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Tsabhi couldn’t tell if she was enjoying herself or not anymore and while the line between engaged and irritable frequently blurred for her, she was fairly sure that whatever mood she was in did not bode well for Representative Elanin. On one hand, the angry Thalmor had been convinced to hold this impromptu meeting in the Archmage’s quarters where Tsabhira had the advantage of her own space, her own props, and her own chair. On the other, there was a Thalmor representative in her fucking room who refused to haul her ass out.
“You’re lucky I’m not asking Elenwen for reparations,” she snapped, her palm banging flat against her desk. She suspected that drills upon drills upon drills had kept the representative from flinching at the noise, but privately she thought the woman was even luckier that Tsabhi stored all of her good shit in this room and would avoid setting her on fire lest she run into anything important. “Ancano fucked up.”
“Ancano was not representing the Thalmor at the time of his unfortunate lapse of judgement. The paperwork in front of you—”
“The paperwork,” she shoved the pile closer to the woman for emphasis, “that my predecessor never received, that was brought here today by you.” Whoever ran their shoddy establishment must have thought she was a fucking snow-back.
“Are you accusing the Thalmor of trying to trick you, Archmage?” Elanin asked incredulously.
“Brilliant catch. I see you really read between the lines of my flat out accusation,” she snapped, leaning back. It was going on the second hour of this negotiation wherein the Thalmor angrily insisted that another agent be arranged for transfer to the College immediately, and Tsabhira insisted that in all the alternate realities that paralleled theirs, in all the possible different twists and turns of linear time, there was absolutely zero places in any possible universe where she allowed that to happen. Even in the ones where she was some sort of venomous plant in Black Marsh and not the Archmage at all, she somehow still prevented the new agent from setting foot in Winterhold.
“Unfortunately this decision isn’t up to you. While the Thalmor did wish to do you the courtesy of informing you first, an agent will be placed whether or not it pleases you,” Elanin said shortly. Drills upon drills upon drills kept her from exploding at Tsabhira, but the Bosmer might have been more impressed if the woman did jump at her.
“You say it isn’t up to me as if the Thalmor frighten me at all. Bring a fucking army for all I care, you’re not getting in.” If Ulfric Stormcloak could declare war on behalf of a country then so could she. Maybe the Jarl would drag himself off her fucking back for ten minutes if she saved Skyrim from the Thalmor threat.
Elanin looked ready to deliver a scathingly calm reply which would have certainly rocketed them back to the beginning of the conversation, when the door opened. Tsabhira hoped against hope that one of the apprentices was on fire— ideally that one nasty little Breton with a superiority complex. No room for snobbery when they were all studying magic in a drafty castle in this snowy hell of a province.
Rumarin wandered in with a mage at his side— an anxious looking Argonian half his height that kept looking up at him. Tsabhi waited patiently for whatever was going to happen to happen, and wondered about starting a damage control school of magic. She could be its first Master.
“Are you certain?” the apprentice asked in a rasping voice.
“Of course I am,” Rumarin said, gesturing forward.
“Excuse me, but the Archmage and I—” Elanin began her speech, certainly, but then the talented little Argonian shot her arms out forward and a soft green spell enveloped the representative. Tsabhi kept waiting, because while she could identify the spell as Illusion, she was shit with the entire school. “I… I believe any useful dialogue that we might engage in has finished for the day. I will report to my superiors and leave you to look over the paperwork I have presented you with.” Elanin bowed, abruptly, as if there was a part of her that didn’t understand why she was doing it.
Tsabhi’s office was suddenly short one high elf, with the other one looking rather pleased with himself. “I think that worked great,” he said as the door shut behind the representative. The Argonian was watching the Archmage, her whole body tense with poorly concealed stress.
“What spell was that?” Tsabhi asked shortly.
“Calm. Ma’am.”
“You’re an Apprentice?”
“Yes ma’am.”
“Tell Drevis he ought to be teaching you higher level spells. That will be all,” she said, sitting back down and turning her attention to her paperwork. She waited until the young mage scrambled out of the room and Rumarin had wandered close enough to her desk that she didn’t need to shout to be heard across the excessively large office. “I love you,” she said, standing up. It still drove her mad to not be eye level with him, but as a Bosmer who’d wed an Altmer she couldn’t say she hadn’t seen it coming.
“Oh don’t read anything into this,” her actual husband who she had married over a year ago defended. “I started a nap when you went into the meeting and when I woke up you still weren’t back. I was bored so naturally I decided to torment the apprentices.”
“My mistake,” she returned easily. “Now that you have my undivided attention, what can I help you with?” She abandoned her dignity and climbed up onto the desk to kneel so she could at least talk near his face. It wasn’t quite a perfect match, but as he was fond of reminding her he was actually two inches shorter than your average Altmer jester.
“To be honest, I stored my last Honningbrew in your bag and was too embarrassed to walk in and grab it.” She wondered if he subconsciously slouched or if he was doing it out of courtesy, but decided not to ask and simply enjoy that the gesture put her more or less at the proper height to speak with him.
“And what do I get for letting you have it now that you’ve ruined my very serious meeting that was definitely going somewhere good?” she asked, putting her arms over his shoulders. He brought out a round beige bottle of Matze.
“Don’t worry, I know how this marriage works by now,” he said as she took back her arms to grab the drink from him.
“I love you,” she said, most definitely to the Matze.