"So, what do you think?" Minthara twirls around in yet another admittedly well designed dress, her eyes sparking with mirth "The green contrasts pretty well with with my hair, right?"
And she had good reason to be happy. To say that her switching from her usual more traditionally male clothing and armor to an actual dress was a transformation would be the understatement of the year.
She looked every bit of a true royal.
Except...
'This is the third fucking hour, if she doesn't finish soon I wear to fucking god...' I lean back against the wall of the tailor's shop and merely raise an eyebrow.
Which then of course makes said tailor woman all kinds of awkward and the poor little thing looks between us before clearing her throat "You are of course an image of beauty, Your Highness."
Minthara visibly holds back an eyeroll at the stammered simpering and offers a polite smile instead "And your work is that of a master."
Reading between the lines, the tailor woman slowly steps back and keeps quiet.
And once more Minthara's eyes are on me "Don't give me that look, the deal was ten dresses." I point at her accusingly "This is the sixteenth one."
She crosses her arms and pouts "Most people would kill to be where you are standing you know."
A disdainful snort is all the response that merited.
Her pout deepens for a moment before she sighs in defeat "Fiiine, I will stop now. But only if you tell me which ones you liked the most."
Rolling my eyes I immediately list "The blue one and the red one, as I've said already." The blue one went well with her eyes and the red one was traditional imperial coloring so that should be good, right?
"Hmmm" She narrows her eyes at me for a long moment before smiling happily and turning to the tailor "Well you've heard him, we will take those two."
"Of course, Your Highness" The woman bows "I assure you they will be made from only the finest silks."
"Hold that thought" I raise a hand "I will be providing the material myself."
She looks at me with surprise "Pardon, Your Grace?"
'Surprisingly educated in titles, this one' Filing that thought away I explain "I have a stock of certain materials very receptive to enchanting, they are likely even easier to work than the silk you are used to so I doubt you will have many issues."
She turns very still before slowly exhaling "I am afraid we do not provide enchanting services, Your Grace."
"And I am not asking you to" I drawl "I will be doing that part, obviously."
The poor woman looks like she had just had a mountain lifted off her shoulders "Of course, how silly of me. I will naturally make your order a priority so expect the work to be done a day after the materials arrive."
"Excellent" Minthara claps her hands happily "We will be going now, thank you for your time."
"Your mere visit is an honor" The tailor woman bows as we leave.
"Well, that was a massive waste of time." I grumble as we leave.
"Stop being so sour" Minthara pats (read: smashes) my back "I wanted to see what all the fuss is about and it wasn't so bad."
I direct her with my trademarked dry look of disappointment "Uh huh."
She huffs "Well at least I didn't spend my time on that ridiculous hat of yours."
"I will have you know this is genuine colovian fur!" I grasp at my heart in faux offense "It was once the height of fashion!"
"Once?" She directs the disappointment back at me "What, like two hundred years ago?"
Cupping my chin I pretend to hum in thought "Now that you mention it, that does sound right."
She tries to contain a giggle by covering her mouth but fails rather quickly "Why are you wearing that abomination, truly?"
Said abomination being an unreasonably tall fur hat without a proper brim "Because dumbasses will see me wearing it and try and copy me, and thus I will have created an entire circus of jesters for my amusement."
She stares at me for a long moment before bursting into laughter "Oh that is devious! Think I should do something similar?"
"Nah" I wave the idea off "I prefer you looking as pretty as you can while I play around with the idiots."
She raises her nose imperiously, totally failing to hide her blush "I will permit this."
"We are honored by your beneficence" I offer her a flourishing bow, and we continue on our walk, utterly ignoring the crowds surrounding us as anyone trying to stop us was compelled to step out of the way.
It had been a week and a half since we arrived back to Cyrodiil and while Titus and his council were still demanding a lot of our time we did have a lot of free days to just explore and enjoy the city, a lot of said days ended with us rising all kinds of hell in yet another tavern, something of a growing city legend that, and the rest of them were spent with us lounging in my manor, where no one was stupid enough to interrupt.
Today was a bit different, as we for the first time decided to just go for a walk and to do some shopping, enjoying our wealth like normal people for the first time in a long while.
We spent the day visiting the arena, eating at expensive inns and restaurants, buying all manner of trinkets and knickknacks that would probably never be used simply because we could.
It was oddly liberating in a sense, to just be able to let loose in this manner and be a pair of mundane people for a moment.
We did not waste all our time though, which is how we inevitably ended up at the tailor's and then exploring the weapon and armor smith's street for the rest of the day, an activity both of us could enjoy to the fullest as we explored the surprisingly diverse collection of designs for both defense and offense.
Some we did end up buying but it was obvious we were here only to steal ideas so I could tinker things up for the both of us later. It was disrespectful to the smith's craft, yes, but I had long since substituted their art with alteration magic and wasting time and trust on a third party would just never sit well with me.
I was too impatient to wait for days it would take the usual smith to create a masterwork.
Which is how we inevitably ended up back at my manor, in the arena within my backyard, swinging the dozen or so weapons we bought about like a pair of children who had just bought new toys.
"So this was your first weapon of choice?" Minthara swings a steel saber around as if one would swing an arming sword "That is quite surprising."
Summoning a bound saber of my own I took a distantly familiar stance "It is a pretty good weapon for the twig I was back then" I make a few practice swings, the moves coming back to me as I flowed from one guard to the next "It does not take immense strength to cut, only good precision."
I stop my impromptu demonstration as I realize she is staring at me "What?"
She blinks and shakes her head "Nothing, I just forgot that you used to be just another elf before coming to Skyrim. The image just doesn't fit no matter how hard I try." She obviously regrets her specific word choice a moment later but I do not give her the time to get caught up in it.
Shrugging without a care I re-take my stance "I was a child back then, blessed with a potent power, talented and educated for the most part yes, but a child non the less." My weapon cuts through the air with utmost precision as I preform the most basic of saber flourishes over and over and over "Thinking deep thoughts, are we? Try not to hurt yourself."
She huffs "Ass." She tosses the saber to the large table we had dragged out and picks up a longsword, not even bothering to take a proper stance with it and just swinging it about lazily, she tried looking relaxed but her movements made it obvious something was weighing her down.
Unsummoning my blade I walked up to her and caught the sword in my open palm, only feeling the ash stir a tiny bit "What is on your mind?"
"An old story by now." She sighs, her shoulders slumping as she pulled the longsword back and tossed it on the table "I don't want you to think I am whining."
Rolling my eyes, I tap her shoulder and teleport us atop the overlooking balcony "Don't worry, I won't judge. Much."
She snorts but her amusement lasts only for a few moments before her earlier worries return and she sighs once more "I just thought that after a while the constant scraping, bowing, and reaching would slow down and maybe just maybe I'd be able to go for a peaceful walk without having to magic people out of my way."
She lets out a self deprecating scoff "Stupid of me, I know."
"You didn't look all that annoyed today though?" I half state half ask 'That took her longer than I expected.'
She exhales irritably "It didn't really ruin my day but it came damn close."
"I don't know how to help you there exactly" I shrug apologetically "I've simply accepted people bowing before me as a fact of life, hell my mere presence is enough to affect them into doing it, not to mention my many titles and deeds."
"So I am supposed to just own it?" She grumbles, feeling somewhat disappointed that I did not have some magic solution.
"What brought this on exactly?" I ask "You usually seemed rather delighted to have people acknowledging your superiority over them, calling them mere mortals and the like." By the time I finished speaking my mouth was twisted into a teasing grin.
Her stare turns half-lidded as she tries to burn a hole through me "We agreed not to talk about that."
"Nuh uh" I immediately point at her accusingly "You told me not to talk about it."
"Well I am your future Empress and you should do what I tell you" She crosses her arms and lets out a faux huff, to which I just quirk an eyebrow.
Shaking my head in amusement, I return to the actual topic "If you are annoyed that people are still treating you like a god now that the novelty of it is gone" She winces "Then just work at making a circle of people you trust to treat you like normal, and use an alter-ego while in a crowd."
"But I am already doing that." She sighs "Not that I can't see the logic."
"Indeed" I hum "Simply accept things are as they are right now and move on. But also make sure that the people you do bring into this imaginary circle are those that can be trusted."
She turns to me so quickly one might worry she snapped her neck "What, you aren't going to help me?"
"Of course not" I chuckle "Me looking over your shoulder at all times would grow incredibly irritating."
She looks like she wants to argue the point but soon narrows her eyes and nods "Yeah, you are probably right in that."
"Now that is enough of the gloom" I clap my hands "How about I show you how to use a saber properly? The way you were swinging it about nearly made me cry."
She jumps on her feet, all too happy for the change of topic "Just don't complain when I make you eat dirt."
I channel my innermost degenerate as I stare her right in the eyes "Threaten me with a good time."
The emotions smack into her and she begins sputtering in denial and, laughing like a maniac I teleport us back to the small arena, tossing her a saber as she slowly began collecting herself "Oh, it's on."
---
More days passed in a similar manner and we slowly began returning to our usual work with newfound enthusiasm. Minthara spent most of her time in the White Gold Tower, planning things out with her future council and ensuring the Empire wasn't about to fall apart while I schemed within my manor for the most part, doing a bit of enchanting here and there for the true worthies of Morrowind.
The pleasant monotony was broken by a few visits to the council and a certain visitor coming all the way from Skingrad as per our previous agreement.
Hassildor looked almost alive when he arrived, and the vampire was all too happy to tell me why, taking a good two hours to regale me all about his improvements to Skingrad and how the city and its surroundings were recovering.
If even half of what he said was true then he had most assuredly done an amazing job of it.
We spent an entire evening discussing our respective work in the past few months, and then he went on until morning talking about his history in the great war and more importantly his work alongside my father.
To make a very long story very short, Vyren Dagoth was a fucking monster before he retired, and not in the power sense either. He was as brutal as I've learned to expect from our common ancestor.
By the time he was done I could totally see why the Thalmor would have him assassinated, hell I'd kill someone that terrifying on the enemy side if I could without blinking once.
'To think he'd curse the enemy officers with nightmares of their subordinates killing them before assassinating said subordinates and turning them into undead... The amount of friendly fire he caused was impressive.'
The retelling I was enjoying went on even as the sun began to rise, and to my great sadness we heard sudden knocks on the door a moment before Alor leaned his head into the room "Pardon the interruption, my lord, but the High King and his entourage have been sighted on the bridge to the isle."
Hassildor looks to a window and chuckles "How swiftly time flies when one is enjoying themselves. Apologies if I've gone on for too long."
I wave his concerns off "No worries, I quite enjoyed hearing about my old man. Especially the gory details."
"Those are usually the best parts, yes." He grins a fanged grin.
"We best get moving then" I clap my hands and stand up "I haven't seen Torygg in a while, and I need to rectify that mistake posthaste."
"Certainly." Hassildor nods and raises a glass to me "I have said it already but it merits repeating, I am happy both the thrones of the Empire are in such capable hands."
"You just want to retire again." I scoff.
He chuckles as I leave "What old man does not?"
-------
The hunger for stone beckons, none shall halt its advance.
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