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The role of the High Queen was not one that Elisif would have vied for, yet it was her office, all the same. If the gods were righteous, her husband would be upon the throne still, and his word would be absolute, and there never would have been such a pointless war which left half of Skyrim with burnt fields, broken homes, and struggling to get by. The other half of her country was equally broken, and in the midst of trying to repair their own towns, they were having to assist in supplying aide to the traitors' widows and children. Elisif did her best to appeal to the Emperor for help, for funds. She got some, but it wasn't enough. This was the reality of her position. No glamour, no velvet cloaks and fine leather shoes and bright, golden crown to mark her as the High Queen of her broken country.
No, instead she wore the jagged crown.
Carved from the bone and teeth of a dragon centuries ago, it had been recovered by the Empire during the last days of the war. It now sat upon her head, pushing down her prematurely-greying hair. She was hardly old enough to earn the silver which streaked down to her shoulders, but the stress of the past handful of years had delivered her the appearance of a woman worn by time. Weathered, more like it.
While this was not the office she would have chosen, she was to hold it until there was nothing left of her but a cold body in her bed and a shroud over her form, or until the wisdom of the Moot could elect someone to replace her, should need arise. She would have also hoped, naively perhaps, that just because she was now High Queen, she would still be treated the same as she had before - the Jarl of her city, and not much more than this.
She learned quickly that this would not be the case, no matter how hard she wished it. She had always carried formal titles, but now she was more than a Jarl. Your Highness, Your Grace, Your Excellence. The titles made her shrink internally from the speaker. She had worn them once, more proudly then, at the side of her husband. Now, the words embarrassed her. And the assassination attempts had increased since the end of the war. Were it not for Bolgeir, Sybille, and Legate Rikke - whom she'd offered a position in her court the moment the Civil War had ended - she would likely be dead. Poisons sniffed out, or assassins in the shadows, or even the most brazen among them rushing at her throne before being cut down. Blood, spilt again and again on the floors of her Palace, and she could only pray to a god she was supposed to give up that it would end soon.
This war had not been righteous. There was no glory at the end, only a breath of relief that it was over. If Ulfric wished to tear apart Skyrim for his goals, then she had found no choice but to defend her people. And when the war had come to an end, and Ulfric's head had been sent back to the Imperial City, she had taken ample time to begin the rebuilding efforts before her coronation. The province needed her, and so she implored General Tullius to make more appeals to the Empire for whatever needs came about. Bone-worn ports like Dawnstar were able to receive shipments directly, where Windhelm itself required serious attention and a lot of careful negotiation, despite the Jarl being more than cooperative. She may have sided with the Empire, but she was not an Imperial, and her heart ached for the people whose lives had been forever changed or ended for the last battle in their city. A whole world on fire. She would have liked to visit it herself to oversee some of the relief efforts, but the danger outweighed every notion. The Jarl was a friend, but his people were another story.
Still, there was hope in her heart that one day she'd get to see the Palace of the Kings one more time. She and her husband had gone there once before, to visit amicably with Ulfric - back when the world had not stung her nose with the stench of burnt flesh and hair - and had been received with some suspicion, if not just warmly enough not to rouse their own worries. It had worked, of course. Ulfric was once a trusted friend of Torygg, despite them butting heads like angry rams throughout their lives. They'd worked long together and shared similar outlooks on the world. Torygg, in private, had remarked how he found Ulfric's determination to be his best quality, his passion for the people of Skyrim, always followed up by a worried breath and rub of his forehead that this passion only applied to the Nords, not the people of Skyrim as they are, a people of many. Elisif would talk long into the night with her husband of this and more, the memories warm and hazy in her mind, about the dire straits in some portions of their home province, and they would agree that the Empire had neglected the land - whether through intent or through laziness, but choices on what they could do about it were slim. The Empire protected them from the Dominion. Everyone knew this.
Yet, Ulfric did not care. Or perhaps he truly had been ignorant of the consequences. Word trickled in of the Dominion's plans on occasion, spared by spies or soldiers who'd had contact with the embassy in recent years. There were thinly-veiled threats in diplomatic meetings from Elenwen, whom Elisif had come to both despise and respect, her tact and her ability to weave situations to the Dominion's advantage impressing the younger woman. Beyond the Altmer's warm voice and promises of peace, Elisif could sniff out the deception like a bloodhound, watching the older woman warily in meetings, as she herself was advised by her most trusted on the next moves. Elenwen had no such advisors. Sometimes this was an advantage, but it had failed her on a slight handful of occasions, that Elisif could see multiple perspectives, and Elenwen only bore her own.
The Dominion was a merciless beast. Elisif, whose head tired under the jagged crown, understood this. But she was the High Queen now, and whether she liked it or not - whether she had her husband with her here or not - she was to rule Skyrim with the fairest judgment she was capable of, and would not be crushed under anyone's heel as Ulfric would have been, damnation clasped in his desire for a Skyrim cut from the world. Skyrim was a part of this world, and a part of the Empire, and Elisif would become the beating heart of the frozen land. This was her sworn duty. Whether she liked it or not.