As he ascended the stairs into the library, he knew that he was going to have to face Bridgette again soon that evening for their study session together. He started to wonder if agreeing to be her study partner was such a good idea. It certainly doesn't help my case in dispelling those rumors if I'm always seen with her! he knew. But what was he supposed to do? Bridgette was a nice person. He didn't want to hurt her feelings.

Onmund browsed the bookshelves and picked out some spell catalogues to read through for Tolfdir's assignment and took it to his usual table. He was surprised to see Bridgette sitting there already. It was too early. "Uh, hi, Bridgette!" he said to her. "What are you doing here?"

"Oh, just reading," she answered. "Thought I'd come here since my living quarters get so noisy during this time of day. The Hall of Countenance is so full that there are some rooms with two students sharing a bed."

"Oh, I see," he replied.

"Want to sit with me?" she offered.

Actually, I would rather study alone, since I've got a lot of concentrating to do, he wanted to say. He then thought back to what Brelyna had said about the rumors between him and her and he blushed furiously.

Noticing this, she smiled and remarked flirtatiously, "Don't worry. I'll behave."

Feeling even more embarrassed, he said, "It's not that! It's just…" What is wrong with me? he asked himself. Why do I suddenly have to get so weird around her?

Bridgette giggled, and Onmund was irreversibly mortified. "Just let me get my books," he said tersely and walked over to Urag. He picked up a subset of the books that he had borrowed the night before and reluctantly joined Bridgette at the table.

She looked up at him and smiled. "Are you normally this shy around women?"

"No," he simply answered, not enthusiastic about entering this conversation.

After a brief silence as Onmund opened up one of the books and started reading, Bridgette asked him, "Why don't you take your hood off? Aren't you hot?"

Annoyed, he reached up and pulled his hood down to his shoulders and said, "There. You happy now?"

Bridgette frowned, appearing a little hurt, and looked back down at her book.

Feeling bad, he said in a gentler tone, "I'm sorry. I've just been stressed out lately."

Mustering a smile, she looked back at him and said, "I guess I can be pretty forceful at times. You have such nice eyes, though; why do you hide them under your hood?"

Onmund had to admit, her statement flattered him. Trying not to get embarrassed again, he said, "Thank you. I, uh, appreciate that. And…I don't know. Sometimes I just forget to take it off."

She finally gave him a full-blown smile and asked him, "So you still working on that spell recreation assignment of yours?"

He nodded. "If I could just find a spell that seems interesting yet not too hard to recreate. It just seems like a lot of these Destruction spells take a lot of time and work to do."

"What about a Restoration spell, like Ward or Healing?" she suggested.

"Hmm, that's an idea." He started flipping through the book to find Lesser Ward. As he started reading through it, he said, "Nahh. Ward is too hard. It would take more than a week to recreate this one. Let's see what Healing would take." He flipped through some more pages and found Healing. After reading through it, he found it not to be nearly as involved as Lesser Ward. "Hmm, Healing doesn't seem so bad. I think I could do this one!"

"Yay, you found one," Bridgette declared, smiling.

"Thanks for the suggestion," Onmund said, smiling back.

"If you need any help, such as needing someone to practice on, let me know," she offered. "I promise I won't ask you to hold me again."

At this, Onmund reddened.

"When I look back on it, I know that was inappropriate of me," she admitted. "I think Colette got the wrong idea when she saw us."

"I, uh…think she did, too," was all he could say.

She paused for a second, appearing deep in thought. She then asked him, "So tell me more about this special lady friend of yours. The one who gave you that pretty stone."

Onmund could see that there was no getting out of this conversation, so he responded, "Okay. What do you want to know?"

"Does she live far away from here?" she asked.

He knew that he had to be cautious about how he answered her questions. He really didn't want to reveal the identity of his "special lady friend" to her lest the word get out to the whole College. He answered to her, "No."

"Do you talk to her often?" she asked.

"Yes," he replied.

"Well, you're a man of few words," she remarked. "Tell me what she looks like."

Onmund gulped. Hiding her identity wasn't going to be so easy. "Well…she, uh, has black hair…um, dark-colored eyes, ummm…that's about it."

"You make a terrible poet," she laughed. "What is she? A Nord? Imperial?"

"A Breton," he answered.

"Ah," she responded. "Is she pretty?"

He nodded. "She's beautiful."

"Hmmm. So why isn't she your girlfriend, may I ask?"

Onmund had to admit, that was a good question. If only he could tell her the whole story- how she was the Arch-Mage and that faculty and students couldn't date each other. But he simply responded, "She doesn't know."

"She doesn't know what?"

"About how I feel about her."

"Are you serious?"

He nodded.

She just looked at him incredulously for a full second before declaring, "Well, that needs to change!"

"What do you mean?"

"You know exactly what I mean. You need to tell her how you feel."

"It's…kind of complicated, though."

Bridgette shook her head in disgust. "No, it's not. Come on! I thought Nord men were supposed to be aggressive- at least the ones that I've met."

"I'm not your typical Nord man, remember?"

"Psh," she retorted, getting exasperated. "You're hopeless."

Onmund just gave a shrug, hoping that she'd drop the subject. She subsequently did, much to his relief. She would be shocked if she found out that I was in love with the Arch-Mage, he thought. I can't let anyone know!

He then reminded himself that he had some work to get to. He got up and took his books back to Urag. He then took his leave from Bridgette and went back to his room to eat lunch, feeling much better now that he had an idea about what he was going to do for his assignment- thanks to her.

After he finished eating, he saw J'zargo come in and he went up to go greet him in his room. "Hey there, J'zargo, I just missed you for lunch."

The Khajiit grunted as he hurried about, appearing distracted.

"I just wanted to tell you that I think I found a spell to-" Just then, he noticed that J'zargo was putting a bunch of stuff into his satchel. "Hey, are you going somewhere?"

"J'zargo is going with Danielle on a trip to Morthal for some training," he answered in a huff.

"With Danielle?" he questioned. "Why you two?"

Just then, the door outside opened and Danielle stepped inside. "I'm ready to go, J'zargo!" she declared. Then, she saw Onmund. "Oh, hi, Onmund! How are you?"

Onmund turned to Danielle and asked him, "So you two are going to Morthal together?"

"Yes," she answered. "We'll probably be back tomorrow."

"I don't understand," he said. "Why just you two?"

With her mouth set, she pulled him towards her and whispered, "Tolfdir asked me to take him out for some field training. He is…sort of struggling with this one spell."

"J'zargo is not struggling!" J'zargo protested. "He was tired this morning and not paying attention."

Giving Onmund an "oops" look, she directed him away from J'zargo and continued in a whisper, "It's not unique to J'zargo. I've had to take Brelyna out on a few occasions already. She struggles the most."

Realizing what she meant now, he whispered back, "Oh…you mean remedial training?"

She nodded. "This is the first time J'zargo has been slapped with this," she explained. "He doesn't seem too happy about it. This is going to be an interesting trip."

Onmund snorted and joked, "Maybe I'll be next."

Danielle laughed and said to him, "Don't be silly. You don't need remedial training. You are doing very well."

Their conversation then came to an abrupt end when J'zargo approached them. "J'zargo is ready to go, Arch-Mage. This one will prove to you that he is not struggling one bit!"

With a chuckle, Danielle said, "Okay, J'zargo, I believe you. Let's just get this over with okay? See you later, Onmund."

"See ya," he said to both of them and watched them go out the door. He then went back to his room and continued studying. But something was distracting him at the moment. He began to think about Bridgette's words about needing to be more aggressive. He had been longing to spend quality one-on-one time with Danielle. And now he had found out exactly how he could go about doing that. And that was to get slapped with one of these remedial training sessions with her. But in order to do that, I'd have to show her that I'm struggling with something, he realized. I'm not really struggling with anything right now. Danielle said that I was doing very well. No, I'll have to do something else, like be less than a good student on purpose. Suddenly, he felt very sleazy for thinking of such a thing. I can't do that! That goes against everything I am! But…if I can just get a moment alone with Danielle…If he was going to pull it off, he knew that he had to be very subtle about it. He couldn't just become a delinquent overnight and hope to get Tolfdir's attention that way. As he pondered over the matter some more, he came up with a few ideas, and decided that he would start putting them into action soon.

For the next several days, Onmund executed his subtle plan. He strolled into Tolfdir's class five minutes late on purpose one day, pretended to run out of magicka prematurely during one of their training sessions, and even at one point claimed that he forgot how to dual-cast. This didn't seem to be enough, though. Tolfdir didn't appear to take notice and he wasn't sent off to do remedial training with Danielle like he hoped he would be. He continued to be on his best behavior, though, with Colette and Bridgette in their classes. The two women absolutely loved having him around and when Colette had found out that he had chosen to recreate Healing for his assignment with Tolfdir, she was even more ecstatic. She offered to help Onmund with it and he gladly welcomed it.

Finally, the day came to present everyone's spell recreations to Tolfdir. The Destruction professor started the class by acknowledging everyone's hard work and how excited he was to see everyone's results.

J'zargo went first. He cast his Flame Cloak spell. He couldn't fully demonstrate it without any undead creatures around but the flames that engulfed him were enough to convince them that the spell worked. Suddenly, the Khajiit started screaming. "Aiiieee! I'm burning!"

Tolfdir jumped in and cast Frostbite on him, immediately putting the fire out.

J'zargo breathed a sigh of relief, but then gave everyone a sheepish look. "That wasn't supposed to happen," he muttered.

"You may have missed a step in your tuning of the spell," he pointed out. "Are you all right?"

"Yes, J'zargo is all right," he sighed.

"Please take the time to refine the spell and I'll give you a chance to try it again," Tolfdir explained. "Brelyna, you're next."

"All right," Brelyna said. "I've been having a hard time getting this right. I spent all night last night fine-tuning this spell, but it still has its flaws. I hope-"

"Just demonstrate what you've done so far," Tolfdir interrupted her.

"Okay, sorry," she apologized. "Danielle agreed to be my test subject for this. Here goes…" She aimed her hand at Danielle, who stood next to her, and cast her spell. Danielle began to glow a purplish color. When the glow wore off, though, her skin remained purple! Everyone gasped.

"Hey, what happened?" Brelyna questioned as Danielle looked at her and frowned, shaking her head.

"You channeled a little too much violet energy," Tolfdir explained simply.

"I'm sorry, Danielle," she apologized to her friend. "I'll change you back now."

"Ah!" Tolfdir cried out, stopping her. "I'll take care of this." He then cast something on Danielle which made her return to normal.

"Thank you, Tolfdir," Danielle said. "Sorry, Brelyna. You had it working last night!"

"Well, as I told J'zargo, I will give you another chance to try it again," Tolfdir said. "I won't record your grade for this assignment until after the second attempt."

Brelyna nodded slowly, aware that she hadn't done so well.

"All right, Onmund, let's see your spell," the professor said.

"I've decided to recreate Healing," Onmund explained, stepping forward.

"Oh, interesting," Tolfdir commented. "Did you come up with that on your own or did Colette suggest it to you?"

Sensing a hint of snideness in his tone, Onmund replied evenly, "I, uh, came up with it on my own." He wondered, though, if he didn't just outright lie. It was actually Bridgette's idea in the first place and Colette did help him perfect it. "So first, I'm going to cast Frostbite on my hand. Then, I'll heal it." He then held his left hand out in front of him and with his right hand, cast Frostbite onto it, immediately freezing it solid. It was a very uncomfortable feeling, so he immediately channeled his recreated Healing spell in his right hand and cast it on his frozen hand. He winced as it thawed out and then was completely healed.

"Wow," Brelyna declared, and everyone including her applauded.

"Excellent," Tolfdir admitted. "You recreated that spell perfectly. I give that a pass."

Onmund beamed, relieved to have passed his first test of the day. But wait, he realized. That means I won't have a chance to train with Danielle if I…continue to do well. He then watched as Danielle went up to demonstrate her spell recreation. She walked up to one of the absorption points and cast Sparks on it. It was just as good as his Sparks spell.

"Very good!" Tolfdir complimented. "You pass, too."

They then moved on to the next portion of their class, which was to do their Destruction test. "Each of you is going to cast the runes that you learned last week on the floor here, and I will conjure live targets to walk onto your runes. If you cast them correctly, the target should be destroyed upon stepping on it. Everyone stand in a line, arm's length apart, and face me."

Everyone obeyed and Onmund stood between Danielle and J'zargo with enough space between them.

"Now each of you has five seconds to cast your runes. On the count of three, begin casting," Tolfdir instructed.

I know the Lightning Rune spell very well, Onmund knew. But if I mess up, perhaps Tolfdir will send me off to do remedial training with Danielle. Is it worth it? He looked over at Danielle on his right and thought to himself, I sure miss all of the adventures we used to go on together. She's worth the world to me.

Tolfdir began counting, "One. Two. Three!"

Right away, everyone channeled their magicka and cast their rune spells on the floor in front of them. Onmund purposefully left out an important part of the incantation and cast his rune on the floor. It looked just like a working rune, but he knew better.

"Time's up!" Tolfdir shouted, and everyone stopped.

There were four runes now on the floor, one in front of each mage, and Tolfdir instructed them to step aside as now came the part to test them out. He proceeded to conjure a thrall and everyone watched as the thrall walked towards Brelyna's Fire Rune. When it stepped over it, the thrall exploded into flames and disintegrated.

"Yes!" Brelyna cheered.

Tolfdir then cast another thrall and sent it walking towards J'zargo's Lightning Rune. When it stepped over the rune, it erupted in a ball of electricity and disintegrated.

"Ha ha!" J'zargo celebrated. "It worked!"

Everyone then continued to watch as Tolfdir cast another thrall and this one went towards Onmund's Lightning Rune. Onmund held his breath nervously as it stepped onto his rune. He then let it out and the rest of them gasped when the thrall walked right over his rune without taking any damage.

"Onmund, you knew that spell," Tolfdir proclaimed, giving him a puzzled look. "What happened?"

With a shrug, Onmund replied, "I don't know. Did I miss something in the spell?"

Tolfdir sighed. "Please take a look at the incantations again when you have the chance. There was a key part you must've missed in it." He then turned back towards the wandering thrall and cast a spell towards it to make it walk towards Danielle's Fire Rune. It walked over it and exploded into flames, disintegrating.

Danielle smiled, and Tolfdir said, "Good work, everyone! Brelyna, J'zargo, and Danielle, you have passed the test. Class is dismissed. Onmund, I'd like to have a word with you. Danielle, you stay, too."

J'zargo and Brelyna left the training hall, leaving Tolfdir, Onmund, and Danielle alone. Tolfdir turned to Onmund and said to him, "Onmund, I'm surprised. I saw you master that spell before everyone else when we had first learned it. Can you tell me why you had forgotten such a key part of the spell?"

"I don't know," Onmund shrugged. "I guess I've just been…stressed out lately."

With another sigh, Tolfdir asked, "Has Colette been overburdening you with her work? I thought I told her not to let you fall behind in your-"

"Colette has nothing to do with it," he interrupted. "I guess, I, uh, I've just been homesick lately. Been thinking about home a lot."

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Danielle give him a weird look, as Tolfdir said, "Well, I understand, Onmund, but you need to keep your focus." He then turned to Danielle and asked her, "Will you take Onmund with you on your next errand for Arniel? Have him practice his runes while you're out there."

Onmund tried to hide the smile that was threatening to form on his face as Tolfdir said this. Finally! I'll be getting a moment alone with Danielle, now! He saw Danielle nod and reply, "Yes, Tolfdir. I will take him out with me immediately."

"Ah, good," Tolfdir responded. "I understand that it will take more than a day, so you are both excused from class tomorrow morning. But practice those runes!"

The College of Winterhold IS a lot like high school or college! Where else in Skyrim can a bunch of young people learn and live together and have dramas? But there must be some pretty "unique" things going on over there. Something that has always disturbed me are the open bedrooms in the Hall of Attainment/Countenance, and they're all coed, too. How does anyone get any privacy? I'm assuming everyone's wardrobes are tall enough that you can change behind the doors but it still doesn't prevent someone from just walking in on you if they wanted to. And I don't even want to think about the shenanigans that go on with the Conjuration and Illusion students and their ability to conjure thralls and make themselves invisible! Even though I don't mention this in the story, I'm sure Onmund has glanced over into Danielle's (and maybe even Brelyna's) room once or twice already to see if he could catch her changing!