"No, I won't go out today."
Francois was sitting behind the desk slightly forward from the center of the classroom. He just answered the question posed to him by his friend. Madheera, a Khajit, wondered if Francois could get some sweetrolls from the local baker: Francois, however, would stay in the boarding school's dormitory and prepare for the upcoming exam on Cyrodilic history.
The days were passing slowly. Francois was very ambitious, generally. He wanted to become a mage. But history was important too, although it didn't really occupy Francois' mind. While the exam was on the Voice of Talos, Francois fantasized more about the magic of the imps who flung fireballs at unsuspecting travellers, or of the flame atronachs' mystical dances with the elements after they were conjured up by the conjuration specialists in the practice rooms of the Mages Guild academy in Wayrest.
But today he and Madheera and a coterie of other students were attending a course in Breton rituals, under the direction of teacher Jacques. It was a respectable subject, studied by Breton youths since the beginning of the Second Era.
"Aw, I will be hungry." said Madheera. The teacher was busy drawing a schematic of the old ceremony of Restoration on the slate, and Francois and Madheera went unnoticed by the moderately strict educator. The classroom was a granite stone rectangular structure, filled with about ten to fifteen desks.
"And after the mage speaks the words "Let this limb return to its former state," the gesture is made and the energy is allowed to flow." the teacher spoke. He underlined the point on the diagram that indicated the hand motions of the restoration magician. "Subsequently, all the restorationists leave in order of responsibility to allow the healed person to come to his senses."
It was a stressful time for the students of the Bonguard boarding school: all were very busy, with lots of mind-numbing tasks, ranging from the curious to the just plain weird. To fight off boredom, sometimes Francois and Madheera would pull pranks and act silly.
From the nearby castle, many warriors sallied forth, passing by the school, an impressive sight: Francois and Madheera knew that war was unavoidable these days, because of all the feudal tensions. But in the school trivial things were everything: they had to focus on their form, and how to do the spells and so on and so forth, and if they didn't do their homework, they would be reprimanded.
"And that is all for today," said teacher Jacques, "I want you all to study your books carefully, and learn as much as possible."
"I am inwardly empty," thought Francois. He hadn't been doing his best at school very much these past few days; he hadn't felt very motivated. "I will never be a good mage; I don't know how to learn any of the spells; I am too weak. Something is missing in me. The more I try to get myself out of my impasse, the more ridiculous I am, because I don't see the things right in front of me, and I am vain, in a way, being completely satisfied with my own effort, even if it leads to nothing. I don't think straight; I keep forgetting my own line of my thoughts: indeed, I think I am wretched."
Madheera stared out in front of him in boredom, not noticing Francois' inner anguish.
"Did you notice how he kept looking out the window?" Madheera said to Francois, referring to the teacher. "Maybe he is concerned that the wars will engulf Crosswych as well."
Francois snapped out of his tormenting meditation. "What? Oh, right, incredible. I hope things will stay quiet here."
"Are we going to the Rain's Hand fair on the town square when the lessons are over?"
"Yeah, that would be fun." Francois said, making a crude calculation to himself that he would forget his idiotic thoughts for a while if he would just try to enjoy himself. "Maybe there will be Khajit."
"Huh, don't really care. Madheera is not like you, my friend: he doesn't look forward to glorious adventures and future success. If this one can just relax and enjoy nature, when he is by himself or alone, this one is satisfied."
They stood up from their desks and passed into the hallway, together with a bunch of other students. The next lesson was Order and realm, where they would learn about the status of the king and the duties of the mayors, who served High Rock and King's Guard, and the emperor, who ruled over Tamriel. After that, school was out and they could go to the fair, one of the busiest events in the year, and one which the students of Bonguard would enthusiastically attend.
"I haven't done the homework, my friend." said Madheera. "What were the main points?"
"Just that good rulers serve the state, and not merely rules over the subjects." was Francois' answer.
"Did they provide examples of good rulers?"
"Alessia, Reman I, Uriel Septim I."
"So all the founders of the empires. Easy."
"Uriel Septim is known for the laws he enacted."
"I understand, great. Thank you, my friend
The lesson passed slowly. Teacher Vorilndil was pretty old and mumbling, and often focused on stuffy details and excessive explanations. Today he was going on endlessly on the subject of methodology in studying political relations, which were somehow real or concrete in some way, and had to be made fundamental through analysis: it really was just something he had picked up during his time at the university of Gwylim, in his native country of the Summerset Isles. It didn't make any sense.
Madheera's eyes were falling shut, as the lesson continued into abstruse elaborations on the evocation of monarchical authority in stately conventions. As the session devolved more and more in semantics, the exposition on some triviality about the law-composition of the early Empire, Francois noticed one of his schoolmates slipping a note to another, at which point they started giggling and looking at Louis des Prez, a young Breton man who always sat in front of the class, and was rumored to have been put here by his parents because they just couldn't stand his obsession with mudcrabs, of which he had a huge collection in his dormitory room. Francois wondered if there would be another bullying-ceremony in the arboretum in between main school building and the library: a death squad of mean students would team up around poor Louis, and taunt him about his awkwardness and inflexible, unimaginative speech and social conduct. If that was the case, Francois thought, maybe he should tell one of the teachers, or try to convince Louis not to go on his clockwork-like ritual of visiting the library for several hours after school was out - after which the bullies would ambush him and subject him to their cruel persecutions. But the lesson was still going on and right now he couldn't do anything; so instead he just continued some strange doodles he was making in his notebook, mostly of Ayleid legends, simplified maps of mythical places, and more silly things like that. Francois was good in mathematics, and tried applying geometrical subtleties to his past-times. Perhaps this was a bit vain, but he did his best and just liked it, for the most part.
One of the bullies launched a piece of crumpled paper at Louis' robe, who pretended to ignore it. Again they laughed. Francois, who was sitting parallel to them, looked side-ways at them angrily, prompting master Vorilndil to interrupt his lesson, and saying: "Mister Deseine? What do you think?"
Francois looked at the teacher and sat up straight: "Uh, I don't know."
"You don't know and yet you think your fellow students are more instructive than my exposition on the third article of the Imperial Charter?"
"No, I was just... I apologize, master."
"Well then, perhaps you can answer the following question: If the Cyrodilic law-makers had to prepare the way for a thousand year empire, do you think they saw their laws as a work of art?"
"Law as art? Well, it was a chaotic time, so I suppose they were just very cynical and wanted to suppress disorder and so on."
"And so on? Who says that it was a disorderly time? Who say that chaos is disorder?"
"Well, maybe chaos has some kind of order, but generally states and governments want to impose more measured, refined norms and values that ensure that people keep up with the demands of the seasons and the responsibilities of their daily labor."
"Very well, I'll let you off the hook mister Deseine, but please stay concentrated on the teaching." said Vorilndil, and he turned back towards his slate.
Francois took some notes: law and order, law as art. Vorilndil may have been stuffy, but he was very open-minded and creative, and sometimes his questions were challenging and refreshing; if he could get out of his endless meandering.
In the city, the local inn and central city square were often frequented by distant travelers and exotic visitors, who fascinated Francois tremendously. Madheera and he had spend time with a certain dark-elf from Morrowind, who had been in the Morag Tong. He initiated them in the ideas of Vivec, who expounded a kind of poetico-physical philosophy of how the world worked, and it set them both on a path to a more serious lifestyle, focused on acquiring knowledge and learnedness, especially considering certain high, abstract truths. Francois was a pale-skinned, black-haired Breton with green eyes, whose time was spend mostly on esoteric hobbies and alternative kind of past-times; Madheera was a greyish-tan Khajit, mostly obsessed with easy living and shirking his duties. But they both had a deep respect for life and an ennobling talent for profundity. Francois and Madheera both enjoyed walking around in nature and observing the trees and birds of High Rock, with which Crosswych, the city they lived in, teemed. Already Francois was fantasizing about wandering around the arboretum, observing the leaves as they were falling from the trees onto the ground, decorating the shadow-rich clearings with shell-shapes of faded foliage and greenery. For a brief moment, his eyes drifted out the window, where he saw some of the great oaks and elms that stood planted in front of the main school building, between the road and the building's stark facade. Meanwhile, the lesson continued ponderously and hypnotically, becoming more and more vague and useless, but nevertheless the information was worth taking in, and Francois and his friend didn't mind Vorilndil at all.
Francois was interested in the old ways of thinking, that stressed silence and austerity. Monastic orders existed that still had certain traditions derived from early times, not necessarily avoiding magic - because magic was always there in some form - but just holding on to the discipline, and simplicity, of life without spells and enchantment. Through talking to visitors from Elsweyr and Valenwood, Francois learned about some of their mantra's and meditations.
"Gods." thought Francois.