Maidenless No Longer (Elden Ring)

How… long had it been?
 
How long had she hung here? Bent, beaten, and broken. Betrayed by the Elden Beast. Betrayed by her own brother. Fitting, she supposed, given how many she had betrayed in turn. One might even say she deserved this punishment, that she had earned it. Certainly, Radagon would claim as much, even as he suffered it alongside her, every step of the way, every second of every day.
 
She was Marika. Queen Marika the Eternal, they called her. Hah… to be fleeting. Sometimes she yearned for it. The end to all things, that she had been denied for so long.
 
Long ago, before the Elden Beast, before the Greater Will, before Godhood, she and Radagon had been Numen. Their nature was such that they were reviled as accursed beings, the two of them. Twin Souled… the same soul, split between two bodies. It was considered a horror, by the institutions of the time. By their own people, the Numen.
 
When the Elden Beast came, when Marika was told she was Empyrean, and to be ascendant, she had been thrilled, at first. Was it not her right to rule? The Greater Will itself decreed it so. In the wake of her ascendancy, Queen Marika the Eternal had not forgotten her brother, of course. She’d pulled Radagon with her.
 
But where Marika became a God, Radagon… did not. It seemed so strange to them at the time. Here they were, of the same soul but different bodies, and yet only one of them could be a God? There was where the rift had first formed. The gulf of power created a separation between siblings that had never been truly bridged. They were supposed to be one and the same, but the Greater Will’s steward, the Elden Beast, had made it no longer so.
 
At around the same time, Marika took Godfrey as her consort, elevating him to the title of Elden Lord. She’d also removed the Rune of Death from the Elden Ring, and given it to Malekith, her shadow and half-brother, for him to guard.
 
All had been well, for a time. Oh, there had been setbacks. Godwyn was the only child of her and Godfrey’s union who could be called worthy of the Golden Order that they’d set out to create. Morgott and Mohg… were not. Marika could not bring herself to slay her own flesh and blood, but the Elden Beast had been quite clear on the matter. The Omen Twins were not to see the light of day, if they were to be allowed to live.
 
And so, Marika’s soul had taken its first wound as she’d done the deed herself, crafting the shackles and locking Morgott and Mohg away deep beneath the earth, deep beneath the Lands Between.
 
Still, twas nothing compared to what would eventually come. And victories such as those achieved over the Fire Giants and the Storm Lord went a long way towards assuaging Marika’s momentary doubts and her worries. Even the marriage between her other half and Rennala of the Full Moon had been a reason to rejoice. Indeed, for a time Marika had hoped that Queen Rennala would serve well in tempering Radagon’s zealous loyalty to the Elden Beast and the Greater Will. At times, it felt like her other half was more devoted to their Masters than she…
 
And then the next set of cracks had shown, as the Two Fingers declared that it was the Greater Will’s opinion that Ranni was to be Empyrean as well… to be Queen Marika’s heir, her successor.
 
Except, was Queen Marika not meant to be Eternal? She did not consider herself the jealous or envious sort. She did not view herself as particularly petty, or small-minded. And she did not blame her other half’s daughter for things outside of the girl’s control. But it was impossible not to look upon the Greater Will’s steward with fresh eyes after that. The conversation she’d had with the Elden Beast following the Two Finger’s announcement had been… illuminating.
 
She had been punished for asking for clarification. Her! Queen Marika the Eternal! Treated like a disobedient child merely for seeking knowledge! It was enough to make her blood boil. Enough to finally turn her thoughts in the direction of something more, something forbidden.
 
Luckily, she was not alone in her rebellious thoughts. In fact, with Radagon off in Caria with Rennala, the Royal Capital was Marika’s seat of power, through and through. Unfortunately, if she moved too openly, the Elden Beast would act, and she would be doomed. Instead, she had had need for subtlety. Which was where her consort, Lord Godfrey, came in.
 
Many would look at the first Elden Lord and laugh at the idea that he could in any way be called subtle. But that was what made it so perfect. Lord Godfrey was loyal not to the Greater Will, not to the Elden Beast… but to HER. He was willing to do anything for her, and so Marika and he had concocted something of a plan. She would divest him and his strongest warriors of the Erdtree’s Grace. She would pull from them the Greater Will’s Power. She would exile them from the Lands Between and send them afar.
 
Elsewhere, they would wage war. They would fight… and some of them would even die, far from the Erdtree, far from the Lands where Destined Death had been gagged and shackled for so long. But some of them would live, Godfrey among them if all went well, and when they eventually returned to the Lands Between, their power would be their own. Their might, their own. And with an army at her back, Marika would finally be able to demand recompense from the Elden Beast, demand respect and to be treated like the equal she was, like she deserved to be.
 
It was a good plan. It SHOULD have worked. With Radagon tied up with Rennala, Marika had fully believed her other half neutralized in this instance. Unfortunately, that was not the case. In the wake of Lord Godfrey’s dismissal, in the wake of him and his Tarnished’s departure from the Lands Between, the Elden Beast had acted with startling, near-blinding swiftness.
 
Radagon had been recalled to the Capital within a fortnight, and Marika had been forced to name him as her consort, as her second Elden Lord. Twas not that she hated her other half. Far from it, for how could she ever hate herself? And it was not as if she were disgusted by the thought of coupling with him. They had experimented oft enough, back when they were young.
 
It was that she was forced into it by the Elden Beast. Pushed to take a Lord not of her choice and couple with him by the Greater Will’s Steward. It did not matter to the inhuman creature that Rennala was broken by the betrayal, or that Radagon’s children were abandoned. Radahn was brought alongside thanks to his zeal for the Golden Order, while Rykard and Ranni fell off the face of the earth.
 
Radagon cared, Marika was forced into close enough proximity with her other half often enough to know he did… but he did not care enough to disobey the Elden Beast. That was when Queen Marika the Eternal faced the true nature of her existence with her eyes wide open. That was when she saw her gilded cage for what it truly was.
 
Malenia and Miquella… she loved them both, despite their cursed origins. And quietly, she even supported Miquella’s decision to divest himself of the Golden Order’s teachings, when it became altogether obvious that the Golden Order could not help his twin. Even as Radagon raged at Miquella’s disrespect, Marika had stood quietly by, knowing that nothing would be done to them. Like Ranni before them, Malenia and Miquella were named Empyreans… and that made them valuable. Too valuable to be touched.
 
Her plan with Godfrey on the ropes as it was, Marika had been listless for a time. Uncertain of what she was to do next. The Elden Beast had stymied her by turning Radagon into her leash. She could not move easily without her other half knowing, and her other half’s first loyalty was not to her, as it should have been.
 
She was trapped… which was why she had been quietly gleeful, when she caught wind of what little Ranni was trying to do. News of the girl’s plan reached Marika long before she enacted it, of course. Her little heist… Marika had been intrigued. When she’d originally taken the Rune of Death from the Elden Ring and sealed it inside of her Shadow, she had been blinded to the truth.
 
Perhaps, she had thought, there was something Ranni could see that she could not. And so yes… she had helped the young Empyrean out a little bit. Malekith was no fool. No matter how capable or skilled Ranni and her little order of Black Knives were, they could not have succeeded without Queen Marika’s assistance, behind the scenes.
 
… That was a fact she’d had to live with, every single day since that horrific night. Because while Marika had known of Ranni’s intentions to steal a piece of the Rune of Death, she had NOT known what Ranni was going to do with it next. Kill, obviously. But who? Well, Marika had imagined that Ranni might go all the way to the top. Perhaps an attempt at her own personal Two Fingers, for Marika knew how Ranni felt about them. Or maybe she’d go after her father, for abandoning her mother.
 
Twas not that Marika wanted Radagon dead. She could no more want her other half slain then she could want to die herself. Hah, at the time that had seemed quite the anathema, yes. Now… well, now things were different.
 
Regardless, Marika had fully intended to stop Ranni’s plan from coming to fruition. She had put extra defenses in place around Radagon without him even being aware of it. It was her hope that the attempt itself would be enough to shake something loose, that Radagon might be jarred out of his slavish devotion to the Greater Will once he realized just how far Ranni was willing to go for his betrayal of her mother.
 
… She’d read the situation wrong entirely. God though she was, she was not omnipotent. She was not omniscient. If only she had been, maybe she could have stopped Ranni’s true plan.
 
The Night of the Black Knives, as they’d come to call it, would live on in infamy forevermore. But Marika’s part in it would remain unknown, a horrifying secret shame she would forever have to live with. Not even Radagon knew that she’d played a part in her own son’s death, by nudging Ranni along in her theft. No one knew, save for Marika herself.
 
Godwyn. Poor, sweet, innocent Godwyn. Godwyn the Golden, they called him. Godwyn, Friend of Dragons. Godwyn… her precious firstborn son. If only she’d known he was in danger. If only she’d known he needed to be protected.
 
But no. Ranni and her Black Knives had worked too fast. On the very same night they’d stolen the fragment, well aware that Malekith would hunt them to the ends of the earth, they had enacted their plan. Godwyn had died in spirit, while Ranni had died in body.
 
Twas an even more terrible thing, to realize that not only had you assisted in the death of your own son, but the true mastermind behind his murder had used his death to free herself from the very trap you found yourself confined to. And in doing so, had escaped yours and your master’s gaze entirely, slipping away like the thief in the night she was.
 
With Lunar Princess Ranni as dead as Godwyn the Golden, and Ranni’s spirit in the wind, Queen Marika had had nothing and no one to take her grief out upon, save herself. But even then, she had never been one for self-harm. Suicide was anathema to her, even then. And so, if she could not harm herself for her crimes… she would harm that which had brought them all to this point in the first place.
 
Radagon would never really understand why she shattered the Elden Ring. Why she took all of her godly might and broke the symbol of their power into so many little pieces, scattering it to the winds without hesitation. He thought it merely to do with her grief over Godwyn’s death, but it was more than that. It was her grief over the part she played in her son’s death that had truly moved her hand to action.
 
Not that it would have really mattered. Not to her other half… and certainly not to the Elden Beast. Under the direction of the Greater Will’s Steward, Radagon had forced this… comingling upon her. He’d forced their physical nature to match their spiritual nature in what would have been considered a blasphemous act if performed by anyone but the Golden Order’s most leal supporter at the orders of its true master.
 
Though, to be fair… it was not like Radagon had not suffered for his obedience, all this time. For in following the Elden Beast’s will, he had imprisoned himself within her. She was Queen Marika the Eternal, a God. He was, to put it bluntly, not. Indeed, by forcing a joining between the two of them, by forcing a mingling of their flesh, he had made it all too easy for her to subsume him. In the end, only one of them could reign supreme, and it would be Marika, every single time.
 
Or rather, it would be if Radagon were not backed by the Greater Will’s Steward. Upon seeing that she would not so easily submit, not even to her other half, the Elden Beast had strung them both up here, in the heart of the Erdtree. Uncaring of if Radagon suffered along with her, it had tortured her, had beaten her, had broken her again and again and again.
 
But Radagon was not yet her, even now. And if she had her way, he would never be her. The plan… the plan was still on, Marika had realized in a moment of painful clarity, some time ago. Godfrey and his Tarnished were still out there. And though it had cost Godwyn his life, they had succeeded in weakening the Elden Beast greatly, just as she’d hoped.
 
Twice, in the time that she had been fighting Radagon and his backer, had Marika let her concentration slip. It had cost her greatly both times, but in this case, the possibility of success made it worth it. The first time, Marika had returned the Grace taken so long ago to the Tarnished and her Lord Godfrey. As she’d promised, as she’d foretold, she’d given back what she took from them, recalling them all to the Lands Between.
 
The Elden Beast and the Two Fingers had immediately scrambled to co-opt the Tarnished as they returned, but Marika could care less. Trapped as she was, she could not talk to any of them, not even Godfrey. But she didn’t need to. Godfrey knew his purpose, knew where he needed to be, what he was to do. And meanwhile… there was the second time she’d let her concentration slip.
 
Creating and slipping a kindling maiden out right under the eye of both her other half and the Elden Beast had cost Marika even more than returning Grace to the Tarnished warriors had. But it was necessary. The kindling maiden was the lynchpin to her plan, especially as the Elden Beast had grown impenetrable brambles to cover the entrance to heart of the Erdtree.
 
It all had to burn… and her kindling maiden would be the one to burn it. The fact that said kindling maiden was a discarded piece of Lunar Princess Ranni only made it all the sweeter. Entrusted with her sole purpose, her one task, and told to seek out a Tarnished Champion who would be able to take her all the way to the Mountaintops of the Giants, the kindling maiden had been off, and Marika had returned her attention to fighting back both her other half and her captor.
 
And yet… she had fought for so long. In doing so, she had lost much, for all that she’d taken just as much in turn from her other half in the process. She and Radagon… they were of one soul, and now of one body. Their wounds were each other’s wounds, in the end. As a God, she should have still come out on top, but with the Elden Beast backing her other half, the battle had been deemed hopeless long ago.
 
Yet… Marika was no quitter. She had not become the Eternal Queen, just to fall now. All she had to do was hold out for Lord Godfrey’s return. The kindling maiden had already served her purpose. The Erdtree burned gloriously, even now. Lord Godfrey would arrive, he had to. He-
 
Marika feels it in the same moment that Radagon and the Elden Beast feel it. Her plans, coming to fruition. The strength of a man, striding forth into the heart of the Erdtree. His power makes the ground shake with every step, and Marika does not need to lift her head to know that Godfrey, the first Elden Lord, has arrived.
 
She cannot lift her head anyways. But that’s alright, for now that Lord Godfrey is-
 
Wait. This… this is not Godfrey. Who is this? And why… why is the kindling maiden with him? No, no… it doesn’t make sense. What else could burn down the Erdtree? How did they remove the brambles? Who is this strange Tarnished? Why does her kindling maiden yet live? Where is Godfrey?!
 
In that moment of stupefied distraction, Marika lets down her guard and in anger, Radagon, backed by the Elden Beast, surges forward in renewed strength, intent on completing her punishment, intent on subsuming HER with HIS Will. It is unthinkable, but she feels it happening all the same. In Godfrey’s absence, she’s lost.
 
She’s… fading…
 
… Sorry… Godwyn… so… sorry…
 
…
 
What? Marika feels something, a spark in the depths of her Godly Body. Something is happening. A new source of strength, of power, given freely. Something new, but also something old and so very familiar. Something that Radagon himself could make use of, if she hesitated.
 
Marika does not hesitate. She reaches out and grasps this power with both hands, just as she has always done. She would not be Queen Marika the Eternal if she did not.

-x-X-x-

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