To any outside the exchange in the room would seem bizarre. Not at all how something like this should play out. If anything, Taka should be nestled close to Milla’s side, tears streaming down both of their faces. They had just lost a child, after all. He should be consoling her, holding her close, sharing in this loss.
But they were not ordinary people. They were not lovers, were not husband and wife. They were business partners. Nothing more, nothing less. The only true ties that held them together were the ones no one would ever know about. Death, deception, and lies. That was what bound them together. Taka had made sure of it when he pulled Milla into his little plot over Mufasa’s death without revealing his true intentions.
But it did not come without certain attachments.
How often had Taka gone to Rodmilla for help? For reassurance? It was more times than he could count. Especially recently when it seemed like his entire empire was beginning to crumble. And how many times had Rodmilla come to him for reassurance? Never. She had come to scold, to offer guidance, to give him counsel. Never once for reassurance or help of her own.
Maybe this was the time that Taka could give her that. But, in true Milla fashion, she was a cold mask. Blank. A sheet of granite that was untouchable, unmovable. It was what Taka enjoyed about the woman. She never broke. Never let her mask slip. A worthy adversary.
But there was still tears clinging to her eyelashes, still her smile was terse, was not a smile that Taka had been given too many times. So this one time he did reach a hand out to her. Took her hand in his and squeezed just so. “Of course, Rodmilla. How am I to be anything else to you of all people?”
Milla glanced down at it like it was a foreign thing– an insect perhaps that meant to crawl up her arm. The impulse to yank her hand away and curl her lip and snarl at him rushed through her, but it was on the heel of something else– a tremble in her lip. She wanted to cry. Oh, how Milla wanted to cry.
It was the drugs, she insisted to herself. It was just the drugs, the drugs, the drugs. She did not love Taka, she knew that. She didn’t need comfort. She was a full-grown woman– she was too old to cry. Children cried, little girls cried, silly overly emotional women on their wedding days cried. She’d not cried for years and years. She could not remember the last time.
And yet a tear slipped down her cheek in a perfect line, like a crack in a portrait. Milla felt as fragile as porcelain, teetering on the edge of something. Taka’s hand, his affection, his comfort, all these things sought to destroy her.
Milla longed to be destroyed.
Deep deep down– she was so tired. Part of her wanted it all to stop. Take away everything. All the money and the power and the connections and the lies. Reduce her into nothing, into dust, blow her away–
Another tear down her face and now Milla took a deep breath, sucking up all those feelings that did not belong to her–
She smiled, laughed lightly as she wiped at her face with her other hand. “I’m so sorry. These– drugs they have me on. I’m afraid I’m rather tired,” she lied to cover it all up because no, she wouldn’t-couldn’t be destroyed, she had two daughters to think of, two daughters to protect, she could not, for more than that second, afford to be weak. She smiled at Taka and squeezed his hand back. “You’ll have to excuse me, I’m not quite myself.”
