Ruby shrugs and puts the amulet back on. "How long had they been Apprentices here?"

    "A few months, perhaps a half year," says Tolfdir.

"And even then at least this one probably thought she could control more than she actually could."

        "J'zargo would not make such a mistake."

"I would guess that everyone who gets burnt to a crisp by their own spell thinks the same, until they do."

None of the others have anything to say to that.

"Well, that's... a rather more gruesome tale than I had expected but it illustrates my point well, I think." Tolfdir turns to face all students. "You all know the very basics of control; feeling your magicka within you and shaping it into something that can do what you want it to do. But there's more to it than just that. Waste magicka can ignite; slight errors in shaping it can create wildly different effects, especially as spells get more advanced and complex; hostile disruption, or even a momentary distraction, can have catastrophic effects if you do not have enough mastery to make sure the spell merely fizzles out safely.

"Today's lecture with Master Faralda will touch upon this subject, and I highly recommend attending it. But until then, I would have you practise control. Does anyone here not know the basic flame spell?" Headshakes all around. "Excellent. Then this will be your exercise: start a flame," and here's a flame above Tolfdir's palm, "and change its colour." The flame goes from orange to red to blue to white to purple and back to orange. "There are two basic ways you can do it: with direct shaping of the effect, or with illusions. The latter is much more complex than the former, but also requires much more fine control, so I will accept either approach.

"Do not sit down while doing this; it will be easier to heal you as necessary if you do not accidentally set your clothes on fire, and it helps with focus." Tolfdir turns around and concentrates on a complex-looking spell that involves a lot of gesturing, and then a table appears in front of him with jugs full of water and empty cups. "But do take breaks as needed, and stay hydrated. This is not a test of endurance, and if you falter because you did not take a break when you needed to that is an indication that you need to work on your awareness."

    "J'zargo will not need breaks."

"Is J'zargo willing to take a bet? Put his money where his mouth is?" wonders Ruby.

    "...perhaps. J'zargo is listening."

"A hundred gold to you if you really don't need to take any breaks, and a hundred gold to me if you do."

    "You do not have that much."

"Master Tolfdir, would the College be willing to purchase the book with Yisra's research on the Flame Cloak spell from me for a hundred gold?" asks Ruby without looking at him.

        Tolfdir, of course, is shrewd enough to understand this. "Most certainly, young man."

"Then I do, in fact, have a hundred gold. Do you accept?"

    J'zargo bares his teeth and flicks his tail to the sides excitedly. "Yes. You have a deal."

"This will not end well..."

"On the contrary, it will end perfectly."

Brelyna has long since stopped paying attention and started working on the assignment, and the other three follow soon after her.

Ruby is the first one to take his break—not because he needed it, but because he thought that despite Tolfdir's words the other two would still feel anxious about being the first ones to—but the second time he does it's because he needs it. It's an unpleasant feeling, simultaneously like being tired and not. Like he's spending some other resource than just energy or wakefulness and needs to recharge it. Not magicka—though of course he's spending magicka on it, but it regenerates quickly—but something adjacent to it.

And J'zargo, of course, as predicted both by narrative laws and those of basic common sense, loses the bet. Ruby and Brelyna have taken three breaks each and Onmund two before J'zargo loses his grip on the spell and sets his whiskers on fire. Tolfdir deals with it with a careless flick of his wrist, but J'zargo hisses and stalks over to the table to get water, without saying a word. Ruby studiously does not make any faces but Brelyna is smiling into her own flame a little bit.

By lunch time the only one who's really gotten anywhere with the exercise was Brelyna, who managed to make her flame go slightly redder. J'zargo walks up to Ruby and says, in perfect control, "J'zargo was overconfident. This one understands your point, now. You can come to J'zargo's room to collect your reward."

"Alright. And let's go to Acumen afterwards to get something to eat before Faralda's lecture."

    "You should continue practising this in your free time," says Tolfdir. "It should be well within your power to master this technique within a week."

J'zargo gets a look that Ruby is starting to recognise as his "challenge accepted" look but then stops himself and takes a deep breath. Character development!

The other two already have a table in the Acumen cantina when Ruby and J'zargo arrive. Beyond them, Tolfdir and the elf who Onmund and Ruby saw sitting with Thelsa last night are sharing a table with two middle-aged humans, a redhead and a brunet, and another table has yet another elf and yet another human, not talking to each other but not looking particularly hostile either.

"I guess it was too much to hope for, to not be the only Nord here," Onmund sighs once Ruby and J'zargo have joined them.

"Enlighten me?"

"Oh, uh... Well, do you know what happened to Winterhold?"

"The city? No. It's in ruins?"

"Yeah. About eighty years ago there was a catastrophe—the seas rose and great waves destroyed most of the city. This kept on for several days, most people fled, et cetera.

"And the College survived intact."

"...oh."

    Brelyna shuffles a bit uncomfortably. "The College says it had nothing to do with it and that it was the volcano..."

He lowers his voice. "Well, what else would they say? 'Yes, we did it, what are you gonna do about it?'"

    "You shouldn't... accuse them like that, without proof," she retorts.

"It's not an accusation, it's an observation. If anyone draws conclusions from it, well..."

Onmund shrugs. "This was very big but... a lot of places in Skyrim have stories about mages, like that. And I don't know if magic can drive you crazy or if it's just because crazy mages are a lot more destructive than other crazy people but there sure are a bunch of crazy mages around."

    "Magic is power," J'zargo states. "Any who control it can control the world, and people."

Onmund nods. "The war with the Aldmeri Dominion caused a lot of damage and the jarls haven't gotten their act together yet, so there are a bunch of abandoned forts or villages that have been taken by bands of fifty bandits or groups of four mages. That's how powerful magic is. So Nords hate magic and pretend it's because mages are weak and pathetic and real warriors use their steel. Because they know that a mage will win against steel, nine times out of ten.

"And there's also the thing I talked about yesterday, about summoning Daedra, plus some mages perform some horrible kinds of Necromancy."

"...so why isn't everyone else scared of magic?"

    "Other places just use magic," says Brelyna. "It's no different than using swords or your hands. If you wouldn't judge someone for that why would you judge them for magic? And not all mages are all that powerful, most people only know a little bit of magic for this and that."

"Okay so why do the Nords in particular feel this way?"

Shrug. "I can only speculate, but... I think there are cultural reasons? Nordic culture focuses a lot on war," and the grimace on his face shows his opinion about that. "They say Nords who fall in battle or who were valiant soldiers in life will go to Shor's Hall in Sovngarde after death to drink mead and brawl and train until the Last Battle."

"And an army against four mages and their legion of Daedra and undead isn't a war, it's a massacre," surmises Ruby.

    "That doesn't explain why Skyrim thinks all mages are like that," reasons Brelyna.

"Yeah, I don't know about that part."

"Could be a sort of cycle? People don't like magic, so the only people who study it at all are the ones who really feel a calling or are very good at it, and then those go on to become very powerful, and that scares people so again most continue to not study it..."

    "J'zargo grows bored with this subject. Let us talk about magic."

Onmund hides a smile behind his drink. Sure, they can talk about magic instead.

Their lecture won't start until the second bell after noon, so Ruby excuses himself and goes to Tolfdir's table. "Excuse me. I don't suppose you'd know where I could find Phinis Gestor?"