(Reyvin's POV)
The conversation within the council chambers of the White Gold Tower slowly dies down as Commander Maro shuffles inside. Before questions could be asked, Titus swiftly taps his armrest to draw our attention "It would seem we are all finally here, let us begin."
Chancellor Jukullus nodded and stood up "Of course, my liege." He accepts a scroll from Maro and clears his throat "As you are all no doubt aware, two months have passed since both Elsweyr and Valenwood fell fully under our control. Our swift advance and the utter annihilation of our enemies has shown the world which side is the winning one, and morale among both the nobles and the populace has never been higher."
Marshal Valenicus scoffs "As if things are that simple."
The Bosmer barely reacts to the man and continues "The two provinces are obviously not fully pacified just yet but aside from a large uprising at Woodhearth and Greenheart* followed by a sizeable invasion force from Alinor there have been no great upheavals."
Lord Admiral Alakim's face twists with disgruntlement "Patrolling those waters would have cost us too many ships."
"An unavoidable risk, Alakim." Titus interjects "We all agreed to preserve the fleet for the counter invasion." He directs a look at me "Besides, Reyvin's own forces were more than enough to repel the invaders and restore peace."
"Some annoying losses aside." I do well to keep the irritation from my voice "Almeril Faren of the Redoran dealt with them efficiently, though I suspect their intent with the invasion was never to hold land."
"Your 'government in exile' idea." Valenicus spoke skeptically "It still sounds ridiculous to me."
"And if we are wise, all it shall remain is but a ridiculous idea." I shrug innocently "Simply treat it as them getting some Bosmer veterans at the price of their precious Altmer and as long as we win that will be that. The little princeling they took will be retrieved and our... loyal subject pacified."
"King Camoran did react rather poorly when he heard his son was taken." Titus failed to keep the disdain from his voice "I doubt we will be getting much support from the coward, now that they have a hostage."
"And a pretender mind you" I remind them all.
"What does it matter anyway?" Minthara speaks up from beside me "The Bosmer will take years to recover from the war as they are right now, and any forces we could raise would be both small in number and of dubious loyalty."
"Which, as you will find my dear" I point at her playfully "Was exactly my point."
"We will probably have to quietly remove the family from rulership once the war is done as well." Jukulus looks at me "A number of them were slain during the fall of Falinesti and that kind of resentment is unlikely to disappear anytime soon."
"Not my fault there were like two dozen of the idiots fighting in the army" I scoff "I mean, if they did not want to die they shouldn't have been in the palace of their precious capital while I burned it to the ground."
Every single councilor looks at me with differing levels of terror or disgust.
Minthara just laughs.
Jukulus clears his throat again "Yes, about that." His stare turns flat "A number of the Bosmer in the north of Valenwood seem to have abandoned the Green Pact after seeing their previous patron so thoroughly bested."
He visibly holds down a sigh "They have started calling themselves the Ashborn, the vast majority of whom have settled in what was once the central district of Falinesti. They..." He does sigh now "They have begun worshipping the 'Ashen Tribulation' and tensions are already rising between them and their erstwhile brethren."
Once more I was directed with many looks that were less than pleasant.
"What are you all looking at me for?" I throw my hands up "I had absolutely nothing to do with that!"
The slight smugness I sensed from my patron immediately made me narrow my eyes.
Hours later, after Archpriest Herjolfr had managed to convince everyone that such cults usually disappear after the terror that inspired them dies down and that we were not about to see a religious war play out, we finally reached the actual point of the meeting and settled on a plan to end the war.
The entirety of the mainland was now firmly secured in the grasp of Tamriel.
What little influence the Thalmor still had in Daggerfall was currently under meticulous siege by King Uthred of Evermor and fated to sputter out and disappear just like their allies had.
The Redguards were still openly unwilling to rejoin the Empire but rumors have already had enough time to spread and tales of Minthara's victories and the glories won by the Forbears serving in her auxillia, reawakening the momentum of said faction and spreading their influence throughout the province.
In time they would kneel peacefully, or the Crowns would be stripped of all influence without any grand interference of our own.
Black Marsh was bound in their little corner, to be dealt with on my own time.
As for the Pyandoneans? Well, from what information my agents were able to extract from the prisoners we took (Read: Every single bit) the dynasty meant to reunify those warring islands died a dog's death, so thoroughly humiliating in its scope that stability would be but myth for decades or possibly even centuries.
I'm sure Minthara will enjoy fulfilling her promise to the blue fucker, whatever his name was.
Which left only one landmass that needed direct pacification before the rest could be reintegrated without too much blood being spilled.
Alinor.
-----
"Catch!"
The flying blade stops an inch away from my eye as I grasp it between two fingers. Studying the golden-hilted, gem encrusted saber without so much as a twitch I turn to my attempted assassin "Where did you get this one?"
"Took it from the leader of Riverhold's Khajiit." She shrugs and returns to the bag of loot she was sorting through "Smug bastard cost me a few days of back and forth when I could have captured the whole province so much sooner."
"Eh" I offer the sword to my attendant hilt first "Can't expect all your enemies to be incompetent. You kill him?"
"No." Minthara pouts "He was honorable about surrendering and didn't make trouble after he did so. We will keep him imprisoned until the war is over and then we will see."
"Could be useful." I hum and summon a piece of loot of my own, an elegant and heavily enchanted elven helmet, and toss it back at her "Took this off one of the Altmer Elders. Pretty good enchanter, shit fighter for his age."
She titters and hands the helm to Lydia who adds it to the Thalmor collection within our trophy room.
Mirroring her to my side, Vayrin Indoril and Alor reverently place the saber upon a stand holding my own weapon collection, switching around a bunch of the eclectic bunch to produce the most imposing and artistic display.
An act they have repeated without complaint for two dozen times now.
"And done!" Minthara cheers some twenty minutes later as she pulls out a considerably large roll of radiant blue scales, ones far smaller and more snake-like than those of a dragon.
"That from the serpent?" I ask from above her as I blink right next to her.
She ignores my teleportation and nods happily "Yup! Broke the poor thing into pieces but the scales were practically undamaged."
Ah yes, because casual punches were meant to cause catastrophic internal damage without rupturing the skin. Of course.
"Shame" I sniff "It could have made for a nice pet, for us or the dragons."
She snorts at that "Sorry" Her hand moves to her face as she tries to contain her giggles "I just felt like punching something."
"You know what?" I cup my chin and lean in, detailing everything about the scales I could "If a big ass snake jumped me from below I too would punch the shit out of it."
"Exactly!" She chirps and tosses the surprisingly heavy roll to Lydia who catches it like a champ. The Dreaded Dragon Overlady dusts herself off and hops up "Now that that is done, lunch!"
Utterly ignoring our attendants, she grabs my arm and excitedly drags me to the balcony, one that gave us a majestic view of the Imperial City below, and one removed from any curious ears.
I snap my fingers and summon the veritable feast the shy and terrified servant brought up a few hours back and we take seats across from each other.
"Sooo" Minthara hums, not touching her food "Where did you slink off after the meeting?"
"Really?" I quirk an amused eyebrow.
She pouts "I wanted to show off my loot and you teleported out!"
Rolling my eyes I point my fork at her "Why I was visiting the whores, naturally."
Her pout is joined by an unamused, if rather mild glare.
She knew damn well I wasn't about that life.
"If you must know" I drawl "Davos just returned from Valenwood after slaughtering the twenty sixth group attempting to stage an uprising after our perceived failure to contain the Woodhearth debacle."
I can't help but scoff at the surfaced memory "How they thought they would suddenly not be crushed by our response is something I frankly have no interest in understanding."
"Fools will be fools." She shrugs.
"How wise of thee, oh wife of mine" I drawl and she pouts at me.
Shaking my head I wave the memory off "Never you mind that, I was complaining about Davos refusing to slow down while doing his job. Damn idiot didn't sleep for a week straight until he delivered his report so I had him pack his shit up and tossed him to Silruhn Fell."
I sigh and look up into the sky "He has a kid and his wife adopted another, the hell is he doing killing himself like this?"
For a split second her eyes flash with something I choose not to identify as she too smiles back at me "That is very sweet of you."
Hiding the mildly concerned shiver the flash caused I lowered my eyes to face her "And what were you doing?" I smirk "Did dear Herjolfr finally give you his lecture about reinforcing the Khajiiti Alkosh cult by burning down half a city?"
She twitches at the accurate accusation and immediately retorts "Senchal is a fourth of the size of Falinesti" She raises her nose and crosses her arms.
"And Falinesti was evacuated before the siege." My dreaded pointing fork shakes scarily "A fact not shared by the poor, ravaged Senchal."
We both stare at each other for a long moment before groaning and synchronically slumping our heads down.
"We are terrible people." Minthara grumbles into her arms.
Scorch's words flash through my mind "The list is not yet complete." I mutter.
She looks up from her arms, eyes confused "What list?"
"Never you mind that!" I chuckle awkwardly and immediately shift the topic "Ignoring the words that most assuredly did not just leave my mouth, how about we finish our meal and visit the docks again? Hopefully we will not create another dark lord this time."
She stares at me for a long moment, eyes boring into mine for any sign of cracking but my forceful smile remained despite it. Finally, she relented and smiled in exasperation "Fine, but I hope your friend refined his recipe this time."
"Oh you will be most surprised."
-----
Two weeks later, we found ourselves riding into the streets of the city of Anvil, a veritable sea of sails visible even from beyond the city walls as the vast majority of the imperial fleet gathered to ferry the legions of Tamriel.
The Count of the city, Gerard Anvil, rode out to meet us even before we entered, a quick series of greetings later, Titus, Minthara, Alakim, and myself found ourselves riding alongside him as the many citizens cheered as we passed, some of the more enthusiastic ones even dropping flowers and pieces of colored cloth at us.
"Gerard you old dog!" Alakim grinned "I see the enemy was too cowardly to strike at your home twice."
The Count smiled "All thanks to our great future leaders and their mighty victories." He inclined his head at us "The number of soldiers and the reinforced defenses made any kind of advance too costly to pursue." His eyes darkened "Even if we had to hunt down a number of raiding parties in the past months."
"Such are the realities of war." Alakim commiserates and grins "But fear not, old friend! Your people have seen the last of it!"
"Hear, hear!" The Count raises his hand, and even if they couldn't hear us, the crowd still roared in approval.
-
Hours later, a swift war council had been held and our previous decisions were re-confirmed.
Legions IV, and Windhelm were to remain and garrison Elsweyr while Legion III would garrison the south of Valenwood, the north however would be remanded to my own Legion Mournhold who would be stationed in Falinesti.
Best that they keep my new... followers? nice and pacified.
The home theater would, to his great annoyance, be remaining under Titus' command.
He was a great warrior and an inspiring leader but we all knew to whom the final blow must belong.
Which of course meant that the invasion force naturally fell under Minthara, the Rihad Auxillia, Legions I, II, Whiterun, and Kragenmoor all nominally serving under her with Tullius serving as the overall strategist while Alakim would lead both the transport and screening navy.
Six dragons circled above the city, their remaining brethren asking to be left out of what was to come as they had been thoroughly exhausted by the constant revivals they had been subjected to while the rest had the fucking temerity to make excuses as to why they couldn't join up once they heard of the 'glories' their Thuri offered.
Bunch of arrogant little lizards.
Krein made no complaint when I asked him to be ready for a summoning.
My whining about unfaithful time spirits aside, we had one final restful (Or not so restful, but hey sleep is for chumps anyway) night within the Anvil palace, and when morning came we all boarded the imperial flagship.
A massive behemoth of a wood and steel looking like an unholy cross between an overlong quadrireme and man of war, only instead of cannons it was lined with so many enchanted scorpions I genuinely considered if a volley from the fucker would have been enough to take down Alduin when he popped out back in Helgen.
Needless to say, the Altmer were fucked.
-----
*Woodhearth is a Bosmer city closest to the shores of Alinor (pretty much in spitting distance), Greenheart is the southernmost coastal city of the province.
----------
The mines beckon! Become miners today!
If you want to support me directly and get access to a bunch chapters in advance visit my patreon page patreon .com/Rastislav156
If you want to discuss the story or just meme about join my discord server: https://discord .gg/NsDHGQpvsF