8- Magic

'Chomp chomp,' the muffled sound of chewing resounded in Zin's ears, 'Chomp'. Mixed with the voice of laughter and cheers, as his family and close people rejoiced in this celebratory dinner. But all Zin saw was disaster. As if a tragedy were sitting in ambush, just to snatch his happiness and his cherished family life from him.

Zin had been a kid blessed with a happy and full family life – over both his lives. And he had lived to a full age of almost thirty in the first chance he had at life. So although he had he had been fortunate enough to always experience a full family feeling, he had seen from close the suffering of orphans and many people who had went through the horrors of war. And seeing and hearing their experiences made him even more resolute to avoid the looming war and prevent a similar fate from finding himself or his home.

And yet, now, as he sat at the banquet, dazedly staring at his loving family, all his foresight could see was corpses. Dead family, dead bodyguard-elder sisters/teachers, dead knights, dead mage-teachers and a very dead butler – all who made the presence of this banquet. All of them would have died if not for a very evident foreign intervention the night he was born. Hell, he somehow had an intuition that all of these people would have a head-price fixed on them by the Thalmor, their being alive and well here in Skyrim being only attributable to the Thalmor's still not very powerful influence in Skyrim, and they prioritizing other things over them, only to pay attention to his family after solving more urgent matters.

"….. Zin come on, we're waiting." In his daze he heard the last part of his father's speech, inviting him to speak.

"Huh, you were speaking to me?"

"Yes, we would like to hear your resolutions and the future line of career you will choose, for although you are a child of seven, this is a part of your coming of age: to declare your future course." His mother explained from his father's side.

"Umm dunno. Maybe I can get inspiration from your two's families?"

"Well, your father's and through him your family's historical career was to be counts of a frozen land, earning money through mining, and getting their earnings from their shares in the east empire company. After all ebony trade is veeery profitable." His mother rolled her eyes, throwing a contemptuous look at her husband, "oh apart from somehow managing to marry the most gentle, virtuous and beautiful girl from High Rock nobility as soon as coming of age to get an heir. Apart from that, they passed their time hunting, and other so-called noble hobbies.

As for my family," his mother's face showed pride, as she raised her head, her celestial nose tip literally raised to the sky, as her eyes shone "we are vigilantes. Vigilants of Stendarr. Even now, two of my brothers - your uncles are serving to purge Tamriel of all dangers to mortals."

"Well," Zin began, "it's easy to say. My family is more bent on survival and continuing the line, while my maternal family are vigilantes, devoted to safeguarding mortals. So I will choose the middle path: I will devote myself to continuing the line of my people."

"Tch, another lazy bum, devoted to staying home and drowning in women and riches". Shay tsked in mock regret, though her eyes showed relief that the Zin will at least try staying safe.

"Yes son, as discussed before, you will stay home," Lars instructed. "Research magic if you will, but going out will be restricted."

"Haha, father, there's an ancient wisdom I heard: Stay home, Stay safe. I'm gonna act on it," Zin chuckled to his own joke.

Elaine nudged Selene at his 'ancient wisdom' both rolling their eyes, as the celebration continued, though Zinkahjul again fortified his resolve to not let the war happen.

x . x . x

That afternoon, Iris and Cynthia were waiting in the alchemy/enchanting room. This had been their teaching room for Zin since he asked his father to start learning magic. At first, they had felt it a little overkill for two official level mages to teach a brat. Then they accepted it as fair when they felt his high aptitude at magic, they themselves being magic geniuses, and having been taught by the magic prodigy, Lars Larus himself. Only to be awed when they overtime discovered Zin's genius at magic.

Well, anyone would be. They knew he would cause sensations in any and all magic circles if it were to be made public that a seven year old possessed the magic reserves of an Arch-mage. Or said child learnt the spell models and spell circuits, complete with in-depth knowledge of four schools of magic at the age of seven to the level of an evoker mage; namely destruction, restoration, enchanting and alteration.

They could feel his curiosity when learning magic, how he absorbed knowledge from them, not just getting the relevant knowledge but instead diving deep into it, trying to understand its principles, the laws governing it and its limitations, all the while giving his own feedback and thoughts, that were surprisingly very insightful.

That's why, when they were called by thane Lars to ask their opinion regarding Zin's request to allow them to be his research assistants they had accepted; for the opinions and hypotheses he made citing 'ancient knowledge' (they both rolled their eyes too) were simply ridiculously revolutionizing in how they saw and perceived the world around them…

They heard a quip, "a seven year kid becoming research head even when there are two qualified official mages – Oh how I love this dirty patriarchal system." They turned around to find themselves gazing into the golden pupils of a smiling kid – pupils that they had cast joint illusions with the thane to hide their color seven years ago, but were fast regaining their color. But the thing that fascinated them the most was next. When that small face, still full of baby fat wore that very caring and understanding smile, that they thought was impossible for a kid to show; though they were pretty much beyond categorizing him as a kid of seven, what withal that 'ancient Knowledge' he always spewed, but still….

"Little Zin, team leader or not, we tended to you when you were wetting diapers, so you will always be our little Zin," they spoke in unison, pinching a cheek of his each. "What do you want to research that you begged for the grace of these two ladies?" They asked narrowing their eyes.

"Not two, four, we're in this too. He asked us to help too," came two more voices as Elaine and Selene entered in tow.

"What are you two brutes doing here? Or do you think your pathetic evoker level strengths will do any good, when the only school you major in is destruction and a little bit of restoration and alteration? Or do you think he needs coolies to carry heavy loads so you would tag around, muscle brains? This is magical research, troll brains, not arson you machos," Cynthia said haughtily, her emerald eyes flashing with pride.

"Phew, look at these grand nerds, hiding in basements and dark towers, thinking they're posh people, when they're essentially introverted isolationists. Hmm, we're called by Zin, not you. Look Zin, they're bullying your elder sisters," Elaine pouted.

"Alright," Zin weighed in "I have serious work to do if you can finish your childish bicker."

Zin walked to the front, casting an alteration spell to a part of the wall, "let's start: with the most important question: what is magic?"

They went quiet, thought for a while, then Iris said "although many have been searching the answer, the closest mages have arrived to the answer about what magic is, is that magic is magic. It allows us to cast spells and to alter reality."

"So you want to say that no one has been able to define magic? About what happens when you build a spell model and it acts altering how things are happening in the physical world, changing the shape, temperature and other physical realities, and even making new things materialize? That the nature and magic, the origin of it is unknown?" Zin summarized, gaining a nod from the four.

"Well, let me refer some ancient knowledge here. As I said, some 'ancient books' that I read named a thing used by them called science. They called science a 'study of the universe, its principles, structure and the behavior of the physical and natural world through observation and experiment'. However, the world that they defined was much more different and simple than our world. They defined everything according to this science and thus without magic; which I did study and then compared it to our world, arriving to the conclusion that science would be the true method of trying to understand our world; at least to a universal scale, only if there were only the forces described by those ancient books acting on said world.

In conclusion, if the world is 'nerfed' – oh sorry – I went into some ancient vocabulary – is only allowed to be acted on by a select few forces, and other forces are cut off from acting, science would be the reality of the world.

I interpreted it this way: magic is a weakening of the laws governing the universe. It's a force that weakens the laws- physical, biological, etc.; and allows the wielder of this magic to bend the universe to their will. The stronger, and more reinforced the laws of the universe are, the lesser magic there will be, and the harder it will be for magic to exist and a mage to cast magic."