Maidenless No Longer (Elden Ring)

Chapter 49: Queen Marika the Eternal

A/N: Welp, here it is. The Queen Marika POV. Once again, I take liberties with some of the lore, filling in some blanks and using my interpretations of things. Some of this is probably not actually canon.

Hope everyone enjoys!

-x-X-x-

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.