Elden Ring: Putrefaction of Gold

A Boy and His Mother

"Then Beya [the lunar sea] rises up over Garicus and encloses him in her womb, so that nothing of him is to be seen. And she embraced Gabricus with so much love that she utterly consumed him in her own nature and dissolved him into atoms..." (Fabricious, 81)

Godwyn awoke with a start. He looked around his room as he tried to control his panicked breathing and rapid heartbeat. He sat up with his hands on his head and reminded himself it was all a dream. He then looked down at Ranni.

She was curled up and still resting peacefully next to him. With a shaking hand, Godwyn touched her long red hair if only to reassure himself that she was real. She was and Godwyn planted a kiss on her warm cheek. He then swung his legs over the side of the bed and rested his face in his hands.

After he spent all yesterday comforting an understandably terrified Malenia, Godwyn was relieved to return to his chambers and find Ranni waiting for him. She eased his troubled mind even as she was still upset over what happened at the council. Of that, Ranni only said she wished not to speak of it and instead wished to spend a little time in Luirnia with her mother, Blaidd, and Iji.

So, they spent the entire night talking about nothing. What a blissful conversation it was! Books, amusing stories from their childhoods, and even a small debate on whether pickling or salting meat was the best way to preserve it (however they got on that topic).

Nothing else happened between them. Blaidd was over in the next room with the door opened to ensure things remained proper even when Ranni broke the rules.

Godwyn walked over to the bookshelf and with his hand still shaking, picked up a little trinket. It had several names: Mimic Veil and Marika's Mischief. How his mother used it - and why it was called the latter - Godwyn wasn't privy to, and he was certain he didn't want to know.

He knew how he used it.

Godwyn never forced anyone, but it was an unofficial right by grace of being the son of Queen Marika that he would get whatever it was he desired. And the Golden Order was adept at keeping secrets, even the worst of them. That didn't change how furious Marika was each time she found out. And Godwyn enjoyed seeing his mother angry.

This was her fault, after all. She was the reason he had to.

When he was younger, Godwyn never thought anything of it to find his parents in an embrace with Godfrey caressing the queen and pressing his lips against her neck. He might have considered himself lucky as the love between Godfrey and Marika was as real as it was legendary.

"The dew collects on the canopies, my Lord. A time for new life," whispered Marika.

Godfrey smirked and ordered young Godwyn, rather harshly as that was his way, out while he and Marika went together to the bed chamber.

She circled Godfrey, as she slipped his clothes off and let them fall to the ground. Under Godfrey's regal surface was a barely concealed untamed instinct that Sherosh struggled to hold back in the sight of Marika's beauty. He strained at the temptation as Marika undressed and laid out on the bed, bare-breasted in the moonlight to seduce her Lord. Even at the threat of unleashing Godfrey's savage nature, Marika teased her husband and said, "Doth my lord need to shrug off Sherosh and run with beasts for a bit? Or will he let his queen tire him out?"

"Stop," muttered Godwyn as he rubbed his hands over his face.

Godwyn had to remind himself that he was just a boy at the time. One of the other lads, about his age, was the first among them to have sex and described the deed to the fullest detail. It sparked a curiosity in Godwyn. And to satisfy that curiosity, Godwyn stowed away in his parent's bed chamber thus committing a sin that would curse him for the remainder of his life.