Elden Ring: Putrefaction of Gold

A Red King and White Queen

"Come and delect me and embrace me and we shall generate a new son who will not resemble his parents," says the King. 

The pregnant queen then answers her spouse from across the cleft, "See, I am come to you and am ready to conceive a son who has not his equal in the whole world." - Adapted from Wood Cut "Anatomiae auri, part V, p.6 (M.Merian after Pandora). (Fabricius, 44-45).

When Radagon finally released Marika from his grip, she immediately retreated from him. She curled up to the side of the bed with her arms wrapped around herself. Her eyes were tense as she tried to hide a quiver in her lips and her intense, deep breaths. Her cheeks had streams of tears.

Radagon reaches to touch her arm, "Marika... I..."

"Leal hound," Marika mutters.

"Don't call me that."

Radagon grabbed his tunic and began to dress himself. He had a sort of vanity to him. He liked to leave his muscular chest bare, more in a way to distract from his disgusting red hair.

There were times when even he questioned the Golden Order and the Greater Will but he always reminded himself that the Greater Will's ways were not his ways. He was merely a being; a thing created, broken off, then sent adrift, and now brought back to his other half to merge with her again.

One god, now two.

Two, to become one.

Through violent coitus,

That fills her love object with purified gold. (Fabricius, 43)

But even if their bodies merged, in the time of their long separation, the siblings' wills had split and diverged too far in separate paths.

"Why are you like this?" Radagon asked.

Marika bit her lip and looked towards the door leading to the Erd Tree. She had met Godfrey there. He was known as Hoarah Loux then. The beastly savage man of the badlands. He was brought before Queen Marika, chained and naked with the spear in his side. He stank from being paraded through the dusty roads, spat upon, and covered with dung and mud.

"Impressed with how we turned this beast into a cub?"

Marika cocked her head as she looked at the man. Each breath Hoarah Loux drew emitted the steam of his range. His lips longed to taste blood again. Her blood.

"No, I'm not," Marika replied. "I've seen no beast ever tamed like that."

She snatched the flask from the man's hands and approached the man-beast.

Though not yet a goddess, she was feeling the power swell. She grabbed the spear and with a pull, yanked it from his side, which caused him to howl like an animal. She then offered him water, which he lapped from her hand like a dog. She then placed a comforting hand on the chieftain's cheek and offered him a gentle smile.

Marika then turned to her men, "That is how you tame a beast. Not by preventing it from killing, but by teaching it to hunt on command."

Radagon was no Godfrey. For who was the greater man? The one who was born a god or the one who changed his nature to become one?

Marika looked back at Radagon and said in a stern tone, "You'll have the child you want. Now go."

"It's not what I want..."

"You had your way... its way with me... now go!" said Marika.

When Radagon was gone, Marika rested her head against her knees, and her long hair cascaded over her face to hide her shame. It was only a matter of time before they would fuse together and Queen Marika the Eternal would be gone.