The guard is no longer there, it seems, and neither are some of the patrons from before, while some new ones have taken their place. One of them in particular grabs Nelacar's eye: another elf, with a purplish skintone, in very similar garb to his own.

"Enthir, friend, how good to see you."

    "Just like every other night," Enthir replies dryly. He notices the human following Nelacar, then, and eyes him suspiciously. "Who's this, then?"

And now that Ruby's mind is no longer occupied by other worries he finds himself aware that he's stark naked in the middle of a tavern, even if it seems like no one seems particularly bothered by this fact. And it's not that he dislikes this fact, but some feeling unattached to any particular individual memory finds him starting to stiffen. Enthir's gaze doesn't help matters, for all that the elf could himself as well be said to be naked.

"I'm Ruby," he says, looking for all the world like he's unbothered. "—I'm a mage," he adds, because this person is clearly also one.

    "So it would seem," Enthir says. He also looks entirely unbothered, and turns to face Nelacar once more. "I know that look. You want to foist this green boy on the College?"

"So astute." Nelacar takes a seat at the table Enthir is sitting at, otherwise unoccupied. "I think you'll find his situation interesting. And to be sure, he isn't one of the four missing students?"

    Enthir blinks and looks at Ruby again, more intently. "I am not the best at the faces of men but I am fairly certain I have not seen this one before. Why would you suspect this?"

(Ruby also takes a seat.)

"It's probably best for you two to talk about this on the morrow, when you take him with you."

    "I will not be here on the morrow."

"Sure you will. Your curiosity won't let the matter rest."

    "This is not a glowing recommendation of him, if the best you have to say to entice me is that I'll want to satisfy my curiosity."

"I've only met the lad today, I don't have a very good recommendation. All I can say is that the situation is interesting."

    Enthir keeps his gaze on Nelacar for a few seconds before turning to Ruby once again. "Show me what you can do."

Well he doesn't have a list handy in his brain but there are the three spells he found the muscle memory for, so he can show them: one cast gets the sheen of Oakflesh on his skin, another creates a small barrier in front of his left hand, and the final one summons a flame floating above his right palm.

    "Not bad. And your casting was pretty efficient, you've clearly studied these." Back to Nelacar. "Very well, old man, I'll return in the morning and take him with me."

"Splendid! Oh, and he does not seem to have Bask or Foxskin or even Soothe."

    "...is that so? This story gets more interesting by the moment."

        A waitress gets to their table. "What can I do ye for?"

"I'll have the usual."

    "Same for me."

        "And you, darlin'?" she asks Ruby. She is clearly not entirely unfazed by all the nudity she's surrounded with, but she's still the kind of unfazed of someone used to dealing with mages' strange ways.

Nelacar isn't saying anything so he'll probably cover this too. "I'm not too picky, anything to eat is fine." But he certainly is hungry, as he notices as soon as the question comes up. "And some water, too, please."

    "Gotcha," she says, and goes to fetch the orders.

After she leaves: "What are those? Spells, I assume? Bask and so on, I mean."

"Spells, indeed," says Nelacar. "The 'skin' family of spells is a more narrow and specific version of basic fire which warms you. Soothe, Bask, Revel, and so on, are spells and enchantments that protect you from the elements. But you arrived here nearly dead and with frostbite I had to heal so..."

"Oh. I don't... think I know these. By any name."

"They're very useful in general, but life-saving up here in the north."

    "And they render such gear as furs and cloaks and coats used by the commoners unnecessary," adds Enthir. The way he says the word "commoners" suggests he's not exactly talking about people who aren't nobility.

"Is that why the two of you are naked?"

    "These are enchanted fabrics to hold magical effects and improve spellcasting," says Enthir, with a growing note of irritation in his voice and eyebrows. "This specific set is the garb of members of the College, in spite of this man."

"I was a member of the College," says Nelacar cheerfully. "And the decision to remove me from it was not mine."

    "You violated the College's rules for research and were expelled, as was part of the agreement you signed when you joined." The note of irritation is now a whole melody. "And you and I both know that you wear these to trick commoners into thinking you represent the College."

"No comment," he says, still cheerful.

...yeah this Nelacar figure is not exactly a good person. Not that he ever claimed so, but Ruby did wonder at all the excuses he seemed to have to help him.

"So... these fabrics are expensive and/or hard to make?" he guesses. "So you keep the total amount of them low?"

"Right in one!"

    "We wear only enough of them for the enchantments to cover our whole bodies."

"And also for aesthetics!"

    Enthir ignores him. "And mages will typically eschew armour. It hinders movement and your main survival strategy in any combat situation should be avoidance, not defence."

"And the 'flesh' spells work best with fewer barriers between them and your body, so ironically enough unless you start to get fairly heavy armour you are effectively in less danger of physical harm naked. Those scars there on you? I'm going to guess wolves?"

Ruby had actually completely forgotten about the wounds, seeing as how they just no longer hurt at all, probably courtesy of Nelacar's healing. But he does have healing scars where they were, a couple of which are looking like they might stay there for the long term.

"Wolves, yeah."

    "You might have gotten much more badly wounded had you been wearing armour."

"And there's always the extra benefit of—"

    "Nelacar I will make your mouth disappear."

"Well now he's gonna be curious!"

He is, yeah. Or would be, because the look Nelacar gave him and the tone of voice do have implications.

"I think I get it," he says, crossing his legs.

"Oh, you're quick, I like you." The waitress arrives then with their food, and actually blushes when she looks at Ruby. She hastily scurries away as soon as everything is on the table. Nelacar takes a swig of his ale and clicks his tongue in satisfaction. "Do you even know enough Alteration to make good on that threat, Enthir?"

    "No, but Tolfdir would do it if I asked."

"Ahh, so this was not an immediate threat, I could have just said it."

    "Perhaps I should study the necessary steps for specifically that."

"You must have so much free time."

    "Not more than you."

"Ouch! That hurts, old friend."

    "We are not and have never been friends."

"Yet another stab through the heart."

(Ruby eats his food quietly while watching these two and wondering if they fuck. He had assumed neither of them were interested in men, and they don't seem particularly interested right now either, but... Something about old married couples.)

They continue to bicker for a while longer, and eventually Enthir has to return to the College for the night, at which point Nelacar shows Ruby to his room. "It's yours for twenty-four hours so stay here however long you like. In the morning you can have bread and milk for free, just ask at the bar, and if you need me my room is the door right next to it."

It doesn't take long for Ruby to fall asleep. It's not literally a matter of lying down and going out, but it's as close to that as he can get. He sleeps for a good ten hours and wakes up naturally, slowly, drifting easily out of some dream involving yelling at a fire until it put itself out.

He sits up slowly, blinking the last of his sleep away, and looks around, letting the memories wash over him. He's in a city called Winterhold, this is a room in the local inn. He found a corpse that might belong to some student that went missing from the local wizard college. He has no memory of his past, but he knows some magic, and when he first heard the name of this place he immediately got the instinctive feeling that he should go to the College. A mage from it should be meeting him and taking him there today.

In the morning.

It's probably morning? It's probably morning. So Enthir should be here, soon if not yet.

He washes his mouth with water from the jug next to his bed and spits it out into the chamberpot. Makes use of the chamberpot. Thanks the gods that he just got reminded of a cleaning spell. Not as good as an actual bath and all that but good enough to wash the rest of the taste of morning out of his mouth and make sure he is not... otherwise dirty like that.

ANYWAY let's stop thinking about human waste and go downstairs to get the bread Nelacar said was available and maybe meet with Enthir.

Enthir is indeed already there, drinking mulled wine, eating some sweet cheese and an apple, and reading a book. When he sees Ruby coming downstairs he offers him a nod and puts his book away.

"That's a very useful spell," Ruby says as he takes a seat at the table. "The one where you put stuff away."

"Deep Storage," he says. "Keeping all that we might need or collect on us would be very cumbersome."

The waitress from last night brings a basket with two loaves of bread, fresh from the oven.