Maidenless No Longer (Elden Ring)

Chapter 50: Melina

A/N: Yoooo, its the big five-o! Hype! If only I had fifty more chapters in me, but nah, everything has to end sometime. Five more chapters for the main story, and then 14 bonus chapters. So at least there's that to look forward to!

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Lord Godfrey's presence outside of the Erdtree had shaken Melina's faith in her creator, there was no denying that. Finding him at the end of her and her Tarnished's journey... didn't it mean that Queen Marika never thought Melina's chosen champion would make it this far? Didn't it mean the closest thing she had to a mother only believed her pick for Elden Lord would make it to the Forge, and no further?

It smacked of betrayal, and certainly Melina had entered the heart of the Erdtree alongside her Tarnished intent on having words with her mother. But... never in a million years had she expected, nor wanted this. To bear witness to Queen Marika's crumbling form, hung aloft by the last arc of the shattered Elden Ring, was to bear witness to a tragedy.

Melina... Melina did not remember much of her birthing. Her memories were much clearer after she was out of the Erdtree, out in the world, seeking the Tarnished that her mother had intended for her to find. Indeed, she knew her purpose was to burn and make sure the Erdtree's brambles burned with her, but at the same time... at the same time, she had not known the state Marika would be in when the deed was finally done.

Her body turned to stone, there are large swathes of her form that have simply... fallen away from her. In fact, her left arm is in ruins, for all that it is still somehow suspended above her head alongside her right. By all logic, by all knowledge, it shouldn't even be capable of holding her aloft anymore.

But then, Queen Marika was a God. Her physical form... twas meaningless, wasn't it? Except, there was a spear of crimson red through her side that said otherwise. And a gaping hole in her torso that showed not the innards of a living being, but the faded glow of golden runes of power, slowly but surely ebbing away over the time she'd been here.

Her flowing blonde hair is one of the only aspects of Queen Marika that still stands untouched. With her head hanging down, the God does not move as they approach, as Melina stares at her aghast. But... that does not mean there is no reaction to their presence.

The kindling maiden does not think it altogether likely that they just so happened to arrive at the exact moment that Queen Marika's bondage would shatter. The shard of the Elden Ring that she's crucified and hung upon cracks, and breaks, and she begins to fall. Melina's singular open eye goes wide, and her mouth opens, but before the exclamation of sorrow can escape it, her Tarnished is there to catch the falling stone body.

Her Tarnished. Her Chosen Champion. Melina had been so focused on Queen Marika, so focused on what had been done to her mother, that she hadn't even paid him the slightest mind. She does so now and realizes that he is decidedly unfazed. He's as utterly unsurprised as he's ever been in the entire time that she's known him. Even this, he had foreknowledge of? Just who was her Tarnished? Who was this man?

As he holds Marika's crumbling form in his arms, Melina is forced to put her questioning thoughts aside upon the realization that something is happening to the Eternal Queen. Her beautiful golden blonde hair is beginning to turn red, and her ruined body... is beginning to present a more masculine form. She's undergoing a transformation that Melina, for all her knowledge, does not properly understand. This is not information she needed to complete her task, and so she was not privy to it.

However, before the transformation can finish, or even get truly under way, Melina's Tarnished takes out the first Rune Arc and... and for lack of a better word, feeds it to Marika. The golden glow within the ruins of the crumbling Queen's side flashes for a moment, brightening up. Melina's breath catches. Is he... is her Tarnished about to do something impossible, again?