He doesn't know how long he's been doing it. As in, he literally doesn't know how long he's been doing it: he can't remember how he got here, where he was before, where he's from, where here is, exactly. His memories are of cold, his thoughts are of cold, his entire being is focused on trying to make the cold stop. And the only way the cold will stop is if he keeps swimming, or dies.

(He's so tired, and he's not sure what "dies" means, but his soul is telling him in no uncertain terms that it's bad. Worse than the cold.)

So he keeps swimming.

The swimming does help. Frigid waters can only do so much to counteract high internal temperature. Or so he surmises, seeing as how he's still alive when he gets to something that's nominally a shore. It's covered in snow, though, which makes him feel very betrayed. The point of swimming was to stop feeling cold; instead, he's colder, the air burning his skin and his lungs. His lungs, and his muscles, and his bones. All of him is burning, and not in a way that helps with the chill. It just makes it worse, everything worse, the burn and cold that should be cancelling each other out just compounding instead.

(He's so, so tired.)

Fire. What he needs is a fire. But there's nothing to make a fire with, a couple of dead dry shrubs here and there but no flint, nothing—fire. He can... he can make fire. He's sure of it. He's not sure how, but he doesn't need to be, he can just follow muscle memory. Or a sort of muscle memory that's in his mind. He holds his palm out and up and...

...makes fire.

The fist-sized ball of flame floats lazily above his hand, unaffected by the chill and the wind. It's warm, it's warm enough he can feel it, he holds it close to his face and basks in it... but... it's not warm enough to dispel the cold. It's worse, actually, because he's stopped moving and the chill has started to seep deeper into his bones. His feet are numb and freezing, and the word "frostbite" pops into his mind with a terrifying mental image of toes growing blue and black and falling off.

(He's so, so tired.)

He almost trips when he resumes walking, his feet moving more sluggishly than they should. Now that he's not swimming for his life anymore the adrenaline is starting to leave his body and he's just exhausted.

But first, more fire. He looks around and, ah, the shrubs. He has vague memories about burning shrubs being bad for some reason, but he doesn't know what the reason is, and right now he really needs a bigger fire.

He soon finds out what is bad about shrubs. It's the smoke. There's barely any fire, barely any warmth, but he's soon getting black from the soot and feeling his lungs start to complain from more than just the cold.

...smoke.

He can see smoke in the distance. And it's less smoke than his shrubs', he only found it because he was thinking to look for it, so it must be a more useful kind of fire. Right? He's pretty sure that's how this works.

(But he's been swimming for so long, and he's so tired, and his muscles ache and burn, he could just... curl up... and sleep... He doesn't need the fire that much, does he, if he can just... sleep...)

NO

The warning comes unbidden from the back of his mind. If he sleeps he will die. This is the cold trying to seduce him, trying to freeze him, to make him still. The snow and the ice, the water still on his skin sapping him of what little leftover warmth he does have. No. He needs the fire.

He walks. Then he jogs. Then he runs. Then he sprints.

Then he... slows.

He's burning again, panting heavily, drawing in large, ragged, heaving breaths to try to soothe his lungs and convince his body he's still alive. But he doesn't still, and doesn't relax, because the scene in front of him is... not... safe.

The ground here is a lot less frozen than by the the shore, probably because of the presumably explosive fire that happened here: he can see the packed earth, and even some dry burnt grass. But the thing that catches the eye, in the middle of the scorched circle, is a corpse.

Now he remembers what being dead means. He agrees with his past self, this is worse than being cold. The corpse's shrunk into itself, hugging itself, on its knees with its face bowed down. This person's flesh has been completely charred away, melted off their bones and consumed by whatever foul magic they must have been performing shortly before their demise.

And they smell delicious, a feeling that is soon followed by pure revulsion. He's not going to eat a person. Not now, not unless he grows so hungry it's a choice between that and dying. It's not, yet, a choice between that and dying.

More importantly, there's an unlit campfire next to them, as well as some of their belongings, somehow entirely unburnt. A book, a dagger, a necklace. He knows without thinking that they are magical. He doesn't know what they could possibly do, and why they'd be here, but they are, and they're resources.

Fire first, though.

It's easy to get it started, with his magicka; the fuel hadn't been entirely consumed, the fire had just been spent by whatever spell went wrong here. And once it's started, he can feed it a steady stream of more magicka to make it grow, make it bigger and stronger. Make it hotter.

He falls asleep without noticing, after his limbs have all recovered feeling and he's let himself relax. It just happens, unbidden but welcome, and he embraces sweet oblivion from his suffering, knowing it to be temporary.

More temporary than he'd have hoped. He wakes up not knowing why, but he leaps to a crouching position out of instinct, completely sure that something's wrong.

He's right. Two seconds after that two scraggly skinny snow wolves leap at him. He manages to dodge them, but his reflexes are not good enough to dodge again when they immediately turn and jump so he raises his arms to defend himself and... a circular, nearly-invisible barrier with fading glowing edges appears between them and him. It shatters shortly after impact, but holds long enough for the wolf to bounce off it instead of reaching him.

...okay! He has defensive spells! Not just fire! This is good. And now that he thinks about it, there's other magic he has in that vein. He keeps an eye on the wolves, who have started circling him warily, while he funnels magicka into a specific shape, but he loses the cast when he has to raise another barrier in the middle of that. He feels the magicka he'd been funnelling rebound into him and he staggers a few steps back, but he's more on the ball now and can start throwing fire at the wolves.

They're not perfect at dodging it, but they're good enough that he doesn't instantly burn them to death. He resumes the cast of whatever spell he'd been trying before while he quickly sprints towards the corpse again to grab the dagger; that might be useful. Two more physical dodges and then his cast is ready and goes off, at which point he can feel a thin layer of magicka cover his entire skin, accompanied by a strange faintly-glowing sheen that moves like liquid across its surface. The surprise at that distracts him badly enough that he fails to even raise the ward in the direction of an attacking wolf, and he's immediately made aware of what the spell does: the wolf's claws scratch him, but only that. No deeper cuts, definitely not the mauling he was expecting.

Useful.

He's no longer nearly-freezing, but the fire's gone out while he was sleeping and he's still cold enough that his body is feeling very sluggish, and the muscle aches from all the swimming and running don't help matters. He can tell that his reflexes would be doing better if he were in better physical condition, that he'd have been able to kill the wolves with just the fire.

But he isn't, and he can't, so the killing is somewhat drawn out—not objectively, only a minute or so if that—and involves a lot of using fire with one hand and stabbing with the other. By the time the wolves are dead he's half-covered in blood, theirs and his own. His wounds were definitely not as deep as they could've been, but they are still numerous, and he's just overall physically miserable. It's not as bad as the cold that was threatening to consume him before, but it's still bad.

And he is hungry enough to consider eating the wolves.

Unlike for magic and combat, he doesn't have muscle memory for how to skin and cook wolves. He makes do, probably wastes a lot of useful fat in doing it, and he definitely isn't sure what to do with the organs, but he's got some meat in his stomach after a while of getting the fire back up and cooking.

Now, he can't just... stay here. He needs to go somewhere. And given that someone got here, presumably they followed some path that can be traced back. The corpse isn't that old, so it must have been recent. A snowstorm could've erased some of it but if he can find a beaten bit...

Aha. There it is. He wears the necklace/amulet around his neck, grabs the dagger with one hand and the book with another, renews his armoured skin spell, and starts walking.

He loses track of time, again. He doesn't just walk, he tries to keep a pretty steady faster clip to stay warm. His armour spell also helps; his feet aren't directly touching the ground, and his skin isn't directly touching the air, so it's somewhat insulating. Not enough that he will definitely not die of exposure, but enough that the occasional further wolves that attack him are providing him with sufficient exercise to keep him... mostly... warm.

Mostly.

He doesn't want to stop again, and try to find a way to get a fire going. He'll figure it out if he needs to, but he can see the walls of a city, now, catch glimpses of it between the hills and mountains. He's close, and the path is bringing him closer. At some point he transfers the dagger to the same hand that's holding the book and starts a fire in his hand again for what meagre heat it provides.

By the time he reaches the bridge into the walled city the blood he's covered in is dry and crusted, his extremities are once again numb, and he's misjudged the level of psychological impairment he'd suffer at the hands of the cold because he's no longer having thoughts. Just one foot after the other. One foot after the other. Cross the bridge, one foot after the other. Reach the gate, one foot after the other.

Then he's at the city and the last thought he has is that he's achieved the goal he said he was going to achieve so he can surrender to unconsciousness.

Picture this:

You're a Winterhold guard. Winterhold, which is barely a hamlet anymore, its former glory washed away by The Great Collapse, the only hints of that glory being the ruined state of its walls, while most of the few buildings still left standing are boarded shut as their owners left for Dawnstar or Windhelm. It pains you, as it would pain any Nord, to know that now the only thing keeping the city you were born and raised in from being taken by the snow is the thrice-damned College.

And it's salt in the wound, really, to know that it's the wizards' fault. They claim it's not, they say it was a volcano, or it's a mystery. Even though the only structure left completely intact was the College itself. How convenient.

You're a Winterhold guard, wondering if you did the right thing by staying, wondering if you should have gone south with your ex-fiancé before he gave up on you in disgust and left, guarding the gates that no one's assaulted in years, when you see a lone mage walking down the beaten path towards the city. And he's certainly a mage, you know this even before he's close enough for you to see the shimmer of a spell on his skin, because only mages would be walking in the nude in the snow like that, not needing even enchanted clothes and armour to shrug off the cold.

But as he gets closer more and more things seem strange about him. One, he's carrying a book and a dagger in his hand, rather than in a bag or hidden away in a mage's magical storage; two, he's a human but not an ethnicity you've ever seen before, his shoulder-length hair a silky wave of pure black and his skin tinted bronze where it's not gleaming with magicka or blue from the cold; three, he's blue from the cold, his spell clearly not enough to ward off the temperature, so even if you were right that he was a mage it turns out that the nudity may not have anything to do with that.

"Halt!" you cry once he's close enough, because this is really fishy. "State your business!"

But he ignores you. In fact, you're pretty sure he didn't even hear you. His eyes have a glazed over, frozen look to them, staring directly at the entrance to the city. His steps are stiff and stilted. His grip on the book and the dagger is deadly tight, you'd more easily cut off his hand than take his possessions from him.

And none of that is reassuring. You're reminded of stories of mages going insane you've heard from your dad and friends at the tavern, of them doing too much magic and losing some part of themselves in the process, slaughtering villages for necromantic experiments, making contracts with Daedra, devils and worse. Of the times growing up when you saw or heard or heard tell of mages right here in Winterhold going crazy, the spectacular lights in the night sky above the College followed by silence. If you ask the mages themselves—they are as avid patrons of The Frozen Hearth as anyone, especially the handful of Nords who have not shaken off their cultural heritage and still enjoy a flagon of mead in the evening—they say that it was nothing, just someone being a bit too excited with their research.

Honestly, thinking about it all like this, you think you probably should have left this land forsaken by the Nine.

So it is with that in mind that you prepare for a fight, maybe a hopeless one that'll barely delay the inevitable, because you're still of Winterhold and you'd rather die than live knowing you didn't even try to protect your home.

This is of course all moot when the man promptly passes out on you as soon as he gets close enough.

He wakes up to the feeling of pain in his extremities that is the inevitable result of being near a fire again. But it's not just the fire; everything is warm. Toasty, even. His still groggy mind takes a few moments to properly come to and understand his surroundings.

It's a building, wooden and rectangular. One end is blocked off by a counter, behind which stands a man in an apron of sorts. The other end has a window, and next to it a door. The center has a cooking fire, a good quarter of the total length of the room and about a fifth of the width. Also that's where he is, sitting on a bench, wrapped in a blanket or cape or cloak or something, thick fur touching his bare skin. There are tables around, some of them occupied by drinkers, as well as some other doors and some stairs leading up.

A tavern, then.

Reconstructing the events before he passed out, a lot of it is lost in a fog. He remembers walking towards a city, vaguely; he remembers walking, before he reached the city; he remembers the wolves; he remembers the fire, and the corpse; he remembers the dagger, and the book, and the amulet, which makes him immediately sit at attention—they're not exactly his belongings but they belonged to someone and it's probably a bad idea to lose them. He should at minimum give them to guards or something.

"At ease, fella," says someone behind him, leaning against a wall. He's wearing thigh-high boots, long gloves, a hood that wraps itself around his shoulders, a cloth-and-leather belt around his waist holding a satchel, and little else. His skin has a greenish tint, and his features are long, thin, sharp, and austere.

An elf, he immediately realises. He doesn't know how he knows that, but he knows that he's right. But now that he thinks about this, he looks around at everyone else, and finds them all to be humans. They're all of them of very similar ethnicity, and for some reason he finds it surprising, and especially that their skin is so white. He doesn't know why it's surprising—it's not like he remembers ever having met literally anyone else—but that's the gut reaction he has, is surprise. He turns back around to face the elf.

"Who are you?"

"Nelacar," he replies with no further comments. "And you?"

He looks down at himself—still covered in dried blood and dirt and sweat—then back up at Nelacar. "I do not know."

"A mage, though," he observes.

"...yes. Yes, I am."

"Not from the College?"

The word sounds a bell in the back of his mind. "The College?"

"The College of Winterhold, the only officially recognised school of magic in Skyrim. You're in Winterhold. You don't know of it?"

"N... Yes? Maybe? I... need to go there. For some reason?"

"Not complete amnesia, then, I see," Nelacar says, nodding. "Any idea why you showed up at the gates in the buff with only a book, a dagger, an amulet, and Oakflesh?"

Oakflesh, another word he—doesn't exactly recognise, because that's not what the armour spell is known as where he's from, but he knows the man is referring to it.

He also doesn't feel like answering the question. Certainly not in public; he has noticed other patrons surreptitiously or not-so-surreptitiously paying attention to their conversation. One of the more blatant ones is a woman in what must be a guard's getup, a blue tunic attached to her by belts that also hold a scabbard and a sword next to her hip and a shield on her back, metal gauntlets and greaves, and a metal helmet lined with fur for warmth.

"Is there somewhere to get cleaned? And where are my belongings?" He notes that he's still wearing the amulet, so they're probably not being kept from him.

Nelacar raises an eyebrow then stands up straighter and offers them to him. Even though the elf had not been holding them before. "Get you a name, and I'll rent you a room and access to the bath."

He accepts the book and dagger and says, "Thank you." It cannot have escaped the elf that he has no means to pay him back, so he focuses on the first half of the sentence. What will he call himself? He's got nothing. He's got a book and a dagger and an amulet and magic and the blood and sweat and dirt on his skin. The furs around his shoulder are probably only being lent.

"I'll be Ruby," he decides, out of pure free association. Blood, red, ruby. It's a nice enough name.

"A pleasure to meet you, Ruby. Come." Nelacar walks over to the counter and asks the barkeep for a room and a bath, on his tab. Then he leads the way past a back door through a corridor and out the other side, where a large tub awaits. There's a roof over it but it's otherwise open to the elements. It's already filled with water, but "Don't get in yet. I usually ask to not get heating because I can provide that myself so unless someone just used it the water will be cold." He puts a hand inside the water and starts heating it up.

Ruby watches this quietly for a bit, but then starts looking for somewhere to put the dagger and book. There's a little table over there, which seems good enough.

There isn't enough time for him to get cold again, because the water is soon hot enough there's steam fogging up the place. "Get in," says Nelacar, offering a hand to take Ruby's furs.

He gratefully goes up the wooden steps to the tub then into it, and there's just something different about getting a warm bath that just being in a warm room lacks. He grabs a scrubbing stone from a nearby shelf and starts getting rid of all the grime on his skin.

Nelacar vanishes the furs and then vanishes (what passes for) his clothes to follow Ruby in. At Ruby's questioning look he says, "You mind? I'm paying for it so might as well use it."

He shrugs. "Sure, suit yourself."

So he sits down and grabs another scrubbing stone. "So, ready to satisfy an old man's curiosity?"

"...yeah. But I don't have much. I woke up swimming. Then I wasn't swimming, and needed a fire, and I saw smoke and," grimace, "some experiment gone wrong. There was a charred circle and a burnt corpse and a campsite and," he taps the amulet, "these. Not sure what they're for but I wanted to find out who that person is and maybe give these to their family or something.

"And from there I walked here." Shrug.

"...huh. Maybe I should take you to the College." Pause. "Yisra, Ilas-Tei, Borvir, Rundi. Any of those names ring a bell?"

"...no?"

"You sure none of them is you?"

"...no but I don't think so."

"Shame. Ask to speak to Phinis Gestor when you're there and tell him about where you found these, he'll be interested."

"I will."

They spend a few minutes in silence, but then Ruby asks, "Why are you helping me?"

The elf smiles. "It pays to be kind. People remember you later. And when strange things happen, it's always good to make yourself part of them, so that you'll know how to learn from them."

"So you don't want me to pay you back?"

"If your conscience moves you to, I'm not going to refuse gold, but I see these things as investments."

"An interesting mindset."

Nelacar smiles but doesn't reply.

And Ruby finds himself in the uncomfortable position of not particularly enjoying silence but not having anything to say and not wanting to be annoying. So silence it is, and he tries to be quick and efficient with his scrubbing and soaping.

It helps that he really hates the feeling of stickiness on his skin and in his hair. By the time they're done he's pretty sure the owner will need to change the water, but presumably that's included in the price, so he tries not to mind it.

Nelacar steps out of the bath, then, and once Ruby's done the same he says, "This might burn a little," before casting a spell.

It does, in fact, burn, but not very much. The kind of burn of being put into very hot water, but not hot enough to actually cause damage.

And then he's dry.

"Thank you."

"Don't mention it." He reaches into whatever magic subspace he has to grab his "clothes"—if they can even be called that, they're not concealing much—and form them around his body.

And Nelacar doesn't offer Ruby the furs again, so presumably he was the one who loaned Ruby them. He grabs the book and the dagger from where he placed them and follows Nelacar back inside.

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 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 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.

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.

Ruby taps the book he placed on the table (with the dagger resting on it) while he grabs the bread with his other hand. "All of my belongings."

Enthir doesn't look surprised—maybe he got the gossip of how Ruby arrived—but does look at the items and says, "I can take them with me if you want." At Ruby's expression he adds, "I will not steal them. This is a tome of Flame Cloak and that is a dagger of frost, neither of which is particularly valuable especially at the College." He nods in Ruby's direction. "That amulet might be more valuable. It's not clear at a glance what it does, if anything. Might be it's only got a protection spell, might be it does something else."

That logic seems reasonable enough, and maybe Enthir is lying but that would be a pretty weird lie, so Ruby offers him book and dagger and they promptly disappear.

Enthir seems to on his own not particularly seek conversation, so he lets it die as both of them finish eating. Once done, his book disappears, and he says, "Let's go, then."

Let's go, then!

...and hopefully Enthir will do literally anything about the fact that Ruby continues to be naked!

He does indeed do literally anything. Once they're outside, he casts two spells on Ruby, then starts walking.

The spells feel... interesting. Ruby can tell that they are much more powerful than anything he's done thus far, but other than feeling the effects themselves he can't discern their magical properties at all.

But the effects are plenty interesting. He is feeling as warm as if he were—well, he's not sure, not as warm as inside the tavern but warm enough to be comfortable. That must be the 'skin' spell. The other effect is somewhat subtler but stranger still, once you pay attention to it. He walks, and he can feel the frozen ground and bits of snow under his feet, but they aren't cold. Not warm, either. Or neutral. They just aren't anything. There isn't a temperature to them, as far as temperature is concerned his body is walking on air, even though he can still feel it on his skin. And the wind feels even freakier, because a deep association in his soul is telling him that with wind this biting he should be lacerated by the cold but instead he's not. His temperature is stable.

Yeah, he can see how you wouldn't need any protective gear with this, at least when it comes to braving the elements. Presumably the spells will run out at some point, but until then he feels perfectly comfortable.

The City of Winterhold

The Frozen Hearth is right by the city gates to the south, while the College is to the northeast, perched upon a rock pillar and surrounded by a chasm down to the frigid shore below. Its only connection to the city proper is a bridge, improbably still standing despite the Great Collapse. Flames and lights of magicka adorn the bridge and the college itself, and with the clouded skies raining snow down on them it's the most visible feature in the horizon.

It's a while of walking to get to it, during which Enthir has to renew the spells on Ruby once, but soon enough they reach the ramp up to the bridge. Under the entry archway before the bridge proper starts there is a circular slab of stone with a strange symbol on it. Enthir walks past it just fine, but when Ruby tries he is prevented from advancing by an invisible force. "Your fire spell," says Enthir, turning around. "Use it on the symbol. Only mages are allowed into the College, save with special dispensation, and staff need to register your magical signature for the wards to let you through."

"Interesting security," Ruby comments, summoning a ball of flame into his hand then launching it at the symbol.

It glows when it's hit, and Enthir casts another spell on it which makes it flash then go inert again. "You should be registered, now. Step through."

Ruby does, and this time there is nothing preventing him from doing it.

The bridge is kind of terrifyingly narrow, especially the bits where the walls on the sides of it are are gone and bits of the floor have broken off. Enthir walks swiftly and confidently, though, and doesn't seem at all worried about falling. He doesn't even look where he's going.

Ruby likes the aesthetic but not more than he likes being alive, so he will instead tread carefully and watch where he's going. And the wind here, with no buildings and other walls to block and shelter, is biting enough it starts to cut through the protective spells. It's not very strong, though, thankfully, because getting pushed off the edge is a very real risk.

Enthir is looking rather annoyed by the time Ruby gets to the gates but he doesn't say anything and the gates open for him. They get to a courtyard circled by an open corridor that has doors to four of the five buildings of the College, one at each "corner" of it. There are two squat buildings decorated with windows in the courtyard, looking to be something like greenhouses. The corridor is broken by the door to the main building, and a stone walkway connects it to the part of the circular corridor with the entrance gates, with a magical light shooting up into the sky from the center and a sculpture of a mage in flowing robes looking at them from behind it, and that's where Enthir seems to be leading Ruby. "I need to find M—oh, there she is."

A human is at the door of the main building having what seems to be a rather heated conversation with an elf of the same ethnicity as Nelacar—an Altmer, or high elf. She's garbed in something similar to what Enthir and Nelacar wear, but the elf isn't; his robes (if they can be called that) are a much darker blue than the College's, a long-sleeved close-fitting jacket held to his body by a belt with a silver buckle in the shape of a star, and high boots and a loincloth following a similar style. "...believe I made myself rather clear," they catch the human saying.

"Yes, of course," says the elf. "I'm simply trying to understand the reasoning behind the decision."

"I have already explained it. You may be used to the Empire bowing to your every whim, but you will find the Thalmor will find no such treatment here. You are here at the pleasure of the Archmage. I hope you appreciate the opportunity."

"Yes, of course. The Archmage has my thanks."

"Very good. Then we're done here." And she has certainly made a final decision, for she turns around and starts walking along the walkway in long strides. Only two of them, though, because then she notices them. "Enthir. And who might this be?"

"A new student. Your office? This isn't urgent, but it might be important."

That gives her pause. "I see. I do not have any pressing matters at this moment." She looks at Ruby. "I am Mirabelle Ervine, Master Wizard at the College."

"My name's Ruby. It's a pleasure to meet you."

"Well, why don't the two of you come with me, then?" She turns back around (the elf is no longer there, having entered the building after he was summarily dismissed) and goes into the main building. "I will give you a proper tour later, but for now, this is the Hall of the Elements. This is where most of your lessons will be held, the practical ones downstairs and the lectures here." She gestures at the room in front of them, a large circle with benches surrounding a center that has a podium, presumably for use by the lecturer. "The stairs to the right will lead up to the Arcanaeum—our library—and the ones to the left will lead you to the staff offices. Both of them go all the way up to the Archmage's office and quarters, but he is not to be disturbed by anything not of the utmost importance." So to the left she leads them, and up to a room that contains a desk with one chair behind it and two in front of it, a cupboard, and a tall and wide bookshelf. She takes the seat behind the desk and Enthir takes one of the ones in front of it.

And he takes the other, naturally.

"Very well, then. Do you want to explain?"

"This man walked into town yesterday evening. Just as naked, clutching these," book and dagger, "and wearing that amulet. He passed out on a guard and was freezing to death by the time Nelacar healed him."

"Nelacar is still here." She does not sound very pleased.

"Yes," he says, sounding irritated by the statement of the obvious. "Anyway. This man here knows how to cast some spells but doesn't know their names, doesn't have Soothe or Foxskin but does have Oakflesh, and Nelacar asked me if I recognised him as one of the missing students."

"...hmm." To Ruby: "Why don't you tell me your version of things?"

So he recites the same things he told Nelacar earlier.

"...how convenient that you'd show up like this just as a group of students is about to begin their lessons. And yes, the dead body is intriguing—Yisra was working on improving the flame cloak spell, I believe. Nelacar was right, you should speak to Phinis Gestor about this."

"'Tis most disturbing. The wards did not recognise his signature, either, so he's certainly never been here before. And he's not a Nord." The inflection at the end of that sentence suggests some uncertainty, though.

"No, I don't believe so." To Ruby: "Did you have any further mysterious feelings of familiarity once you stepped foot in the College?"

"No. It just felt right, at the time, when Nelacar suggested that I come here. Before I even knew what here was."

"One cannot discount the possibility of a sleeper agent of some sort."

"The College is not particularly secretive about anything, what would such an agent hope to accomplish?"

"What does Ancano hope to accomplish?" he counters.

"He is here to 'advise', as he's said so many times. His role is not one of a passive observer. And if our friend here turns out to be a trap, the College houses the most brilliant and talented mages in Skyrim, and perhaps all of Tamriel. There is little he could do to harm us." To Ruby: "No offence."

"None taken, these sound like very sensible considerations."

"Very well. I don't believe secrecy on any of this should be necessary, so you need not worry about that."

"As you say."

And to Ruby: "Go to the Hall of Attainment—that's the western tower. One of the rooms on the ground floor will have been assigned to you, and your name will be on the plaque next to it. The door will open to your hand only. Take the day to unwind some; your room will have some books and a set of College fabrics as well as some less conspicuous clothes," meaning clothes for non-wizards. "You'll have a few dressers, a safe chest, and an empty bookshelf.

"The ground floor also has a small banquet area, it's resupplied twice a day and you can take whatever you want from it but do be considerate of your classmates. And speaking of which, I encourage you to meet them.

"I will come to Attainment at the seventh bell and I'll show you around, and tomorrow practical lessons begin at the eighth bell in the morning.

"Anything else you need to know?"

Everything.

"I think I can make do for now, thank you. Uh, is there any chance I could have access to a journal to write on?"

"Your room should have a couple of blank journals and if you run out you can always come to the Arcanaeum and request more supplies from Urag."

"Oh, thank you. I'm good, then."

"You're welcome." She stands up and starts walking out of the room. "I'll see you this evening."

"And I have some research to get back to," says Enthir. "With your leave."

Ruby goes downstairs too, then, and to the Hall of Attainment and his room—which turns out to be the one right next to the entrance, to the right. The door does indeed yield to his hand, and as soon as he's inside he makes a beeline for the journal on the desk by his bed.

He writes about everything that's happened since yesterday in short form while it's freshest, then once he's satisfied he's got everything he starts a new page in long form to add any details that he's missed the first time around. But the most important parts are the mysteries and questions:

Who are the four missing students? Yisra might be the one I found, she was working on a flame cloak spell and this book is meant to be about that spell. I need to speak to Phinis Gestor—why? Why is he point person instead of Mirabelle?

How frequently do things like these happen? Everyone seemed somewhat too nonchalant.

Why was Nelacar expelled? What's his relationship with everyone else here?

What's the relationship between Nords and magic?

Why is the College important? Why would anyone want to spy on it? Who's Ancano? (Probably the Altmer from earlier.) Why are Mirabelle and Enthir mistrustful of him?

Why is the College so willing to part with this much money for a random amnesiac?

What's Skyrim? What's Tamriel?

Who am I? Why am I here? Why am I here now? How do I know magic? Why do I not remember anything?

That done, he relaxes and finally gives the room a proper look. It's not very big, but it's cosy and comfortable, and he certainly has more than enough space to store anything he wants, or he will whenever he has anything to store. In addition to all Mirabelle told him about and the desk there's an enchanted water basin, which Ruby guesses can be used as a chamber pot? There isn't one otherwise, but he should probably ask later.

The available books include a few spell tomes—Summon Familiar (which makes Ruby realise he already has that one), Soothe, Foxskin, Oakflesh, Conjure Lesser Cloak, Firebolt, Healing—and a student's handbook. He'll certainly have enough to help while away his time.

And garments: a fine, warm-looking tunic that is somewhat more upscale than what the people in the tavern were wearing, with similarly-made breeches and boots, and... that pile of fabric and leather and string with those gloves and boots are probably the "uniform".

Let's see:

• One long rectangular strip of fabric attached at both ends with strings to a shorter strip. The way the others were wearing that, the smaller strip goes on his lower back, then the longer strip goes around his waist, up the front and sides of his torso covering some of his pecs, and it disappears into the shoulder leathers. It probably wraps around the back of his neck? Except the fabric won't stay in position that way...
• The shoulder leathers solve the mystery: there are straps under it that hold the fabric in place, so he sticks his head up into the hole for it and attaches the strip appropriately.
• A hood to be worn over the shoulder leathers.
• The gloves, leather hands and white-and-blue fabric up his arms and to his biceps.
• The boots are fur and leather up to his thighs.
• The waistcloth and leather belt to hold it to his body, with a small leather pouch attached to the back of it, the end of the fabric strip long enough that he lets some of it hang down by his right leg.
• A pair of briefs... which neither Nelacar nor Enthir were wearing. So he's not gonna, either. It's hot, okay, what's it to you.

The "uniform"

The magical effects are felt immediately: he can feel a lot more room to store magicka, and his natural regeneration of it also feels a lot faster than it was before. Plus the warmth enchantments, this definitely feels like extra gear would be superfluous.

So now he's got a while to kill until the evening. He could spend it studying the spells in the books, but... his head is kind of not really in a space to stop and concentrate. And maybe what he really needs is something restful to distract from his travails thus far.

...let's be honest, he's still kind of exhausted.

And he has an actual room now, so nothing's stopping him from just... taking a nap.

He wakes up from a nightmare with a start. Memories of the dream quickly fade away, though, leaving him only with the uneasy sensation of something bad having happened.

...also the uneasy sensation of realising he does not have a timepiece and has no idea how long he's slept for. Shit.

Well, he's unlikely to be exactly two minutes early, so he'll just step out into the main hall of the floor and see if he can find anyone who'd know the time. And probably grab some food, too, he's hungry.

He puts his hood back on then steps into his boots and out of his room.

In the little banquet area he finds a person with the features of a panther or some other great cat, white striped fur covering all of his body, a long fluffy tail curled around his waist, and the face of a cat—a khajiit. Ruby is not sure he'd normally be able to recognise the sex of a khajiit just from looking but this one is entirely nude, not even the College garb on.

Khajiit

And Ruby is surprised by how he's not surprised that the khajiit's dick is also feline. He wonders whether the currently-sheathed shaft has actual barbs.

The khajiit looks up at him from where he's sitting while reading a book and eating meat and says, "J'zargo is pleased to meet another apprentice."

"Uh, nice to meet you too. I'm Ruby." He makes his way to the table and grabs some things himself. "Do you by any chance have the time?"

"J'zargo believes it is six and three-quarters bells past high noon."

Okay that was cutting it much closer than he'd expected. "Are you going on the tour, too?"

"Yes. The Master Wizard should be along shortly."

Two other people walk into the small room: an elf and a human. The elf is wearing the school garb but the human is wearing a tunic.

"The other apprentices, I assume? I'm Onmund," says the human.

"Brelyna," nods the elf.

"This one is J'zargo."

"Ruby." The two other apprentices are incredibly hot, so that's nice. Or, well, he supposes Onmund is very pretty but hotness is to be decided once he gets naked.

...Ruby should perhaps stop thinking about this.

"I'm starting to feel overdressed," he says, a soft flush colouring his cheeks after a small glance in Ruby's direction.

"Nothing is stopping you from joining us," grins Ruby. "I'm sure no one here would complain." That boy is absolutely into boys. And so is the girl, who also flushes a little bit at the comment. And Ruby is bisexual and should really not be flirting naked.

"J'zargo does not understand these human interactions," observes the khajiit after looking between said two humans for a few seconds.

"At least here in Skyrim most people... cover up more."

"J'zargo supposes you have no fur to protect you and have much weaker magic than elves to fight the environment," he says, nodding to himself in satisfaction.

"It's probably just cultural," offers Brelyna.

"Right... I mean it's not a problem or anything... just..." He looks at Ruby. "I suppose I'm being very prudish here, aren't I?"

"Don't ask me, I was born two days ago."

"What?" asks Brelyna, startled.

"I woke up two days ago in frigid waters with no memory of my life," he shrugs. "But I guess I don't think I'm a Nord..."

"J'zargo does not understand."

"Oh, I heard that Nords don't like magic so that'd explain why they wouldn't use it so much."

"Most of us don't," Onmund sighs again. "My parents didn't want me to come here at all. They wanted me to be a farmer or something more normal. It took years of convincing them that this is where I'm meant to be."

"Good to see you are getting to know each other already," says a suddenly-appearing Mirabelle. Both humans and the elf startle but the khajiit seems unfazed. "Are you all ready to go?"

"Yes," says J'zargo, shutting his book and sending it to his room, telekinetically.

"You don't have Deep Storage?"

J'zargo looks at him with... some kind of cat facial expression. "If J'zargo were knowledgeable and powerful enough to cast it J'zargo would not need to be here."

Oh so it's a powerful spell. Okay. Good to know. And annoying.

"Well, shall we?"

"We shall," says Mirabelle with some amusement.

(Okay so Onmund is only into men, judging from... body language and such. Ruby's fantasies with him and Brelyna will need to be adjusted.)

(...he wonders what a barbed cock would feel like...)

(His brain should shut up, he doesn't even have the memories of what a non-barbed cock feels like.)

"So, the school has five towers, as you all know: the Hall of Attainment, the Hall of Countenance, the Hall of Acumen, the Hall of Diligence, and the Hall of the Elements. This tower, the Hall of Attainment, is where new students and guests are housed. The four of you are here, as well as," the barest hint of a pause, "Ancano, local representative of the Thalmor." She nods in the direction of the room taken by none of the apprentices. "The last group of Apprentices used to room upstairs." But she doesn't elaborate, and nods in the direction of the wall opposite to the entrance. "Two floors up gets you to the parapets, and the lower floor has your communal washroom—which is not entirely necessary, the enchanted basins in your rooms can be used both as a chamberpot and for washing, they are heavily enchanted—as well as some areas for personal study and research. The door at the bottom of the stairs will lead you to the Subterrarium, of which I will speak later, but the door at the bottom of the stairs in the Hall of Countenance will instead get you to the Midden, the foundations and tunnels and catacombs of the structure."

(Why the fuck does a school have catacombs.)

"Let's go visit the rest of the school, then," she says, and through the door.

J'zargo casts the warmth spells on himself and follows after, while Onmund and Brelyna just rely on their clothes' properties, physical or magical.

The enchantments Enthir placed on Ruby have long since expired so he's also relying just on the inherent enchantments of the apprentice garbs. But it turns out that's all mostly unnecessary, for the courtyard itself seems enchanted with that. Mirabelle first walks near to the entrance of the whole school to gesture at the map that's attached to a wooden board there.

Map of the College Grounds

"The Hall of Countenance has more student and researcher lodgings while the school's permanent staff, with the exception of the Archmage, is housed in Acumen and Diligence, teachers in the latter and other staff in the former, although this rule is not strict. Acumen also houses a cantina with tables and chairs for a meeting and socialisation point, while Diligence has a few extra laboratories and experiment rooms."

She is walking them to the Hall of the Elements as she speaks. "These two semicircular buildings to either side of us here in the courtyard are the Lustratoriums, the one with tropical flora to the left and the one with alpine flora to the right. Both of them have stairs down into the area I mentioned earlier, the Subterrarium, which houses more exotic specimens including some animals. You may collect parts of the more common plants for alchemy at will, within reason, and you can place requests for the others with Thelsa Andalas, our herbologist and Alchemy instructor, or myself."

After she finishes the explanation she steps into Elements. "The large room up ahead is our lecture hall," she says, stopping and turning around to face the students. "These gates will nearly never be shut, and anyone can join ongoing lectures, but sometimes the Archmage or I might be hosting official diplomatic meetings which are not to be disturbed."

Onmund leans in the direction of the other three and whispers, "I don't know about you guys but this all is making me kind of excited."

"J'zargo shares your feelings," says the khajiit, but Brelyna doesn't say anything to it and chews on her lower lip a bit.

"This is all making me want to go exploring all over," admits Ruby. "Especially these catacombs, that sounds cool."

"I would advise against that," says Mirabelle, not turning around as she leads them downstairs. "The Midden has been infested with draugar lately and you will want to be very sure of yourself before venturing in."

"'Draugar'?"

"Unholy abominations. Dead risen through dread rituals that trap their souls within their bodies. If you don't destroy the vessels completely they'll just keep coming back, trapped forever."

"The practice of soul-affecting necromancy is strictly forbidden by the College and grounds for immediate expulsion as well as the involvement of authorities," Mirabelle says promptly.

And presumably they're dangerous, alright.

"Here is where you will have your practical lessons," she says when they reach the basement floor. The center room is very similar to the lecture hall above except it doesn't have the seats. Surrounding it is a magical forcefield that keeps it contained from the semicircular alchemy lab to one side and enchantment lab to the other. There are two people in that room right now: an argonian—lizardlike face studded with horns and bone protrusions, a long crocodile tail, claws, scales covering all of her body—and an orc, or Orsimer—the most recognisable elf subspecies, with typically-green skin and a huge underbite with protruding tusks. They're sparring, and the magical barrier is good enough that the apprentices are completely insulated from the sounds. "The arena is open to free use on evenings and weekends. If any group of people enters it while other groups are already in there, the arena will be split radially to house up to five separate groups.

"On weekdays the arena is reserved for lessons, and usually no more than two groups tend to use it at the same time, but it depends on teachers' availabilities and willingness. Every teacher is required to teach at least one lesson a week but some may do more at their pleasure.

"The College is mostly dedicated to self-study and personal improvement of one's abilities. As an Apprentice, you do not need to attend any given class, be it practical or a lecture, so long as you are not deemed to just be using the College as free housing with no intent to progress in your skills. You may choose to make use of the arena or libraries or experimental areas as your sole resources of study if you wish, or you may exclusively attend lessons on the specific areas you wish to improve on, or you could go to all lessons if you desire. The College is here to be used by you in your own quest for excellence."

Brelyna raises a hand.

"Yes?"

"Where is the topic for each class posted, and how do we tell if we're good enough to take them?"

"Most of the teachers will attempt to match the level of their audience for their mandatory lessons but the specific subjects and scheduling are posted to that board there," Mirabelle replies, nodding at the wall behind them where several pieces of parchment hang attached to a wooden board, "as well as any prerequisites for them."

Ruby and the other apprentices walk over to it to peer at the listings. There is indeed a schedule for this and next week, as well as various other things, including a note from one Phinis Gestor about the missing students.

"Most of those can also be found on the board by the College entrance," says Mirabelle.

"Anyway," she continues after waiting a beat for more questions, "that door over there leads to the Midden—it's the other main entrance besides the one in the Hall of Countenance."

Then she starts leading the way upstairs again. "Your teachers will be Faralda, Drevis Neloren, Phinis Gestor, Tolfdir, Colette Marence, Sergius Turrianus, and Thelsa Andalas. Tolfdir will be your personal mentor—every new group of Apprentices gets a teacher to pay special attention to them—and any general questions about magic or the College should go to him first of all, but you will get to know all of them eventually.

"Each of the teachers specialises in one area of magic—Faralda is the best Destruction specialist in Skyrim, and Tolfdir might be the unsurpassed master of Alteration in all of Tamriel. Use their expertise well, they will be invaluable assets and the College is committed to a philosophy of free exchange of knowledge."

Rather than continuing up the stairs past the ground floor she walks across the Elements entry hall to the eastern sets of stairs. "The stairs we came from lead up to more private offices and personal research laboratories for the teachers, but up this set gets us to the Arcanaeum." They get to a landing that has a map of the continent on a wall, a couple of book cases, an orrery, two doors that presumably lead to the parapets of the walls, but most importantly a large desk behind which sits an aged orc. "This is Urag gro-Shub, our librarian."

The orc looks up at the kids then at Mirabelle. "This the new group?" At Mirabelle's nod he looks at them again and says, "Welcome to the Wizard College of Winterhold, then. If you need help with anything related to the library, or the search for any tomes or scholarly resources, don't hesitate to come to me."

Further upstairs is the library proper, a circular room with tall bookshelves on the walls and tables in the center, both on and around a lowered circular area in the middle, and then the next floor has a closed iron gate leading to "The Private Collection. Our more advanced or perilous tomes are held here. This is not a forbidden part of the library, to be clear; it is only outsiders and Apprentices that are not cleared for full access to it, and Apprentices may ask Urag for tomes that might be here and he will grant access on a case-by-case basis. The school has ranks for its members—Apprentice, Erudite, Scholar, Wizard, Master Wizard, and Archmage, in ascending order of power and responsibility—and any who achieve Erudite rank will be able to open these gates."

"How do you advance ranks?" asks Onmund.

"It varies per rank. The Erudite rank is given based on teacher consensus, and may involve specific testing of skills and knowledge. They may also withhold this rank if an Apprentice appears to be a bad fit for the College. After that, you are granted the title of Scholar once you have either advanced the boundaries of our knowledge with something new or the discovery of something that had been lost. Scholars are one of our main means of contact with the outside world, the people who connect to non-mages; most Court Mages you might hear of accompanying the jarls of Skyrim are Scholars.

"Many outsiders may use the title of Wizard lightly to refer to all versed in the arcane arts, but the College title refers specifically to members who are dedicated to the College and actually working with us. Wizards are those who are looked up to for guidance, instruction, and leadership, and attaining this rank marks you as a specialist. Compared to that, the Master Wizard title is merely a bureaucratic formality; most teachers are Wizards, and the ones of us who are Master Wizards are the one responsible for the day-to-day operation of the College, administrative duties, and so on. Faralda would typically be the one in charge of this tour and general admissions, but today is her day off.

"And finally, the Archmage is the leader and the symbol of the College. It is a title somewhat skew from the others, in that the Archmage may well not be as powerful or knowledgeable about any given thing as other Wizards in the College—our current Archmage, Savos Aren, is certainly no match for Tolfdir, for instance, when it comes to anything related to the Alteration school of magic. But the Archmage tends to have a wide breadth of arcane knowledge and, most importantly, be loyal to the College and its principles as an ideal. They set the vision for any future changes, they represent the College in matters of state in relations to all other holdings and nations of Tamriel, and they could be seen as nearly identical with the College itself—anything they do is something the College does, and vice-versa, for good or ill. As such, the Archmage will often if not always be someone who has wide understanding of other cultures, who has travelled far and wide and created a relationship with all kinds of people."

And on to the next floor: "These are the Archmage's quarters," she says, gesturing at the tall wooden gates that dominate the wall that separates the hall they're in from where the lecture hall and libraries would have been in the lower floors. "Archmage Savos is an incredibly busy man, and not always here in the College, so you should refrain from trying to bring matters to his attention. If you need anything that you believe the Archmage should have a say in, you bring it to me, and if I'm not available either then Faralda, Phinis, or Tolfdir can hear you.

"If despite this warning you still wish to speak to the Archmage, you may come here to knock on his door, but he will be very cross if you interrupt him for something he does not consider sufficiently important."

Then up another two flights of stairs there's a door. Mirabelle casts a spell on the group, then opens the door to the roof of the tower. "And this is it," she says, stepping out into the biting wind and bitter cold, made harmless by her spell. "This is the Wizard College of Winterhold," she says, opening her arms wide looking southwards. She turns back to the Apprentices and says, "Welcome, new students."

They all go back downstairs, then, and are dismissed by Mirabelle after she tells them that tomorrow at four bells before midday Tolfdir will give them their introductory lesson and she strongly recommends that all of them would attend.

"Do you guys want to have dinner together at the cantina?" Onmund asks.

"Um, I think I'll pass, I need to unpack and stuff."

"J'zargo will study this evening."

"Sounds good, I'm down," says Ruby.

Onmund was starting to look a bit disappointed but perks right up at Ruby's words. "Cool. Let's go?"

"Yeah, let's."

They say goodbye to the other students and make their way to Acumen. "So, what school of magic are you most interested in learning about?"

"I don't even know what all the schools are," he says, grinning. "Born two days ago, remember?"

He pushes the door to the tower open but gestures for Onmund to enter before him.

"Right, that..."

The cantina is pretty empty except for two elves drinking together in one corner. One of them lifts her head when they walk in and says, "Hey, new blood. Make yourselves at home, here, the banquet tables are free and if you want anything in particular just let me know." The other elf turns to look over her shoulder at them too but doesn't say anything.

"Will do, thanks!"

They make their way to the banquet table, then, and start picking from a pretty wide selection of options. "So... how exactly does that work, the whole... no memory thing?"

"Dunno," he says cheerfully. "I just woke up in the water then..." And he tells Onmund the whole story, eliding a bit over the part related to the missing students.

"...that's... kind of scary."

"You tell me. But yeah apparently I know half a dozen spells and have no idea how or why and certainly not a smidge of theory, not even what the schools of magic are. I'll have a time catching up."

"I could help?"

"If that means I get to see your pretty face more often than otherwise I'm down."

He blushes terribly and decides his food looks very interesting. "...most people in Skyrim would... not be okay with you saying things like that."

"'Things like that'?"

Omnom not looking up. "Like... saying I'm pretty. If nothing else men aren't meant to be pretty..."

"Does 'handsome' work better?"

Blush blush. "Not... much... Two men aren't supposed to..."

"But you like men."

"I'm not punching your face out am I?" he says in a small voice.

"—really, is that how much men would hate being hit on by other men?"

"Yeah. It's..." More food. "I'm, I think magic is for me, but it would be a lie to say that mages being much less concerned with that wasn't a part of the decision."

"So I can flirt with you "

"I didn't say I'm attracted to you."

"You also didn't say you were attracted to men and yet I knew."

He laughs a bit and dares to look up at Ruby again. "Are you always this confident?"

"Who knows, I was born two days ago."

"...right."

"—that touched a button there."

"It... would feel like... taking advantage of you."

"What, 'cause of the amnesia? I'll observe I'm the one doing the flirting here. You can always say 'no'."

Well, here he is, eating and very conspicuously not saying no.

"Anyway, it looks like you're uncomfortable so why don't we go back to talking about magic?"

Onmund laughs again. "You're very direct. Yeah, okay, let's talk about magic."

"Why don't you tell me about your favourite school?"

"—I guess maybe I should mention the thing every introductory book about magic says, that magic isn't really divided neatly into schools. It's a continuum. What I'm most interested in is elemental magic, but most elemental magic falls under what they call Destruction."

"Elemental, like fire?" Little flame above his palm to demonstrate. "I guess I can see how that would be destructive."

Onmund nods. "Like fire, ice, lightning, water, earth, light... Fire and ice and lightning are the most used for Destruction, water for Restoration, earth for Alteration, and light for Illusion."

"Huh, cool. What do you like about it?"

"It's kind of hard to explain. It's like, being able to control the things that everything else is made of? It feels very close to the center of magic, the fundamentals. To me, anyway."

"No, I think that makes sense. And it's an interesting thing to focus on, it seems like it'll have very versatile results."

"Yeah, something like that. I find Conjuration interesting, too, though. Mostly where it touches extraplanar entities."

"Fancy words, Mr. Wizard."

He smiles then pauses. "You don't know what Daedra are."

"I do not."

"Gods, I... I guess I should maybe start from the beginning? This is a lot."

"You don't need to help me catch up with existence, you know, I can figure it out."

"I know, but..." He looks down at the cup of mulled wine he grabbed and brings it to his lips. "If that means I get to see your pretty face more often than otherwise I don't mind," he says with a small smile.

"Careful, you keep saying these things and I'll start thinking you mean them."

Onmund just smiles and sips from his wine.

Ruby grins and drinks his own wine.

Onmund spends a few more moments in silence before breaking it. "Before Time, there was Chaos and Order."

"—when you said you were gonna start from the beginning I didn't think you meant it that literally!"

"Well, it's important context. Wanna hear it or not?"

"Sure, sure, sounds interesting."

"Order birthed Time, and Chaos birthed Action. Not a very nice parallel, I admit. Other divinities came to be, then, with Time allowing them to get... you know. Organised.

"Anyway. The spirit of Action, Shor, convinced many divinities to create Mundus, our realm, and they invested their power and existence into it. Some of them died to be the bones of the world; some fled, the sun and the stars are the holes in the Firmament they tore on their way out. Some remained inside Mundus, the Eight Divines, including Time, who is named Auri-El, or Akatosh. The Arcanaeum has an orrery with all of them, as well as our planet. Order and Chaos stepped out of Time, and Shor was sundered and became our moons.

"The spirits who helped make the world are the Aedra. The ones that didn't are the Daedra. Their realm is Oblivion, and it surrounds Mundus, in the blackness of the sky. And most of the Daedra don't care about Mundus, but the ones who do often want to control it, or destroy it, or manipulate it.

"But that's just the powerful ones. The smaller ones, elemental spirits barely capable of thinking, those don't care. And we offer them a payment in Magicka to bind them to us, to Mundus, for a short time, to help us. That's a part of Conjuration magic."

"And that's the extraplanar entities you were talking about."

"Yeah. They're really Daedra, but if we say it out loud many non-mages are terrified. They think we make deals—which, well, we do, but they're well-understood, safe deals, with safe bounds to what can happen. So I just call them extraplanar entities."

"Can you summon one?"

He shakes his head. "Haven't learned how, couldn't study it while I lived with my family because it'd scare them."

"Makes sense. So, the fundamentals of reality and access to other realities. That's a pretty cool set of interests."

"...you know, if anyone else said that I'd have thought they were making fun of me."

"I mean it!"

"I know."

They finish their food and make their way to Attainment. When they get there Ruby steps up really close to Onmund, almost touching—he's only half an inch taller than the Nord, if that—and says, "This was fun. I'll see you tomorrow?"

Onmund flushes a bit but doesn't break eye contact. He swallows and says, "Yeah. Tomorrow."

"Good night, then." And into his room for the night.

Onmund spends a moment there, staring after Ruby, then shakes himself out of it and goes to his own room.

There is a while still before Ruby should sleep, to wake up on time, but he chooses to sleep anyway. Better to wake up earlier, and use the early morning for whatever he'd want to spend the night doing instead. He writes about the evening in his journal and then to bed he goes.

What he decides to do in the morning is study some magic. But instead of trying to learn anything new, he'll grab a spell tome for one of the spells he already knows and try to get the theory behind his instincts, an explanation of what exactly it is he's doing. The Lesser Ward tome is a simple enough one for this.

At some point, while he's reading, the Tower of the Elements sounds seven bells, so he has another hour to kill. He finishes the thought he's on then closes his book and puts it away. Then he... decides he's going to check the basement floor, more specifically the communal washroom.

It turns out to be an actual bath, large enough for half a score people to comfortably use at the same time, enchanted for warmth and cleanliness, as well as individual cabins for other necessities.

Brelyna is in the bath as he walks in, eating sliced fruit from a plate she set next to her and reading a book. She looks up at him when he walks in. "Oh! Good morning."

"Morning. I confess I wasn't expecting something as fancy as this," he says, making a beeline for the bath and gingerly stepping in.

"Well, it's not really that expensive to keep enchantments like these up, especially when the best wizards in Tamriel can do maintenance to them with," and she flicks her right wrist, "a light wave."

"I suppose that makes sense." Wow this water is nice and he should, perhaps, do something about the fact that the elf is really really attractive and they are both naked in a bath. He really needs to get used to this, everyone's naked in this school.

Brelyna seems mostly unbothered, except for a light dark-grey flush to her cheeks which could well be just the heat of the bath. "The people of Skyrim really hate magic so I imagine this must be a lot rarer here than it is in Morrowind."

"Which... I assume is a country?"

"—right. To the east. You really don't know?"

"You can assume in general the answer to that question is 'yes'," he says with a smile.

"So if I say the word 'Telvanni' to you..."

An eloquent shrug is the answer.

"...that's very refreshing."

"Should I not ask?"

"Well, everyone knows already, it's just—everyone knows already. I keep being asked—and I don't want to be asked, I came here to escape them and their high expectations, I just want to learn magic for myself at my own pace."

"So is that... a family, a clan, a government...?"

"All of those. I... don't really want to get into the details of Morrowind politics. My family is important, and they're all mages, and they want all of us to be mages and be important and compete with each other and become powerful and I just... I don't. So I left, first one of my family in a long time."

"And so everyone who sees you here in Skyrim's College wonders why you're learning magic here, and pesters you with all sorts of questions."

"Yeah. It gets tiring, explaining all of this."