Maidenless No Longer (Elden Ring)

Chapter 48: Melina

A/N: The end is nigh! We're closing in on the final chapters now my dudes. Only 7 chapters left after this one, and then we're onto Bonus Chapters.

-x-X-x-

It's finally time. At long last, they approach the Erdtree together, side by side. Not quite arm and arm of course, because as much as Melina might have wanted that, the area is still dangerous. Even covered in ash and burnt to a crisp, Leyndell contains enemies around every corner. But that's alright, because they stand at each other's side and that is all that matters. Just the two of them. As it should be.

Malenia has returned to the Haligtree, to watch over her brother. Queen Rennala rests in the Grand Library of the Academy of Raya Lucaria, watching over her sweetings alongside the Graven Witch, Sellen. Lunar Princess Ranni no doubt waits somewhere nearby but out of sight, to see if her Consort will succeed in rising to the throne, of becoming Elden Lord.

Everyone else important to Melina's Champion resides in Stormveil Castle, kept safe from the burning of the Erdtree.

Only Melina stands at his side even now, as it damn well should be. Even if she never thought to reach this point, even if she never thought she'd live this long... the kindling maiden is happy. Perhaps this goes well beyond her original purpose, but her original purpose no longer exists. The Erdtree burns, not by her doing, but by the doing of her Tarnished.

He has usurped the only value she had to him, but he'd neither discarded nor thrown her away for her uselessness. Instead, he did everything in his power to keep her close, all but forcing her to travel with him to the end of time itself in order to show her how he would solve the problem presented by the Frenzied Flame.

And now... now, he did not so much as question her presence. He did not try to force her to stay behind, back at the Castle, with all those other women of his. He did not attempt to keep her safe from the battles that were no doubt to come. He merely accepted her presence and her right to join him in this, the final step on his path to becoming Lord.

She hadn't really considered it before, except in the abstract. After all, she hadn't expected to be around long enough for it to matter. But now she's left wondering... just what sort of Lord would her Tarnished be? A good one, to be sure. A strong one, certainly. But also... a lecher. Heh, he was a lover of women in all their many shapes and sizes, her Tarnished. Even the Snakeborn, blasphemous though many would have called her, had felt her Tarnished's touch.

Not that Melina minded. She was beyond such petty jealousy. After all... twas her that stood here now at her Tarnished's side, not any of them. Did that not make her his most loyal and stalwart companion in the end, despite whatever came before?

They do not struggle, making their way through the now Ashen Royal Capital. Leyndell is much changed by the burning of the Erdtree, but not so impossibly changed that they can no longer traverse it. Eventually, they manage to make their way back up towards the throne room. However, before they can quite reach the place where they fought Morgott the Omen King before, before they can even reach Marika's bedchambers once more, they find their path blocked by an... interesting fellow.

Her Tarnished slows to a halt beside her, and Melina does the same, giving him a glance. He's not wearing much. Only that silly ensemble he always wore when fighting alongside Nepheli Loux. With his chest bared, he certainly looked like quite the brazen warrior. If she didn't know any better, if she didn't know his true strength, she'd consider him arrogant. But obviously, she knows precisely how powerful he is.

Still, rather than the great axes he wielded every time he fought alongside Nepheli Loux, warrior, he has in his hands two Stormhawk Battle Axes. The weapons that Nepheli herself wielded, though Melina couldn't recall the new Lady of Limgrave gifting them to him before they'd left. Where he'd gotten his pair, she knew not.