Something new, but all the more different. Wanted to try my hand at this for a while (and because there isn't a whole lot of fics dedicated to the niche). Mostly writing for myself, but feel free to join in. This will be primarily a Elden Ring/ASOIAF fic, with some elements from Dark Souls and Bloodborne.
I do not own A Song of Ice and Fire or the Soulsborne games. That privilege belongs to George R. R. Martin and FromSoftware (praise be to lord Michael Zaki) respectively.
Without further ado, let's begin.
The fallen leaves tell a story.
The great Elden Ring was shattered.
Across the fog, in the Lands Between.
Now, Queen Marika the Eternal is nowhere to be found,
And in the Night of the Black Knives, Godwyn the Golden was the first to perish.
Soon, Marika's offspring, demigods all, claimed the shards of the Elden Ring.
The mad taint of their newfound strength triggered the Shattering.
A war from which no lord arose.
A war leading to abandonment by the Greater Will.
The Mother of Fingers
[FAILURE.]
The message, though silent and disembodied, reverberated throughout the whole of existence, projected by every atom of her being. Her grotesque form slumped in a fashion, massive fingers for monstrous limbs convulsing and twitching. They were overwhelmed with this wrathful proclamation. She could feel disappointment, dismay, and dissatisfaction.
The Elden Ring had been shattered, and the world was breaking at the seams. Though she could not know for sure, Chaos was surely to follow.
Stranded as she was in the very depths of a land enshrouded in the shadow cast by the Erdtree—one of the only truly glimpses of the golden brilliance of her Master to befall the eyes of petty gods and mortal men—the Mother heard it nonetheless, and perhaps even her children too. But she was cut off from them besides, unable to communion with neither her nor the whispers of perfection that could be gleamed from the breadth of all the cosmos. The Mother was the last true in this place of darkness and shadow, and she could do nothing.
Her dwelling place, the Ruins of Miyr, had once been central to the proliferation of her Master's desire. Order, in any form. At all costs. Though it stood the test of time even now, it was but an empty and dreary tomb. In her lonesome she awaited under the gaze of the infinite void, stretched before her like an unending phantom ocean, with vast tubes that reached into the heavens, amplifying her means of communion. Ages had since passed since her Master's last message. And when the very rune that bound the fundamental aspects of this world was broken, her Master had returned.
[UNACCEPTABLE.]
The voice said again, her body releasing a cacophony of harmonious projections. She could do naught but watch and listen as the presence of gold descended. What beheld her tiny, wart-like eye was eternity beyond comprehension. The brilliant perfection of gold assailed the finger-mother's sight, a shining brilliance that extended throughout the vaulted heavens. Intricate patterns of infinite fractals and patterns swirled in the sky above, the indefinite darkness of the phantom sea and the great tubular pipes obscured. She felt the filth of her past sins and conspiracies wash away, uprooted by the thoughts of her Master's radiance and grace. It was an unimaginable perfection, and though herself a creation of her Master, she could not fully appreciate the extent of this sublimity and impeccability.
A million, billion eyes studied her from the center of these fractals, each composed of a billion more gears incomprehensibly perfect in their alignment, function, and design. The ever-evolving and expanding symmetry, always changing and always refining, showed the duality of her Master. Perfection was immaculate, but the pursuit of perfection was always a state of rectification and purification. Even now, her Master pursued this thus, in battles that raged across the infinities.
She realized now that her Master was assessing her. The finger-mother's entirety was laid out bare—every thought, every cell, every molecule and atom of her existence was exposed to the probing golden light. She welcomed this investigation, as was proper. The golden presence was pleased of her openness, to her continuing and unyielding loyalty. But it had been far too long, for millennia had passed since their last communion. Her Master was disappointed, for her schemes in this realm had assuredly brought it to a darker path, one filled with uncertainty and disarray. A frenzied mayhem that would swallow this reality whole, beyond the salvation of perfected order. The golden brilliance recoiled from this contamination.
She wanted to explain, but even her thoughts were but whispers. The finger-mother would contain the God-Queen until her Master's next instruction, and a new order would be heralded with the God-Queen's offsprings, Empyreans all. But she had been tricked and deceived, having underestimated the cunning of that vile woman, and was banished from the light of the Erdtree, the burnished rays of her Master. But the golden light was merciful, and its forgiveness boundless. This the golden brilliance considered, but her Master had always known, for her thoughts, reasons, and justifications belonged to it.
Data was insufficient. More must be collected.
[COMPREHEND.]
And so, her Master hypothesized. Simulating within the golden infinity future after future. A mass of realities, each an individual golden strand, tangled itself into a discordant and chaotic web. The golden light simply inspected every minute detail as worlds melted and histories were rewritten. The extensive symmetry whirred in their soundless labor, and for too long had the finger-mother been robbed of the miracles of her Master. The web merged and coalesced into a single line, one that irradiated a burning hatred.
Displeased as it was, the golden light had nonetheless showed her glimpses. Of a future that was to be for the Lands Between, and the situation was hopeless. Frenzy would claim another champion, a Lord of Chaos, to sow its desire for havoc and pandemonium. The Mother of Fingers cried out in a noiseless shriek as visions of the future assaulted her infinitesimal mind, blessed only with a shed of perfection but enough to make out the chaos therein. She saw the burnt husk of the Erdtree and the smoldering capital city at its foot. A yellow pillar of fire rose from the charred stump towards the sky, with darkened clouds dancing with a kaleidoscope of madness. The Elden Ring was either destroyed, or worse, used in a manner to sow this very indiscriminate destruction. And she peered only briefly at the lightless void that blemished the once golden sky, surrounded by burning filaments and prominences of entropy made manifest.
She looked away then, the visions too much handle. Her design was that of tranquil order, and to see such sights was anathema to her very being. She pleaded to be taken away from here, to be safe in her Master's golden embrace once more. The golden light responded.
With a flash, all was well once again. The web now burned with a wrathful and hateful yellow glow, and only a trace of the golden threads showed. Its extrapolation completed, the tangled mass converged and regressed into a singularity that the heavenly symmetry smoothly absorbed for remembrance—for integration and consolidation. All that remained were golden pillars of luminescent stems, an endless forest that stretched into an unceasing horizon.
[JUDGMENT.]
The Lands Between was lost, and her Master had judged it a failure. And partly, she was at fault. Her gazing finger, in truth the 'head' of her beastly frame, kowtowed in reverence and sorrow. There was no forgiveness for this. No absolution would come for her crimes against her Master. For her audacity to assume the reins and her subsequent failure in controlling the God-Queen. She did not have faith enough that her Master had not abandoned her, and so she would face her annihilation. It was only just.
But the golden light had other plans, for it had infinite patience, and more so an immeasurably unceasing mercy. The Lands Between may be lost, but the war endures. It was only one of the many worlds that Order and Chaos made war in—a billion, trillion battlefields across the endless infinities in a conflict of incomprehensible scale. It has always been, and always will be. That was state of things.
Words need not to be said, for she now knew her Master's designs. This was not the end of it. Though this world was beyond rescue, the fight must continue elsewhere. She was needed elsewhere.
[DEPART.]
This time another singularity disgorged from the firmament above. New threads of blemished gold were unraveled, and the presence spun a new web. Flawless precision commanded the individual sinews to each tell their stories, of incalculable pasts, presents, and futures. New visions consumed her, shaking her from her despair. Of a new world that was on the brink, that was absent the touch of grace nor gold. A world that was not too dissimilar to this one. Fractured and in disarray, but salvageable. It was bursting at the seams, filled with the squabbles of would-be gods and mortal men, while a darkness not of abominable fire but of cold indifference stirred and bided their time. Chaos all the same. The incursion of the profaned Yellow Flame was there, faint and yet to take proper root, and so were the corruptions and meddling of the Outer Gods. But her Master had bid her to depart for it.
To establish order anew.
To choose a new god and champion.
And to bring this world under the grace of gold.
So soon after her admonishment and instruction, the golden light embosomed her with a gentle touch. Golden wisps of grace nuzzled her frame—the closest one could call an embrace from their Progenitor. Her malformed and broken figure relaxed at this embrace, collapsing finally to the gentle waters of this realm beyond realms, and the finger-mother's mind welcomed the comfort.
[DAUGHTER.]
A simple acknowledgment, but nonetheless one that she had yearned for eternity. It was confirmation, a recognition of her efforts here, however flawed and doomed from the start, and her significance in the battles to come. She was not discarded. The Mother of Fingers was still yet a part of the ineffable Will—a place in the perfection of unblemished gold.
There was a new vigor in her, finger-like appendages bringing her body up to full height. Between her tail—two thickened digits coiled around one another—a microcosm began to manifest. Her frame began to levitate as she gathered ambient energy, concentrating and collapsing them into a single point. She poured all of her effort to induce the black-body sphere, pulsating with the power of degenerate stars, and enlarged it to fit her size. Soon, she felt the singularity's gravitational pull, where even light could not escape. The finger-mother held her place as the orb crackled and spun, emitting a purple hue.
The darkness of the event horizon was a foreboding barrier, a veritable point of no return for all manner of things, and the Mother of Fingers contemplated it only briefly.
She stepped in, and the celestial symmetry of perfect gold vanished from the Lands Between forever.
Notes: As you can see, the story will follow through with the Lord of Frenzied Flame ending, one of the two I consider head-canon (the other being Ranni's) because of its convoluted questline. Where Order goes, the potential for Chaos follows.
Highly doubt I'll involve HOTD in any of this, apart from being history. But that seems to be the trend with fics this time around (or not). While God-Queen Rhaenyra is tempting, her deal is with a civil war (and not the ensuing war between abstract concepts of the multiverse). I only have the main books (lacking Fire and Blood currently) and the TV shows for reference, and a somewhat decent understanding of Soulsborne lore.
Much as I'm inclined to make this a Jon or Daenerys-centric fic, there's plenty of options for the candidate of Empyrean. Let's face it: they're the easy choice, Jon being Elden Lord and consort to God-Queen Daenerys. But seems generic, no?
I like the idea of the Lands Between as an underworld or purgatory where "all manner of death washes up", since the Realm of Shadow was once a part of it. The Crucible acts as a receptacle for said death, mixing and recycling said souls until it bursts life anew. The Erdtree (taking the place of the Crucible), without the Rune of Death or its Shadow, is only a facade, and indicative of eternal yet stagnant life. Life and Death, it seems, cannot exist without the other. The underlying power of the Erdtree and the Elden Ring might as well be its authority over this duality. Be that as it may, multiple worlds is fine too, and the exile of the Tarnished could have extended to distant worlds if we're going with the purgatory route.
Let me know what you think.
Up next: Melisandre POV, visions of gold and yellow, and a falling star.