A Hold Not Worth Retaking

Posted originally on the Archive of Our Own at http://archiveofourown.org/works/30644120.

Rating: Teen And Up Audiences

Archive Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply
Category: F/M
Fandom: Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Relationship: Dovahkiin | Dragonborn/Rumarin, Female Dovahkiin |
Dragonborn/Rumarin
Character: Rumarin (Elder Scrolls), Brelyna Maryon, J'zargo (Elder Scrolls),
Onmund (Elder Scrolls), Original Dunmer Character(s) (Elder Scrolls),
Original Khajiit Character(s), Tolfdir (Elder Scrolls), Colette Marence,
Ancano (Elder Scrolls), Dovahkiin | Dragonborn, Bosmer Dovahkiin |
Dragonborn
Additional Tags: College of Winterhold Questline, Blood and Violence, War, Civil War,
Cuddling, which seems odd given all the other tags but hey,
Established Relationship
Series: Part 8 of Cannibal Witch of the Wilds
Stats: Published: 2021-04-12 Chapters: 4/4 Words: 7960

A Hold Not Worth Retaking

by Nebulad

Summary

“What do you think?” she asked.

“I think you’re an exceptional mage, but clearly any idiot could see that. I think the college
would benefit from someone with a dose of humility and the good sense to come in from
the rain.”

“And?”

“And do you think it’s one of those jobs where you’d have to live in Winterhold full time?”

“Absolutely not.”

“In that case I think you should take it, if you want. They’re definitely not going to find
anyone better.”
 Step Three: Shove the Staff of Magnus Down Ancano's Throat
Chapter Notes

See the end of the chapter for notes

Tsabhi slept on the carriage to Winterhold, with Rumarin dozing while he ran his fingers through
her hair; the repetitive motion would have knocked her out if she wasn’t already exhausted and
borrowing his lap to eke out any comfort on the rickety wooden cart rolling over uneven rocks. She
kept the Staff of Magnus pressed against her chest, afraid to let it out of her sight; gods knew it’d
end up on the other side of Nirn guarded by whatever was worse than a dragon.

She woke abruptly to the sound of Rumarin’s half panicked laugh and a strangled oh good!
“Namira’s guts, what is it now?” It wasn’t enough that he’d been right and Ancano was slightly
more competent than any of them had given him credit for, or that Savos Aren had been the first
one to die, or that she’d had to fight magical anomalies while screaming reassurances to the Jarl
that no, this time it was the Thalmor not the mages, no don’t call in the Stormcloaks, they won’t
help (and probably won’t come either, which will only make you angrier). Now she watched
Brelyna, J’zargo, and Onmund rush over to her from the crowd of mages standing, shivering, in the
ruins of Winterhold (thankfully at least they were no more ruinous than usual).

“Please tell me you have the staff,” Brelyna said urgently, reaching out to help her down from the
carriage. “Is that it?”

“It is.” She handed it over with no small measure of relief. “Things have been going...poorly, I
assume?”

“Mirabelle’s dead,” J’zargo reported, not sounding particularly upset about it.

“Ancano’s expanded his barrier and ejected us all from the college grounds,” Onmund added.

“And nobody knows what they’re doing anymore. Nobody’s taken charge, nobody’s done
anything. Research on the staff halted entirely, so I hope you know how to use it.”

“Where’s Tolfdir?” Tsabhi asked, looking around the crowd teeming with apprentices.

Onmund rolled his eyes. “Sitting down. Fretting to anyone who’ll listen.”
“Faralda? Drevis? Colette?”

J’zargo snorted. “Wandering. Fretting. Ignoring each other.” Tsabhi groaned, rubbing her hands up
and down her face.

“Not to say I told you so—” Rumarin started, and she dropped back into the snow.

“Shut up, that’s the worst part of all this.” He was right and Ancano was evil and the mages were
useless sods. All right. You get five more seconds in the snow. Four. Three. Two. “Okay, well.
Time to hurt some feelings. Rumarin, to add insult to injury, could I borrow you for a moment?”
They struggled through the process of Rumarin lifting her on his shoulders, made longer because
her husband apparently had to continuously start and stop short jokes that really stretched the
moment. When she was towering over the crowd, she whistled in the sort of way Dro’baad had
taught her, to be heard over great distances.

A hundred eyes were suddenly on her.

“Students to the left, faculty to the right. If you’re a working student, group with the students,” she
shouted, gesturing for Brelyna and the others to stay back by her side. After a stupidly long time,
they finally managed. Another minute or so passed as she shouted for the students to organise
themselves by level, until finally she had her options laid out in front of her.

“What an army, general,” Rumarin offered wryly.

“This is an embarrassment of novices,” J’zargo sneered, his tail puffed and twitching. “J’zargo is
not filled with confidence.”

Neither was Tsabhi. “Novices and apprentices are in charge of healing services, supervised by
Colette and Tolfdir,” she called. No one moved, besides Colette shuffling to the front.

“So I’m just supposed to sit back on your orders to oversee students who can’t do more than a
healing spell?” she asked irritably, clearly fishing for insult.

“I don’t recall asking what you thought Colette. You’re the Master Restorationist, so do your
fucking job and shut up about it.” Tsabhi hadn’t fought a dragon priest just to get mouthed off to
by a Breton. “Tolfdir, you’re handling potions.”
“I won’t argue with that,” the old man declared, obviously relieved to have an indoor job.

“Wise of you. You have authority over Colette, because she obviously has problems following
instructions.” There was a short wave of swallowed cackling in the student side, and still nobody
moved. “Woodland Man save me, get going! You’re not waiting around to heal Ancano, you’re to
tend to the town!” That got them going, all of them headed towards the inn. “Now everyone else is
in charge of anomalies and protecting as much life and property as you’re able, headed by Faralda
and Enthir. I assume the two of you can figure it out between yourselves?”

“Yes, expert!” they called back, again very wisely, and even more miraculously began to
immediately organise themselves. She was relieved to hear them set up patrols and emergency
escort services for the stranded and potentially injured, and tapped Rumarin’s head gently.

“Okay, down I go.” It was only extremely awkward, but when she finally hit the ground, she
turned to her friends. “And we’re all on cleaning duty. We’re going to get into the college with the
staff, murder Ancano, and Brelyna I don’t supposed you know any necromancy?”

“Of course not. That’s for priests and...well, you know, necromancers.”

“Well, then we’ll only kill him once.”

“Dibs on body disposal,” Rumarin said, putting his arm around her shoulders. “I’m thinking
something subtle, like using his corpse as an improvised firework.” J’zargo grinned but Tsabhi
waved him off: unfortunately to kill Ancano, they would have to actually go inside and kill him,
the sooner the better.

Not soon enough, however, to avoid Korir. “Where is Savos Aren?” he yelled at the newly
founded patrol, and Tsabhi sighed as an adept stammered something and pointed directly at her. He
marched over, flanked by guards. “Where is the archmage?”

“Dead.”

“What about that Breton woman he had at the front doors?” Well, that answered the question as to
why a groundskeeper had to be hired in addition to Faralda’s screening questions.
“Also dead.”

“All that done by the Thalmor?” he roared, reaching dangerously for the greatsword on his back.
Tsabhi subtly stepped in front of Rumarin. “Why was my guard not informed?”

“The short answer is preservation of life. The Thalmor is pissing with magic, and I’ve been away
until now getting what I need to stop him. If you’ll excuse me, I’ll bring you back a head to pike.”
She stepped back and nodded deeply enough that it could be misconstrued as a bow, and rushed
away before he could suggest he send anyone with her: or worse, try to call the Stormcloaks.

“So...is there a plan we’re meant to be following?” Onmund asked nervously. “This is a little more
sophisticated than blasting draugr.”

“I have the staff, so I’ll be the one to use it. Rumarin is melee, and I’ll need someone to keep him
and everyone else safe and in one piece: I assume you can handle that, Onmund?” He nodded,
looking a little relieved to not have to go toe to toe with a Thalmor agent: she simply didn’t have
the heart to tell him that any sensible fighter would move for the healer first. “Try to station
yourself somewhere with a vantage point. J’zargo, obviously you’re on destruction duty, and
Brelyna can do her best to divert his attention from Rumarin and I.” Besides the healer (and since
Ancano gave no real indication that he was at all given to sensibility), the one with the weapon of
legend and the one with the weapon of stabbing him a lot would be priority targets. “As much
illusion as you think will help.”

“You’ve got it. I’m so glad you’re here, Tsabhi, they wouldn’t listen to us.”

“I’ll take my payment in bodily protection from Colette once she gets it in her head to pay me back
for embarrassing her in front of everyone.” Ancano’s barrier really had extended right to the
stone’s edge of the college, and more troublingly seemed to be hungry to move farther. “All right,
here we go. One barrier-eating barrage of godlike magic.”

To her surprise, the whole thing popped out of existence the second the magic hit it, like a soap
bubble. From her side, Rumarin whistled. “How often do these kinds of things go right the first
time?” he asked.

She gestured them forward, taking the lead towards campus. “Let’s hope we didn’t waste all our
good luck.”
“What do we do if he starts blasting at the college itself?” Brelyna asked as they made their careful
way across the eerily silent bridge. The stillness was unnatural, lacking even the near ever-present
icy wind trying to blow them into the sea. “It can’t take much more structural damage.”

“Have you ever heard of the Renrijra Krin?” Tsabhi returned, and J’zargo’s ears perked up.

“I have to assume it’s a Khajiiti thing.”

“The Mercenary’s Grin,” J’zargo reported with his own smile. “One of their more controversial
tenants is ahzirr traajijazeri: ‘we justly take by force’.”

“Well, obviously, but what does that have to do with keeping the walls standing?”

“The central philosophy behind ahzirr traajijazeri is that if you can’t have what is beloved to you,
then you destroy it so that your oppressors cannot possess it either,” Tsabhi explained, once more
stepping around the corpse of the archmage, now joined by Mirabelle. “If we can’t get him out of
the school, then we’ll destroy it.”

“I wouldn’t worry about it,” Rumarin said, presumably in response to Onmund and Brelyna’s
shocked expressions. “So long as he needs a floor to stand on, he’ll keep the floor in one piece.”

“Is that like, a Thalmor principle?” Onmund asked nervously.

“What is wrong with mages? It’s common sense!” Tsabhi laughed as she pushed open the doors to
the Hall of Elements; there was no point in trying to employ stealth, as she was the only one with
any talent for it and presumably the Eye gave Ancano some sort of heightened sense for people
hiding.

“So, you took down my barrier did you?” he shouted, his eyes hypnotically fixed on the Eye. “The
power to unmake the world is at my fingertips, and you think you can stop it by making your way
to my feet?”

“I think it’s very weird that he’s talking about his feet,” Rumarin said, not bothering to keep his
voice down. “If anyone ever comes to cut my head off and pike it at the gates, I hope my last
words aren’t anything that can be interpreted as a fetish.” Onmund slipped away from them,
heading towards the upper floor to stay the high ground. After a moment of deliberation, Brelyna
followed suit while J’zargo slunk around the side of the Eye opposite of Tsabhi.

Ancano was doing something magic, but not attacking. Experimentally, Tsabhi hurled a fireball at
him and was unsurprised when it rolled off like water from a guar’s back. “I am beyond your
pathetic attempts at magic! You cannot touch me!”

“And now he’s talking about touching. Can we jump to the part where we get to kill him, because
I’m afraid to let him keep talking in case I fall in love with him.” Rumarin conjured his sword, and
Tsabhi glanced over at the Eye. Ancano seemed invulnerable, but Magnus hadn’t crafted the staff
to put morals manipulating the Eye in their place: it was for the orb itself.

So she turned and blasted it, feeling a vibration up her entire arm that was proof enough that she
was on the right track, if she didn’t have the visual cue of the whole thing coming apart to reveal its
highly unstable magicka core. “You’ve retrieved a paltry stick and now hope to thwart me with it?
Very well, mongrel. Come, and see what I have become!”

“Do I even have to mention the dog thing?” Rumarin threw up his ward against a fireball that was
clearly thrown in the same spirit as Tsabhi’s: to prod. “I assume you have to do staff magic now.”

“As long as the Eye is closed, he’s invulnerable; wait for me to open it with the staff, then strike.”
She fled backwards, throwing herself behind a pillar and crouching low. At the very least, the
college was cavernous enough to hide her movements so long as she was careful, and Brelyna held
up her end of the plan by casting mirror images of Tsabhi and of phantom magic effects around the
Eye as often as possible. Onmund cast in a near constant stream, spending any magicka that wasn’t
used for healing Rumarin (who threw himself at Ancano with a concerning fervour) to slow
Ancano down.

And then of course, an explosion would rock the walls and Tsabhi would be grateful that J’zargo
was not above experimental scroll magic.

Ancano, flagging badly after a prolonged battle, quickly abandoned all tactical movement and
indeed, anything to do with the Eye at all. He didn’t surrender, of course, because that would be
the least troublesome thing to do, but instead focused all his efforts on killing at least one of them.
Luckily, by the time he pivoted to his murder-suicide plan he was already nearly too weak to fight
off Rumarin alone, let alone step out of the way of J’zargo’s elemental chaos.

In the end, Rumarin got his wish: Ancano spun as Tsabhi darted by him, turning his back on her
husband who stabbed his sword directly through Ancano’s throat. There was an indecent spray of
blood and with a choked gurgle, the Thalmor finally slumped indelicately to the ground: at the
same time, the Eye gave a roar as it stopped receiving energy from the elf, closing in on itself with
a rumble like a stampede of mammoths. She waited until it was absolutely quiet besides the
ambient hum of magic, then stepped primly out from behind her pillar while Onmund and Brelyna
shakily scaled back down to the ground floor. “I seem to recall someone promising he would clean
up if Ancano turned out to be evil,” she said, deeply out of breath from the near sprint she’d
maintained.

Rumarin let his sword dissolve, slumping back onto the low staircase. “Later. I want to bask in
victory while I’m too tired to care about all the blood.” Tsabhi, unbothered by blood in general,
dropped down beside him and laid down heavily on his chest. “Oh, now you’ve done it. I’m going
to fall asleep right here on the floor with a corpse two feet away from me.”

Approaching from across the room, Brelyna and the others seemed to have the same idea. The
explosive relief of having done what they came in to do was overcome by fatigue, and they laid out
flat on the ground, covered in blood and panting. The silence was ringing, but Tsabhira was
convinced that she’d drop off right where she sat in Tolfdir hadn’t chosen that exact moment to
throw open the doors.

“Sweet merciful aedra, they’ve all died!” he shouted, his tone more appropriate for surprising
results of an experiment rather than the gory deaths of the highest ranking students in the school.
From beside her, Rumarin snorted, quickly trying to muffle his laugh under his hand and failing
miserably. It was infectious, and she dissolved into giggles and buried her face in his bloody,
bloody chest. Brelyna unsuccessfully muffled several involuntary snorts, her head rocking on
Onmund’s deep belly laughs while J’zargo openly cackled.

It was part hysteria, she understood, because they’d just done the thing that’d killed Savos and
Mirabelle. It was the gritty confirmation that their capability wasn’t imagined, and that the college
really had underestimated them, paired with the shock of death and a battle that’d been fought for
days on both ends. There were worse things to do than laugh.

“We’re fine, Tolfdir!” Tsabhi called, her belly aching from trying to speak clearly. “We were just
resting!”

“Oh, thank the Eight. Ancano’s died, then?” He made his way inside very casually for someone
who thought he’d walked in on a murder scene, peering around like he expected the advisor to
jump out at him. He made it all the way to the body before anyone could stop laughing long
enough to answer him.

“He’s dead,” Brelyna wheezed, trying to take deep breaths to pull herself together. “And the Eye
stopped responding to anything but the staff.”
A flash of light interrupts whatever Tolfdir was going to respond with, and standing in the middle
of the hall with a saucy hand on his hip was Tsabhira’s mentor and probably one of the oldest
people not on Nirn, Han’Ilu. “That’s exactly what I wanted to hear: see, Tsabhi, I told you it
wouldn’t be a problem,” he said breezily, giving Ancano’s corpse a nudge with his toe. Tsabhi
thought back to the archmage’s office, where Han had spoken to her after Saarthal. It turns out your
actions have led to events that could end the world, but don’t feel too bad little guar: we’re pretty
sure it was meant to happen this way, so no harm no foul. Just don’t let the world end and you’ll
be fine.

“What happens to the Eye now?” she asked, settling herself back down on Rumarin’s chest.

“I’ll call a bunch of psijics here and we’ll take it, and leave you with a great story about how you
met the psijics.”

“Bummer prize, seeing as how she already met you,” Rumarin offered from the floor. Han’Ilu
rolled his eyes and ignored Tsabhi’s husband, which so far seemed to be the extent of their
relationship; she’d tried to assure Rumarin that it wasn’t him so much as it was a lot of pent up
resentment towards Altmer from being a Dunmer psijic, but it was hard to explain that much time
to someone who’d never had to conceptualise it before.

“Well, I spoke with the rest of the faculty and we have something we’d like to offer you in
recompense for not only retrieving the staff ably and in a tight timeframe, but also through virtue of
the impressive leadership skills you showed under pressure,” Tolfdir announced as Han began to
set up crystals to channel the magicka of his peers.

Rumarin groaned so quietly that she only heard it because she had her ear pressed to him. “Here it
comes.”

“We want to offer you the now-vacant position of archmage, and all associated responsibilities and
benefits,” he said with a triumphant smile, as if there were no way that she would guess that they
were going to foist their leadership issues onto her. She glanced up at Ru, who had his eyes closed.

“What do you think?” she asked.

“I think you’re an exceptional mage, but clearly any idiot could see that. I think the college would
benefit from someone with a dose of humility and the good sense to come in from the rain.”
“And?”

“And do you think it’s one of those jobs where you’d have to live in Winterhold full time?”

“Absolutely not.” Brelyna and the others could supervise in her absence, and the faculty had
proven that it wasn’t a lack of will that made them flounder, but the lack of a way. Besides, worst
case she also had a few psijic tricks up her sleeve, so if she was needed then she could return in a
rush without agonising over how far away she was.

“In that case I think you should take it, if you want. They’re definitely not going to find anyone
better.” There was a lingering bitterness there, the sort of resentment that she’d seen in him on their
trip to Alinor.

“Ru?” He didn’t have to talk to her right away if he didn’t want to, but if there was ever a sign that
she should ask, it was both of them covered in a stranger’s blood after an extremely personal kill.

“Oh, just ignore me. I don’t mean to rain on your parade.”

She turned to Tolfdir, who was still simply standing there: he didn’t have anything better to do yet.
“I accept your offer, effective tomorrow. For today, everyone should get some rest.” She had big
plans for a hold clean-up and repair; the fact that Aren had lived in Winterhold for so long and
never made an effort to apply his resources to the crumbling city was nearly perplexingly cruel.
Sure, Korir was an asshole, but that wasn’t Birna’s fault.

People began to file out, and Tsabhi turned to Rumarin again. “There, I’ve dispersed my parade.
Can we...talk about it, maybe?” Han and the other three were still setting up, but far enough away
that they were functionally alone.

“Well there’s not much to say: Ancano just pestles my mortar, you know?” He averted his eyes and
she played with the ties on his shirt. “I mean, so what if all I can do is summon weapons? Some
people can’t summon anything at all. Otero never could.”

“Was he the one that taught you to fight?” she asked, hoping to divert him to a happier line of
thought than my parents were disappointed that I couldn't learn magic.
“No. Maybe he thought it’d make me too serious, but he never really wanted me to pursue
adventuring: I think he regretted that he was the one who made me want it in the first place.”
Rumarin wiped his mouth, and Tsabhi helped because it was very much covered in blood. “He did
end up teaching me to bladebind, though indirectly.”

“I thought you said he couldn’t summon?”

“He couldn’t. It’s a funny story actually.” His face certainly didn’t look like he was setting up a
joke. “After he died and I told my parents I was going to Skyrim, I made a quick stop in some
scummy little town just before the border. I was doing tricks for a group of children, who all
thought it was magic: not that I corrected them on that point.”

“Why not?” Not that there was any meaningful difference between sleight of hand and magic for a
run-of-the-mill peasant child with no real potential for either.

“Because children are easy to trick, and it felt good to let them think that my jester’s tricks were
actual magic. Unfortunately, one of the children ran in sobbing about how bandits had stolen her
mother. All of their little eyes turned right to me, because of course Rumarin the mage could save
her! And you try looking at their little faces and telling them that actually you’ve had a long life of
disappointing your parents with your lack of magical ability.”

“Oh, no. I mean you could help without magic, right?”

“Wrong, actually. I didn’t know how to bind blades yet, and Otero had refused to teach me how to
use a sword. I wasn’t looking to walk into camp with my pathetic little dagger and get laughed at
before I died, so that’s why I...I gathered up what little coin I had and paid off the bandits.” He
leaned back further, bent at an almost uncomfortable angle. “It worked, but it was humiliating.”

“It was still brave! You still saved the child’s mother.”

“It didn’t really matter. The second I was alone I started throwing out all my props; they were as
stupid and useless as I was.” His voice doesn’t change, always light and sort of self-deprecating,
but she still felt her jaw clench. Before she could even formulate anything to say, Rumarin grinned.
“And at the bottom of my bag, I found the Bound Sword spell tome. One last jester’s trick, from
Otero.”

She didn’t ask how he knew it was from him: she didn’t care whether it was or it wasn’t, but he
 seemed to feel strongly that it had been. “And you didn’t have any trouble with it?”

“Not a whit. I was afraid to try, at first, but it wasn’t like I could be any more disappointed in
myself. Imagine my surprise when I understood what it wanted from me right away.” It was
actually a fairly common phenomenon: spellcasting was all a scale of conceptuality. Being able to
understand very abstract spells made it more difficult to simply reach into Oblivion and pull out a
functional weapon, and the same was true in reverse. “But there you go: I hated Ancano because he
looked down on me, and now I’m looking down on his corpse. Happy endings all around.”

Han clapped, his perma smile ever-fixed to his face although he’d certainly not been listening to a
word they said. “Excellent. If you’re both done chattering, Tsabhi, come help me with this spell.”

She rolled her eyes, casting Rumarin an apologetic look that he merely shrugged at. “Do you mind?
I just finished killing someone with a legendary weapon.”

“Sounds like the weapon did the bulk of your work. Come on, before I gag watching you and
Auriel’s Chosen.”

Chapter End Notes

I make games you can play for free, they're choose your own adventure and they run
on any device.

I patched together Rumarin's post-College speech from complete memory because

there were no videos posted of it, before remembering that I downloaded a program
specifically so I could run a quick look up on all his conversations. Anyway, I know
the wedding fic was a LOT, so here's something...slightly less a lot?
 The Jarl of Winterhold
Chapter Notes

See the end of the chapter for notes

“I’m giving you the resources to rebuild the city!” Tsabhira snapped, slamming the butt of her staff
on the ground. “I don’t understand what the problem is.”

“The problem is that the mages sent it into the sea in the first place!” Korir shouted back,
unintimidated by the new archmage although it might have been smarter for him to reconsider that
stance. Rumarin was sitting blithely off to the side, neither interested in his wife’s rebuilding plan
for the city (not that he thought it was a bad idea, only that he didn’t care if the rest of Winterhold
followed the bits being eaten away in the Sea of Ghosts) nor in anything Korir said.

He was still feeling contemplative after Tsabhi had gently prodded him about what made him so
angry about Ancano. It was hard to pick: he was a snobby, entitled mage; he was a snobby, entitled
Thalmor prick, the sort who was in a rush to get everyone killed; and he’d died choking on
Rumarin’s bound sword, still wholly confident in the idea that he was still better than him.
Somehow, that kept him awake worse than the idea of being the sort of person who lived in
Winterhold now.

“Sheogorath’s ass, how many times do you need to be told that the Collapse was caused by the
Red Year?”

“The Red Year happened two hundred years past!”

“I’ll be sure to use very small fucking words when I explain this for the fiftieth time, but the impact
of a meteor large enough to level the entirety of Vivec City and destroy Vvardenfell caused
permanent changes to the land beneath the soil. It may not have been a direct aftershock of Red
Mountain, but the geological shift that caused the earthquake would have been caused by the
eruption.” That was honestly the clearest way that Rumarin had ever heard it stated; maybe Savos
Aren was just a truly abysmal educator. “It had nothing to do with the mages.”

“Then why does your college still stand when its whole district fell away?”

“There could be a thousand reasons, but if I had to guess I’d say they built the castle where they
wanted to bow things up to withstand large scale tremors.” The look on Korir’s face made it very
clear that he was furious that Tsabhi had the gall to explain anything to him, let alone explain it in
such sensible terms. “But that’s immaterial—even if we had caused it, which we didn’t, we’re
 offering to fix it for no gold.”

“To send the rest of it into the sea, no doubt. My answer is no, archmage. Keep your people in the
school, unless you’d like to answer for their actions outside of it.” With an imperious turn of his
head, Korir made an extremely powerful enemy, and Rumarin stood up to follow Tsabhi out of the
hall.

“Well, that went wrong in the exact worse way it could’ve,” he said, kicking a pile of snow in a fit
of boredom and whimsy. Tsabhi seethed. “Who knew you’d have a harder time not getting paid for
your general heroics.”

“He’s going to regret it,” she said darkly, jerking her head towards the school for the benefit of the
assembled group of students who were waiting on their orders. “I don’t know when or how, but I
know that I’m going to look Korir in the eye when it happens.”

“Something to look forward to!” Rumarin would put money on this whole Korir situation coming
to a head as soon as Elenwen received Tsabhi’s perfunctory and borderline rude report on Ancano’s
demise and the change in college leadership. In her letter she’d made very clear that she would no
longer tolerate Thalmor representatives at the school, which simply wasn’t going to go down as
smoothly as she’d hoped if only because she’d made a point of saying so.

If the Dwemer came back tomorrow and asked Rumarin to describe the Thalmor, he wouldn’t call
them gracious losers.

Chapter End Notes

I think it's very funny that if you oust Korir, he gets replaced with a guy who pretty
much otherwise spends the entire game in his house. He just sat quietly in a room
eating sweetrolls until it was time for him to be Jarl. Also, forgive the overexplaining
of what happened with the college: I never thought it was like, particularly well
explained in game. I was confused for a long time because I was like Morrowind
exploded shortly before Oblivion, so why would it be an aftershock from Red
Mountain? Turns out I'm exactly as dumb as Korir.
 Diplomacy at Knifepoint
Chapter Notes

See the end of the chapter for notes

“Tsabhira?” J’zargo darted into the Arcanaeum, his fur standing on end and Rumarin hot on his
heels. Tsabhi looked up from a Dwemer constellation box, hoping that she didn’t look as weary as
she felt. Everyone’s first instinct was always to track her down, regardless of the magnitude of the
problem. It was still the early stages of her assumption of the role of archmage, but just a few
catastrophes could probably be solved with pluck and guile, surely. “We need you outside.”

“Let me guess: unbound atronach, three novices dead.”

“No,” Rumarin reported, uncharacteristically tense but still trying to act very casual.

“Mannimarco’s risen again and trying his luck in Skyrim?”

“Nope.”

“Garden-variety necromancers, then, how unbearably boring.”

“You know, I can’t actually say with any authority—”

“Tsabhira, you need to come outside, now,” J’zargo hissed, pushing her along and rushing her
down the stairs. “This one has already gathered all the experts he could find on such short notice.”

“Oh gods, it’s Korir isn’t it?” Surely the Stormcloaks would be angry when she inevitably killed
the jarl for trying to encroach on the college. I did say he’d regret crossing me, although she hadn’t
expected him to escalate things further.

“Oh he wishes he was the villain in this story, although I guess he still kind of is. He’s just not the
most impressive one: the Imperial army is marching on Winterhold.”

“With the support of the Thalmor,” J’zargo added, his whiskers twitching. Tsabhi froze, spinning
around to face the two who’d waited until they were in the courtyard to finally tell her what was
happening, and on what scale. This had to mean that either the Thalmor were specifically there to
employ or at least test magical means of large-scale troop concealment (she doubted the Imperial
mages could handle such prolonged casting), or that they’d taken Dawnstar on their way through.

The people of Winterhold were functionally helpless, and the only troops Korir commanded were
the fucking town guards who were simply too stupid and mean to be miners.

Keep going. At minimum she could bar soldier entry into the buildings and hopefully keep the
stupid people of Winterhold who’d spent years having their petty personal grudges fostered by
their petty jarl safe: and so she did, as soon as she stepped into the town centre. Luckily, the army
hadn’t advanced yet and only Elenwen and General Tullius were really in the city.

“What’s the plan?” Rumarin asked, although he definitely wasn’t battle-ready. He was nervous,
she realised...and so was J’zargo. She turned, slowly, and saw Faralda worrying her lower lip
between her teeth. Enthir had just rushed down in a huff, and was standing with a group of Bosmer
experts who all eyed the army—not the Legion, but the Thalmor—with poorly-disguised dread.
They spread out into their positions, a mortal barrier between danger and the college...but Tsabhi
realised that they weren’t at all prepared to be the bastions she needed.

There were a few unassociated with the Dominion—plucky Argonians and orcs taut with tension
standing among swaggering Bretons and haughty Dunmer, and a few traditionally Dominion races
who’d simply had the good luck to be born and raised outside of their influence—but they were
outnumbered by far. It made sense, she realised: the college was objectively unpopular with the
natives of Skyrim, even among the non-Nords (whose lack of mobility tended to ensure that they
couldn’t take the trip to Winterhold, or were otherwise simply bitter that the mages secluded
themselves). Who else would fill the halls besides those talented with magic that needed
somewhere neutral to hide?

With a cold certainty, Tsabhi turned from her husband to focus her eyes on the army. “There isn’t
one,” she reported, her voice faint but steely. “I’m going to maintain the barriers on the buildings
so the soldiers can’t loot, but that’s it.”

“The school will not intervene?” J’zargo asked, his voice caught between relief and apprehension.

“No. How can I, J’zargo? I’m not going to jeopardise my people and their families in defence of
Korir.” Still, she balked at the idea of simply letting all of this happen, if only on principle. Instead
she watched carefully as the Legion leaders lost their patience and approached the jarl’s home.
Tullius pounded his fist on the door while Elenwen looked on in inscrutable disinterest.
“Not that this one disagrees, but he wonders if capitulation will not cause an equal amount of
trouble; some of our number will resent having to bow to the Thalmor, especially after Ancano.”

“If the Nords are allowed to declare war on behalf of an entire province, then I can avoid a war
without bringing it to a vote. Nobody likes the Thalmor,” she said in a low voice. “They’re not
peppering the countryside because people want them here. No offence, Ru.”

“None taken; you’ll recall I was blackmailed into taking you to Alinor.”

“I’m not doing this because I want to make Elenwen happy; I’m doing it because I don’t know
what leverage she has.” She wondered for a moment, as the door to the jarl’s home was broken
down and soldiers filed in behind Elenwen and Tullius, what Ru’s parents would think of her and
their son killing Ancano. Probably very little: she assumed that if they even had the clearance to
know what happened (unlikely) that they would have simply been told that the advisor had gone
rogue.

They dragged Korir out into the snow, and true to her word, Tsabhi looked him in the eyes as she
stood there and waited for them to cart him and his exiled house out of the city altogether. “Don’t
just stand there!” he shouted, thrashing against his bored-looking guard. The silence was
deafening, roaring even over the jarl’s shouts. “Do something!”

Tsabhi said nothing, hoping that he understood that he’d brought this down on himself. Her lack of
intervention had nothing to do with him, but she certainly wasn’t going to stick her neck out for the
man who’d shouted her down for wanting to rebuild his city.

Finally, after the carriage began to rumble away with the still shouting Korir (using some
expletives that she was meant to understand he’d not called her as a courtesy, which was now
forgotten), Elenwen approached the mages, as Tsabhi had assumed she would. “Archmage,” she
said with the exact sort of nod that Tsabhi used to get out of bowing to people she didn’t like.

“First Emissary. Am I anticipating a long occupation?”

“Nonsense, cousin.” One of the more annoying things about the Thalmor was that they continually
referred to strange Bosmer as their cousins, as if the whole of Valenwood was too stupid to
understand that they were being spoken down to. They also did so under the presumption that no
Altmer in history had ever stooped to marrying one of them. “Korir, as you can see, has already
begun his exile. Kraldar will replace him, and you’ll be pleased to know he takes a much more
favourable view on magic than his predecessor.”
She pronounced Kraldar’s name strangely, making the man sound like some exotic crustacean. “A
low bar.” She watched the First Emissary carefully, knowing for sure what was coming next and
only wondering if Elenwen would be blunt or continue to couch it in vague diplomacy.

“Surely you view this as a bit of theatricality, for a hold so small and unguarded,” she said, and
Tsabhi couldn’t tell if that was a threat or an insult. Winterhold was small and helpless, however,
and Tsabhira was no Nord and so she didn’t care if people knew that. “We were unsure if Korir
was able to mobilize the mages or the Stormcloaks.”

“He made his view on my college clear, and the Stormcloaks made their indifference even more
so.”

“Then hopefully we can rely on the support of the college moving forward.” So, she’s not leaving a
significant force behind to keep the city. Surely this wasn’t entirely because Tsabhi had refused
another advisor, so she had to assume that it was another in a long line of decisions by Tullius that
spat in the face of every ounce of Nord pride there was to be had.

He simply didn’t think the Stormcloaks had any reason to try and take Winterhold back.

“I was raised by a prominent member of the Mages Guild, back when there was such a thing, and a
devotee of Sotha Sil before the Nerevarine’s return; as such, I don’t believe in learning institutions
that double as militias. If my students want war, they know where to sign up.” There was no point
in trying to be delicate for the Thalmor’s sake.

“I see. Well, false gods aside—” Tsabhira bit back her kneejerk retort that the Tribunal had been
gods merely stricken with the unfortunate burden of mortality, because of all the people in the
world she didn’t want to get into a theological debate with it was the leader of the Thalmor in
Skyrim, “—I thought I would stop by to discuss a compromise in our unfortunate advisor
situation.”

“I’m not sure what compromise there is to be had. The last one we hosted was so thoroughly
unsupervised that he tried to end the world, with support from other members of the Thalmor. As
you can see, our school can’t structurally support any more apocalypses.”

“And that is why I propose that I send someone who is not a formal member of the Thalmor
military institution. Alinor is replete with talented mages who could no doubt enrich their research
through travel.” If Tsabhi knew one thing about the high elves as a cultural group, it was that being
 relocated from the isles was akin to a death sentence. She resisted the urge to check what face
Rumarin was making, simply trusting that his skepticism didn’t show. “Shall we speak inside?”

It wasn’t like she had a choice.

Chapter End Notes

I love stories where the Dragonborn just dunks on the Thalmor. I love it, but Tsabhi is
not that person. Part of the burden of leadership is understanding that your adversary
has hostages, and it's a small price to pay to just...let them plant a spy.

Also, I have a lot of Tribunal feelings that I glance by in this chapter. Han'Ilu (the rude
little psijic from chapter one) is ostensibly a Tribunal worshipper until he isn't (his
great great great great great etc niece is the Nerevarine) and when you lose your first
god of knowing a bunch of shit, you look to the daedric god of knowing a bunch of shit
and teach your kid that sometimes god's worst burden is to be mortal (and in Vivec's
case, a fucking asshole, which makes it tense when the Nerevarine occasionally shows
up to get a ride to wherever she's going with her mysterious companion).
 Bedtime Politics
Chapter Notes

See the end of the chapter for notes

Tsabhi returned to the archmage’s quarters late, exhausted and in a worse mood than she’d
anticipated, even after prolonged meetings with the Thalmor. Elenewen had quickly quit
Winterhold at the first sign of bad weather and taken her armies with her, leaving Tsabhira with a
mindless pawn whose job it was to convince her to blithely accept whatever candidate for advisor
that the First Emissary put forth. There’d already been a few that failed inspection: Tsabhi could
tell when they were trying to foist a problem onto her, and she’d had her fill of taking care of
Alinor’s problem children the first time.

She undressed and crawled onto the bed beside her husband, exhaling long and slow to deflate
against the heavy blankets. It was freezing—the aforementioned bad weather hadn’t worn off yet
—but she couldn’t bring herself to actually settle down. “Do you think,” Rumarin started, startling
her because she was sure he was asleep, “that if I asked the Thalmor to go away, they’d do it?”

“Has that ever worked for you?” she returned, rolling onto her back.

“No, but if J’zargo’s taught me anything it’s that I should stubbornly ignore any and all failures in
favour of wildly unearned self-confidence. Could you actually get under the blankets with me,
because just watching you is making me cold?” She acquiesced, shimmying underneath the quilt
and sliding closer when he put his arm around her. “Plus, I bet that if I found some Justiciar’s robes
somewhere that even they wouldn’t be able to tell me from your garden variety agent.”

“I’m starting to get the impression that they only send people they hate to Skyrim.”

“Oh absolutely; leaving Alinor at all is the villainous origin story of all Altmer, although before
you ask, no that doesn’t count me. I’m from Cyrodiil, which is an entirely different brand of
madness.”

She laughed faintly, because was that ever true: between the scars of the Great War and the near
complete lack of oversight over the Legion and the Thalmor, Cyrodiil’s wilderness was night to
Skyrim’s day. “You’d think for a people that have trouble maintaining a sustainable population for
their endless superiority wars, they’d be a little more delicate about throwing people out.”

“Unfortunately in order to address a problem in society you have to be willing to admit that
something’s wrong. It’s much easier to just rely on your allies while pretending like you’re
disgusted by their ability to procreate.” Tsabhi sneered: yet another reason why Nords were the
preferable evil to the Thalmor, as far as people Tsabhi could tolerate intolerance from. Nords only
knew so much about Bosmer and rarely felt the need to guess (they were satisfied with how
scathing they found tree elf to be), while the Thalmor were inclined to believe all sorts of strange
and intimate things about her that they just made up while disliking other Bosmer. “You’d tell
them no if they wanted to send a sapiarch, wouldn’t you?”

She knew what he was thinking: that because his awful cousin was technically part of Elenwen’s
ideal demographic (a magic scholar with no real job or use in Altmer society), that he’d be sent if
the First Emissary found out that he had family ties to the new archmage. “I’m trying to save my
vetos for the sorts of people I think would bring down another apocalypse on our heads, which I
don’t think Sarulian is important enough to even want. She hasn’t suggested him yet, though, if
that makes you feel better.”

“I’ll reserve feeling better for hearing that their college dropped into the Eltheric with him trapped
in the library, but I suppose it’d be worse to know that Elenwen knew who I was.”

“Your accent isn’t Alinorian enough for her to think she should pay attention to you,” she teased.
“You talk like a Nord.”

“Believe me, I do not .” He rolled over to lay on her, his head on her chest and his hands running
underneath her back. It was amazing the many ways he could functionally use her as a pillow. “My
mother used to complain that if Otero didn’t annunciate things, then I would never learn how to
talk. I never knew a man who made so much money storytelling who also spoke like he was three
sheets to the wind at all times.”

She started to absently play with his hair, as fascinated as ever with the blondeness of it. The only
blonde she’d ever known was Dro’baad, who was technically just a white-striped Khajiit “Maybe
we should stop by the bard’s college, for nostalgia’s sake.”

“I don’t know about that. First of all, bard’s are the mages of the entertainment industry—there’s
functionally no difference between what I do and what they do, and yet they still find some way to
be a snob about it.”

“Maybe you just don’t like snobs.”

“Maybe, but it’s also possible I’m just extremely sensitive about my own lack of talent. Back to the
topic of bards, however, the other problem is that Nords from Cyrodiil and Nords from Skyrim are
as different from each other as Windhelm Argonians are from Blackmarsh Argonians.” She
graciously didn’t halt him on the sidestep, as it was difficult to tell whether or not he was being
sincere or just opening his mouth and saying words. “Bruma Nords also know they’re being
primarily targeted by most of this Talos business, so they compensate by being overly cheerful. Of
course they’re still Nords though, so their humour comes off as very dark.”

“And you prefer that to Skyrim’s lack of humour?”

“Well, not to get serious or anything, but the Thalmor are far more powerful and concentrated in
Cyrodiil. If the Nords don’t like having to pretend to listen to the various ‘advisors’ that very
sparsely litter the frozen countryside, they should try being in Bruma where the Thalmor don’t
have to pretend to be diplomatic. Winterhold is a broad exception in their so far very toothless
prodding of Skyrim.”

She shouldn’t have been surprised that Rumarin had a stronger opinion about Nords than his
teasing ambivalence implied, given he was raised by one. “You’d think Ulfric starts every morning
with a mug of Thalmor piss, the way he’s reacted.”

“Frankly I’m waiting to see what Ulfric’s thing is, you know? I mean, he purges the Reach for
Talos, but the Thalmor eventually release him despite the rumour that he used the dragon shout-y
thing to do it. He starts a civil war, and yet the Legion and the Thalmor don’t manage to put down
a Hold’s worth of Nords before he just flat out kills the king. Then he’s captured and nearly put to
death and a dragon intervenes—”

“And Elenwen,” Tsabhi offered, thinking back to her brief time in Helgen. “She didn’t want Tullius
to kill him.”

“Exactly my point. Full offence to the Stormcloaks, but Ulfric isn’t weathering all this chaos
through skill and guile, he’s being protected. I’d just hate to be in Windhelm when everyone found
out why .” So would she, mostly because everyone’s surprise would be intolerable. Not to insult
Rumarin’s powers of observation—quite the opposite, he was obviously paying much more
attention than he pretended—but there was a reason that no serious institutions within Skyrim
supported the Stormcloaks outside of bitter jarls from footnote holds. Markarth, Whiterun,
Solitude...they may have had an equal disdain for the Legion, but they certainly weren’t falling to
their knees like Riften (a haven of scum whose claim to fame was a puppet jarl danced around by a
despotic rich woman), Dawnstar (a daedra-haunted nightmare that no one smart would spend
longer than a night in), and until recently, Winterhold (regrettably where the mages lived, in half a
city).

“I wonder if they would care,” she asked with a yawn. “Or if they would just bend over backwards
to justify it all.”
 “Oh, gods only know. Are you tired enough to fall asleep yet? I’m running out of dry political
commentary.” She laughed, nudging him to very little avail. “You could try asking me how I feel
about the splintering of the Mages Guild, but I’m just going to start sounding stupid.”

“It encouraged isolationism in races with natural magical skill, and just plain isolation in places
like Skyrim with a minority population of native inhabitants that are willing and able to practice
magic. Goodnight, Ru.”

“I was just going to ask if it meant we were all allowed to be necromancers again, but I suppose it’s
better to ask for forgiveness than permission. Sleep tight.”

Chapter End Notes

Once again, I make text based adventure games that run on all devices.

This chapter is kind of weird because the initial plan was to crossover harder with the
wedding fic and introduce Sarulian as the new advisor but there was really nowhere to
ultimately go with it because he's an asshole and not in a fun way and Tsabhi and
Rumarin would simply leave. So to avoid that, I had a little bedroom fun (discussing
politics to bore your tired wife to sleep). I don't know why it ends here, only that it
does.

I guess the overall goal of this little bundle of chapters is to talk about Tsabhi's
relationship to the second worst hold in Skyrim (first is Markarth, we all know this)
and how despite its objective terribleness, it's her terrible garbage hell. Thank you, as
always, for indulging me.

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