Dear Diary,

We are headed for the Mages' College in Winterhold because, and I quote, "there are lots of good alchemy ingredients to steal there".

I'm trying very hard to stop myself from asking the boring questions such as "What the hell are you going to the College for?" and "Is he crazy?". I know the answers to those already: to steal alchemy ingredients, and yes, a thousand times yes, as surely as snow is white and grass is green.

I don't have any objection to alchemy itself. I have never needed potions, but knowing that they're available is reassuring. Their healing power is the closest we non-mages can get to fast recovery, and it's great to not have to rely on those spineless cloak-wearers in the flash between life and death. They sell, therefore, at very high prices, and the art of potion-crafting is a lucrative one, if the rumours surrounding Arcadia are anything to go by. I don't have any knowledge of it, but the Dragonborn does. Is there anything he can't do? Oh wait, there is - how about acting sensibly, or being a law-abiding citizen?

The Dragonborn has a set methodology, as with everything else he does. He picks flowers and berries and mushrooms and collects them. Every so often he finds birds' eggs and nirmroot and slightly more exotic things, and positively leaps at them. Have you ever seen a grown man running around trying to catch butterflies? I sure have. Childish behaviour aside, I don't think the idea of respecting the land has occurred to him before. Forgive us, o Mother Earth, for though he knoweth what he be doing, he could not care less.

When he collects a certain amount, he proceeds to sample them, one of each.

That explains a lot, doesn't it?

Watching him subject himself to assorted effects all in one go is interesting, to say the least. Most of the time, he ends up blurting "Ugh!" or "Argh!" in pain, but what do you expect for eating something with names like Bleeding Crown and Namira's Rot? Yes, dear diary, I know at least the names of certain plants. Any child with a parent with sense would, since it's survival skills, though the more important part of the lessons is learning the effects of ingestion, i.e, what you're not supposed to eat. And the Dragonborn is intent on learning it the hard way. I just hope that when he has to deal with after-business, he has the grace to find somewhere suitably far away and hidden from sight.

It must be noted that he never samples the same ingredient twice. He somehow has the ability to discover the effects of his ingredients, though he often frowns at them as if there were more to it. I'm not saying that there isn't, though, since I know next to nothing about alchemy. Given the way he does it, though, you could forgive me for thinking the same of him.

It was in Arcadia's shop that he started work. Out of the goodness of her heart, or maybe an elaborate business tactic, she let him use the alchemy table. From what I could see, all he did was toss two items and mash them together with a mortar and pestle. He would gently pound the ingredients into a pulp, then pause to swill the contents, and then continue. I must have blinked, because the next moment, there's a small flask of liquid on the side of the table. He poured the liquid so quickly! Hold on, where did he get the flask? And I'm dead certain that no amount of pounding would reduce that much material into smooth liquid.

Being the logical woman that I am, I came to the conclusion that the Dragonborn did not, in fact, have amazing skills with alchemy. No, he was merely dabbling in it, the same way a fish would try to fly, and that "potion" of his was nothing more than forest gunk.

Imagine my reaction when he turns to Arcadia and sells the results of his labour for a tidy sum of gold, and she accepts all of them without batting an eyelid. Arcadia, master alchemist, whose eyes are no doubt sharp when it comes to potions, handing over honest money for the work of his hands.

I'll give you a hint: I didn't have any, because I didn't know what to do. What are you supposed to do in this sort of situation? Stand there as if it were perfectly all right, for some desecrator of nature to stroll in and create bottled life with a little nudge and stir, and to not say anything, anything at all?

Even the sweetest mead is made in kegs in cellars without any intervention, and the richest stews cooked over a slow, unattended fire. I can only trust that his skill with alchemy is an extension of that principle, that the ways of the natural work best on their own. Because I refuse to believe that the potions he makes are related to any skills on his behalf. It must be sheer luck that the ingredients mesh and mold into each other so easily.

Then again, Arcadia isn't exactly perceptive, as I've come to find out. The Dragonborn, unsatisfied with the good grace given to him, snuck up behind her and cleared the shelves of display wares. When all that was left were the goods in her visible sight (and he would not spare even those!) he dragged them off the table to behind her, waited... and then took them. And Arcadia is staring forward with a vacant look, eternally prepared for the customers which hardly come. She must have been daydreaming, because anyone with half their senses working would turn at the scratch of a spell tome across counter. But not her.

Note to self: do not trust the Dragonborn's potions just because Arcadia finds them legit enough to buy. Arcadia, clearly, is not the best yardstick when it comes to judgement.

Second note to self: pounding mushrooms in a mortar and pestle does not equate potion, after all, if my little bowl of mixture is anything to go by. It must be the table, then. It must be... but why?

Dear diary, I have a new appreciation for you. You're simple, and the way you work is so straightforward, unlike the world and, it seems, everything I know about it.