Maidenless No Longer (Elden Ring)

Chapter 30: Melina

A/N: The Morgott fight at long last. For those who didn't know, it's canon that you can actually summon Melina in game to help you with this battle. I didn't just make that up :P

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"Graceless Tarnished..."

She's happy that he called upon her for this fight. The way had been easy enough to prepare, even in the scant amount of time it had taken him to journey through the Royal Capital. All she'd really needed to do was secure the Rold Lift Medallion after all.

As they step onto the platform together and Morgott's voice echoes out from the shadows leading up the stairs to the Erdtree, Melina's hand tightens around her Blade of Calling. How long had it been, since she could fight? And now here she is, side by side with her Tarnished. Melina would smile... but it's hard.

"What is thy business with these thrones?"

As the Omen King steps down the stairs, the bottom of his staff ringing against the ground with every step he takes, Melina likes to think she hears something she can commiserate with in Morgott's voice. Something akin to irritation... exasperation, really. Because... as nice as it is to fight at her Tarnished's side, as appreciative as she is that he's called her into battle, Melina can admit... she wishes he wouldn't be quite so ridiculous.

Next to her, her chosen champion... has once again foregone all armor and wields naught but a pair of hook claw once more. She KNOWS he has plenty of other ways of fighting. She knows he has armor that would make even a demigod jealous, that he has weapons that sing with power crafted into them by what must truly be the greatest blacksmiths of the age.

And yet... and yet, he foregoes them all, having stripped down this time even before they stepped out here together. Her Tarnished was intent on being a damned fool, all the way to the end. And Melina can see in Morgott's eyes that he has not forgotten the humiliation dealt to him as Margit. She sees in the Omen King's eyes how... incensed he is by the casual disrespect.

Still, he does his level best not to show it. Even going so far as to change the subject, his gaze instead flickering to the ghostly thrones arrayed before the more real throne of Elden Lord.

"Hmm... Godrick the Golden. The twin prodigies, Miquella and Malenia. General Radahn. Praetor Rykard. Lunar Princess Ranni..."

Each name is a different inflection, but every single one is said with a sneer, his lip curling up further and further as he walks forward to stand beside the throne of the Elden Lord and slams his staff into the ground.

"Willful traitors, all."

Three of them are dead by her Tarnished's hands. Two are still in the wind. And one... well, Melina tries her best not to think about that, though the tips of her ears pink up anyways against her preference. Meanwhile, her Tarnished stands beside her, silent and stoic as ever, letting Morgott talk. She wonders, at times, what's going through his head. Her Tarnished, she means. She has some idea of what's going through Morgott's head... and even if she didn't, the Omen King was always so happy to spell it out for his opponents.

"Thy kind are all of a piece."

As he speaks, his walking stick hits the ground and stays there, even after he releases it, switching his grip and picking it up as one might hold a sword, instead.

"Pillagers. Emboldened by the flames of your ambitions."

For indeed, that is exactly what it truly is. Squeezing down with unassuming strength, the veneer of rotted wood blazes hot for a moment, before shattering. Beneath it is revealed the Cursed Sword. A warped blade of shifting hues, made of the accused blood that Morgott recanted and sealed away, long ago. It was a powerful weapon, while being little more than another mark of his ultimate shame.