"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 fading scars where they were, a couple of which are looking like they might stay there.

"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."

And then he leaves Ruby alone.

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.