Melina

A/N: Don't worry guys, everything is going to be fine. Put down the pitchforks and just read the chapter. And remember. The Tarnished has a Plan.

-x-X-x-

For a long moment, Melina says nothing. Silence hangs in the dead, stagnant air all around them. The smell of his burnt flesh fills her nostrils. The most grievous wound she's seen him take, and it's something he chose for himself. For a long moment, she just stares at what the Three Fingers have done to him, as he stares back at her, quiet as ever.

When she finally speaks, it does not even sound like her voice. Her tone is dead. Lifeless. There is no emotion to her words. They come out feeling almost clinical in nature.

"You have… inherited the Frenzied Flame. A pity, I suppose. You are no longer fit to become Elden Lord. As such… our journey together ends here. And remember…"

Here, she stands, glaring down at him with a bit more heat as the beginnings of true rage start to flow through her veins. She wonders if this is what Marika felt, all that time ago, when the machinations of others led to the death of her son.

"Should you rise as the Lord of Chaos, I will kill you, as sure as night follows day. Such is my duty, for…"

Here, Melina's heart catches in her throat and she has to swallow thickly, tears pricking at her one open eye. After a moment, she finds the words, though her voice is even hoarser than before.

"Such is my duty, for showing you the way. For putting you on the correct path."

She didn't know how she was going to beat him, if it truly came down to it. The Frenzied Flame was powerful in and of itself, and destructive beyond measure. And now… now it had a champion who was beyond any other Melina had ever seen. Her Tarnished was Perfection Manifest. How would she ever bring him down? She could only hope that when the Frenzied Flame finally took its due, it would weaken him in some way.

No matter. Her purpose as kindling maiden had been usurped. This… this would have to do, for a new purpose. Steeling her heart, straightening her spine, and clenching her jaw as well as her hands into fists, Melina moves to step away.

"Goodbye, my companion. Goodbye, Torrent…"

Except, just as she's turning to leave, he catches her. As he's proven before, he's more than capable of stopping her from dematerializing on him. Whipping her head back around as he holds her by the wrist, suddenly standing there before her, Melina goes to snarl, only for the action to freeze upon her face when she beholds the look on his.

It's a stern look. A disapproving look. A… a look of discipline, and lecture. In that look, Melina sees every inch of the Tarnished she'd been bound and disciplined by. She sees every inch of her domineering champion, the one who had taken her and made sweet but firm love to her. In that moment, for just a beat, Melina finds herself frozen in indecision.

So of course, her Tarnished steps in and takes advantage of her hesitation. His other hand comes up, and cups her face, as he leans forward and gives her a kiss. Melina jolts, as his lips meet her own. It is both a tender, but also incredibly confident kiss. He does not seize upon her beyond the initial grab of her wrist, but it is as if he does not believe he needs to. He kisses her… and Melina, weak as she is, lets him.

She'd told herself that with their new accord, she would no longer fall for his lecherous ways. That with their new accord, things would be different between them, because it wasn't fair to him to love a fleeting existence such as hers. She was meant to be kindling, always had been, and nothing more.

But then he'd gone and done this. Usurped her purpose. And for what? To save her? Did he even stop to wonder if she WANTED to be saved? Did he stop to ask? No! Because he didn't fucking TALK! Stupid, foolish, bullheaded man! Idiotic, braindead Tarnished!

With a snarl, Melina leans into the kiss, only to BITE down hard enough on the Tarnished's lip to draw blood. He jerks back in involuntary shock from the pain, and Melina feels a vicious sense of satisfaction at wounding him. This impossible man, this powerful creature… this fucking idiot. She tackles him to the ground, rears back her fist, and slams it down hard into his burnt chest, drawing an exhalation of breath from his lips and a silent scream.

"YOU STUPID, LOVE-SICK FOOL! You've doomed us all with your folly!"

He reacts a moment later, rolling them so that she's on her back. Milena just snarls, and continues to hit him, continues to fight him, to bite him, to scratch and kick at him. He rolls with the punches, quite literally, and at a certain point in all that, she starts to kiss him too, as they roll around there at the side of the Site of Lost Grace.

The opposite of love is not hatred. Tis indifference. To say Melina finds it impossible to be indifferent towards her Tarnished, despite her strongest efforts, is an understatement. In this moment, she has never hated him more… and thus, she has never loved him more either. As tears stream down one side of her face, the kindling maiden gets him onto his back. She rips her own clothing from her body. She all but tears his cock out and impales herself upon it.

He wants to kiss her? He wants to fuck her? LET him! Let him split her open with his fucking dick! Snarling, Melina rides him, even as she also continues to scratch and bite him. And together, they continue to roll all the while, the rolling causing him to jostle inside of her, causing more friction and sensation than otherwise would have happened.

At one point, Melina ends up on top once more. As she sobs, her lips curled into an ugly downward frown, she stops attacking him for a moment, stops riding him with an altogether violent bent, and just cries. Through the tears, she speaks.

"D-Did you think yourself the first? You probably believe yourself so very clever, don't you?"

Melina's lip curls back into an even uglier sneer, and she shakes her head vehemently.

"His name… was Vyke. Vyke the Dragonspear, Knight of Roundtable Hold. Not mine, because I knew he was not the champion I waited for. But out of all the Tarnished… he was the closest to becoming Elden Lord before you."

As she speaks, her teary eye drops to the burns wrapped around her Tarnished's torso. Unable to help herself, she snarls and beats a hand into the scars, before clawing at them aggressively. The man beneath her spasms, but still says not a word.

"And then one day, he came here, was scorched by the flame of frenzy, and was driven mad evermore. Why? No one knows! Some say it was because he wished to spare his maiden, to save her! No doubt, he had whispers plied in his ear! But he didn't know that you had to lay yourself bare before an audience with the Three Fingers. Not like you somehow did!"

How? How had her Tarnished learned of this?! She hadn't let him out of her sight, save for that one time when they first arrived in Leyndell! The Frenzied Flame and Three Fingers operated via agents, whispering little things into the ears of their would-be patsies. Someone in the Royal Capital must have gotten to him while she was away, but who? HOW?!

He was… the most impressive man Melina had ever seen. Her chosen champion was truly perfect in every way. So how could he have possible been so thoroughly waylaid in the short amount of time they'd been apart? It didn't make sense! None of it made sense!

Letting out a wail, Melina goes back to fucking and fighting him. His cock feels both good and bad inside of her, and that's alright. She welcomes the pain along with the pleasure. She welcomes the violence, along with the intimacy. As they roll around some more beside the Site of Lost Grace, however… a bone-deep, nay… a soul-deep weariness begins to overtake her. The sobbing is beginning to take its toll. She clings to her Tarnished, more than she beats at him.

Her nails still dig into his back, but she can't help but hold onto him for dear life and want to be held in turn. As if embracing him as tightly possible will let her keep him by her side, will let her reverse what has been done. As if ANY of this can be fixed. The deed is done. The die is cast.

As she buries her face in the crook of his neck and cries and cries, Melina mourns for what has already been lost. Not just her purpose… but the only man she has ever loved. She mourns, for she knows he is already dead, already gone. And she will be left behind to hunt his corpse.

"… I… -ave… Plan."

So quiet the words, she doesn't even register them at first. They're still fucking after all. Hard, rough, fucking. Nothing gentle or loving or tender about what's happening right now, no sir. Nothing coy or romantic or seductive in this act. They are rutting outside of the Three Finger's Chamber, down in the deepest depths beneath the Royal Capital, with the corpses of a thousand nomadic merchants high above their heads. There's no sugar-coating it.

But… were those words? Had she just imagined them? Nothing follows. They do not repeat. She hears no more, save for her Tarnished's belabored breathing, and the sounds of flesh slapping against flesh as the two of them bring their bodies together in violent union again and again. And yet… and yet… she was sure she'd heard something.

Pulling back from the crook of his burnt neck, Melina tilts her head to the side and looks him in the eyes, really LOOKs at her chosen champion for the first time since he came out of the Three Finger's chamber. She looks… and she does not see the fatalism she's expecting a man who's just sacrificed his life for her to have. She looks, and she sees raw determination and resolve, even behind the pain he's endured… on her behalf.

"You… do not intend to just lie down and die, do you?"

They both know what she means, that she's not referring to her own threat against his life, but the existential threat provided by his new 'liege' and Lord. But her Tarnished… he just smiles softly and shakes his head back and forth slowly in agreement. Melina's lips feel unaccountably dry, given all the blood she's torn out of him with her vicious bites, as her tongue darts out to lick and wet them quickly.

"… You will not just let the Frenzied Flame consume you. You think you can hold it back. Nay… you think you can stop it."

His smile growing stronger, he slowly nods. For a long moment, Melina is silent too, before she lets out a choked sob, her face once more scrunching up into an ugly, UGLY crying face.

"Y-You promise?"

One final nod, his smile practically a smug grin at this point. For a moment, Melina just stares at him. He reaches up… and nonchalantly closes her gawking mouth with two fingers under the chin. That's about when she punches him square in the burn scar upon his chest, wiping that stupid smug grin off his face and making him wince and rub at it in what might or might not be mock pain.

"S-Stupid… stupid, dumb idiot. Hate you… hate you so fucking much."

But alas, hatred was not the opposite of love… and Melina couldn't stop herself from wrapping her arms and legs around her Tarnished and pulling him in close. No point in holding him at arm's length anymore, now was there? No point in holding back at all, when he'd usurped her purpose from her, when he'd made her obsolete.

Her chosen champion was intent on becoming Elden Lord without her help, and yet at the same time refused to let her leave. What was a woman to do, in this situation, but embrace it? Even still… even as Melina cries out into her Tarnished's shoulder, even as her inner walls tighten around his pistoning member, even as he fucks her roughly against the floor of the catacombs… she knows that it's not over.

When all is said and done and he's spilled his seed inside of her… when they've pulled apart and are recovering next to the Site of Lost Grace, Melina gets her trembling under control and sits in the tatters of her clothing. Tis fine, of course. When she dematerializes, she can fix her garments while incorporeal and rematerialize with them repaired.

Still, she doesn't do that. Not quite yet. Instead, she sits there and stares at the shard of grace before her. Even all the way down here, the Erdtree's grace exists, providing succor to her Tarnished. How… quaint.

"I will repeat myself, my Tarnished. Should you rise as the Lord of Chaos, I will kill you as sure as night follows day. I will seek you, as far as you may travel, to deliver unto you Destined Death."

She gazes at him with her one open eye, and is pleased to see him nod solemnly, taking her quite seriously. He does not brush her aside, like other men might. It does not make him any less of an idiot, of course. Whatever his plan is… Melina is almost certain it will not work. And yet… perhaps she is an idiot too, because even still, she cannot bring herself to abandon him.

No, she will stay by his side until the end. Whatever form that end takes, and whatever she has to do to stop him.

"… Very well. Let us be on our way, my Tarnished. The journey before us… has just begun."

With those final parting words and given her state of undress and inability to fix it in her materialized state, Melina dematerializes, both her and the tatters of her clothing disappearing into thin air. He stares after her for a moment longer, smiling fondly, before getting up and putting on his armor. Then and only then does he begin the process of climbing back up out of the catacombs, away from the Frenzied Flame Proscription, through the Subterranean Shunning Grounds, and back into Leyndell, the Royal Capital.

… When he heads not for the Mountaintop of Giants but instead for Roundtable Hold, Melina very nearly throws her metaphorical hands up in the air in exasperation. But in the end, she supposes she cannot deny him a quick rest. He is, after all, more injured than she's ever seen him. And the Forbidden Lands are not for the faint of heart. They will be the most challenging land he has ever traversed.

With that in mind, a quick layover in Roundtable Hold certainly seems to be in order. A chance for her Tarnished to rest and recuperate his lost strength.

Of course… someone probably should have told that to all of the women waiting for him to return there…

-x-X-x-

A/N: See? The day is saved! Melina is on board! No plans for anyone to murder anyone else when they arise as the Lord of Chaos! Woooo...

Anyways, next chapter is the next Roundtable Respite and the end of Act 3. I'd say we're in the end game now boys and girls, but we still have 36 chapters to go.

As always, feedback is greatly appreciated/encouraged! Let me know what you think!

-x-X-x-

If you'd like to read more of my work not seen on this website, check out Hentai-Foundry.com and QuestionableQuesting.com where I have over a thousand stories! I'm known as 'Cambrian' on those websites.

If you'd like to contribute to funding my writing at all, check me out on P atreon.com/Cambrian

Thanks for reading!