Maidenless No Longer (Elden Ring)

Chapter 11: Rennala of the Full Moon Pt. 2

A/N: Last chapter was quite the cliffhanger. OR SO I THOUGHT. Turns out, when you write ten million words of smut over the span of 5 years, your readers get a pretty good handle on what you're writing towards, even when you step out of your normal area of expertise to write wholesome happy endings in a grimdark world like Elden Ring.

Ah, but enough of me whinging, enjoy the chapter!

-x-X-x-

With the Tarnished being so bold as to wrap her up in his warm embrace while barely clad, there is more than enough of his skin available for her amber egg to make contact. Likewise, with him kissing her... well, needless to say, his fate is sealed. She knows not what this foolhardy Tarnished thought to accomplish, but it matters little.

She shall initiate the Rite of Rebirth, as she has so many times before. She shall birth the Tarnished anew and make him into one of her sweetings. He shall join the flock, becoming yet another one of her daughters and-

Rennala blinks, her dreamy thoughts stuttering to a halt as she beholds the Tarnished before her in all of his true glory. Part of the process of Rebirth involves her taking in everything that the one being born anew has to offer, after all. Before she can change them, before she can remake them, she must know them inside and out.

This is, more often than not, a trifling matter. After all, who does Rennala have to compare her sweetings to, but her own trueborn daughter, the Lunar Princess Ranni? And when compared to such a beautiful, dark moon... why, there is no comparison. Never, in all of the rebirths, has she encountered a single one among her followers who outshone her lost daughter. Indeed, to expect one to be capable of such a thing would be too much.

Instead, Rennala has done her best to bring them all closer to the near-perfection that was her beloved first daughter. For her new daughters to be even a fraction of what Ranni was... twas a gift, even for how imperfect the rite was.

Except, that... was not the case this time. The Queen of the Full Moon bears witness to this Tarnished's true nature... and instinctively balks at the thought of rebirthing him. He is too complete, too perfect.

Pulling back from her lips, the Tarnished smiles down at her, almost knowingly. Unthinkingly, a single name spills forth from Rennala's parted lips, coming out as a shaky, breathy sigh.

"Radagon..."

She knows a mere moment later that it's not true. Even in her dream-like state, she knows better. This Tarnished is not her beloved. He is not red of hair, for one. Nor does he share his soul with a God. Indeed, the Tarnished before her is altogether far too mortal to be her lost beloved... for all that that makes his claim to perfection even more startling, even more impossible.

Still, the comparison is apt. Even now, the Queen of the Full Moon remembers it like it was yesterday. The day when Radagon, her beloved consort and the father of her children, gifted her with her amber egg. The Great Rune of the Unborn, as he'd called it. To celebrate his gift, they'd made sweet, sweet love to each other, and Rennala had used the amber egg for the first time, to gaze upon her beloved in all of his true, terrible glory.

It was confirmation of the secret he'd already told her, of course. Of the true nature of he and Queen Marika the Eternal. Two in one. Two souls and two forms occupying one point in space and time. Twas why her beloved truly had to leave her, when Godfrey was exiled. Up until that point, Queen Marika had been content to rule from afar, to let Godfrey establish his Golden Order while Radagon remained existent and was with her, and their children.

But when Grace left the first Elden Lord, everything changed... and Radagon left her as Marika took her place once more. They had no choice, supposedly. All Rennala knew, was that she was alone, that perfection gone from her forever, and her children... her children absent from her life, in one way, shape, or form.