Ranni
She sat upon a wall, watching the feeble kin of hers as he wallowed over the corpse of a dragon in the courtyard leading to his throne. A truly wretched thing this foul contaminent of divinity had become. Yet it was also everything the divine was. A robbing of flesh and power from the masses.
She was disguised as a small doll, too small for even eagle eyes to spot among the countless gnarled roots and plants. It was important that she saw these great events play out herself. Things were truly changing here in the lands between, and she was growing eager to find out just where this road was leading.
She had little doubt in the duo, being able to slay the weak Godrick would barely give them pause after their sundering of Radahn. Even had that battle been with aid. Radahn was the greatest of her kin. Godrick was a pale imitation.
This whole affair, though, had her very curious about this knight. She had noticed the change in the sites of grace, as well as the way in which this knight's manner of speaking seemed almost fluid. Sometimes, it matched those of this place. More often, it sounded foreign. Even Marika had begun to match the tone, but perhaps that was due to a familiarty they shared.
It all seemed so foreign, still. It left her with countless questions that felt like there would not be satisfaction for, for quite some time. She was almost excited by the idea.
Almost, were it not for the danger looming in that uncertainty.
Marika
Both sat around the simple grace, trying to collect themselves. It had been a blood bath when they had come into the courtyard. Knights, guards, even an omen with a hound at his side.
None had stood a chance against them, and the queen had been angry. Angrier than she had realized. These people had let this happen. All those bodies. All those children. The woman whose face seemed frozen in pain at the front. It all had done something heinous and violent to her thoughts that when she came onto the courtyard, it had been a massacre of incantation driven lights and vicious beatings with her bare fists until there had been nothing but pulp left where once a chest had been.
She should have felt guilty. She should have felt remorseful. All she felt was hungry. Hungry for more blood to spill. It was a sensation that frightened her deep in her core, and her knight seemed to know that. She had insisted once they brought down the troll that they sat and breathed at this grace. The terrible root of all this suffering, in Stormveil, lay just beyond the next gate. They slay him and bring an end to the madness here. This.... grafting.
It did not change the choked thrum of pain in her chest at the thought of the boy she once watched fawn over the littlest of trees being put down like a rabbid animal, but it made the pain livable. If only a little.
"Hey.." The knight spoke out first, "It's alright." Placing her hand gently over the golden queen's as she looked up. Soft locks of golden hair spilled along her cheek as her hood lay along her back, and her eyes drifted to the knight's hand before returning to her own eyes as they fell on Marika's.
She smiled to Marika, a soft and comforting smile. Those eyes seemed to hum with a coolness that brought comfort when looked at so fixatedly as she had begun to. Like a pillow that was always cool. She felt her own eyes threaten to moisten.
"B-but..." In a moment of weakness, she started to weep. "The-there were so... There are so many up there..." a hand covering her mouth as the tears began to spill over. "I.. I know I have..." a choked sob, "so little room to speak..."
A comforting hand moved to wrap over her back and grasp her by the shoulder. It lightly pulled her against her savior's chest and let her hide those tears from almost the whole world in the safety of the gilded scarf around her own chest and neck. She clung to her, sobbing and shaking as the weight of it all truly crashed down on her again.
Not just the children and the people on those walls nor the grafted abomination of innocents, but that deep inside this had all been her fault. She had been no better, and why would she ever expect her children to be more merciful than she had been. To see them walk that horrible path no matter she had once been drug down made her truly sick. Sick in the deepest pit of her that made her want nothing more than to fade, to simply disappear.
Yet the knight anchored her. Held her close and let her tears flow onto the fabric she had begun to so sweetly treasure. Pale fingers clutched golden cloth as bodies pressed closer, clung for comfort in this darkest of places where only the most vile secrets would find sanctuary outside the security of the grace's glow. This here made her feel that hope still lingered, and she clung to it like a candle to the last vapors of wax.
Deep down, she hoped this kind of embrace would never have to end. It was a kind of comfort she had forgotten existed. Calm, warm, safe. No expectations or arguments. Just the company of one who cared enough to let you be weak.
After a couple of moments, their embrace finally separated. "I... I apologize." She started.
"Don't. You have nothing to apologize for right now."
"But I -" a soft hand on her shoulder interrupted her, and she felt herself lean into its warm touch.
"I said. Don't." And that was the last word as she slowly began to stand.
Marika quietly nodded, standing soon after with her knight and steeling her resolve as her hands dabbed away the looming tears and tracks. It hurt, and yet this feeling, to feel at all, had been the single greatest gift of this new life. One she would try never to again take for granted.
They turned the corner and made their way down the short, spacious hallway that led to the vast courtyard garden where they knew the demigod was. Just past the large arch was a large open space with a downward hill from their entrance of broken stairs that bottomed to a messy garden littered as much with weapons and body parts as it was flowers, and gravestones. In the middle, fawning over the head of a dead drake was Godrick.
A feeble, frail face that wore a simple golden headband atop a veritable mountain of corpses. Sewn and stitched together like so many knotted threads of yarn in a horrible, rotten mound of flesh that nearly doubled the horridness of the first grafted beast. With his pale, almost bloodlessly dead skin as gray as ash and horribly warped face that had grown far too mismatched with who knew how mamy alterations, it was more than enough to make the golden queen want to vomit in pure disgust, if not swing in raw violence with the small mace she had found.
Yet it was still, mutated and warped as it was, the face of the boy she had once watched marvel over countless lessons about seeds, and who's eyes once lit up at the first bloom of springtime in the capital. It was like seeing all she had once wished to inspire, being laid bare and rotted by the very crimes of her past.
She did not fainted nor screamed. Instead, she turned that disgust into fury. Turned her self hatred to righteous anger. She would let herself drown in that wrath for just a little while to undo what she had made.
'You can't!' He barked angrily. 'This was my order!'
She resolutely stepped onto the first step as the incantation finished, bolstering them both with the light blue glow. 'No.' Was all the answer he received as her mace began to glow with a sacred light, held in front of her with a look of pure anger.
The knight stepped out alongside her, hand on her parrying dagger while the other gripped the hilt of her moonlit blade. Her armor lightly clinked as the wind blew by, and the demigod slowly turned towards them as the sound alerted him.
"... Well," he began as his massive body began to turn towards them, "Ye not be Tarnished... yet trespassers no less in my walls. Ye shall make fine parts for grafting, None thee less." As even more limbs emerged from his ragged appearance from beneath the green and golden cloth her wore over his hideous form. A great golden axe that reminded one of the once great Godfrey's was held in the fore most limbs, while another axe was held just behind in another pair of limbs that seemed to almost be anchored to the first set of arms by an awkwardly broken seeming stretch of muscle and bone.
The queen stared at the creature, pushing down the memories as he slowly slammed down the first axe. "I am lord of all that is Golden! I command thee, Kneel!" Before his axe cracked the few stone foot steps beneath his many legs.
In a flash, the knight was dashing down the stone stair hill as Marika began to incant again. The titanous creature responded with laughter, before rolling its massive form along the ground and swinging up with both axes in a staggered strike that missed the knight as she slid to the side and delivered a quick slice that splashed blood across the cloaked demigod, digging a small wound that confirmed his mortality with a quickly weeping slice alonf one side.
"Foolish weakling!" Laughing in response as it reared back briefly, swirling both axes overhead as a tornado of wind swirled once, twice, then again as he stomped down and threw the small space around them in a much larger gust of wind that threw back the knight. The demigod was likely to follow up, only for Marika to finish and launch a single bolt of lightning that bit into the face and burned the flesh of the demigod. He reeled briefly, stunned more than truly wounded.
"Insolent little wretch!" He cried, one hand touching his face as he briefly flailed every limb about to ward back the knight. A pair of knives found home between the swirling whirlwind of weapons and limbs, making the demigod buckle back as an arrow, charged with force now, hammered its way right into his neck.
He fumbled entirely, his entire weight collapsing back briefly as his ability to stand cracked. Wounded and hit so frequently had clearly dazed the demigod, and the knight took quick advantage as she drew her blade and drove it deep into the heart of his body, before ripping it out to the side in a massive spray of viscera and blood.
"AHHHH!!!" The false golden idol roared, flailing again and catching the knight with the greater of his axes. The blade caught her in the shoulder and bit into her right arm before sending her flying into a nearby gravestone. "Such impudent little worms!" Turning and hurling a small cyclone at Marika as she yelped and dove to the side like her knight had trained her to do, barely avoiding the shredding winds as they ripped rock and dirt asunder where she had stood.
Marika rose back up, hood falling down behind her as she gripped to her mace and began to run with a furious wail. It glew with her holy will, and she crossed the gap just as the demigod had fully righted himself. Her mace struck against a side of him, only for a random limb to swat at and push her back. She grunted angrily, just as a splash of blood tore out of the demigod's other side.
"You first!" He barked, turning and swinging angrily with both axes at the quickly ducking knight, as Marika's two handed swing hit and shattered three of the legs supporting him like a great hammer smashing through blocks of limber. His wail was so loud that it briefly stunned her, gripping her head as the force shoved both combatants far away. The ground itself trembled where they had stood as he reared back, hands together on the greater of the axes. Marika looked up just in time to see her knight attempting another charge. It was too late to warn her of what he was going to do.
He slammed down his feet and axe simultaneously, splitting up the stonework and dirt like a wave of rock and bursting power. The knight jumped. A simple yet well-timed leap that avoided the crashing wave of stone, much to the demigod's shock. That shock turned to pain and desperation, as the moonlit blade tore across his face and body with an arc of blue light that drove him back against the dragon he had once been caressing.
"W-what is this foul trickery..." his voice had become pathetic and sobbing, "Why do you harm one so pure..." he cried, clutching his bleeding face as the other hands raised his axe. "You truly are so cruel... but I will not fall for these tricks!" Slamming down his axe and completely severing his secondary left arm, much to the shock of the two challengers.
"The grace of draconic flesh... shall surely offer me the power I so require." Marika watched in utter horror as one she once called kin rammed the bleeding stump into the neck of the dead dragon. It writhed and squirmed into its flesh, seemingly fusing skin and flesh as naturally as molding clay, before raising up the monstrous head as it ripped free of its former body and sprayed fire into the sky as he laughed in victoruous confidence. "Now let thee weep, and despair before the Lord of all that is Golden, and burn!!" As that head turned limb slowly descended and bathed the battlefield in surging orange flames. It was accentuated by his insane and mocking laughter as flames seared through gravestones and flowers with equal efficiency.
Marika ran, quickly trying to outpace the flames as she yanked a pot out of her cloak. Biting off the lid, she hurled it into the rushing fire behind her as the odd bottle substance splashed oil right onto the mouth of the dragon head, which then exploded and blinded the flailing Godrick. It wouldn't truly harm him with dragonblood now in his veins, but he could still be disoriented.
She heard a following wail as more blood splatter arced across a nearby flowerbed as her knight struck another painful blow, turning his attention to her in a sweeping strike of metal and flames as the demigod angrily retaliated. She rushed forward at the opportunity, gripping tight to her mace as she focused with potent holy power before swinging with all her might. She could feel the muscles in her back and chest flex as they once more held the sturdy shape they once had gladly had. Her mace struck at the bottom of him, and she heard the awful sound rupturing organs as holy light bloomed briefly out of the top of his back.
He once more fumbled, losing his balance once again and landing in a dust throwing lump on the ground. The queen was angry. No, she was violently furious. This abomination had dared to perform such a terribly evil craft in her name, in the name of her Golden Order. It was a mockery of all she had once held dear, no matter what it had become. An effigy to all her worst failings.
She lost her temper, screaming furiously as one blow struck his back part to the sound of countless cracking spines before pulling back with both hands and a firm grip and smashing the mace once more into his back far more aggressively this time. His body shuddered as countless body parts, bones, and organs shattered within that writhing mass of flesh and spat out blood as she heard the clattering of that axe to the stonework path.
"This... can not... be..." he coughed out, blood rapidly spilling from his mouth as the magic that held this monstrosity of a body unwinding and unfolding as she heard the cries of countless bond souls at last return to gold. Endless limbs and flesh faded to golden dust as only the frail torso of the weak and feeble king laid left behind. "It... isn't fair..."
"It isn't fair?!" She screamed, marching over to the cowardly shriveled up husk of a man she had dared to once call kin. "The failure of a weak and pathetic man?!" She barked over him as weak eyes finally landed on her face, unshrouded by her hood now.
"My... goddess... you... came back... to us..." his voice was cracked and painful, yet brimming with faith she had never even considered. It was a shakey voice, that of a pained and dying man. "Was... I... radiant... enough.." as she realized his dying mind had lost any semblence of who they were, or even who had struck him down. His spirit was so very tired that she imagined, marred now by countless graftings and centuries of fear.
Fear. It had been what had ruled her entire life. Her very existence as mortal and as divine. The knight stepped close, prepared to end it before she quietly raised a hand and stepped closer. Quirking a brow, she garnered no further response as the knight took a step back.
Slowly replacing her mace, the goddess walked closer and knelt down beside the dying man. Her hands gingerly picked up the frail body that withered even as she held him like he was made of ash that threatened constantly to disperse. "That's right, Godrick. I am here.."
"M-mother.. mother I f-feel so very cold.."
"I know..."
"I-i tried.. to make you proud... to shine..."
"Do you regret it, Godrick?"
The man's face weakly grimaced as a few nearly dried tears began. "It was hard... yes... but... it was all for... for you.... oh goddess..."
Marika's heart clenched in pain. "The children..."
"Such good stock they made. So full of.. potential.." as more blood burst from.his cracked lips.
"You... you.."
"All... for -" He was silenced for one last time as a hand gripped the back of his weak skull and crushed down with terrible force on the brain stem. His face frozen in that pleading, crying expression as she held the fading remains.of Godrick the Grafted. Her screams of pain and anguish could be heard as far as the towers in distant Liurnia. For all she had done.