Countless tries against the Blade of Miquella, a Tarnished of no reknown with his pride in shambles wanders the Consecrated Snowfields until stumboling into the portal to Moghwyn Palace. After fighting his way through the bloody swamp and reaching the Lord of Blood, thanks to the blessed shackle, the Tarnished manages to pull out from the cocoon the being inside and discover Miquella, brother of his most difficult opponent to date, and snatch him away from Mohg's clutches.
Now, Tarnished and Demigod, find themselves forging an unlikely friendship that might be the key to solve their individual goals and protect those they care about. Or maybe, they will become just another tragic tale.
The Most Fearsome Empyrean is an Elden Ring fanfic by Smokynight
. It can be read here.
This fanfic provides examples of:
- Always Save the Girl: The Tarnished is willing to embrace the Frenzied Flame in order to spare Melina's life, even if it's at the risk of the world. Thankfully, he met Miquella before he did so.
- Androcles' Lion:
- Miquella tames a snow runebear, and later stops the Tarnished from killing it. The runebear later becomes instrumental for the Tarnished's rescue, to the point of giving its life.
- Turns out Miquella found an injured Torrent when it was a foal and he nursed it back to health. He wasn't allowed to keep it and had to give it to Ranni for further healing; she promised to release the foal so he would found a new master. Torrent then went to choose the Tarnished, and it has been supporting both of its masters now.
- Astral Projection: Chapter 22 implies that Miquella's power over dreams is more this than Dream Walking.
- Badass in Distress: The Tarnished is captured by Mogh at the end of "Chapter 7" and tortured at "Chapter 8".
- Beautiful Dreamer: Once outside the cocoon, Miquella regains his youthful appearance, and the Tarnished is momentarily stunned.For the first time since the tarnished gazed upon the Erdtree, he felt that sense of divine wonder. The tarnished lost his sense of time for a moment and just stared at them, watching them sleep, watching them breathe peacefully.
- Beyond the Impossible: The Tarnished managed to sucker punch the Dung Eater while inside the Roundtable Hold; he ended with a broken arm but the mere fact he managed to do it out of sheer Heroic Willpower is an amazing feat.
- Body Horror: Mohg's torture of the Tarnished turns him into a flaming pulp of flesh, described as a malformed corpse of flesh flipped inside out.
- Blood Knight: The Tarnished is portrayed as a bloodthirsty brute who loves killing stuff in a good fight.
- Cold-Blooded Torture: Mohg turns the Tarnished's blood into flames that slowly burns him from the inside out for hours until he's at an inch of his life, only for Mogh to come and (badly) put him back together and repeat it all over again.
- Even the Loving Hero Has Hated Ones: Miquella hates Ranni with a passion after her masterminding of the Night of the Black Knives caused Godwyn's half death. "Chapter 34" makes the betrayal harder once it reveals Miquella and Ranni used to be close. He also hates all outer gods for the curses upon him and his sister, and of course there's also Mogh.
- Fertile Blood: Miquella's blood has the capacity of making plants grow, becoming the cornerstone of restoring the Haligtree's agricultural endeavours once he returns.
- Fire-Forged Friends: Miquella and the Tarnished.
- Forgiven, but Not Forgotten: The Haligtree is willing to accept the Tarnished; after all he rescued their Lord (twice) and brought him back to them, but they won't forget he killed and injured a great deal of their people. The Tarnished wouldn't have it any other way.
- Friend to All Living Things: Miquella's Charm Person aura works better on animals and beasts, to the point he's able to tame a huge snow runebear.
- Good Is Not Dumb: Miquella is optimistic, yes, but he isn't a naive idealist; he's aware of the cruelty in the world and he knows there's battles he can't win diplomatically, but if he can avoid unnecessary violence he will do so, and when he cannot he'll fight in any way he can. He's also aware he can't save everyone, so he focuses on those he cares about. This hidden edge in Miquella's eyes is what makes the Tarnished see him in a better light.
- Gotta Catch 'Em All: Miquella's plan to remove the thorns from the Erdtree require him to grow stronger, so he would need to hunt down and adquire the other demigods' great runes.
- Green Thumb: Miquella has the power to control the roots of his Haligtree, which retroactively means he could remove the thorns from the Erdtree, since his Haligtree is an offshoot of it, without the need of sacrificing Melina.
- Grew a Spine: Thanks to the Tarnished, Miquella is slowly but surely becoming bolder and assertive. Mogh notices it and he's pissed that Miquella no longer behaves like the demure, helpless boy he saw him as.
- Heartbroken Badass: Malenia, regarding Finlay's death.
- Hidden Heart of Gold: The Tarnished is a brute loner, yes, but he has lent help to more people than he acknowledged, and those that know him can see virtue in him.
- Ignored Enamored Underling: Cleanrot Rothel has obvious feelings for Malenia, but she is not in the mood to pursue any romance after Finlay's death. The fact that Finlay will forever be irreplaceable in Malenia's heart, both as right hand and love interest, is a source of frustration for him.
- Improperly Paranoid: Chapter 35 begins with Miquella's creeping doubts about the Tarnished after remembering they encountered Ranni in the past; despite all the proofs the Tarnished gave that his friendship is trustworthy, the addition of Ranni makes Miquella wary given he used to trust her as half-sister before her betrayal. The Tarnished quickly put such doubts to rest.
- Inferiority Superiority Complex: Miquella outwardly projects an air of competence and confidence on his abilities but that's because he's very self conscious over his lack of physical strength, and how it makes him look lesser in his very martial oriented family; after all, "a crown is won by strength" is the Golden Lineage's creed. And having Malenia as his sister doesn't help that at all.
- Intimate Healing: The Tarnished and Miquella begin their journey just when a snowstorm began to fall in the Consecrated Snowfields. Miquella's lean body is incapable of creating enough body heat, so the Tarnished recommends he snuggles him while they ride on Torrent.
- Immune to Mind Control: Downplayed. The Tarnished can resist Miquella's charming aura but he still feels a strong fondness for him.
- I Owe You My Life: Miquella feels this way towards the Tarnished. The Tarnished feels similar after Miquella rescue him.
- Loophole Abuse: Mohg understands the workings of the Tarnished's Resurrective Immortality so he settles with capturing and torturing him instead.
- Mirror Character: The Tarnished and Malenia are surprisingly similar: both are prideful warriors of utmost skill who are willing to move heaven and earth for one person, have struggled in life due to higher powers outside their control, and valued their own determination to surpass any obstacles yet they've had to use something they hate when their strenght alone isn't enough. Lampshaded in chapter 24."She was him. And he was her."
- Morality Pet: Thanks to his new found attachment to Miquella, the Tarnished felt guilty for invading the Haligtree and killing a bunch of his soldiers. However, he recognises it's not out of an awakening sense of empathy, but more out his personal relationship with Miquella and hating to upset him.
- More than Mind Control: Miquella is aware of his bewitching powers, but he still treats everyone around him well and doesn't abuse it. So it's difficult to discern whether Miquella wins over people with his power or because he's just so goddamn nice.
- My Greatest Failure: The eruption of the Scarlet Aeonia at Caelid, and Radahn's state, is this for Malenia and the reason she feels she alone should be the one to put him down once the group decides to start hunting down greater runes.
- Platonic Life-Partners: The Tarnished and Melina. She is his first ally and friend, and eternal companion especially with his constant dying threatening to leave him displaced in time. Meanwhile Melina learnt to trust the Tarnished and even grew to admire his determination against adversity, and she believes he's the kind of Elden Lord the Lands Between need.
- The Rival: The Tarnished and Malenia feel this way about each other; the Tarnished sees her as the meassure stick he has to surpass, while Malenia is afraid that he might take her place at her brother's side, seeing how close they're getting.
- Storming the Castle: With the help of a snowy runebear, Miquella and Melina storm into Moghwyn Palace to rescue the Tarnished.
- Sleep Deprivation: Miquella has the bad habit of pulling continuous all-nighters when he has his mind set on solving a problem, like weaving a new unalloyed needle for Malenia for what it's implied to be a week, or thinking for a third option for the Tarnished's dilemma.
- Take a Third Option: In order to remove the thorns blocking the Erdtree, either the Tarnished sacrifices Melina or embraces the Frenzied Flame. After much thinking, Miquella suggests he removes the thorns with his power over plants.
- Twin Desynch: Downplayed. Miquella and Malenia are slowly starting to drift apart; when before they would blindly trust each other, they're starting to harbor secrets and insecurities that they no longer share.
- Weak, but Skilled: Miquella doesn't have the raw power for martial combat nor the stamina to cast multiple spells one after the other, but his mastery and vast repertoire of Incantations (from Fundamentalist to Crucible) makes him quite the unpredictable fighter, and able to hold his own against an ambush of Sanguine Nobles.
