Even as she kept muttering curses at the now very dead dragon, the proud part of Minthara basked in the adoration the crowd of battered warriors offered, her back straightening just a tiny bit with every word of praise she heard.
That same part of her made a stray thought enter her mind unbidden 'This, this is where I belong!' The thought was fleeting but it was something she knew would remain in the back of her head for a long time.
She was not preening, and she would smack anyone who said otherwise!
But it would seem that not all appreciated her display, as she sensed a very annoyed glare being directed at her back.
(Reyvin's POV)
As the Nords cheered their throats out, completely ignoring the just under two hundred dead around them, I was too busy holding myself back from smacking a little shit. Sure it was badass that she essentially stopped time and proceeded to maul the poor motherfucker in less than it took me to blink and then proceeded to fucking decapitate his scaly ass.
Somehow.
But I could not stop my left eye from twitching violently... This little shit just broke my hammer!
How in Mephala's spidery sacks do you manage to break a weapon enchanted by ME of all people, a weapon enchanted specifically to take superhuman levels of punishment?! That thing was supposed to crush through ebony without chipping!
The pained whimpering of a downed Nord made me deflate as I got back to work fixing up the idiots who thought fighting a dragon while clad in leather and armed with a shortbow was somehow a good idea.
'Keep telling yourself that' Scorch mocks 'It might make the fact you let them die less frustrating.'
Ignoring the future participant in my soup experiments-
'Hey!'
-I continued treating the wounded.
Stabilizing most of them did not take me much time, the more rowdy fighters didn't even stop cheering before I was done in fact, and as I finished forcing a potion down the throat of the still knocked out Hrongar I heard one of the housecarls speak.
"I cannot believe it!" He pointed at Minthara "You're... Dragonborn!"
"I am aware." The blood soaked demigod deadpanned, all of her jubilation immediately drowned as she realized she would now have to deal with this.
Another chimed in "By the gods, that hasn't happened since Ti-"
"Tiber Septim, yes." Minthara accepts a bit more forcefully this time "Look, can we leave this for later? I am really not in the mood right now." She gestures to her apparel and the blood still dripping on the ground and pooling below her.
"Leave the good woman be lads." Balgruuf interrupts with a wry yet tired look on his face "She has earned that much at the very least."
The soldiers accept his words without much complaint and leave to talk among themselves, the whole group of them looking as animated as children as they spoke of what they had just witnessed.
"My, oh my Minthara." I call out with a shit-eating grin, and immediately see her tense up "I did not expect that killing a dragon would actually make you wet."
Balguuf choked and started coughing painfully, stuck between glaring at me and holding back his laughter.
The soaked demigoddess sent a glare of such intensity my way, if she could power it I'd have been disintegrated on the spot "I will fucking murder you Reyvin."
I tilt my head, my grin still plastered on my face "So you don't need my help?" I ask innocently.
She briefly debates with herself, her desire to not be filthy warring with her fear of giving me another win. Yet the conclusion was as inevitable as my reaction, letting her shoulders slump in defeat she forced out a "Please."
My levels of smug reached a whole new level as I simply waved my hand, combining water magic with a bit of blood control I learned from the Volkihars, immediately forcing every single bit stuck to her very expensive clothes to detach and fall onto the ground.
She was so relieved by this that she even forgot to be angry for a moment as she basked in the fact she was not covered in filth.
"What kind of amateur enchanted that armor anyway?" I ask after a brief pause "Who forgets to add a self-cleaning function on such expensive gear? The drain is practically non-existent."
Her immediate reaction is to turn defensive, but once my words actually reach her she turns thoughtful, cupping her chin and frowning "That is actually a very good question."
"Is it new?" I ask leadingly.
She stills for a moment and very cautiously confirms "Yeeees..."
I just let out a malicious giggle and say nothing.
"Fucking Titus." I hear her mutter.
"If you are snrk-" Balgruuf, who was still laughing stops himself from bursting into another fit "If you are quite done" He forces himself to keep a straight face "I think we should help the rest deal with the damage, we can talk once we are back in Whiterun." His gaze turns serious as he inclines his head ever so slightly "You have my thanks, Dragonborn."
She offers a solemn nod in return.
"And what am I, chopped liver?" I snark with no heat.
He turns to me with a chiding but not hostile look "You know what you did." And leaves.
Once we were alone Minthara looked at me with some curiosity "What did you do?"
As tempting as it was to fuck with her by telling the truth, I knew that would be going way too far, so I settled on smiling mysteriously "That is for me to know and for you to wonder about."
"Uh huh." She deadpans, not even pretending to be surprised by my answer "Let's just get to work."
---
The sun had completely set by the time we finally started marching back to the city, the battlefield was thoroughly cleaned up with the bodies and personal effects of the fallen all being brought back with us so that they may be given to their families and buried with honor.
Just as we were approaching the gate I felt a shimmer of power coming from the distant East, a mere moment before the very air cracked with the call "DOVAAHKIIN!"
The entire column stopped and I could hear Balgruuf muttering "The Greybeards." He immediately looked to Minthara "I may be no expert in the voice, but it doesn't take much to guess what that meant."
"It translates to Dragonborn, yes." She explains without any enthusiasm, even seeming to grumble a bit at me being right once again.
Noticing this, Balgruuf tries to cheer her up "Being acknowledged by the Graybeards is a great honor, why even as I climbed the seven thousand steps up the mountain I did not even come close to being blessed with an invitation to High Hrothgar."
"Oh I feel so very honored, Jarl Balgruuf." She drawls with obvious sarcasm "It was so nice of them to announce to every single dragon in the province that I exist, how very... sporting of them."
A good chunk of the crowd looked away awkwardly at this, seemingly only now realizing that the thu'um was in fact dragonspeak.
She wasn't wrong though, even if it would force her to grow much faster, the Greybeards' declaration was essentially an invitation and challenge to all the ambitious dragons who wanted to prove themselves to Alduin for them to throw their lives and, more importantly, souls at the burgeoning young Dovah who challenged their power.
So naturally, I decided to butt in. Offering her my most vindictive grin I asked in a singsong voice "Oh, that sounds like a lot of fun! Can I come with~?"
Seeing as I spent a good chunk of our early lessons in the voice shit talking the old fuckers on the mountain she immediately realized my intention and offered a beaming grin in return "But of course, who am I to deny such a devout pilgrim."
"Is it just me or..." The still groggy Hrongar whispered to his brother "Are they saying something other than they are actually saying?" Or at least he tried to whisper as half the damned army could hear him.
Balgruuf, who had just finished offering a prayer to Kyne and Arkay for the souls of the old monks, shook his head forlornly "Do not worry yourself about it brother, you will live longer that way."
"Alright." The bear of a man simply shrugged and walked off to join a group of housecarls.
"That man." I hear Marco say to Junia "One can only aspire to reach the same heights."
"What, an idiot?" The Imperial asks sarcastically.
Marco shakes his head, his eyes shining with false envy "Free."
The agent stares at him for a moment, shakes her head, and starts walking off "And here I thought you were charming, what an idiot I was."
The poor Altmer looked more dead than the dragon whose head was being carted in front of him, the interaction did cause a wave of laughter amongst the tired troops though, so that was a plus.
Curious, I lightly scanned her emotions and found that she did not actually dislike him, much the opposite really, just with the addition of one tiny little itty bitty detail, the woman was a massive sadist.
It would seem that Marco was thoroughly fucked at this point, both literally and not.
Shaking my head and wishing the boy luck I caught up to the rest, joining in a conversation between the Blades and their liege. It would seem that Delphine had just gotten her 'Blades were dragonslayers' idea and tried roping Minthara in.
The way she utterly crushed it was more beautiful than the decapitation of Mirmulnir, and Delphine's disappointed look was something I would keep in my mental archives for as long as I could.
-----
Nursing a drink which was cursed to hold no effect, I tuned out most of the proceedings after we returned to Whiterun. Balgruuf had me say a few words and let me slink off into a corner while he held speech after speech for each of the more relevant 'fallen heroes'
All the while a wild feast was spreading throughout the entire city.
The savvy ruler wasted no time in naming Minthara an honorary Thane of his city and offering his niece as her personal housecarl, and so it was that Lydia found her destiny at Minthara's side, her fate as the designated pack mule sealed forevermore.
The two did hit it off quite well surprisingly enough, so I could at least be content in the fact that Lydia was not too likely to end up being launched off a mountain by way of unrelenting force.
Chuckling at that mental image/memory I allowed my thoughts to drift further east, as I genuinely wondered how Ulfric was going to react to this whole thing. Would the setbacks he suffered make him more reasonable, or would he attempt to double down while his people burned around him?
I was genuinely disappointed that my conclusion led me toward believing the latter of those two propositions.
I must have been stuck in that trail of thought for longer than I realized because the next thing I felt was someone dragging me up with a force that did not belong to a mortal creature.
My surprised expression quickly shifted into a complete deadpan as I realized that it was Minthara who pulled me up, a very drunk and uncharacteristically merry Minthara.
"Reyviiin." She slurred "What are you doing skulking in that dark corner?"
"Wizardly pondering." I vice dryly.
"Come ooon, lighten up!" She sways as she speaks, almost falling over "We won, didn't weh?"
"Uh huh." I nod and slowly place a hand on her shoulder to stop her from suddenly falling over "And I see you have rediscovered the wonders of booze. So little time away from Mede and you already forget his lessons."
"I am the Drahgunburn." She hiccups "I can do whatever I wahnt-" And then she keels over and vomits all over the floor.
I give the curious feast-goers a pointed look and they suddenly find themselves with other interesting things to occupy their eyes as I make sure the woman of the hour doesn't end up covered in filth for the second time in the day.
To no one's surprise it took her barely any time to recover, as she was once again awake and aware in mere minutes after spilling her guts on Balgruuf's floors, much to the man's amusement, but it would seem that the celebratory spirit had left her with the departed spirits as she simply sat down next to me and joined me in my people watching.
Bleary-eyed and half asleep she probably did not even realize it when she asked me "Hey Reyvin?" Registering my questioning hum she continued "I didn't make a fool of myself, did I?"
Holding back an eye roll I tap her on the back "Relax, you did great."
"Thanks." She mumbled and fell asleep while leaning her head on the table. I let her remain there for a couple of minutes before summoning Junia and telling her to take her to a room.
Deciding to actually listen to her words for once, I left my 'dark corner' and spent the rest of the feast sharing tales with the Companions as the warrior order mourned their dead and celebrated their ascension.
I also made sure to subtly question Kodlak about their little conflict with the Silver Hand and how that was escalating, the answer to which was a mix of success and failure, mostly due to overeager circle members rushing into danger without thought and ending up surrounded by enemies.
The fact that they survived just as often as they died was not lost on me.
Time seemed to fly as we began sharing tales and soon the sun was about to rise once more, so I decided it was time for me to leave. I said my goodbyes to Balgruuf and his brother, left instructions for Minthara's party to meet me at the caves hiding Geirmund's Halls, with a map of course, and departed toward Dawnstar.
I should have the whole thing done before the poor Greybeards were deprived of the blessing that was my presence.
-----------------
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