"...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 money."

"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 smiles a bit. "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?'"