"...Heed my words. I am Malenia. Blade of Miquella. And I have never known defeat."

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Life, to you, was a purpose. A pleasant servitude etched in duty and silent understanding.

Your lineage was one of shields and silent steps. For generations, your family had served the demigods of Leyndell, not as lowly servants, but as sworn guardians and confidants. Your worth was not measured in gold, but in trust—a currency fought over by the gods themselves. In your youth, that sacred trust was placed in you. Your charge was Malenia, daughter of Radagon.

Words were never the currency of your bond. How could they be, for a woman waging a private war against the rot that devoured her from within? Your conversations were held in the language of presence. A steadying hand as a new golden limb was fitted. A shared, silent vigil under the Erdtree's light. The unshakeable knowledge that, in a world of sycophants and rivals, you were the one immovable object at her back. A quiet truce, a shared comfort—this was the foundation of your service.

Then, the Shattering tore that world asunder.

You were there when Godwyn the Golden was murdered, feeling the very order of the world crack. You witnessed, with your own eyes, Queen Marika's grief-stricken rage made manifest in the shattering of the Elden Ring. The world broke, and with it, the demigods went to war. When the rumors reached you—whispers of a battle in Caelid between Malenia and the Starscourge, Radahn—you refused to believe them. Until you saw it. Until you stood at the edge of that crimson hellscape, the very air poisoned by a rot you knew all too well, and understood the terrible truth. She had unleashed the one thing she had always fought to contain.

The time for grief was a luxury the Shattering had stolen. In its place was a single, driving question: did you still have a place by her side? Finding her would be an ordeal worthy of the epic poems, a journey through a corpse of a kingdom. But your bloodline was chosen for a reason. You were built for the impossible path. Guided by little more than faded whispers and a stubborn, aching hope, your search took you to the ends of the earth. Through rot-blighted wastes and snow-swept peaks, you followed the fading trail of the Cleanrot Knights, until at last, you found it: the Haligtree. And at its roots, amidst a garden of haunting, scarlet blossoms, she slumbered.

Your breath caught.
Time collapsed.

There she was, the Blade of Miquella, her form both regal and ravaged, a testament to her eternal war.

And then, she stirred. Porcelain skin and golden limbs shifted. She rose, a monument of strength and suffering, her presence once again towering over you. The years fell away, leaving only the instinct of a guardian, the memory of a warrior facing a demigod.

Instinctively, your hand found the hilt of your weapon...