She walked along the brace as she did most days. A quiet breath emerging from her lips as her adjusted the breastplate of her ornate armor. Broad and powerful with decorations on the skirt and shoulders like waves and tear drops. Her pale complexion complimented the silver metal quite well, she felt. Though, her hair was ever an annoyance. Long slightly pinkish brown locks. She had considered cutting them, but often her hand stilled on the sheer.
She turned her gaze briefly from her beloved steed to the distant emptiness that surrounded the Haligtree. She had hoped this would be a bastion for the albeurnics. What a pathetic dream that had been. She sighed quietly as she adjusted the reigns and offered her steed a dried apple. It was all she could scrounge up.
"Sorry, old boy. All there is. Pickings aren't too grand these days." She brushed his mane idly as she sighed. Steely blues rolled over her great steed, who seemed weighed more than ever by his armor. This place had truly gone to shir without their lord.
That was when the hairs began to stand on the back of her neck. A deep and intense fear churched inside. She turned softly, eyes widened for only a moment as a pale hand touched her cheek in soft caress. The voice of her lord whispered against her ear. "Stall her for me, won't you?"
She tried to mutter who as her grip on the reigns tightened, but the blossoming pain spreading across her defied any chance at voice beyond a gargled wail. She felt every inch of her begin to swell. Her chest burned as it bulged and broke her armor around it. She tried to claw at anything for support, but all she found was her horse wailing in agony. She tried to look at him, but she couldn't see anymore.
She hurled herself over where she assumed his saddle was as the pain grew and bubbled. She tried to grip at the reigns, but she could barely find purchase anymore. Her fingers had swollen. Every inch of her burned like she was on fire, and she couldn't even tell what was wrong.
Why would Miquella do this to her? Was she not enough as a warrior to be trusted?! Was she only good a martyr to him?! The rage burned inside her as she roared atop her horse, who gave a final neigh of its own as it reared back before taking off as fast as it could along the hanging brace guards.
Loretta tried to bury herself in the back of her mind. To search for an answer to this betrayal. This sudden dishonor. Had Miquella always been so twisted? Had she been so blinded by her desire to help the downtrotten that she had led them all into the maw of a buzzard dressed as a dove?
The idea burned inside. It hurt worse than even her bubbling boils and wounds as she whined in agony. The last vestiges of her fury already faded as she felt her mind beginning to slip. The pain burned deeper inside than even her thoughts could hide. All that was left was a repeated, pained utterance.
Why...?
Miquella.
She would stall my mother very well. A convenient fate for my dear Loretta. I would ensure when I replenished the Haligtree that she was the first soul to be reborn of my new womb. How beautiful it shall be.
I strode along the abandoned golden pathways and broken yet still beautiful bridges. My men had all been laid to sleep to await this great awakening. It saddened me that Malenia had resisted me, but it only proved the need for this awakening. So many of my disciples had sought a new Marika in I. I would give them a new mother, yes, but they had to be taught that the age of senseless strife was over. Too much blood had been spilled for so long. It wounded my heart to live another day in such a world.
So I would give birth to a new one. I would take this new godly power in my grasp. I would bring forth my new Unalloyed, pure gold into its depths with my great Haligtree. I would take away their pain as the new God of all. Marika had the right idea. For that, my mother shall have her due justice. Yet, she thought too small. Life can not exist in peace so long as Death and Pain both continue. So long as emotions that burn the heart exist, so too shall strife. So too shall bloodshed.
I pass a smeared stain across a wall. So many had been confused by my choices. Two of my hands reached over and stroked the bloody stain across golden bricks. Soon, such beauty would never again be stained.
I steo over broken twigs and dried remains of a useless sentinel. Soulless things are only good to toss at problems. I detested such unfeeling things. They were so hollow. So rigid. It is so inflexible to change. To words. They only did as they were programmed, and that made them feel so unalive. I spat upon its core as my magic raised my ample golden hair, the few braided parts clinking as the golden adornments touched. I would not let my divinity be sullied ny such ilk. I could not believe I ever allowed such filth to sully the soil of my land. Perhaps that was a shred of my mortality, giving empathy to the undeserving. Perhaps it had simply been a flight of fancy for its usefulness. It did not matter now.
My dearest Radahn strode slowly behind me, ever watchful of me. His love was precious to me. I made sure that there would be no obstacles to securing my King Consort, who would be the first to sire my new world. Ah. What bliss this body was now. Divinity suited me like a glove, and what limitations my mortality had left were at last forsaken.
I glanced behind me slowly with a slight smile as golden eyes met his dark orange. His lumbering form looked a little awkward in the cramped shape of Mohg's body, but he carried it all well enough. His face was slightly scrunched in what I could only call focus. He was always watching me, giving me my due attention. How sweet. His nostrils even flared in a teasing display that made me chuckle and turn. "Later, my love." He grunted deeply.
"We have so much work left to do, first."