A problem becomes apparent.
The once-prince of Leyndell cannot stray from the sites of grace where the Erdtree's roots breach the surface. When she attempts to scout farther she falls apart, her soul shattering to reform at the last site she rested at. And, beyond a certain distance from the tree's trunk, holding her shape grows taxing even near abundant grace.
Her body has bloated and sunken itself into the base of the Erdtree, so near the Erdtree and the linked Greattree is where she must remain. She can break the tether, but doing so would take with it her ability to affect the world. She would reduce to a wandering spirit trapped in a single, unchangeable moment. After all, memories, too, reside in the body – or, for the dead and returned, the Erdtree. If she cuts her connection to both her body and the tree, she will lose herself.
It would be counterproductive.
Torrent cannot bear the weight of her task alone. He cannot see grace to show him the way through the stretches of land she cannot manifest in. She needs to find a third member for their band.
With that, she'll need a name of her own, too. Godwyn belongs to her, but it cannot anymore serve for her only name. The separation of her body has changed her. She is more than Godwyn, and she is less. As a description, it no longer suffices.
Melina will do. On the nose, but she's always liked the sound of it.
(Would Godwyn recognize her should they meet? Would he care for her, this strange, cold shadow he's cast?
Torrent treats her no differently, but she is different. She should feel wroth. She would have felt wroth before. She has done nothing for her stepsister to bear her such a grudge as to cut her throat in the night and discard her body in the dark. Godwyn will never be as he was nor as he should have become. What remains of him is not him.
Ranni stole the Rune of Death from Uncle Maliketh to commit the act – and how, indeed, did she accomplish that, either?
Melina does not doubt Marika's love. Marika loved Maliketh when she left him to pace restlessly in the city with little meaningful responsibility to occupy his thoughts, and she loved Melina's father as she stood before him to dictate the terms of his death. Love is an emotion first and foremost. Emotions need not match to actions.
Love means as much as you allow it to.
For Melina, it might mean Marika will have a reason.)
Torrent chooses an unknown, maidenless Tarnished. In accordance with his decision, Melina passes on his ring, although she withholds her own judgement until she can see more of them than their unconscious body broken at the base of a cliff.
The name they introduce themselves with seems made up on the spot, and they remember so little of the world that their first glimpse of the Erdtree stops them dead in their tracks. She watches them from beside the grace, formless and unseen, while they inform the white-masked Tarnished that the tree is very large and very far away and they should very much like to go to it.
So would Melina.
This might work out.
Assuming they stop sidetracking, at least. Somehow they end up stranded in a land of red skies and bleeding earth, where the air lies rancid and heavy with rot. When they discover Sellia, Melina finally recognizes the lay of the land as Caelid's. Sprawling, ancient Caelid, home to great trees rumored by the dragons to have been old before the Erdtree sprouted from its seed. But the dragons have fallen, too.
The Caelid in her memories is beautiful.
Should she feel some way about that?
...It's no matter.
The Tarnished returns eventually to Limgrave and the merchant at the Church of Elleh. A new voice beckons them on arrival.
Renna the witch, the woman calls herself. A vestige of Destined Death marks her right eye. She speaks of Torrent and carries a pouch of ashes Melina can hear howling from when she focuses – judging from what Renna says, those must be Marika's wolves who passed on when Godwyn was a child. However did she get her many hands on them? At the last moment before she disperses into the glimmering blue of Carian sorcery, her gaze finds Melina's unseen one and the corner of her lips turns up.
Melina has been stranded out of the loop for far too long. She doesn't recognize the new players. Renna, Morgott, the Lord of Blood, Godrick the Grafted, Gurranq...
...no, that final one is familiar, even if he's draped himself in robes large enough to drown in. Best not to show herself near him. Godwyn was fond of him, but, half-dead spirit that she is now, he would move to finish what Ranni began. She wouldn't begrudge him for it, but she has a mission to complete.
