Elden Ring: Putrefaction of Gold

The Coming of the Tide

"Okay, see if you can move it this way," said Miquella.

He waved his own wrist up and down, which Malenia attempted to mimic with the wood prosthesis. She couldn't do it, and Miquella frowned. He thought he made the device well enough to imitate the motion of a real arm in all his tests, and yet Malenia still struggled with it. The fingers didn't have enough dexterity to pick up anything small, and she still lacked full wrist mobility. Miquella couldn't tell if it was a lack of practice with the device or if it was because the design was flawed.

Miquella sighed in frustration. He took the arm off his sister to inspect it.

A bit disturbing. As neither Miquella nor the other demigods seemed affected by Malenia's rot, mortals could. He warned the Golden Order to keep their eyes on Finlay, and do anything necessary if she so much as showed mild symptoms.

"I'm sorry," said Malenia.

"It's okay," said Miquella, kissing her cheek. "I'm not angry. I'll never be angry at you again."

Even though Malenia didn't run away, Miquella wasn't about to do anything that would make her want to leave him. Not even for a moment. Those months without her made him terrified and vulnerable. Malenia was the one among them who was brave enough to approach Mr. Margit and helped him not be afraid of the creature. She talked about the assassin that came to Redmane Castle. She described it as feeling no fear for herself, but for Finlay, who had become very dear to the demigod.

And now Medjai trained her to fight. Though her training was more like play with Finlay, it made Miquella excited he had more time to work on curing her.

"I just don't understand. I used all the old specs perfectly and it still doesn't work," said Miquella, turning the device over and flexing the joints. He thought perhaps that an organic thing like wood might allow his sister to better interact with it, but that was not proving to be true.

Much of what he could do was limited. He hadn't yet figured out how to apply the consecration incantations and so Malenia often rotted out many of the mechanisms before he could figure out the problem. If it was something large, Miquella was certain to have seen it already, but he suspected many of the issues was a matter of a few minor tweaks. This meant that even if he could get a design that worked perfectly in theory, Malenia's condition changing in any way, meant he might have to start all over.

Perhaps if he used wood from the Erdtree? Miquella wasn't sure how his mother may react to that, but she had left him that small twig. Maybe if he could get it to grow?

Godwyn barged in as Miquella was making a few adjustments to Malenia's arm.

"Miquella, I need to speak with you," said Godwyn.

Miquella was a perplexed as he requested no one to bother him during this precious time with his twin. He needed every ounce of his focus on his experiments.

"Do I have to now?" said Miquella.

"Now," snapped Godwyn.

"Don't talk to him like that," said Malenia.

Godwyn picked Malenia up, which she didn't like when she was angry.

"You know why Radahn kidnapped you?"

"He didn't kidnap me," said Malenia.

Godwyn kissed her cheek. "I'm glad you're not hurt, but my disagreement with Radahn had left me with a situation where I need your brother's assistance. It will be just a moment."

"Fine," said Miquella. "Just a moment. You're spoiling my focus."

When Malenia sat back down and waited, Godwyn spoke.