Maidenless No Longer (Elden Ring)

Bonus Chapter #11: Blaidd

A/N: The first Male POV since Turtle Pope! Blaidd is Best Boy.

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Even after all this time, Blaidd still remembers first meeting his Lady's husband. Obviously, the Tarnished hadn't been such, back then. Blaidd's initial impression of the man was that he wasn't much at all, to the half-wolven warrior's eventual chagrin. Indeed, that first time he'd met the Tarnished in Lady Ranni's Tower, Blaidd had believed him to be no more than any other of his ilk.

There were many Tarnished in the Lands Between. They were so numerous you couldn't walk five feet without tripping over one, or so it felt at times. But the vast majority of them were altogether worthless. Useless at best, outright detrimental at worst. Blaidd had actually had to slay a few himself, to protect his Lady's interests.

But this Tarnished had apparently been different enough for Lady Ranni to make use of him. When Blaidd had asked his Lady about the man after first meeting him in her tower, Ranni had seemed ambivalent. She'd made it clear that she did not trust the Tarnished, lowly as he was, and of no renown... but that she would give him a chance all the same. The rope to hang himself if he so chose, Blaidd had interpreted from his Lady's statements.

And so, he and the Tarnished had worked together, traveling deep beneath the earth to Siofra River. There, Blaidd had searched out the area, trying his damnedest to find a way up to the Eternal City of Nokron. As he'd told the Tarnished when the nameless, voiceless man had finally come across him, he could see it, but that didn't mean he could get there.

Luckily, the Tarnished had come through for him then. Or rather, Seluvis had... but the less said about Seluvis, the better. The bastard had turned out to be just another traitor, just like Darriwil, in the end. Frankly, it had taken Blaidd a little off guard. He would have thought it would be their newest recruit, this lowly Tarnished, who would prove utterly useless, but instead...

Well, Blaidd had been both upset and thrilled to find out that his Lady's fate was kept in stasis by none other than her mad brother himself. General Radahn, driven insane by the Scarlet Rot that infested the whole of Caelid, was supposedly holding back the stars even then. Twas maddening, in Blaidd's own opinion... but it was the best lead they had to go off of.

And so, they had traveled to the festival Blaidd had heard mention of together, him and the Tarnished. And they had joined the battle against General Radahn himself. The fighting was... glorious, for all that it was the most intense battle of Blaidd's life. Starscourge Radahn was no pushover. But then, he'd known that hadn't he? He who was once called the strongest of all the demigods... how COULD he be anything but a living legend?

Still, they'd beaten him all the same. In no small part due to the efforts of the Tarnished as well. He was... he was amazing. If General Radahn was a living legend, then his Lady's Tarnished was a legend in the making that day. Watching the two of them fight, watching Radahn and the lowly Tarnished do battle, only for the latter to come out on top... it was glorious.

Blaidd had not hesitated to say so either, in the aftermath. He had fully underestimated, and perhaps misjudged the Tarnished that his Lady had taken into his service. He'd told him as much when he'd told the man that the glory of the clash was shared by both him and Radahn. Of course, at the time Blaidd hadn't even considered that the Tarnished and Starscourge Radahn could be said to be equals.

Knowing what he knew now... well, suffice to say, General Radahn had been wholly surpassed.

Regardless, their true goal was achieved. Radahn received his final, glorious battle, the festival goers received their spectacle... and Blaidd saw his Lady's fate finally freed from its stasis as the stars began to move once more. Radahn's long vigil was at a close. And with it, the path to Nokron had been cleared, a falling star biting the earth and making it obvious where they were to go next.