Chapter 1: Scroll Unwritten, Song Unheard
Chapter Text
He walks in blood, in light, in flame,
Yet none can bind his shapeless name.
Elf and man, of beast and breath—
He speaks to gods and dances death.
From womb of night to starlight born,
A soul of flame, both blessed and torn.
Not made by one, nor bound by time,
He weaves his fate through death and rhyme.
Dovahkiin, with soul of Voice,
The dragons bend to match his choice.
He shouts the truth the sky must hear—
The child of fire, the son of fear.
The soul of Shor within his chest,
Mundus breathes with storm’s unrest.
He is Ismir, the snow-born flame,
Shezarr’s echo, with Pelinal’s name.
Azura weeps—her Nerevar,
Returned from ash, reborn afar.
Meridia burns with holy fire,
Nocturnal hides, but can’t retire.
Molag breaks, yet finds no flaw,
And Stendarr guards without a law.
Sanguine laughs from pleasure’s keep,
While Mara holds him when he weeps.
Namira purrs through hunger deep,
And Vaermina crafts his twisted sleep.
He drank the blood that gods forsook,
Through veins of night, his power took.
The Lord of Cold, with throne of frost,
Now whispers, fearing what he lost.
For through the bite and ancient line,
A darker star began to shine.
Peryite coughs with bitter pride,
For plague and power walk inside.
Julianos sighs, and Mora moans—
His thoughts have stripped the Elder tomes.
The Psijic Order blinks and fades—
He walks where thought itself decays.
Magnus watched from broken star,
Through holes he left both near and far.
And saw in him the unshaped flame—
A mortal mind that magick tamed.
Zenithar hears the clink of fate,
In every blade, in every gate.
Kynareth breathes within his shout,
The storm obeys, the winds cry out.
Ysgramor’s sons rise from the grave,
And call the elf their fiercest brave.
The Circle kneels in wolfish pride,
And Hircine howls with joy untried.
Y’ffre sings through twisted root,
Where tale and flesh become one truth.
The Hunt obeys, the Pact is torn—
From Greenest oath, a god is born.
In halls where tusks and fury reign,
They crowned the elf through fire and pain.
No blood of Orsimer he bore,
Yet bore their trials—earned their war.
Malacath laughs with war-born breath:
"This elf brings honor, shame, and death."
And Trinimac, in broken shell,
Can only watch what tales will tell.
Sheogorath winks, with madness near—
“Dear grandson, dance and drink the fear!”
Mehrunes cries in shattered flame:
"Even I cannot unmake his name."
Boethiah crowns him as destroyer,
Mephala weaves him as deceiver.
Clavicus grins, yet lost the deal—
For Revan broke what gods call real.
And Jyggalag stands still in awe,
For chaos bends to Revan’s law.
He bore the curse, the hunt, the spark,
Devoured hearts in shadows dark.
He is the soul, the scream, the gate—
The break of time, the twist of fate.
Akatosh trembles, hours undone,
For Alduin fell—and he’s the one.
The World-Eater now walks as man,
And death obeys his mortal plan.
A queen’s lost fire within him burned,
From Barenziah’s line returned.
The crownless child of royal flame,
Unclaimed by blood, but born to claim.
The blood of kings upon his blade,
A throne remade where lies decayed.
The blood of kings upon his blade,
A throne remade where lies decayed.
The Ruby Crown in ash was thrown—
He rose, and claimed the Empire’s throne.
The Jarls bowed down, the Moot grew still,
Their voices broke beneath his will.
The High King fell—his breath withdrawn,
And Skyrim named him Dragonborn.
He wears the crowns the world disowns,
The jagged thrones, the orphaned bones.
The husband of a thousand fires,
The heir of gods, of wrath, desires.
He is the song the stars deny—
The scream between the earth and sky.
The fang, the flame, the dying dream—
The Wheel’s defiance, the broken scheme.
So speaks the scroll the gods won’t read,
The wound that makes the Aedra bleed.
The prince of none, the soul of all—
The one for whom the towers fall.
Chapter 2: Blood of Barenziah
Chapter Text
From Covenant Reforged: The Empire of Desidenius
by Lucerin Ocato, son of Chancellor Ocato, Philosopher of the Ruby Tower
Revan’s claim to Morrowind’s throne was not proclaimed—it was revealed, proven through blood and sealed in the return of one of the most sacred relics in Dunmeri history: the Crown of Barenziah.
Forged at the coronation of Queen Barenziah during the early years of the Third Era, the Crown was more than regalia—it was a living relic, a symbol of Mournhold’s sovereignty and the enduring soul of Resdayn. Fashioned of gilded electrum and shaped in the wings of the Velothi eagle, the Crown held twenty-five ancestral gemstones—twenty-four on its bands, with a singular soul-gem set in the center. But its greatest power lay not in appearance, but in the ancient Chimeric enchantments woven into it: a test of royal descent, known to glow only in the hands of those born of Barenziah’s bloodline.
Queen Barenziah
For centuries after the Red Year, the Crown was believed destroyed. Its gemstones had been plundered. Its enchantments had faded. With the deaths of Helseth, poisoned during the fracturing of the Dunmeri nobility, and Morgiah, lost in quiet exile beneath foreign stars, the royal line of Mournhold was considered broken, perhaps extinct. The Temple no longer spoke the names of the old monarchs. The Houses no longer revered them. The Crown—like the bloodline—was memory only.
Helseth Morgiah
But blood has a way of surviving what the world forgets.
Unknown to all but a few, Barenziah had borne a secret child, conceived in the shadow of scandal. Her lover was Drayven Indoril, a Nightingale thief and bard once employed by Jagar Tharn during the Simulacrum to steal the Staff of Chaos. Their daughter, Dralsi, was spirited away, hidden from history’s eyes. She in turn gave birth to Karliah, trained in the ways of shadow and silence, but marked by a fire inherited from both royal and rogue.
Drayven Indoril Jagar Tharn
Dralsi Indoril Karliah
And it was Karliah’s son with Gallus Desidenius—himself a descendant of the Imperial Champion of Cyrodiil—who would rise from obscurity. That son was Revan.
Gallus Desidenius Champion of Cyrodiil Revan
During his years wandering the frozen north as Dragonborn, Revan was drawn by an unseen hand. He did not chase stories; he followed something more innate. He later said:
“I didn’t hunt the gems. I simply knew where they were—like memories from a life that never was, calling me home.”
One by one, over months and years, he unearthed all twenty-four stones, each awakening with power when brought near him. When finally, the last was in hand, Revan discovered the lost Crown itself, buried in silence, long forgotten.
At first, it was lifeless—its surface dulled by time, its glow gone. But when Revan placed the final gem into its setting and lifted the Crown to his brow, the enchantment roared back to life. It cast a violet-gold blaze, dancing like dawn over Red Mountain. The witnesses—few at first, and disbelieving—were struck silent. For the Crown shines only for a child of Barenziah. And it shone.
Still, there were skeptics. Rumors of forgery spread among noble circles and Temple holdouts. To answer them, Revan summoned a conclave of master enchanters: scholars of the College, Synod mages, and even Telvanni recluses. These were no loyalists. They had no interest in crowns or kings.
Their findings were decisive:
“The enchantments are original. The craftsmanship, pre-Tribunal. The magical signature, unchanged since the early Third Era. This is no forgery—it is the Crown of Barenziah.”
But the final word came from the last soul alive who had seen Barenziah crowned.
Divayth Fyr, the ancient Telvanni lord, was summoned to bear witness. The assembly of Houses and Temple dignitaries stood as he examined Revan and the Crown. After a long silence, Fyr spoke:
“This is hers. And he is hers. I remember the light at her rise. And it shines again.”
In that moment, what had been speculation became certainty.
Revan Desidenius was not a pretender, nor a relic hunter, nor a lucky opportunist.
He was the flame reborn.
Through relic, blood, and vision, the royal line of Mournhold had returned—not to rule by name alone, but by right, will, and divine inheritance.
Chapter 3: The Second Nerevarine
Chapter Text
The fire that failed in elder flame,
Now walks again with truer name.
Where Nerevar could not restore,
The son of ash unsealed the war.
From tent and spire, bone and brass,
He bound the clans of shadowed past.
The blood of House, the soul of sand—
Now kneel beneath his firebrand.
The broken chimes of Veloth sing,
For now returns their ash-born king.
Not as Chimer, proud and pale,
But wrath remade where gods had failed.
From Covenant Reforged: The Empire of Desidenius
by Lucerin Ocato, son of Chancellor Ocato, Philosopher of the Ruby Tower
“To wear the Moon-and-Star is to walk in Nerevar’s footsteps. To survive it is to be Nerevar returned.”
— From the Commentary of the Wise Women of Urshilaku
While the restoration of the Crown of Barenziah cemented Revan’s blood-right to Mournhold, blood alone was not sufficient to claim the soul of Morrowind. The Dunmer, ever divided between House pride and tribal memory, look to more than ancestry. They look to destiny. And destiny, for the Dunmer, has always been bound to the Moon-and-Star.
This ring, long believed lost to myth, was the badge of Lord Indoril Nerevar, the unifier of the Chimer and commander of the First Council. According to Temple doctrine and Ashlander tradition alike, the Moon-and-Star was enchanted by Azura herself, bound with a curse: only Nerevar reborn could wear it. Any other who tried would be struck dead by its power.
For centuries, this prophecy had been claimed fulfilled—once—by the Nerevarine of the Third Era, who cast down Dagoth Ur and walked into legend. But just as prophecy does not end, neither did the Moon-and-Star vanish. It lay dormant, awaiting the hand it recognized.
That hand was Revan’s.
He did not announce the ring’s discovery, nor did he parade it before the people. It was only when summoned to address the surviving councils of the Great Houses—Redoran, Telvanni, Hlaalu remnants, and envoys of Dres—and the Ashkhan tribes, that Revan unveiled what he wore.
He bore the Moon-and-Star upon his finger, glowing with the same blue fire recorded in ancestral murals. No ritual had preceded it. No priest had granted it. It had simply accepted him.
Silence filled the council chamber.
It is said that one elder of House Redoran tried to speak—to claim trickery—but collapsed, clutching his chest before he could finish. The ring did not strike him down; his own fear did.
The Wise-Woman of the Erabenimsun tribe was the first to rise. She looked at Revan, then at the ring, and spoke a phrase not uttered since the days of Red Mountain:
“Nerevar has returned. Not as warlord, but as witness.”
The Houses did not kneel. The Ashlanders did not bow. But they all consented.
In that moment, the fractured legacy of Resdayn trembled with the possibility of reunification. Here was a man who bore the Crown of Mournhold and the Ring of Nerevar—who spoke with the blood of the living and the voice of the dead. He was not only Hortator in title, but in truth.
Revan did not demand allegiance. He requested it.
He met with the Masters of Telvanni, who had long resisted any central rule. He debated the surviving Hlaalu, whose history of treachery had cost them their place. He stood before the Ashkhan councils, not as savior or prophet, but as a fellow Dunmer who remembered.
In time, one by one, the factions signed a pact of renewed kinship. The Second Covenant, it would later be called. Not an empire by decree, but a federation by consent—bound by oaths older than the Tribunal, by names older than Septim, and by a ring older than memory.
To the Temple scholars who once claimed the prophecy ended in the Third Era, this rebirth forced a reckoning. Some clung to old dogma. Others embraced Revan as the fulfillment of the unfulfilled—the final chapter of Azura’s warning, the closing arc of Nerevar’s soul. The Second Nerevarine, they named him—not in replacement of the first, but as its echo and culmination.
He was not simply a hero.
He was the completion of prophecy.
Chapter 4: The House of Desidenius
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In the sweeping scroll of Cyrodiilic nobility, where dynasties have risen to emperorship and collapsed into dust with the fall of a single heir, there exists a quieter thread—a name neither exalted nor disgraced, but ever enduring. That name is Desidenius.
A modest noble line of the Nibenay Valley, the House of Desidenius never commanded great armies, nor did its banners fly above battlements of distant provinces. They did not wage wars of ambition, nor vie for imperial thrones. Yet their name persisted—engraved in civic ledgers, etched into legal decrees, and spoken with quiet respect by those who knew the value of duty over glory.
For generations, the Desidenius family served the Imperial bureaucracy as magistrates, stewards, scribes, and scholars. Their estate was small but venerable—a walled manor seated near the temple district of an old Niben town, where its lords and ladies presided not over legions, but over words, reason, and law. They were a family defined by consistency, restraint, and a careful guardianship of their name.
There are whispers—nothing more—among certain genealogical circles, that a noblewoman of House Desidenius once bore a child to the Champion of Cyrodiil, the nameless hero who reshaped history at the close of the Third Era. No written record survives. No heirloom bears his mark. The claim, if it ever held truth, was never spoken openly. If it was remembered at all, it was remembered as a private myth, passed in silence from mother to daughter, never shared beyond blood.
And perhaps that is how the Desidenius family preferred it. For what they lacked in renown, they safeguarded in integrity. That is, until the birth of Gallus Desidenius.
From the beginning, Gallus Desidenius stood apart from other sons of Cyrodiilic houses.
Where noble children recited lineages and memorized edicts, Gallus questioned everything. His mind was a furnace of inquiry—never still, never satisfied. Tutors admired his intellect but dreaded his defiance. He did not merely study the books permitted to him; he broke the seals on those that were not.
By the age of ten, he had unraveled encryption spells on family scrolls meant for magistrates. By thirteen, he debated metaphysics with senior scholars in tones both brilliant and impertinent. But brilliance untempered often invites catastrophe.
Gallus’s downfall was as audacious as it was quieted.
He attempted to steal an Elder Scroll from the vaults of the White-Gold Tower itself. No record survives in public archives—only the silence left in its place. But among those who whispered of it in low tones, the tale was always the same: Gallus, disguised and determined, bypassed layers of arcane security and made it to the vault threshold. There, he was stopped not by a guard or an alarm, but by a blind Moth Priest who sensed his presence beyond sight.
The scandal was unbearable to the family's honor. The Elder Council was discreet, the records sealed, and Gallus’s name stricken from several academic orders. His father, a proud but calculating man, refused to cast him out completely. Instead, he sent Gallus into exile—not to a prison, but to Skyrim, far from the eyes of the Imperial Court.
Far from the parchment-laden courts of Cyrodiil, Gallus was placed in the care of his paternal grandmother—a resolute Nord woman who had once ruled as Thane of the Rift under a Jarl long dead. After her husband, a Desidenius lord of stern heart, passed away, she had retired to her private estate just beyond Riften’s southern edge.
The manor, a stone hall ringed by weathered pine and shrouded in morning fog, had been granted to her during her years of service. It was a place of iron discipline and quiet remembrance. There, Gallus learned to survive—not by scholarship, but by endurance. His grandmother ruled the household as she had ruled her hold: with pride, with steel, and with silence.
It was a life of simplicity—chopping wood before sunrise, reciting ancestral lineages before meals, and learning to speak with meaning or not at all. But Gallus did not tame easily.
The city of Riften drew him like a secret. Beneath its crooked roofs and rotting docks, he found a world of hidden codes and unsaid laws—a mirror of his own mind. And in the depths of its shadows, he found the Thieves Guild.
What began as curiosity became mastery. Gallus applied the same rigor he had once used in academic studies to infiltration, illusion, and deception. He rose quickly within the guild, earning influence and, eventually, the mantle of Guildmaster—a title he wore in secret, even from his family. He became a ghost of the underworld: sharp, invisible, unforgettable.
It was during this hidden life that he met Karliah, a thief of mysterious origin whose legacy traced deeper than even Gallus could see. Their bond was brief, intense, and unrepeatable.
And it bore a child.
Years passed. Then, one gray morning, a boy was left at the outer gate of the Desidenius manor in Cyrodiil. He was perhaps two years old—silent, wide-eyed, wrapped in a dark woolen cloak. No guardian came with him. No guards bore witness. Only a letter, written in a woman’s hand, accompanied him:
“This is Gallus’s son. His name is Revan. I entrust him to his blood.”
The lord and lady, long aged and bowed with grief over their estranged son, welcomed the child as if they had been waiting for him all along. They did not question the letter, nor deny its claim. The boy bore something unmistakable in his eyes—a calmness, a focus, a gravity—something that had once lived in Gallus before the shadows took him.
Revan was not treated as a bastard, nor as a burden. He was a Desidenius.
Within the familiar stone walls of his forebears, Revan was taught the traditions of his house—the blade and the book, the oath and the silence. His tutors remarked that he did not simply learn—he remembered, as if drawing on knowledge from a well buried deep within.
He never asked about his mother. He did not need to.
He never spoke of Gallus, though he often walked alone beneath the old stone archway where the family hung the former Guildmaster’s blade from his youth.
The servants whispered that Revan listened more than he spoke. That animals did not fear him. That, once, during a storm, he stood unmoving in the courtyard for hours, watching lightning without blinking.
To his grandparents, he was everything: the last heir, the quiet son, the return of meaning to a house that had nearly passed into quiet extinction. They did not live to see what he would become—but they died believing that the name Desidenius would endure.
In later years, historians would speak of Revan Desidenius as Dragonborn, Hortator, High Chancellor, and heir to Barenziah’s fire. But before all that—before the prophecies, the crowns, the wars—he was simply a boy raised by a mourning house, in a quiet manor, with a letter pinned to his cloak and a storm waiting in his blood.
Chapter 5: Exploits of the Emperor: The Queen Without a Crown.
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If Revan Desidenius was fire, then Maven Black-Briar was the iron it forged. In any recounting of his lovers, wives, or co-conspirators, her name surfaces not with blushing verses or tragic sighs—but with knowing smirks, raised brows, and a quiet admission: She was never just a lover. She was an institution.
Maven was already a force in Skyrim long before Revan came storming through the provinces with his shouts and bloodlines and destiny. Her mead filled the taverns, her influence filled the courts, and her name whispered across every ledger and under every table from Riften to the Blue Palace. Some jested that Maven ruled more of Skyrim than the Moot ever did—and they weren’t far wrong.
When Revan entered her world—first in shadow, then in power—the match seemed... unnatural. He was fire and chaos, born of gods and dragons. She was discipline and poison, made of contracts and consequence. And yet, they understood each other. Deeply.
Whispers claim that Maven knew Revan’s secrets before most. That she saw through the titles and heroism and pegged him, correctly, as both the Guildmaster of the Thieves Guild and the Listener of the Dark Brotherhood. Far from fearing him, she respected him—perhaps the only figure she ever truly saw as an equal.
Her own children disappointed her. Hemming, the eldest, was prideful but dim—a man who thought being born first meant he deserved the world. Sibbi was aggressive and erratic, more interested in tavern maids and duels than legacy. Maven had him imprisoned—not truly punished, of course (his cell was carpeted and stocked with mead), but removed. And Ingun… Ingun was brilliant, yes, but far too obsessed with poisons and death. Maven did not discourage it. She only watched.
So when Ingun and Revan married, it was not scandal but triumph. Maven blessed the union, not as a grieving mother but as a schemer who had played the perfect hand. Revan, she believed, could rule her dynasty better than any blood-born heir. And when rumors began to circle that Ingun had poisoned her own brothers, Maven didn’t flinch. She only smiled and remarked—“Well, at least one of them had fangs.”
But the most persistent whispers—the ones spoken behind velvet curtains and in the back rooms of courts—are of Maven and Revan themselves.
Long before his marriage to Ingun, it is said they were lovers, their bond rooted not in love, but in shared ambition, mutual hunger, and the pleasure of control. And even now, though she is styled the Dowager Matron of the Black-Briar Holdings, their liaison continues. Not in candlelit bedrooms, but in quiet strategy meetings, after curfew, when maps and bodies are both laid bare.
What fuels this unending fire? Perhaps it is the potion Revan gave her—a rare alchemical marvel, whispered to slow age and restore youth. Today, Maven looks barely older than her daughter. Elegant, sharp-eyed, and ageless, she walks the court in silk, never trembling, never fading.
And now, they say she tutors her grandchildren—not in etiquette or archery, but in the true Black-Briar arts: how to lie without speaking, how to listen without asking, and how to destroy a rival with a compliment and a glance.
Maven Black-Briar never needed a crown. She wears legacy like armor, and walks the Empire not as matron or widow—
—but as a queen Revan never dared dethrone.
Chapter 6: Exploits of the Emperor: The Poisoned Rose
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Of all Emperor Revan Desidenius’s wives, few provoke such discomfort among the nobility as Ingun Black-Briar. She is not seen at Imperial ceremonies. She does not appear at state dinners, feasts, or festivals. Her name is rarely on court lists—and when it is, it is accompanied by absence. And yet, none dare call her estranged, for every courier from Riften bears her seal, and her influence is felt wherever poison may reach.
To outsiders, Ingun is a contradiction—a wife unseen, a mother unheard, a noble unwelcomed. But to those who understand her bloodline, her past, and the quiet ruthlessness of the Black-Briars, her position makes perfect sense.
Ingun was always the quietest of Maven Black-Briar’s children, and yet the one closest in spirit to their mother. Obsessed with alchemy, poisons, and anatomical studies from a young age, she preferred solitude to socializing, vials to viols. Her fascination was not with power, but with control—over life, over pain, and over death.
And then came Revan.
From the moment she met him in Riften, Ingun was enthralled. Not with his fame, not even with his Dragonborn soul—but with his darkness. She called him beautiful, not in the way bards praise warriors, but as an alchemist admires a rare toxin: elegant, destructive, uncontainable. What began as fascination became fixation. She was not seduced—she pursued, and Revan, always drawn to passion in all its forms, did not resist.
There is a persistent rumor—never confirmed, always whispered—that Ingun discovered the truth of her mother’s relationship with Revan. That she read letters, decoded private notes, and unearthed a hidden intimacy shared long before her own. And yet, if it is true, she never spoke of it. Those who claim to know her say that she did not mind. Obsession, after all, does not require exclusivity—only intensity.
Her brothers, Hemming and Sibbi, died in the same year her relationship with Revan was formalized. One perished from poisoned mead at a feast; the other was found in his bed, eyes wide with agony and no mark upon him. Both deaths were ruled tragic. But few were surprised.
“Ingun always knew how to test a dose,”
—one Riften alchemist once said, then quickly left town.
After their deaths, Ingun was named heiress, and soon after, wife. Maven Black-Briar offered no protest—only a thin smile and a nod. Those who knew her said Maven was proud her daughter had finally shown fangs.
Yet despite her title as Empress Consort, Ingun never entered the royal court. Whether by choice or Revan’s design, she remained in Riften, in the ancient Black-Briar estate, where the walls are thick and the halls smell of smoke and reagents. Her children—Revan’s children—are said to live with her there, under the instruction of Maven herself, learning not courtly manners but secrets, poisons, and how to read a rival’s fear.
Some claim Ingun is pregnant again, though she has not been seen in over a year. Others say she communicates with Revan only through coded letters and enchanted ravens, and that their bond, though distant, burns hotter than any of his public romances.
She is not a queen of crowns.
She is a queen of silence, vials, and vengeance.
And if the Black-Briar line ever produces an heir who truly terrifies the court, you may be sure they were raised by Ingun.
Chapter 7: Exploits of the Emperor: The Maid and the Monarch
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If any of Emperor Revan Desidenius’s consorts invites more raised eyebrows than scandal, it is undoubtedly Shahvee—his wife, and, by her own request, head maid of the Imperial Palace.
Yes, maid.
While the rest of his wives are draped in velvet and sit behind golden screens, Shahvee wakes before dawn to organize chamber linens, oversee servants, and—if rumors are to be believed—serve Revan his morning tea with a smile and a well-placed touch. She is not cloaked in jewels, but in aprons and quiet authority—and that, it seems, suits both of them.
Shahvee was once known in Windhelm as a cheerful, resilient woman who bore hardship with optimism. But little is said now of her time before Revan, for the palace has reshaped her legend into something altogether more tantalizing… and controversial.
You see, Shahvee's presence at court invites two reactions: warm respect from those who know her—and snide commentary from those who don't.
The most persistent (and juvenile) joke in the noble quarters compares her to the infamous Lusty Argonian Maid, that bawdy play penned by Crassius Curio generations ago. It is not uncommon to overhear phrases like:
“I hear the Emperor drops more than his trousers when Shahvee’s dusting,”
or
“She probably irons his royal… scepter.”
But behind the laughter is an undercurrent of something darker—the old taboo, the unease of imperial society when faced with a royal marriage that defies race, station, and history. Critics of the union lean on historical discomforts, referencing the Dunmer practice of “summer slavery,” where former nobles of Morrowind would take Argonian lovers into their service—servants by day, bedwarmers by night, wives in neither name nor right.
But that analogy falters, for Shahvee is no slave. She is wife, fully and legally bound to the Emperor by oath and sigil. She walks freely through the halls of power and is known to have Revan’s ear in matters both domestic and political. Some say it was Shahvee who pushed for improved Argonian rights in southern Cyrodiil. Others claim she helped broker the trade routes that run now between the Imperial City and Black Marsh.
And yet, she keeps her apron. Not out of humility, some argue, but out of pride. Because the palace runs smoother under her eye than it ever did under a dozen chamberlains. Because servants obey her more than any steward. And because power, in Shahvee’s hands, does not need to dress itself in silk to be real.
The Emperor, for his part, has never corrected the rumors. Nor does he deny her the title of wife. At court banquets, he toasts her with the same reverence he gives his queenly consorts—if not more. When a bard once made a sly joke comparing her to the Lusty Argonian Maid, Revan reportedly smiled, leaned forward, and said:
“She’s better written than that play. And far more dangerous.”
Their chambers are adjacent. She never travels far from his side.
The empire may laugh.
But she serves no one but the Emperor—and he, by all accounts, would have it no other way.
Chapter 8: Exploits of the Emperor: The Seer’s Daughter, the Emperor’s Star
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It is often said that Jarl Idgrod Ravencrone of Hjaalmarch saw too much. A woman touched by strange dreams and voices from beyond, she ruled not only with wisdom, but with a haunting detachment that made even her closest advisors uneasy. Her words could chill a hearth. Her gaze could unsettle a thane. And yet, of all her visions, none were more persistent—or more fateful—than those of the man her daughter would marry.
In her own cryptic way, Ravencrone often spoke of “a child of thunder and ruin”, a man with fire behind his voice and a shadow across his brow, who would walk between war and wonder, and whose arrival would bind Hjaalmarch’s line to something far greater than any Nord crown. Most dismissed these mutterings as the usual trances of the old seer-queen.
But Idgrod the Younger believed them. Not because she inherited her mother’s sight—she did not—but because from an early age, she believed in destiny as a story, not a vision. Unlike her mother, Idgrod was grounded, practical, curious. She preferred her boots in the mud and her thoughts in books. And though villagers gossiped that she lacked her mother’s gift, many quietly sighed in relief: a Jarl’s daughter who spoke plainly was a mercy in Morthal.
And then came Revan Desidenius.
When the Dragonborn first came to Morthal, it was under grim skies and darker circumstances. A local crisis had drawn his attention—one that tested not only blades but the will of the people. And through it, Idgrod stood at his side—not as a mystic, but as a voice of reason and calm.
Their union was not immediate, nor public. It was, at first, letters. Quiet walks in the boglight. The kind of understanding that needs no poetry, only presence. To those who knew them, it was not a tale of seduction or scandal, but of two people meeting in the quiet between storms.
When they married, it was with her mother’s full blessing. Some say Ravencrone smiled that day in a way she never had before—as if something long foreseen had finally come to pass.
As Empress, Idgrod remains quiet, but not idle. She does not speak in riddles. She governs well when called, and listens when others posture. She walks the gardens in silence, but her attendants know to never mistake her stillness for inaction. The Emperor himself, it’s said, often seeks her counsel when others have failed him.
Among all Revan's wives, Idgrod is perhaps the one least spoken of in gossip—not because she is uninteresting, but because she gives no fuel to the flames. Where Ingun courts secrecy and Brelyna commands debate, Idgrod offers only quiet certainty.
And yet, when the moons are high and the palace is asleep, servants report that the Emperor always walks first to her chambers, and stays longest.
“She saw no visions,” said one old steward, “but she knew his soul better than anyone.”
In Idgrod the Younger, Revan found not prophecy, but peace.
Chapter 9: Exploits of the Emperor: The Widow Queen and the Horn of the Dead
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In every emperor’s tale, there is a love touched by grief. For Revan Desidenius, that sorrow-laced flame burned in the high halls of Solitude, where Elisif the Fair, widow of High King Torygg, sat cloaked in silk and silence. Young, radiant, and enshrined in tragedy, Elisif’s heart was a fortress of mourning—and yet, it was not closed.
Their meeting was political, as such things often begin: a summoned Dragonborn, a careful Jarl, a court filled with eyes. But in the hush between royal decrees and diplomatic pleasantries, something else bloomed. Elisif, for all her grief, saw in Revan a man unburdened by pretense—a man who had felt death, defied gods, and walked through fire.
What many forget is that before their courtship became the stuff of bardic speculation, Elisif asked Revan for a quiet favor, one that bore no crown or ceremony: to carry her late husband’s war horn to a remote Shrine of Talos. This, she confessed, was the only rite she had not dared perform at Torygg’s funeral—for fear of inciting the Thalmor, who forbade open worship of the Ninth Divine.
And so the Dragonborn, who had slain dragons and shouted down kings, took up the horn of a man he had never known and bore it into the snow-covered wilds. No guards, no bards. Just one soul honoring another.
When Revan returned, he did not speak of danger or hardship—only of silence. Elisif thanked him with a gaze that said more than any decree.
But it was after Alduin fell—after the skies calmed and the World-Eater was no more—that the tale deepened. Elisif began speaking of dreams: a figure cloaked in warm light, eyes that once watched her from a throne. Torygg, she claimed, came to her in sleep. He bore no bitterness, only peace. And with hands not of flesh but memory, he placed his blessing upon her new bond.
Was it madness? Sorrow? Or a message borne across Sovngarde’s stars?
The priests muttered theories. The court whispered scandal. But Elisif herself, ever calm, said only this:
"He came smiling. And he told me I had chosen well."
Their marriage, when it came, was not grand. But it was true. Elisif, once a queen of loss, became a queen of flame—wife to the Dragonborn, consort to the Empire, and mother of a new age.
Today, some still call her Solitude’s Swan, gliding above intrigue and expectation. But in the Red Palace, those who serve closely say she still lights a candle each Frostfall under the Shrine of Talos, and hums the tune Torygg once sang in court.
And Revan? He never touched that horn again. Not from superstition, but reverence.
After all, even emperors kneel to memory.
Chapter 10: Exploits of the Emperor: The Scholar Who Chose Before the World Did
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Before the crown. Before the dragons. Before the name Emperor was whispered beside Desidenius.
There was Brelyna.
Among all of Revan’s loves, the name Brelyna Maryon commands a special weight—not for scandal, nor conquest, but for timing. It was she who chose him when the world had not yet caught up to his destiny.
A young mage of House Telvanni, Brelyna was first encountered at the College of Winterhold, where she pursued magical study far from her mushroom-spired homeland. Sharp-eyed and soft-voiced, she was no nobleman's ornament, nor an empty name from a powerful house. She was, quite simply, a thinker—and Revan, long before anyone called him Dragonborn, was a storm drawn to thinkers.
At the College, the two were not lovers at first. They were rivals in study, debating spell structure over cold breakfasts and referencing obscure texts to one-up each other during lectures. Witnesses say the affection began with annoyance—flickers of flame in the frost. But as weeks stretched into months, they were often seen in each other’s company, heads bent over scrolls, or speaking in hushed tones about matters no one else could follow.
The turning point came not in Skyrim, but across the sea—in Solstheim.
There, Revan aided the aged wizard Neloth, one of the most powerful and irritable Telvanni still breathing. And through some feat of diplomacy, determination, or dumb luck (accounts vary), Neloth named Revan a member of House Telvanni—an astonishing honor, and nearly unheard of for an outsider. There was no ritual. No feast. Just Neloth’s sharp voice declaring, “You’ll do,” and so it was done.
But even before this, the Telvanni Council had taken notice. Revan had recently uncovered the lost lineage of Brand-Shei, an orphaned Dunmer living in Riften, whose true name was Brandyl, son of Lymdrenn, a noble of House Telvanni who died during the Argonian invasion following the Red Year. The discovery of a preserved letter, left by his father's loyal wet nurse, revealed his birthright—a final act of pride from a crumbling house.
This act carried weight among Telvanni elders. They prize legacy and cunning in equal measure.
So when Brelyna and Revan’s courtship became public, the Council did not object. Not because he was the Nerevarine—no one yet suspected that. Not because he bore the blood of Barenziah—such lineage was unconfirmed, and irrelevant to Telvanni minds.
They approved because Brelyna loved a man who had earned their respect.
Their wedding, held quietly in Winterhold, was attended by College archmages and Telvanni observers cloaked in ash-gray and adorned with spell-silk. The ceremony fused Nibenese tradition with Velothi ritual—a union of minds as much as hearts.
Today, Brelyna remains one of Revan’s most politically influential wives. She is Magister of Imperial Arcana, overseeing research initiatives and enforcing magical law with a Telvanni’s sharpness and an Empress’s poise. Her private study in the Imperial Palace contains grimoires older than the Septim line, and she is said to exchange letters with Neloth that make even other mages uncomfortable.
Despite her power, her love for Revan is often described in unguarded ways—moments of laughter behind closed doors, her hand lingering on his shoulder during council, or a quiet gaze during royal addresses. Courtiers have noted that no one argues with Revan more than Brelyna, and that, more often than not, he lets her win.
“She saw what others did not,” one ambassador once remarked, “and perhaps that is what makes her the most dangerous of all his queens.”
It was not prophecy that made Brelyna choose him.
It was wisdom.
And she was right.
Chapter 11: Exploits of the Emperor: The Double Agent of Lust and Law
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If every empire is won by sword, it is kept by shadow.
And in the deepest shadow of Revan Desidenius’s reign, one name gleams like a dagger laid upon silk: Elenwen.
To the public, she was once the First Emissary of the Thalmor in Skyrim, a paragon of Aldmeri elegance and disdain. Draped in golden robes, she presided over embassy balls and inquisitorial trials with equal poise. To most Nords, she was a symbol of everything to despise about the Dominion—cold, haughty, and untouchable.
But those who watched closely noted how, as Revan’s star began to rise, Elenwen's glances lingered too long. Her questions cut too deep. She began to appear not only at diplomatic events, but at skirmishes, hearings, and, in one bold instance, an unsanctioned tour of the College of Winterhold.
Some claimed she was assessing a threat. Others suspected she was falling into one.
What began as verbal duels over foreign policy in private chambers reportedly became something more visceral. Elenwen, who had long kept her desires buried beneath duty, found in Revan not just a man of power, but one of poetic contradiction—a warrior who quoted Altmeri law with mocking clarity, a mortal who resisted divine fate yet bore its weight.
One tale—likely exaggerated—claims she offered him a trove of Dominion secrets in exchange for a single night in his bed. Whether that night occurred remains debated, but the secrets? Those were very real.
Shortly after the fall of the Aldmeri outpost in Haafingar, it became clear that Revan’s armies had been marching with Justiciar maps, and his agents had preempted Thalmor moves more than once. The source of these leaks remained anonymous—until Elenwen’s “public disgrace” in Alinor was declared by the Dominion.
She vanished for nearly a year.
When she returned, it was not to the Dominion, but to the Empire. And not in chains—but in robes of Imperial black, bearing the silver emblem of Revan’s personal intelligence court. The dragon had not devoured the elf.
He had claimed her.
As Imperial Justiciar, Elenwen’s role shifted from diplomacy to espionage, counter-intelligence, and interrogation. Her talents—once used to tighten elven control over humans—were now honed to hunt traitors, unravel plots, and silence whispers. She was Revan’s shadow blade, used not on the battlefield, but behind the walls.
Critics call her a betrayer. Thalmor records list her name among the “Sun-Broken”—those who traded Altmeri purity for mortal ambition. But those who knew her suggest something more profound:
“She did not betray the Dominion,” wrote one former Thalmor archivist in exile.
“She saw it had already betrayed itself. Revan simply gave her the choice no one else would.”
In the Imperial Palace, Elenwen holds no title of queen, yet her power is unquestioned. Some say she sleeps in her own wing. Others claim she still shares Revan’s bed on nights when the moon is high and old wars burn in their dreams.
What is certain is this: Elenwen did not fall from grace.
She changed the definition of it.
And like so many others who tried to use Revan for their own ends, she stayed not because she lost—
—but because she chose him.
Chapter 12: Exploits of the Emperor: The Poisoner’s Price
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Among the many women who shared the heart—and bed—of Emperor Revan Desidenius, Muiri of Markarth is perhaps the most quietly unsettling.
Not because she was noble.
She was not.
Not because she was political.
She had no interest in court.
But because, before she became his lover, she bought death with coin and a whisper.
Muiri was once an apprentice alchemist under the sharp eye of Bothela at The Hag’s Cure, a shop famed for its odd remedies and sharp-tongued wisdom. Scorned by a former lover, betrayed and humiliated by those she trusted, Muiri sought vengeance not through courts or family—but through the Dark Brotherhood.
It was there, the legends say, that she and Revan first crossed paths—not as emperor and noblewoman, but as client and assassin.
What followed after is clouded in rumor. Some say he took interest in her courage. Others say he saw something in her silence—the precision of a mind that measured love and hate with equal care. A few whisper that he watched her poison mix as intently as he watched his enemies die.
Regardless of the truth, the tale ends the same: Muiri did not remain a grieving alchemist.
She became his, and perhaps more curiously, he became hers.
After the fall of Alduin and the birth of the Fourth Empire, Muiri left the shadows of Markarth’s Stone Quarter and returned to The Hag’s Cure—not as apprentice, but as mistress of the apothecary. Upon Bothela’s death, she inherited the shop, and now runs it with a discretion befitting a woman once kissed by Sithis and loved by a Dragonborn.
She does not attend court.
She does not wear a crown.
But within Markarth, her word is law among healers, hedge-witches, and those who remember the old ways.
And then there is the child.
The boy—whose name is not known to the public—is rarely seen, but those who have caught glimpses describe a strange and striking figure. White-haired, with pointed ears, and a gaze “as sharp and steady as the Emperor’s.” He is not raised in a palace, but among bubbling cauldrons and old tomes. Yet his blood is unmistakable—and some believe he may be one of Revan’s truest heirs, unbound by politics, born of passion and death in equal measure.
Is she still his lover?
The court no longer asks.
But when an Imperial courier arrives at The Hag’s Cure once a month with a letter sealed in gold wax and bearing the dragon sigil of the Empire, none in Markarth dare question why.
And behind the counter, in her simple robes and with fingers stained by nightshade and nirnroot, Muiri smiles—
and says nothing.
Chapter 13: Blood and Stone: The Pact of the Reach
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"Where others saw rebellion, he saw a nation. Where others spilled blood, he forged a bond."
—Attributed to Madanach, the King in Rags
The Chains Beneath Markarth
Before Revan Desidenius was Emperor, before he wore the Crown of Barenziah or bore the title Ysmir, he was a prisoner—falsely accused, betrayed, and thrown into the bowels of Cidhna Mine, the most feared prison in the Reach.
It was there, beneath the stone of Markarth, that Revan first encountered Madanach, the self-proclaimed King in Rags, and leader of the Reachfolk rebellion. The Empire and Nords considered Madanach a terrorist, but among the Forsworn, he was a philosopher-king, the last of the true Druadach line, and a symbol of long-denied sovereignty.
Their meeting, long debated among historians and Reachfolk mystics alike, was not one of enemies, but of equals. Revan, already known in whispers as the Dragonborn, had no prejudice against the Reachfolk. He listened.
And Madanach, once a prisoner of hatred, listened in return.
“He was not like the Nords who spat at our blood. He spoke of law, of fire, of blood, and of honor. He called me king—not savage.”
—Madanach, post-escape writings (now banned in Markarth)
The Escape and the Pact
Their bond was sealed during their joint escape from Cidhna Mine, an event still shrouded in mystery and suppressed in official Markarth records. What is known is that the corrupt Silver-Blood patriarch, Thonar Silver-Blood, had Revan imprisoned to prevent interference in his family's grip over the Reach’s economy.
But Thonar’s plan backfired.
Together, Revan and Madanach overthrew the prison’s guards and led a mass uprising through the tunnels, emerging not as criminals—but as free men of prophecy and vengeance. Some tales say Revan shouted down the walls of the mine with his Voice. Others claim he refused to kill the guards, earning Madanach’s respect through restraint.
After their escape, Revan did not abandon the Reachfolk. He returned to them in secret, forming what would become known as the Pact of Druadach—a promise that, when he claimed his throne, the Reachfolk would no longer be exiles in their own land.
“I will not promise you freedom without law, but I promise you law that knows your blood.”
—Revan Desidenius, as recalled by Reach-matron Angvilda
The Reachfolk and the Empire
When Revan rose to power, he kept his word.
Under his reign, the Reachfolk were granted full Imperial citizenship, their culture protected under the Empire's reformed policies. Druidic circles, long hunted as heretics, were allowed to flourish again under oversight. Some of Madanach’s old guard were granted positions as governors and envoys, integrating their unique traditions into the broader structure of the Empire.
While controversial in both Imperial and Nordic circles, Revan’s decision ended centuries of civil unrest in the Reach, winning him loyalty where countless emperors had failed.
The temples of Dibella in Markarth were even rededicated in part to include local Reachfolk deities—another scandal in its day, but one which helped to blend the Divines with older druidic spirits, stabilizing the region through spiritual compromise.
Legacy of the Pact
Today, the Reach remains one of the strongest cores of loyalty to the Desidenius Dynasty. Statues of Madanach and Revan stand side by side in hidden shrines and mountain temples, worshipped not only as liberators, but as symbols of dual sovereignty: the fire of empire and the root of the land.
Some say Revan’s embrace of the Reachfolk set a precedent that reshaped Imperial policy for generations to come. Others whisper that his bond with the druids awakened powers within him not even the Dragonblood could explain.
But in the Reach, he is still remembered by a simpler name:
“The Outsider Who Listened.”
Chapter 14: Exploits of the Emperor: The Witch Who Refused the Fire
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Among the strange and storied lovers of Emperor Revan Desidenius, few are spoken of in hushed reverence quite like Vaetilda of the Reach—a name once feared in the wilds, and now honored in the histories of both druid and noble alike.
Not born of power, but chosen for it, Vaetilda was once an apprentice in the service of a coven deep within the mountains of the Reach. Her mentor—a centuries-old Hagraven—had marked her for transformation, the next vessel in an ancient and grotesque line of sacrificial rebirths. To become wisdom incarnate, she was told, she must offer her body to corruption.
But Vaetilda hesitated.
Even in her youth, her magic was potent—blood-binding, whispercraft, the forest tongue. Yet it was her mind, not her spells, that saved her. Where other witches embraced the shrieking path of claw and fire, Vaetilda looked to the sky—and wondered if power could grow without the sacrifice of self.
When Revan became High King and later Emperor, Madanach—then known still as the King in Rags—spoke openly for the first time of citizenship. Vaetilda was one of the first Reachfolk to listen. And in time, she left her coven and wandered east, seeking the man who had changed her people’s fate with law instead of sword.
She found him not in court robes, but in a ruined tower near the Jerall border, coaxing flame from ice and writing spells with the ease of breath. She did not ask to serve him—but to learn. And Revan, never a man to turn away a student with true will, made her his apprentice.
Their bond, like so many of his, did not remain strictly magical.
What passed between them is not recorded in official letters. But Reachfolk sing of it still—how the woman once fated for feathers and beak instead became Vaetilda the Unburned, lover to a Dragonborn and arcane advisor to a dynasty.
She never entered court. She never sought land. But in the forests beyond Markarth, there are glades where birds hush at her passage, and pools that never freeze, no matter the season. She is said to have woven her own sanctum between worlds—half-dream, half-flesh—where the wilds bow to her voice, and Revan’s name is written in the wind like a vow never broken.
And when, in later years, the Emperor rode alone into the Reach for days at a time, and returned with pine needles on his cloak and a calmness in his eyes, the court stopped asking why.
After all, even dragons must sometimes rest in the shadow of something older than fire.
Chapter 15: Dragonguard
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Blood, Bitterness, and the Breaking of Oaths
Among the many myths that shadow the legacy of Emperor Revan Desidenius, few stir more tension and ideological division than his treatment of the Blades.
Once, they were the sworn protectors of the Dragonborn. Once, they knelt to emperors, carried Akaviri steel in silence, and spoke only in service of the Septims. But by the Fourth Era, they had become something else—broken, scattered, and vengeful. After the rise of the Thalmor and the fall of the Empire’s spine, the Blades became survivors—not knights. In their desperation, they clung not to honor but to hatred.
Delphine, their de facto leader, embodied that change. She did not kneel to Revan when he emerged as Dovahkiin. She did not bow when he fulfilled prophecy and absorbed the souls of dragons. Even after he faced Alduin, the World-Eater himself, Delphine withheld recognition. For her, dragonblood alone was not enough. Only the murder of Paarthurnax, the ancient dragon who guided the Dragonborn, would earn her allegiance.
But Revan was not made to be commanded. Especially not by those who forgot their place in history.
In a confrontation at Sky Haven Temple—one that has become the subject of endless retellings—Revan stood before Delphine and reminded her, coldly and clearly:
“The Blades were forged to serve the Dragonborn. Not to dictate him.”
He spared Paarthurnax. Whether it was mercy, wisdom, or defiance, history has yet to agree. But it was a decision that reshaped the future.
Delphine vanished shortly after. Some say she went into hiding. Others whisper she tried to rebuild the Blades in secret. But Revan did not pursue her. He did not need to.
He had already begun something far greater.
The Rise of the Dragonguard
In the early years of his reign, after the unification of Skyrim and the crowning of his imperial legacy, Revan formally disbanded what remained of the Blades.
In their place, he revived their truest name: the Dragonguard.
It was more than symbolism. The Dragonguard were not relics of Tiber Septim’s golden age—they predated him. Sworn swords of Akavir who bent the knee to dragonblood emperors and protected the realm from the wyrms of old. Where the Blades had become agents of vengeance, the Dragonguard became seekers of balance. They studied, advised, guarded, and learned. They did not hunt dragons unless commanded. And they never again presumed to give orders to their emperor.
At the heart of this new order stood an old voice: Esbern.
Unlike Delphine, Esbern understood history. A loremaster of deep memory and deeper patience, he recognized the mythic weight of Revan’s soul. Some say Esbern knelt the moment Revan spoke the Thu’um. Others say he saw in Revan the echo of Reman, of Talos, of Ismir — all woven into one being.
Whatever the truth, Esbern remained. He swore himself anew to the Dragonguard—not as a commander, but as High Chronicler, preserving the deeds of the Dragonborn as he had preserved their prophecy.
The Reforged Order
The new Dragonguard, under Revan’s guidance and Esbern’s record, included:
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Scholars from High Rock
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Battlemages from Morrowind
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Swordmasters from Hammerfell
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And even an emissary from Akavir—rumored to be the descendant of the original Dragonguard who had followed Reman Cyrodiil
Their seat was rebuilt not at Sky Haven Temple, but in a new citadel carved into the Jerall Mountains—half fortress, half monastery. There, they trained under oaths that swore loyalty not to a cause, nor a creed, but to the soul of the Dragonborn.
Final Judgment
And so it was that Revan, who refused to kill a dragon for the sake of a broken order’s pride, reforged the ancient sword of loyalty anew.
Not as the Blades.
But as the Dragonguard—reborn, unbroken, and bound by blood, not bitterness.
Chapter 16: The Dissolution of the Third Aldmeri Dominion
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From The Empire Reforged: The Age of Desidenius, by Magister-Princept Aurelian Tarmis
“Not all empires fall to sword and siege. Some dissolve when the gods withdraw their favor, and the people see a new light rising in the West.”
—Preface to The Empire Reforged
The Divine Undermining of Dominion Power
Though many Imperial historians once feared a drawn-out war with the Aldmeri Dominion, its collapse came not by conquest, nor through treaty, but by divine unraveling. It began in temples, not trenches—in visions, not victories.
At the center of this slow implosion stood Revan Desidenius, Dragonborn, and Emperor of the Fourth Empire. A mortal of mythic soul, he became the fulcrum upon which the gods themselves seemed to pivot their favor away from the Thalmor.
Alinor (Summerset Isles): The Shattering of Elven Pride
In Alinor, seat of High Elven supremacy, divine relics held more authority than monarchs. Thus, when Revan Desidenius appeared wielding the Auriel's Bow — a relic of the Aedra said to burn any unworthy mortal—shock reverberated through the Altmeri theocracy.
That the bow did not reject him, but instead radiated in his grasp, was more than heresy. It was blasphemy affirmed by light.
The Thalmor, who claimed themselves stewards of Auri-El’s will, offered no explanation. But others whispered what they would not admit: If a man could wield a god’s weapon, who truly bore the gods’ blessing?
Secret cults began to rise. Desidenius was hailed in whispers as “The Vessel of Auri-El”. Riots sparked in Lillandril, protests grew in Alinor, and noble houses privately rescinded their oaths. The Dominion’s soul began to fracture—not from invasion, but from within.
Valenwood: The Turning of the Green
In Valenwood, the Green Pact bound the Bosmer to Y’ffre’s will. For generations, they fought as the Dominion commanded—until the forest itself hesitated.
When Revan Desidenius arrived in Valenwood, he brought no warband, only respect. He honored Y’ffre’s name. He listened to the singing trees. And in the sacred glades of Elden Root, the priests of the Pact received visions: a mortal, wreathed in dragonflame, walking alongside Y’ffre’s breath.
The Bosmer named him “The Flame from the Ash”. A new story entered the racial memory—a tale of preservation, not destruction.
For the first time in centuries, the Wild Hunt did not stir. Bowstrings remained unpulled. Root-bound oaths quietly unraveled. Valenwood turned away from the Dominion—not in rebellion, but in reverent silence.
Elsweyr: The Hand of Azura
The Khajiit had long remembered the Thalmor’s lie: that they had restored the moons. But the faithful knew—Azura had never left them.
When signs came—dreams of a Dragonborn wrapped in moonlight, flames rising from his feet, a voice echoing in two tongues—there was no doubt: Azura had chosen Revan Desidenius.
He walked through Rimmen and Torval unopposed. Khajiit elders did not question. They bowed.
“Azurah walks with this one.”
—Elder M'ai of the Moonlit Hall, Rimmen
No armies stood against him. Instead, caravans brought him gifts, and the clans began invoking his name in prayers. Elsweyr did not revolt. It simply… stopped listening to the Thalmor.
Conclusion: Collapse Without War
By the time the Fourth Empire extended its banners south, the Dominion had become a husk—feared in name, but empty in soul. Its provinces had not fallen to steel, but to doubt, faith, and the slow turning of divine favor.
The Thalmor, once the keepers of Auri-El’s will, found themselves abandoned by the very myths they claimed to command.
“The gods choose their champions in silence. And when they speak, it is not with thunder—but with nations bending the knee.”
—Aurelian Tarmis, The Empire Reforged
Chapter 17: The Dragonborn in Skyrim — Ysmir, Uniter of Storm and Empire
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"When thrones splintered and the wind howled for kingship, it was not merely war that determined the crown—but Voice."
— Lucerin Ocato, Imperial Scholar of the Fourth Council
I. The Turmoil After Torygg
The assassination of High King Torygg at the hands of Ulfric Stormcloak did not merely fracture Skyrim—it tested the very nature of succession and sovereignty. The Moot faltered, divided by war and doubt. Nords looked either to tradition or power, and the Empire struggled to retain its waning influence in the face of rebellion and Aldmeri pressure.
Into this chaos stepped Revan Desidenius, a foreign-born warrior bearing no noble claim to Nordic titles, yet one whose presence shifted fate itself. Though Dunmeri by race—of the House of Barenziah—and descended from both Imperial and Nordic blood through his father, Gallus Desidenius, Revan arrived not as a claimant to the throne, but as a bearer of the Voice.
From the moment of his arrival, accounts tell of Revan’s immediate involvement in pivotal events: the dragon attack at Helgen, the slaying of Mirmulnir, and his ascent up the Throat of the World. But it was not merely the dragons that bowed to him—it was the land and its people. He became known in Skyrim not just as Dovahkiin, but as Ysmir—a title bestowed only upon mortals seen as living incarnations of the Dragon of the North.
II. The Naming of Ysmir
The name Ysmir is ancient, first given to Wulfharth, the Ash-King, and later echoed in Tiber Septim himself. To be named Ysmir is to be seen as the mortal Dragon of the North, a sign of divine favor and destiny. According to the Greybeards—those ancient keepers of the Way of the Voice—Revan’s mastery of Thu’um was not only powerful but fated. They named him Ysmir after his soul answered the storm of Kynareth and the song of Paarthurnax.
This naming carried immense weight. Even among Nords who distrusted elves, this recognition marked him as more than outsider. He was now kin to their deepest legends, bearing the same mantle that Tiber Septim had once worn.
III. Uniting Stormcloaks and Imperials
What followed was not conquest, but cunning. Revan did not simply defeat Ulfric Stormcloak—he saw through the war to its heart. Knowing that the civil war served Thalmor interests and bled Skyrim dry, Revan confronted both Ulfric and General Tullius not as a soldier, but as a Dragonborn with a higher claim: the fate of the realm.
In a feat as political as it was spiritual, he engineered an accord between both sides—not through treaties but through honor and presence. Legends speak of his duel with Ulfric, others of his stand before the generals of the Empire. Regardless of which version one believes, the outcome was indisputable: both Stormcloaks and Imperials bent the knee to the one whose Voice shook the sky.
This act alone redefined the succession. The Moot, now reformed and silent in awe, declared Revan Desidenius as High King of Skyrim, not by blood, but by Thu’um and right. A foreigner became the Dragon of the North—and the land did not rebel.
IV. The Meaning of His Rule
With Alduin slain—the World-Eater devoured by the very flame he sought to consume—Skyrim found stability not in law, but in legend. Revan’s rule became the beginning of a true unification—not only of province, but of race and history. A Dunmer of human blood, raised by the shadows of Thieves and Nightingales, and now crowned by the Voice itself.
The title Ysmir confirmed what the people already felt: that the Dragonborn had returned not only to fight dragons but to reforge the legacy of the Empire. His acclaim in Skyrim was the first stone laid in what scholars now recognize as the Second Covenant—the rekindling of Alessian divine mandate through a new bearer of Dragonblood.
V. Reflection
In the years to come, many would debate whether Revan’s reign marked the beginning of a new era. Some argue that the fall of the Mede Dynasty had already ended the Fourth Era, leaving Tamriel drifting through a void of legitimacy. But others, such as myself, contend that an era does not truly end—or begin—until a new Empire is born.
The Third Era began not with Tiber Septim’s conquest alone, but with his proclamation of a new Empire, sanctified by divine recognition. An era is not marked by war or succession, but by the founding of something enduring, crowned by legitimacy and myth.
So it was with Revan Desidenius. His rise in Skyrim was not enough. His slaying of Alduin, his unification of Nords and Imperials, his mastery of the Voice—these were all omens. But it was the moment he reclaimed the mantle of Emperor, reshaped the institutions of rule, and restored Dragonborn sovereignty to the world, that the age itself shifted.
This was not a mere continuation of the Fourth Era. It was a new beginning, spoken into being by one whose Voice moved kings and gods alike.
"The Empire was not restored by policy. It was shouted back into being."
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JustYourFriend on Chapter 1 Sun 03 Aug 2025 12:01PM UTC
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JustYourFriend on Chapter 1 Mon 04 Aug 2025 05:39PM UTC
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