Maidenless No Longer (Elden Ring)

She realizes what the Tarnished is doing a moment too late to stop it. As he cradles both her and the mimicry close to him, he grips down tightly on that blood-red medallion… and a swirl of energy warps around them. Stiffening, Malenia couldn’t halt it if she tried. She hadn’t known the teleport was coming, and so she’s unable to react in any meaningful fashion.
 
By the time she can drag her tired, beaten body out of the Tarnished’s grasp and away from him, they’re already somewhere else. Somewhere that is decidedly NOT Miquella’s Haligtree. Any good will, any gratitude that Malenia, Blade of Miquella, felt towards the Tarnished evaporates in an instant, her face twisting into a rictus of a snarl.
 
His good will with her did NOT stretch this far!
 
“How dare you… how DARE you!”
 
The Tarnished just smiles at her sadly, waiting almost patiently. Did he not know what he’d done? Did he not understand how he had wronged her? The Haligtree, husk that it had become, was the ONLY place for her. Not only was it far enough away from the rest of the world that Malenia wouldn’t have to worry should she be forced to release the Rot again… as he’d made her do with his overwhelming power… but it was also the only place she could expect her brother to return to.
 
Miquella would keep his promise. He would not abandon her. She just had to wait for him. But now… now she didn’t even know where she was! Only that it was NOT the Haligtree! Rather, a glance around shows them to be deep, DEEP beneath the earth. The place is covered in a twilight shadow of eternal night and smells deeply of blood besides. Blood… and something else.
 
Malenia twitches, her head cocking to the side in confusion. The Tarnished who had defeated her, spared her, and inserted the needle in order to give her back her sanity, continues to smile softly, as if… as if he knew it was only a matter of time before she calmed down. The other, the doppelganger that looks so much like her, is a bit smarter about things. She has her sword out and is holding it in a defensive stance, ready to try and defend her Lord even if it gets her killed.
 
Admirable to say the least. But… Malenia does not flow forward. She does not attack. She wants to, for one long drawn-out moment. Even knowing it would be suicide to fight him in her current state, or in any state really, she is tempted to attack him for this grave insult of tearing her away from her constant vigil. Miquella could return to the Haligtree at any moment, now that she was gone. And she would not be there to greet him.
 
… And yet… and yet… there’s something she’s missing. Something twinging at the edge of her senses. This place. Why does it feel familiar to one such as her? It stinks of accursed blood. The Rot holds no dominion here. Indeed, the claim clearly belongs to another. But then, why does it feel so familiar? She has never been here before. She has-
 
Sis…ter…
 
In an instant, Malenia’s head jerks to the side. Her brother’s voice, not even a whisper, formless and utterly absent of anything resembling life, nevertheless nestles into her ear like a long lost bedfellow. It’s near-enough to make her weep, both in joy and horror. Never before has Miquella seemed so weak. And yet… and yet, it’s enough.
 
Whipping around, facing away from the Tarnished and the mimicry, Malenia stares up the palace steps before her. Now that she knows she’s looking for HIM… it’s all too easy to feel his presence. That was what was so familiar about this unfamiliar, vile place. Her brother was here. And not by any choice of his own.
 
“MIQUELLA!”
 
His name tears its way out of her throat in a half-snarl, half-scream of unbridled rage. Malenia, Blade of Miquella, follows it up by tearing off, sprinting down the path with a strength she did not know she still had in her bruised and beaten body. But for Miquella? For Miquella, anything. Everything. The whole wide world would be his if she could make it happen. In that regard, giving of herself, whatever she might have left, was, as they say, small potatoes.
 
Of course, the path is not completely clear. Enemies make themselves known… and die to her blade all the same. She does not stop either, even as she feels the Tarnished and his companion hot on her heels. She keeps going, until she reaches another landing, where several red-skinned Albinaurics stand listening to a blood mage dressed in ornate garbs and wielding a blood-caked rapier.
 
Needless to say, his rapier no more helps him then the weapons the Albinaurics wield. Malenia cuts through all of them like a scythe through so much chaff, and when she is done and the battle is over, she turns to face the lift she knows will bring her to her brother.
 
By that point, the Tarnished and the doppelganger have caught up with her. Or were always right behind her and just chose not to interfere. Malenia knows not, for she had tunnel vision, and could focus on nothing except Miquella’s salvation. He needed her. He had needed her for who knew how long, and she had SAT ON HER ASS BY THAT DAMN HUSK OF A TREE AND WAITED USELESSLY!
 
The Tarnished places a hand on her arm, and Malenia goes still, staring first at it, and then at him. It hits her then, how much she owes him. The gratitude she’d felt before was an anthill compared to the mountain of debt that she now feels to this one mortal man. What if he had never come for her? What if he hadn’t spared her? She would have died to this powerful warrior, and Miquella would have remained in this place, languishing in his imprisonment for all time.
 
As the gravity of what this single strange Tarnished has done for her and her brother hits her properly, Malenia lets out a shuddering breath, and bows her head.
 
“… You have my thanks, Sweet Tarnished. I have only reached this point because of you. In this moment… do you have further aid to offer me?”
 
She’s not sure what makes her ask it. For so long, Malenia has been reliant only upon herself and her brother. All others, even their mother and father, were distant thoughts at best, and active threats at worst. And yet… and yet, this Tarnished has done more for her than any save for Miquella himself in her entire life. So yes, she asks… and is not all that surprised when he answers.
 
Not verbally of course. Rather, instead he holds up both hands. In one, he holds out three Flasks of Crimson Tears to her. Malenia flushes, well aware that she’s quite literally been teetering on death this entire time. Anything could have slain her, if it had been lucky enough to hit her. She, of course, was too skilled for that to happen. Still…
 
She takes the Flasks, and downs them one after another, feeling them rejuvenate her health until she is no longer in quite so much danger. Only then does she truly regard the thing in his other hand. She didn’t even want to look at it at first… what it implied stilled her very soul. But now, she gazes upon it. Now, she takes it from his grasp.
 
“… I see.”
 
With great effort of will, Malenia graces the Tarnished with a grateful smile.
 
“My thanks, Sweet Tarnished. Now come… and let us free my brother.”
 
He nods, resolute as can be with his trusty jar still atop his head, and follows after her, the mimicry on their heels as they move onto the lift and stand ready as it begins to rise.
 
-x-X-x-
 
To say Millicent was at a loss by this point would be an understatement. She didn’t know where they were, other than that it was a place that was decidedly cursed. Different from Caelid, or anywhere that had been affected by the Scarlet Rot, however. This was a completely different animal, a whole new accursed thing that might just spill out onto the world above and cause more heartache and pain.
 
Millicent could only hope that they were here to put a stop to all of that. For a brief moment after they’d teleported here, Malenia had looked beyond apoplectic with rage, and like she wanted to attack Millicent’s Lord. Millicent had, of course, moved to stand as his shield when he’d made no move to defend himself.
 
Though, she wished he would put some armor back on… and maybe take that jar off of his head while he was at it. Instead, he’d remained as he was the entire way here, even… even when Malenia of all people had deigned to have a heart to heart moment with him. Hmph, ‘Sweet Tarnished’… exactly who did she think she was?
 
… Well, alright, she was the Blade of Miquella, and a demigod besides. And also Millicent was almost certainly just an offshoot of her or something at this point, but still! She’d found her Lord first! Hands off!
 
Not that Millicent would say anything out loud. Indeed, she remains silent as they reach a grand, open-aired throne room of sorts. She doesn’t even speak up when her eyes alight upon… upon the cocoon at the far end of it, and the dangling hand reaching out from said cocoon.
 
A sharp intake of breath from Malenia is all the warning the demigod gives before she darts forward… only to skid to a stop, suddenly on guard, as the dangling hand begins to drip blood. The drip quickly turns into a cascade, and a pool of accursed blood rapidly forms at the foot of the cocoon. Millicent readies her blade, but then her Lord does something that surprises her… he steps back and places an arm across his chest to make her do the same.
 
Out of the blood pool comes forth a monstrous, misbegotten creature in ornate robes. An Omen, if Millicent has ever seen one. But this Omen… he is more grotesque than she has ever laid eyes upon before. As he spawns from the blood pool, he does so with his back to them, facing the cocoon and reaching out to caress the fingers on the dangling hand with his own. His sigh, and his voice, carries across the entirety of the open-aired throne room.
 
“Ah… dearest Miquella. You must abide alone a while longer.”
 
Only then does he turn to face them, his arms already spread in an incredibly ostentatious manner as his ugly facial features are fully revealed.
 
“Welco-!”
 
Then, something odd happens. Or at least, odd to Millicent. The monstrous Omen… chokes on his own words, his single blazing red eye landing upon Malenia and widening in shock.
 
“You!”
 
Malenia doesn’t hesitate in her response, filled with all the vitriol and anger she can muster.
 
“YOU!”
 
The Omen takes a step back, only to run into the cocoon. That seems to make him remember himself, and firms up his resolve… but that first instinct of utter terror is still telling all the same.
 
“No… no, no, no. NO! You cannot be here! You mustn’t be here!”
 
Malenia takes a step forward, and then another. What Millicent’s Lord had given her is clearly the good stuff, because she seems strong again. Capable, even.
 
“I should wonder why, MOHG! It was you! Miquella’s absence was neither his doing nor my own! You were the culprit, always! You stole him away while I was asleep! Like a thief in the night!”
 
The now-named Mohg’s grip on his trident tightens, and he grits his teeth audibly as he steps forward himself, striding down the stairs leading up to the dais and the cocoon.
 
“I did what had to be done! What the Mother of Truth showed me I must do! This, all of this, was for dear Miquella’s benefit! I aim to make him a GOD, and I would ascend along with him as his consort!”
 
Suddenly, as the two Demigods stomp forward, closing the distance between each other, Mohg’s countenance changes into something almost affable and friendly. Certainly, amused.
 
“Alas. The Formless Mother has made it clear to me that there is no place for you in the dynasty we will create. Indeed, perhaps this is for the best. You will be put down here and now, Malenia. You should never have come here. To the birthplace of our dynasty!”
 
Mohg raises his hands over his head, and Millicent’s eyes widen as blood begins pouring from the sky in a localized area around him. If Malenia is deterred however, she does not show it. Instead, she continues walking forward, and as she does so, she holds something in her flesh and blood hand alongside the sword she wields upon her prosthetic.
 
“Miquella always pitied you and your brother. The ones who came before us, he called you. The Omen Twins. He saw much of our own plight in yours. He would never have wanted me to use this on you. But thanks to you, he’s not here to tell me to find another way right now. YOU DESERVE NO HONOR, MOHG! NO RESPECT! AND SO I SHALL SHOW YOU NONE!”
 
Mohg’s one eye widens as Malenia holds the fetish bathed in golden magic aloft. Millicent’s own eyes widen as the effect upon Mohg is immediate. Massive shackles and chains of golden order rampage out of the ground and latch onto the Omen, dragging him down to the floor, stopping him in his tracks.
 
Malenia does not waste any time. No honor, no respect, just as she said. She flies forward and slams her blade into the helpless Omen again and again and again. He SCREAMS in agony, but if anything, that only spurs Malenia on to attack the misbegotten, accursed mother harder and faster.
 
Were they… were they to do nothing? Millicent glances to her Lord, but he remains silent and with the jar over his head, she can’t even read his face. His hand remains out front of her however, holding her back to the far flung edge of the throne room. She can make out his intentions clear enough, however. She understands, even if he doesn’t spell it out verbally.
 
Let her solo him.
 
That’s what he’s saying, with his inaction. This, whatever this was since Millicent really didn’t have all the details, was a matter between Malenia and this Mohg character. Indeed, it was not their place to interfere. This was Malenia’s fight… a fight she was dead set on winning, at that.
 
“No… NO! I am the Lord of Blood! Trēs! Duo! Ūnus!”
 
Unfortunately, the shackle cannot last forever. The moment Mohg breaks free, he skitters back, moving unnaturally in those ornate robes of his to escape Malenia’s barrage of sword strikes. The swordswoman moves to harry him, but he quickly raises his trident and intones those three single syllable words. Covered in wounds, Mohg seems to expect some sort of reversal in this moment. And very briefly, it seems like he’s going to get what he wants.
 
Rings of blood appear around Malenia, almost like shackles of her own. As he speaks each monosyllable word like a chant, another ring appears. With a horrifying rictus of a grin on his face, the Omen snarls and thrusts his bloody, flaming trident higher into the air.
 
“Nihil! Nihil! Ni-urk!”
 
Except, just as he begins to shout Nihil, something odd seems to happen. Those rings of blood around Malenia… disappear. Not quite disappear, rather they get sucked up, seemingly into nothingness. Except, Millicent has spent the last long while living with the needle that now resides inside of Malenia’s body.
 
And so, she, perhaps best of all, can see what actually happens. The rings of accursed blood are sucked up inside of the needle, just as Malenia’s Rot had been. Sucked up, right before the Lord of Blood could do whatever it was that he wanted to do with them. And as Mohg is trying to enact his great trump card, as he’s calling upon whatever higher power this Formless Mother, he’s mentioned represents… Malenia darts forward, and sinks her blade right through the Omen’s neck and out the back.
 
Whatever his last words might have been, they never come. Mohg, Lord of Blood, slumps to his knees, his trident falling from nerveless fingers as he grabs at his throat with his other hand, choking on his own accursed blood. Malenia yanks her blade out… and with a contemptuous flick, removes the Omen’s head from his shoulders, letting it go spinning away as the decapitated body slumps forward, face down on the ground.
 
With that, the battle is over. The day is won. Though, judging by the way Malenia moves to the cocoon and drops to her knees before it, cradling that dangling hand while sobbing brokenly… things are a long way off from being completely fixed.
 
And yet, Millicent knows beyond a shadow of a doubt, as she catches her Lord finally reaching up to carefully remove the jar from atop his head, that they’ll get there. The Tarnished she’s sworn herself to, that she’s chosen to follow for the rest of her days… will accept nothing less.

-x-X-x-

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