Maidenless No Longer (Elden Ring)

Bonus Chapter #8: Loretta & Phillia

A/N: Loretta was one of the two female bosses I initially cut from the original outline, Alecto being the other one. I cut Alecto out completely half because no one really cared about her on the bonus chapter poll and half because I really didn't have any good ideas for her.

Loretta on the other hand, I got ideas for. I'm happy with what I came up with here~

-x-X-x-

She still remembers how utterly he trounced her on his way through the boughs of the Haligtree during his first visit. Still remembers how she, Loretta, Knight of the Haligtree, had been beaten so swiftly that he hadn't even needed to deliver a killing blow. He'd knocked her from her horse and onto her ass like it was nothing and continued on while she wallowed in her shame and disgrace.

Lady Malenia would deal with him; she'd thought to herself. But in the end, Lady Malenia had NOT been able to deal with this Tarnished, no more than Loretta herself had. It did not necessarily assuage her wounded pride as a knight, however. To learn of how helpless her Lady was at the hands of that man. Not even knowing that he had gone on to become the new Elden Lord could wipe away the stain upon Loretta's honor. It wasn't about HIM; it was about her. She had lost... and more than that, she hadn't even been worthy enough to die a warrior's death.

All the same, perhaps it was for the best that she had lived. Her service to Lady Malenia and Lord Miquella need not come to an end just yet. With the latter returned to the Haligtree and the Scarlet Rot inexplicably vanquished and excised from both the former and the Haligtree itself, suddenly... suddenly there was hope again. The future hadn't looked so bright since the first time Loretta came upon the Haligtree, so very long ago.

Truly, it felt like an eternity ago. She had not always pledged her loyalty to the Haligtree and its Lord and Lady. Once upon a time, Loretta was a Royal Knight of Caria, wielding her intricately crafted silver war sickle with its glintstone engravings in service to the Carian Royal Family. And then had come the treachery.

How were the Carian Royal Knights supposed to see it coming? How were they supposed to defend from an attack that came squarely from within? An attack that was not the product of weapons or sorceries or even incantations either... but one of mind and heart and emotion, wholly and utterly.

Lord Radagon had betrayed Queen Rennala. He had returned to Leyndell at the call of the Eternal Sovereign, to become the new Elden Lord. And Queen Rennala... had fallen apart in the aftermath. Loretta and her fellows had tried to hold things together. They had tried to continue discharging their duties, as personal guards to the Carian Royalty.

But then Radahn had turned his back on his family to become a General in the Golden Order's armies, even going so far as to damage the bedrock of Caria's power by stopping the movement of the very stars themselves in the sky overhead. Praetor Rykard, meanwhile, had become more and more reclusive, and ultimately discharged those few Royal Knights who remained in his service, discarding them like so much refuse and waste, rather than the loyal, leal servants they were.

And Lunar Princess Ranni... well, she'd died. And the last hope of a strong Caria had ultimately died with her. The cracks had shown before then, to be fair, but it was only with Ranni's death, following so closely on the heels of Godwyn's, that it became obvious that there was no hope for a restoration. The Shattering meant something else to most of the Lands Between, but for Loretta and her fellows, twas the moment in which Caria ceased to exist, and their vows to the Carian Royal Family ceased to hold meaning.

In the aftermath of the Shattering, Loretta had sought purpose. She was a Knight with no Master. A warrior with no cause. Ultimately, she'd found the latter before finding the former. Twas a secret that not many knew... her true origins. For to be an Albinauric, even a First Generation Albinauric, was to be despised by many of the beings in the Lands Between.