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."

Another smile. "Well, my apologies for making you explain again."

    "It's fine. It's... different, when you really don't know, and aren't making all sorts of assumptions."

He can tell she's getting a bit uncomfortable about all of this anyway, though, so he decides to change the subject. "I'm not sure what I want. I haven't even seen a map of the country to know where we are, in relation to everywhere, and I don't have a... history. What I do have is some sense that I should be here. If that makes sense?"

    "No, not really."

"Yeah." Shrug. "It was just a very strong feeling I got, that the College was where I was meant to go. Enthir—that's one of the researchers here, at least I assume—said that I could be some sort of sleeper agent."

    "Like, to try to infiltrate the College or something? What would be the point?"

"No idea."

    "It's not hard to get into the College and it's not like they keep secrets. And they're independent of the Empire, so honestly I have no idea why even the Thalmor would be interested let alone wherever you'd supposedly be from."

"That's what Mirabelle said. —except for the Thalmor bit, I guess she did mention Ancano but I have no idea what a Thalmor is."

    "Oh you'll have to ask someone else about that, they're Skyrim business."

Soon after, the half-hour bells sound and they get out of the tub. Brelyna knows that spell that gets one dry and uses it on herself and Ruby, then both of them go back upstairs to their rooms to put their clothes on and grab whatever else they want to bring to their first lesson.

And when Ruby steps out of his room Onmund is also getting out of his, and this time he's wearing the "uniform".

Ruby quite literally freezes and stares. His only coherent thought is "By all the gods I want that inside me." He can feel himself stiffening but can't actually unglue his eyes from it.

Onmund notices, obviously, and the continued staring starts getting to him too. He clears his throat and says, "Good morning?"

That snaps him out of it. "Good morning," he says, almost automatically, as his brain boots back up. "I see you got the school garb."

"I think everyone did, yeah." He shuffles his feet kind of awkwardly but he can't deny that he actually enjoys the attention. "I figured... might as well get used to it, you know?"

"You could've also worn the other piece," Ruby points out.

Well what does he say to that. "You continue to be very direct."

"It's a gift."

J'zargo steps out of his room then and a second afterwards so does Brelyna. If J'zargo is fazed at all by the other two clearly having a Moment™ there it's hidden in cat body language. Brelyna does kind of look a bit but approximately in the same way someone else might look at, say, exposed cleavage: eye-catching, attractive, but fundamentally not particularly remarkable.

    "J'zargo thought he would be arriving in class early, but clearly everyone had the same idea."

"It'd be pretty bad to be late to our first lesson. So, shall we?"

They shall.

When they get to the practical hall, they are greeted by an old human sitting cross-legged on the floor, reading a book. He looks up at them and makes his book vanish as he stands up. "Well, I take it you're the new Apprentices? Good, good. I am Tolfdir, Wizard of the College of Winterhold and Alteration Instructor. And I'll also be your group's mentor until you graduate to Scholars or leave. I understand you've already gotten acquainted with each other, so let's jump into it.

"Now, what's the most important thing one should learn about practising magic, before anything else?"

"...bit of a broad question."

    "Concentration?" suggests Brelyna. "Calm?"

    "Good answers! Anyone else?"

"Control?"

"Now that's better," Tolfdir says, smiling. "The first thing to understand is that magic is, by its very nature, volatile and dangerous. Unless you can control it, it can and will destroy you."

        "Sir," starts Brelyna, "I think we all understand that fairly well. We wouldn't be here if we couldn't control magic!"

"Of course, my dear, of course! You all certainly possess some inherent natural ability, that is not being questioned. What I'm talking about is true control; mastery of magic. It takes years, if not decades, of practice and study to truly reach that goal, and some would say even that is not enough."

    "Then what are we waiting for?" asks J'zargo. "Let's get started!"

"Please, please! This is exactly what I'm talking about. Eagerness must be tempered with caution, or else disaster is inevitable."

"But we've only just arrived here—you've no idea what any of us are capable of! Why not give us a chance to show you what we can do?"

    Tolfdir turns to look at Ruby. "And your opinion on the matter, young man?"

Ruby... thinks for a second. An image flashes in his mind, and he reaches for his amulet and pulls it over his head, then offers it to Tolfdir. "What happened to the last group of Apprentices to come here?"

    The man's eyes widen as he sees the amulet, and he looks up at Ruby's face again. "I daresay you might know more than I do about the subject. All I know is that they disappeared, all at the same time."

        "...disappeared?" asks Brelyna. "How?"

"I don't know exactly how, especially at the same time, but... one of them was called Yisra. This is her amulet. I... found her charred corpse in the snow on my way here, along with a book in which she was writing research notes on the Flame Cloak spell."

Brelyna and J'zargo's eyes widen, and Onmund starts looking a bit queasy. "Charred? You... didn't mention that, yesterday."