Faralda walks into the hall only a little bit after that. And turns out to be the elf they saw yesterday with Thelsa and at lunch with Tolfdir and the others. "You're all already here, good, let's get started."

J'zargo puts his flame out and takes a seat next to Brelyna. The hall is large enough for a much, much bigger crowd than just the five of them, but they will all stay reasonably close to each other and to Faralda.

"What is magic? Don't answer, you'll be wrong, no one knows what magic is. Some people claim it's the leftover divinity that remained in Mundus after Magnus left it and made the sun. Unverifiable bullshit that is entirely irrelevant to any practical matters. The more important question is, what does magic do? And that does have an answer." She speaks very quickly, barely drawing breath between sentences, and most certainly not waiting for her students to properly write things down as she does so.

"In very simple terms, magic is what lets you affect the world directly by imposing your will onto it. In that sense it is not much different from having hands. But magic can do a lot more than hands. It can move, it can create, it can destroy, it can alter, it can recuperate, it can enhance and curse, it can fool the mind and manipulate the senses, it can break the fundamental boundaries reality otherwise sets on us in a way nothing else can. So the question of 'why do you want to be a mage?' is contentless; people want to be mages because they want to affect the world around them, and everyone wants that. When you're conversing you're affecting the world around you, when you breathe and walk and eat and shit you're affecting the world around you. To exist is to affect the world around you. Magic can get anything you want.

"But it's much safer to move something with your hands than with your mind. Your hands won't move anything you don't want them to, or in unexpected ways. Their limitations are clear and easy to sense and impossible to break through. Your hands won't turn on you when you least expect, they won't explode, they won't wither you from the inside. Using your hands doesn't eat away at your very being.

"Which, to elaborate, is exactly what all magic is doing as it consumes your magicka. 'Magicka' is this mysterious substance every living thing has inside them, and it is the medium through which one affects the world using magic. And magicka is produced by your soul; this is why mere reanimated corpses cannot do magic but draugar can, and this is why we need to extract the souls of animals to enchant objects. Souls are the thing that powers magic. And just like you can break a bone or burn your skin and then recover from it and get healed, so too can you consume the bits of your soul you need to produce magic without damage. But if you do it too much, or too carelessly, or too ignorantly, you permanently damage your soul. Wonder why so many mages go off the deep end, become evil, go crazy, murder their whole villages then flee to live in a cave eating skeevers and drinking the blood of frogs? This is why.

"So goes the most popular theory, anyway.

"Any questions so far?"

...man this lady sure is a lot. This all seems pretty simple, though, and no one has questions.

"Good, they'd be a waste of time. Now, the main recognised schools of magic." She starts drawing fiery symbols in the air with her finger. "Alteration, Conjuration, Destruction, Illusion, and Restoration." Then she draws three more symbols below those five. "Enchantment, potionmaking, and engraving, which make use of all five.

"Now what does Alteration have in common with Restoration?"

"Healing?" he guesses.

"Protection," suggests J'zargo.

"Both correct. Why is changing your skin to be tougher Alteration and healing a skin wound Restoration? Why are wards that cover your body Alteration and wards you hold with your hands as shields Restoration? No good reason.

"Magic is a single thing. The so-called schools of magic are just our attempts at creating categories that are easy to think of. Now, don't get me wrong, the categories are pointing at real distinctions. But the edges are blurry, in more ways than one. What we as instructors will teach you within our specific domains are techniques that generalise within them—Alteration spells work better if you imbue them with the explicit intent of changing the states of things, Destruction spells are more destructive if you include disruption in their making—but we will also talk about things that cross the borders between schools, or are useful for everything. Tolfdir gave you an exercise in control, using the most basic flame effect you have available to you, but everything benefits from it. Sometimes not all in the same way, but the mental habit is very general.

"So, for today, I'll give you an overview of various ways in which the schools of magic are similar and distinct, which you will surely explore in more detail in the future.

"Any questions before we start? No? Let's get to it." She banishes her illusions and then summons more illusions to start going through her planned lecture.

The lecture goes on for most of the afternoon, and by the time Faralda is done it is supper time. J'zargo and Brelyna once again beg off, but Onmund remains quiet and does not suggest anything either.

Ahh this is kind of awkward.

Ruby hates awkward.

"Hey."

Onmund looks up from where he's putting his writing utensils and notebooks away and they back down. "Hey."

"Everything... alright?"

"Sure. Why wouldn't it be?"

"Dunno. Just... vibes, I guess."

He snorts and shakes his head, closes his knapsack and slings it over a shoulder, and starts making his way out. "You've certainly been having fun."

Ruby feels like he should have some comeback, here, but he doesn't.

Which Onmund notices. "Was expecting something other than silence."

"It's complicated."

"Didn't look that complicated."

Another shrug.

He pushes the door to the courtyard open but gestures for Ruby to go first. "You don't need to tell me if you don't want to, you don't owe me every lurid detail of your erotic escapades. We just flirted a little."

"...yeah, and, you know, I'm new, if, if I implied that I was looking for anything serious or long-term, I wasn't, I've known you for a day."

"Ruby, it's fine. I am not a damsel sighing after a dashing knight."

"You say that but I feel like I can cut through the awkward with a sword here."

"You're thinking too much."