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You stand before the corpse of your maiden, freshly sore and cut from the thralls of battle with that grafted monstrosity who had so plagued you at the start of your journey.
There are no thoughts of victory now, however, only an anchor of guilt in your throat that’s sinking to the pit of your stomach.
Regret weighs you down and you fall to your knees.
Forgive me .
With a shaky hand, you caress her cold cheek.
Her jaw is clenched with the bravado of resolution with which she faced her death.
There is no light behind those beautiful golden eyes that stare straight ahead into nothingness.
The puddle of blood underneath her has a rim of rust, the scent metallic and harsh against your nostrils as you kneel over and press your forehead to hers.
You hold the back of her head, combing your fingers through her soft strawberry blond locks.
Thoust hold thy divinity, even in death.
What was her name?
What was her nature?
What wisdom could she have bestowed upon you?
A world of lost potential floods your mind.
She could have been here by your side this entire time, a constant companion to break bread together. To discuss the enduring mysteries of The Land Betweens.
She could have offered you strategy, feedback, an ear during the most trying of trials on your way to collect the pieces of the Elden Ring.
You would have so eagerly dedicated to her the same devotion.
Would she have let you hold her at night by the fire? Would she have held you?
Malina is your companion, but she is not your maiden and her form is only tangible in fleeting moments of turning your runes to strength. During those moments, her hand is cold and her touch is mechanical.
Your eyes burn with tears that drip down your face. They sting an open cut on your cheek.
It’d never occurred to you until now that you were truly meant to have a maiden–a real maiden, assigned to you by The Fingers.
Had she been alive when you’d revived with the calling of Grace only a floor below this very room?
Or had she been slain long before you’d have had the chance to play your role?
With Death broken, it’s become difficult to discern how long a corpse idled.
It’s as if there is a freshly ripped hole in your heart.
Yes, this was your maiden, of that there is no doubt.
Now that you are aware of her existence, it’s as if a hole has been ripped through your chest.
It would have been better to never discover this grisly visage, but you brush that thought aside and attribute the selfishness of it to grief.
You cannot stop crying, your sorrowful wails echoing throughout the church.
You’ve pulled her rigid weight up to your chest, and you hold her as you wish to have held her in life.
O’ Maiden. My beautiful, perfect maiden.
Taken from my side before thou couldst fulfill thy purpose.
A vain, needless death.
Your heart beats against her chest, erratic and mad with an unfulfillable desperation.
If only it could reach her own and grant it a kiss of life.
You would have loved her.
You do love her.
You love her more than anything and it is on your shoulders alone to carry the memory that she was alive. That she existed.
“I failed you,” you whisper through a strained voice. “Forgive me. Forgive me.”
The waves of sorrow splash over you, rising and falling and crashing with all the vigor of the battle you’ve long forgotten by now.
All you can do is let the feelings tear through you, holding onto her as a pillar of sanity lest you be swept away in the storm.
The tears dry. There are no more left and you’ve squeezed the juices from your very brain to weep for her.
Slowly, you part from her with a newfound numbness.
You position her upon her back and take in the sight of her.
The thought of spending your nights with her flashes through your mind once more, watching her sleep with adoration.
You fetch a blindfold from your satchel and delicately wrap it around her unclosing eyes, but it is then that a message scrawled onto the floor catches your attention.
Though the path be broken and uncertain,
claim your place as Elden Lord!
Her dying words to you. A vestige of devotion that up until now had gone unreciprocated in ignorance.
Your fingers trace the letters, appreciating .
Become Elden Lord…
Yes, you must fulfill your purpose.
The assignment from Grace.
If not for yourself, if not for the Lands Between, for your dearly departed maiden.
She believed in you.
You take her hand and kiss the top of it for but a moment, offering a small squeeze to reassure you both.
Admiring her still, you pull out your flask and offer a libation over the ground by her message. The red liquid seeps through the letters.
You watch it as you drink, your physical wounds healing but a fog still lingering over your mind.
Become Elden Lord…
You place her hand back by her side.
Yes. You will become the Elden Lord.
Standing up, you vow to carry these words with you.
The journey must continue and so you tuck your flask back into your bag.
Your hand brushes something soft.
What is this?
You withdraw a pure white cloth and it all comes back to you.
No. No. You will not become Elden Lord.
You will not be enslaved by The Fingers. By those putrid things who only extended to your kind Grace because of the demigods losing their favor.
The Tarnished are little more than a last resort for The Fingers’ machinations, willing to offer up their existence just for a chance to claw at the scraps of divine favor.
You’d already decided not to be their plaything, but joining the Mohgwyn Dynasty had presented a moral dilemma and so you’d suspended your initiation.
You clasp the cloth in your hand, looking back to the pool of your maiden’s blood. Her very lifeforce.
Never would you have slain her by your own hand, but after this deluge of overwhelming love for her–for a stranger, by all means–you understand this requirement now.
The maidens, as gorgeous and benign as they are in and of themselves, are also tools of the Greater Will.
Your grief shrivels up with the realization that you were truly going mad just now.
Had she been alive, had she been by your side for the journey so far, would you have ever entertained straying from The Fingers? You wouldn’t have and you know it.
Alive, your ties to her would have been even more overwhelming.
The maidens are, through no fault of their own, a method to keep the Tarnished in line and on the path laid out for them.
You both would have been prisoners, but she would have also been your warden.
And now you understand why a maiden’s blood is the price to pay to enter the dynasty.
It isn’t for the sake of cruelty, it’s for the sake of severance.
In its own way, it is a mercy to the maiden.
Freedom , you remind yourself, uprooting all of your newfound regrets. In her honor, too.
You discard them. The fantasies of holding your maiden at night. The longing for her skin to be warm.
Without looking at her again, you focus on the puddle of her blood and grind the cloth against the floor until it's drenched.