Elden Ring: Putrefaction of Gold

The Beginning of the End

Her chamber doore was lock'd and bolted fast,

Admitting none to Vex her, first or last;

Marika was absorbed in the recess of her mind, all wrapped in visions. The lands burned in a great crimson flame, spewing a blackened plum of thick smoke. People screamed in the choking rage, "Marika! Marika! O' goddess! Forsake us not! Mother of all that is living, please let us live!"

In these visions, Marika could not tell; was she viewing the past? Or the future?

Marika opened her eyes and looked down at the tear soaked paper sitting on her lap. It was a plea of a daughter to her mother.

When Marika had learned of Ranni's decision, she understood both why and what pain her stepdaughter would feel. It was her fault, after all. She should have found a way to rid herself of Maliketh a long time ago.

"You spend an awful lot of time in this bedchamber. Is it on your back or on your knees?"

Marika wasn't surprised to see Alecto, perched up on the rings that held the canopy. She came once in awhile for her own amusement to remind Marika of her own sin. In time, Marika gave up trying to keep the assassin out.

"I suppose I'm to understand that my day of reckoning has come," said Marika, barely taking any interest in Alecto's presence.

"Well past it. Had it been my choice, I'd have seen it done centuries ago when you and your bastard set fire to the lands. But then someone removed the Rune of Death from the Elden Ring," said Alecto.

"What a pity," replied Marika

Alecto frowned, "You keep pretending you won't pay dearly for this."

"I've paid, Alecto. I continue to pay," sighed Marika.

"In what? The blood of your enemies? The place of your birth? The bastard you didn't want? How is it everytime you 'pay,' it's everyone who bares the price," said Alecto.

She jumped down next to Marika and whispered in the queen's ear, "Just how far up your ass does Metyr have her dirty little fingers? Is it at least as far as Radagon's dick?"

Marika gave Alecto a disgusted look. "Is there a purpose for you to be here, Alecto?"

"I have it on good authority that the heavens are starting to shift. So, I wonder, just what do you have planned this time?"

"I am not aware of such a thing and nor do I care."

"Come off it, Marika. You and that litter of degenerate, malformed things you call 'your children' are nothing more than tools. And now I wonder what that lump of apendeges is having you do this time."

"I hear the voice of the Greater Will and I abide. That is all," said Marika.

"You never heard the voice of the Greater Will. No one had since long before you showed up. That's why Metyr had you bury the Eternal City. She couldn't stand the thought that someone would look up into the stars far enough and see there was nothing looking back."

"I've heard what you have to say."

"And I still stand where I do before. You don't find it strange that the only way you 'hear it' is through those fingers conveniently only interpreted by Enia. Good to know you're still sucking her tits, by the way."

Marika remained calm at the sting of every insult. But since Marika dulled her blade, a sharp tongue was all that Alecto had left.

As much as the thought crossed Marika's mind from time to time, she could not just kill Alecto. Doing so would only mean another would come and take her place to exact justice against the gods. It was a role destined for someone to always play. The only strategy the goddess had was to place in the role the peculiar child she bore at the foot of the Erdtree when she removed the Rune of Death from the Elden Ring. Marika had stretched out her branches and roots far into the expanses as well as in the depths, and she could no longer find what was now a wandering spectre.