Maidenless No Longer (Elden Ring)

Nothing lasts forever. But… as far as ends go, Millicent finds there’s much to appreciate in this one. She might not have all the answers she sought… and truth be told, she still doesn’t really want to go. But at the same time… she’s lived long past her expiration date, hasn’t she? This… this is where it ends for her, beside this pool of Scarlet Rot.
 
After the moment at the Church, where Millicent had felt very much like an intruder, but hadn’t been able to stop herself from… taking part, she and her Tarnished savior had made their way further on. Backtracking a little bit, they’d gone Southeast from the Apostate Derelict, and quickly arrived at the town of Ordina.
 
Unfortunately, she could not enter the Evergaol with him, as it only allowed one at a time. Instead, she was forced to stay out and wait for him, feeling somewhat useless. But eventually, he returned, looking no worse for wear. Millicent could only assume that it hadn’t been too difficult of a task, but at the same time, how would she have known just from looking at him? She’d never seen him take a blow anyways.
 
With the candles lit, the Waygate to the Haligtree had been opened. They were finally making progress. Millicent was thrilled… but also weary, to say the least. And as she and her Tarnished had traveled Miquella’s Haligtree, as she’d recognized more and more of her surroundings and discovered more and more about her nature, Millicent had come to realize the truth about herself.
 
She’d shared it with him, of course. How could she not? The moment she’d come to understand her own self, she had made him aware of it, as they’d taken a moment to rest at a Site of Lost Grace in a Prayer Room deep within the Brace of the Haligtree.
 
“Allow me to explain myself, Brave Tarnished. I am of Malenia’s blood. But in what capacity, I know not. I could be sister, daughter… or merely an offshoot. Whatever the case is, I am certain of a kinship between us.”
 
She wasn’t sure what reaction she was expecting from him. Disgust? Rejection? Certainly, she both feared and anticipated these things. Obviously, she should have known better. Her Tarnished had simply nodded, smiling at her knowingly, in complete understanding. Sometimes… sometimes it felt like he knew more about her true nature than she herself did. But that was impossible, was it not? Nevertheless, Millicent had pushed forward.
 
“There is something I must return to Malenia. The will that was once her own. The dignity, the sense of self, that allowed her to resist the call of the Scarlet Rot. The pride she abandoned, to meet Radahn’s measure.”
 
Millicent had finally understood. Why she had been saved. Why the Tarnished had been roped into helping her in the first place. She was a contingency. A fall back solution. The needle that had been used on her… it was never meant for her. Or rather, never meant for her by its original creator. It had been repurposed by someone else.
 
And it was not just her, either. Millicent was not surprised, when she and her Tarnished had been waylaid further in by her sisters. She… wasn’t sure how she’d forgotten them. She wasn’t sure how she remembered them, either. Her sisters, a voice whispered in the back of her mind. But was it her own? And yet, she had been able to name each of them the moment she’d laid eyes on them.
 
Mary, the Eldest Sister. She who favored the scythe. Maureen, the Second Sister. She who favored the polearm. Amy, the Third Sister. She who favored the sword. And Polyanna, the Youngest Sister. She who favored the knife and incantation.
 
They were four of a kind. Her sisters, but also… not? Millicent couldn’t help but feel apart from them. They moved together as one unit, a cohesive group with a single unified purpose. By comparison, Millicent’s goals did not seem to be the same as theirs. She was not here for the reason they were here. Or… was she?
 
It was only in the battle that had followed, the battle that had only ended a very short time ago, that Millicent had come to understand. It was, all of it, a test. She, driven out by her weakness. Her sisters, staying behind to grow stronger still in her absence. Which would truly succeed? Nature or nurture? Was it the hand offered in gentle guidance, or in abject rejection, that would prove the better of the two?
 
… She and the Tarnished had killed them all. She had slain her sisters, utilizing the prosthetic that her savior had given her. They had fought, side by side, until it was over and the quartet lay dead at their feet. Only then had Millicent understood enough to finally realize… she wanted no part in it. None of it. Let the plans of those who had arranged all this die here and now.
 
The crunch of a boot makes Millicent flinch, her resolve momentarily shaken before it hardens up again. As she lays there, beside the pool of scarlet rot, she looks up to see her Tarnished approaching. In a mirror of their first time meeting, Millicent is laid out, barely able to move. The pain is too great. The resurgence of Scarlet Rot flowing through her veins is too much for her to withstand. After all… she’s removed the needle.
 
Smiling through the agony coursing through her body, Millicent nevertheless forces herself to meet her Tarnished’s eyes. After all they’ve been through together, she owes him that much at least.
 
“T-Thank you… for lending your hand. Without your help, I could not have defeated that quartet.”
 
There was no doubt in Millicent’s mind that this was the truth. The fight had been rigged from beginning to end. But then, perhaps that was the point. Only through great adversity, only through great strife, had the Scarlet Rot bloomed within Malenia, Blade of Miquella. As Millicent had said to the Tarnished before, Malenia abandoned her pride, when she took Radahn’s measure on the battlefields of Caelid.
 
Someone or something out there wanted the same for Millicent. Someone or something out there had toyed with her mind and pit her and her sisters against each other. There was no saving them, she had seen the determination to slay her in each of their eyes. Even… even young Polyanna had struck with the intent to kill, forcing Millicent to put her down.
 
But thankfully, with the Tarnished by her side, she was not driven to the point of using… using IT. Whatever it was, it roiled inside of her even now. The needle that her savior had given her hadn’t just held back the Rot… it had built it up. If she’d let loose in the fight, she could have easily defeated her sisters by herself. But at what cost? No… no, it was better this way. And all thanks to the Tarnished that it could end like this.
 
“I feel as if I’ve been in your debt from beginning to end.”
 
Smiling wanly, Millicent chuckles, only for it to hurt quite a bit. She’d forgotten how much it hurt, if she was being honest. Or… was the pain even worse now, given the speed the Scarlet Rot was ravaging her system? Still, she had enough strength left for this. Thanks to the man gazing down at her quietly.
 
“Thank you. With your help, I was able to live as my own person, if only in passing. B-But-ack!”
 
A wad of bloody phlegm comes up her throat, and she spits it out contemptuously to the side, breathing laboriously for several long moments before speaking once more.
 
“But… this is where things end. I’m sorry, I truly am… but I took the needle out myself.”
 
She holds it up then, with her prosthetic hand. Her actual flesh and blood hand won’t respond to her any longer, as the pain suffuses every part of her body.
 
“Tell… t-tell whoever put you up to this, that if I am to flower into something other than myself… I would rather rot into nothingness as I am.”
 
She’s expecting him to take the needle. He needs it for whatever he has planned next, she’s sure. And so, when he plucks it from her proffered fingers, Millicent is pleased. However, she’s NOT nearly as pleased when he simply tucks it away… and then bends down and picks HER up next. Letting out a strangled squawk, her body wracked with too much pain for her to resist, she nevertheless shakes her head.
 
“P-Please! Let me pass… a-alone! The Scarlet Rot writhes now, w-worse than ever! Soon… soon I won’t be more than a mound of flesh!”
 
He walks along the bank of the pool, towards an entrance in the side of the wall. His stride is confident, unhesitating as he carries her from the battlefield, her sister’s bodies already consumed by the virulent rot all around them, just as she would soon be.
 
“Curse-laden! Untouchable! P-Please… I wouldn’t want such a thing to bring you harm!”
 
And yet, still he does not falter. He carries her to a Site of Lost Grace, in a room with shockingly clear running water. He lays her down by the water’s edge, and Millicent stares at him, in a haze at this point. She’s nearly gone… surely, he must see that? What is the point of this? He seems to reach for something in his pack after a moment… and then pries her mouth open, squeezing her jaw with his fingers until her lips part.
 
Then, he shoves a handful of Preserving Boluses directly into her mouth. Millicent chokes on the small, rounded masses of cave moss. But the Tarnished refuses to let her spit them out, and so she is forced to swallow them, to choke them down. It’s not easy, given the pain. But… they do a bit of work. For a brief moment, she feels relief. Only a brief moment though, just as Millicent knew would happen.
 
“I-I’m sorry, Brave Tarnished, but this w-will not work. I am too far along. These are-mmph!”
 
He shoves another handful of Boluses into her mouth, and Millicent is forced to swallow, even as she glares at her savior. Not once, in all her time since he came upon her in the Church of the Plague, has she had a single negative thought towards the man. But now, as he forces more and more of the Preserving Boluses down her throat, she begins to resent him a fair bit.
 
Her attempts to explain that this will not work are met with more of the moss-based medicine. Honestly… it’s rather impossible. Where is he getting it all? Millicent begins to eye the Tarnished’s bag rather strangely, as he brings out more and more boluses, to the point where it begins to become somewhat ridiculous.
 
If she’s put out at first… she quickly becomes horrified, when he expects her to keep consuming the medicine, to keep fighting the Scarlet Rot.
 
Twas not the first time she’d tried Preserving Boluses, to be fair. Back when the rot had first started to take over, back when the infection had first begun running rampant, Millicent had snuck a few here and there. They had helped, but only briefly. It was too late for one such as her, one of Malenia’s blood. The Scarlet Rot would ALWAYS have purchase in her body, nay… in her very soul.
 
It would take no small amount of Preserving Boluses to change that. But, as minutes passed and the Tarnished showed no sign of stopping, Millicent quickly realized… he had no intention of stopping at a small amount of the rot-curing drug.
 
“P-Please… t-too much… so d-dry…”
 
He takes mercy on her then, but only for a moment. It’s then that Millicent learns why they came here, to this room, instead of doing this outside. Not just to get away from the virulent pool of Scarlet Rot… but to have access to this clean running water they were sat beside. The Tarnished lets her drink her fill, to wash down the taste in her mouth and throat that’s beginning to become overwhelming… but then, he keeps going.
 
If Millicent was horrified by her savior’s obsession with… well, saving her, she rapidly goes from horrified to downright traumatized. If this is to be the rest of her life, then she wants no part in it. Sitting here beside the water, drinking deeply only to consume more and more boluses. She would rather die.
 
She tells him this, between gulping down what he’s forcing upon her. But he does not care to listen. He is insistent on saving her, no matter her wishes, no matter her will. Touching though that might be, Millicent soon has tears streaming down her face. She begs for it to end, for him to give up.
 
“P-Please… it’s not working… surely you can see that!”
 
But he will not. Again and again, he comes back to her with more of the red, round balls of cave moss. Again and again, he forces more of them upon her, until Millicent is sure that her tears are as red as they are. Not just her tears, she soon realizes… every pore in her body is… is exuding Scarlet Rot. The rot is reacting in response to the intrusion of so much of its counter into her system, by going into overdrive. It won’t be long now, she supposes.
 
Except… except, the pain IS receding. As awful as constantly swallowing more of the boluses is, as she scoops water from the makeshift river beside her with her prosthetic, Millicent finds the pain fading away. It’s then that she begins to realize it, though it takes some time more before she will accept it. Her words… her words to the Tarnished were a lie.
 
Though she doesn’t know it, they’re only about three quarters of the way through when Millicent starts to feel the turn. Indeed, the last quarter is paradoxically both the easiest and the hardest part. She was so ready to die, so ready to let the rot take her… that she’d had no plan, no inclination, for what might happen if she lived.
 
She’d refused to become whatever they were trying to make her. She’d slain her sisters, to keep the likes of a second Malenia, unbound by petty morality, from rising up to take the first’s place. She would not become a Goddess of Rot either. She’d rather die.
 
Those had seemed to be her two options. Give in and cause untold harm, just as Malenia had… or surrender the needle and die like she should have so long ago.
 
… She should have known her Tarnished would find the third option. And though she wasn’t in any way, shape, or form keeping count, Millicent might have been interested to know that her Tarnished fed her exactly nine-hundred and ninety nine batches of Preserving Boluses in order to cure her of the Scarlet Rot that had long, LONG ago taken root in her body.
 
As the last quartet of boluses tumbles down her throat, followed up by a swallow of water, Millicent shudders as she lays back next to the Site of Lost Grace and stares up at her Tarnished, eyes wide in shock, hair matted and sweaty as it sticks to her brow, and body… body free of the disease, the rot that had plagued her for so long.
 
Is it any wonder then, that the moment he’s done holding her down and forcing his balls down her throat, the first thing Millicent does is lunge at her Tarnished in turn?

-x-X-x-

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