Chapter Text
Leyndell is a beautiful city. It shines as bright as the Sun, such that stories of it travel far and wide, beyond the Lands Between. It is variously called thus: the City of Gold, the Sunbeam of the Lands Between, the Golden Land. Of course none of these titles can prepare a traveler from witnessing its radiance in person for the first time. It is a city that transcends the meaning of the word "city", it appears as a single organism, breathing and thriving, under the watchful eye of the impossible weight of the Erdtree.
But at any rate, this isn't a story about Leyndell. Let us cast our eyes downward, under its golden sheen, and under the layers of stone and bricks and dirt and clay. Far beneath, where Omens are cast. There is an ugly mess of underground passageways that constitute the sewers under Leyndell, the Subterranean Shunning-Grounds as they're called, or the World of the Dead.
There are two Demigods in the World of the Dead, and their names are anathema. Their existence is a living contradiction, as they stand against the Golden Order. They are marred by the Hornsent curse, and proof that the spiral people once existed. Marika loved them, of course she loved them, so she could not bring herself to draw a knife to their throat and end them when they were babies.
Marika got splintered in a thousand pieces, but that's another story. The point is, the cracks that exploded when she came undone were the results of a thousand tragedies, and Mohg and Morgott were two of them.
By casting our gaze forward and back in time, from the foundation of Leyndell on the ruins of Noklateo, to its destruction at the end of the Shattering, by mean of a nameless Tarnished, we can pinpoint a moment when everything seemed fine. On the surface. Below, the twins Mohg and Morgott were chained to a wall, kept on the edge of starvation, and made insane. That was neither a life nor a death. It was a non-existence, that was seen as an act of mercy by their captors. There was a man covered in robes, a "Perfumer" Morgott had learnt, that came by every now and then, every now and then, and attempted to bless them, to heal them, to feed them. None of these things worked, and when they did, it was never enough. After a while the Perfumer stopped coming by, and a normal Knight came instead. The food was not food at all, it was some kind of gruel that could have been called soup on the worst of Winter's days, if nothing else would have been available.
At any rate, Mohg was on fire. He caught on fire. Morgott turned his eyes in horror, and saw that his friend and twin brother Mohg was on fire. His eyes were burning, his tongue was burning, his horns were growing at an accelerated rate and curling in every which way. Morgott had learnt all of the Erdtree prayers from the Perfumer, because he had nothing to do, so he yelled them to prevent the flame from spreading to him.
"Brother. It feels so good. Brother, we are not the wrong ones. What is wrong... is Marika."
"Silence, heathen! Do not stain me with these words. We are the spurned ones, but we are subjects of the Erdtree! Do not falter. Do not fall for her voice!"
Morgott had heard it too, of course. He had heard the impossible voice of something that should not exist, by any account did not exist, but that nevertheless was speaking to him.
"I love you", she said. "I accept you. I embrace you. You are the ones worthy of love. Your blood is beautiful."
Morgott's eyes were now crossing over, and he shut them forcefully. He wanted to press his hands against his ears, to run very far away, but he was chained up to a wall next to his brother. His brother was on fire. Mohg was on fire.
"I see it! The Truth!" He would continue to yell, his voice warped into one his brother could not recognize, would not recognize as his own. It is a strange phenomenon indeed, when two twins start to become different people.
Mohg destroyed his shackle, hug himself deeply, and deeply. And the fire disappeared but continued to burn inside of him.
"Do you wish for freedom?" He simply said.
"Go fuck yourself." Morgott has simply replied. "Traitor."
"Okay."
The dark beast started to leave. A few Knights appeared from behind a corner, shouting instructions and attacking them, but they burnt up to a crisp. They burnt up to a crisp, and were left charred on the ground.
"I loved you like a brother."
"I was your brother."
"Are you sure you wish to remain a slave?" Mohg had said, the fire burning in his eyes. The fire was burning in his eyes.
"These chains connect me to my Mother. You go and find your own, if that fits you. Now leave my sight, you revolting Omen."
The twins were separate people now. They went to different places, and took different titles, and lead different lives, and died far apart.