated, if only because of his own fear, but he took a look nonetheless. The sight made him gasp, which didn’t help Mohg’s panic: the horn’s sharp edge pricking like a record’s needle against the blacks and golds of their heritage, threatening a song of agony.

His tone was stricter that time when he said, “We should really cut—” but Mohg still interrupted, “No.”

Morgott knew better than to argue by that point. He plotted to remove the piece while Mohg slept. He suggested his at-the-time smaller brother do just that right then and there. Mohg, for once, did as instructed.

With his eyelid cracked open where the horn touched the surface beneath, Mohg slept curled on his side.

The two’s treasure collection wasn’t terribly far away from where they slept — of course not, chains wouldn’t allow it. But Morgott was still far enough away he had to run when he heard Mohg awaken and scream.

The saw was in his hand, digging into his palm’s flesh with his careless grip, but he had more important things to worry about than another laceration painting his young skin. He called Mohg’s name, voice cracking with panic and the younger twin screeched, “It’s broken!”

Morgott fell to his knees in front of his brother, who was covering his left eye with both hands, blood and clear fluid seeping through his fingers like a dam with cracked concrete. Morgott said, “Look at me,” and when Mohg lifted his gaze, there was a godawful tearing sound as cornea met blade and iris turned red.

Mohg screamed, trying futilely to shut his eye — as if that would make it all stop. Morgott apologised, thinking the wound was his fault. Still, he had to play parent, and he thought quick on his toes. The grey Omen held up one finger and said, “Look here, do not look elsewhere,” and Mohg obeyed with tears and blood and eyestuffs leaking out the hole in his skull.

Morgott grabbed the saw, prepared to do what should have been done long ago, but Mohg pulled away yet again — looked away, and the wound tore deeper. Lens was lanced as iris turned ivory, all the gore of dissection dripping down those same rings they used to so playfully count.

Morgott said, “Mohgwyn, let me cut the Gods damned—!” and Mohg screamed back, “No!”

They argued. They fought. And by the time Morgott had wrangled his sobbing, screaming brother to the ground, what lay within the socket of his skull looked like nothing more than the pulp of a squashed grape — useless jelly, red and pulsing, nerves and veins tangled around those twenty-something ridges. He had somehow ignored the severity of the wound until that moment — an override of brotherly instinct, wishing to help before wanting to avoid seeing the disaster. But once there was nothing left to do, he gagged.

It took seven hours and twenty minutes for Mohg to stop crying. His head was swimming, the panic worse than the pain, his now-empty eye and the uncut horn that pierced through it bandaged gently in a piece of Morgott’s tattered cloak. Morgott cleaned the mess — filthy water washing away vitreous fluid and the stains of once-gold gel.

Mohg was silent as Morgott scolded him in tears. He said he was sorry, but he wasn’t.

He slept in a nest of black fur that night, clinging tight to his brother’s soft tail.

They never counted rings again.