Meralda almost immediately picked up on this particular practice of mine and pulled me aside when I came home one day.
"You've been trying to learn magic on your own haven't you?" she asked gently.
I nodded.
"You shouldn't do that Alexan, it's dangerous. But I know you well enough to know you'll just go and do it in private if I try and stop you so how about a compromise?" she suggested and I admit I was curious. "You will only learn magic while supervised and in exchange I will try and find you a teacher, deal?" she asked and I couldn't nod fast enough.
Not so fun fact about mages in Skyrim was that they were in VERY short supply. I meant REAL mages, not those posers who can throw a couple spells but have no clue how those spells even work. You might then be wondering who Meralda got to teach me. The answer was her twin sister Faralda, which is to say the MASTER destruction trainer in the game. I will freely admit that I was moving my gaze between both of them with wide eyes in disbelief after introduction.-
They looked similar enough sure if you ignore Faralda having her hair in a swept back twin tail but their everything else was MILES apart. Meralda was calm, gentle and spoke similarly enough to everyone else in the city. Faralda on the other hand was almost constantly fidgeting in some way, had an aggressive vibe and spoke with a cadence more at home in a Jarls court than in a normal setting. The most unsettling fact about her however was she barely kept a lid on her magical power as just being near her gave me the impression of standing near an active but stable volcano.-
"So this is that "prodigy" you keep going on about in your letters? Doesn't look all that impressive to me." she said as she looked me over dismissively.
Meralda rolled her eyes at this "Maybe if you'd pull your head out of your backside you'd be able to notice how ridiculously large his magicka pool is." she said leaving me stunned as that was the first time I'd ever heard her speak to anyone like that.
Faralda groaned at that and I felt a sort of invisible pressure sweep over me as her dismissive expression was wiped clean with a shocked one taking it's place.
"Why in Shalidor's name didn't you mention this sooner!? You let someone with such raw magical talent just molder in this place!?" she demanded as if offended for me somehow.
"Because he deserves a normal childhood, one not crammed with endless magical practice and unrealistic expectations." Meralda said firmly.
"Ugh! Such a waste! If I had only discovered this a year or two ago he might have as much magicka as me by now!" Faralda said distraught.
"And what on Nirn is a five year old, no matter how prodigious, going to need that much magicka for?" Meralda asked with a raised eyebrow.
"That's not the point and you know it!" Faralda huffed angrily.
"So am I getting taught or no?" I asked genuinely confused at this point.
"Of course! Unlike my sister I don't make a habit of wasting such obvious talent." Faralda said haughtily.
She then proceeded to drag me away in a hurry to get started. We ended up outside Riften twenty minutes later in a clearing.
"Where to begin? Ah, do you know what magic truly is?" she asked seriously.
"Using magicka to do things right? Like trading magicka for a spell?" I said uncertain.
"That's ...not completely wrong at least. Misguided, but not wrong. When a mage casts a spell they don't trade their magicka so much as transform it. Spells are structure, order given to magicka to create an effect. Take the flames spell." she said holding up a hand that bloomed with a stable strong burning orange flame. "One of the most basic of spells in the destruction school of magic. Yet even this dancing flame you see has an order to it. Fire is not anything else, can never be anything else, it can only ever be fire and do as fire does. Understand?" she asked after her explanation.
I narrowed my brows as I pondered this for a moment before reaching down and picking up a rock.
"It's like magicka is this rock, plain but full of potential. Using a spell is like turning this rock into sand or making it round or harder or softer right?" I asked for clarification.
"It's more complicated than that but you are certainly on the right track." she said pleased at my words.
She started from the very basics of what magicka was and how mages used it. Since it was getting dark by the time she was finished we headed back to the orphanage. She couldn't actually teach me anything else at this point to begin with as the first step all mages took was also the one I was unknowingly attempting before, channeling magicka. This was a matter of personal practice and time not guidance. What she could teach outside that was the fundamentals of magic, the rules, limits and taboos. I followed her advice about controlling magicka everyday while she taught these fundamentals. Once channeling magicka became something I did without much effort she taught me my first spell, Frostbite. -
It wasn't a simple "will it to happen" type deal like it appeared in the game but a geometric circle with an arcane symbol in the center. I had to create this shape out of magicka within me and then push more magicka through it and then channel that power out of my body somewhere. Yes anywhere and not just your hands. According to Faralda the reason it's usually through the hands is because most people use their hands to guide the spells after they are released and they aren't blocked off, not because it's strictly necessary.-
I failed my first few attempts at the spell honestly. This was normal according to her as I wasn't used to holding a shape with my magicka yet and once I was it would feel easy. She was right of course as once I could hold the magicka in place without focusing too much on it I succeeded immediately. Unfortunately I learned the first harsh lessen all first time spell casters learned, your magicka doesn't limit it's flow without you doing it yourself.-
What this looked like was me holding out my hand and a stream of white frost flew out and kept flying out even when I stopped holding the spells shape in my magicka pool. I panicked and eventually directly used my magicka to stir itself up breaking the circle's shape. Half my pool was straight up empty by that point though.
"Messy but good enough for a first try I suppose." she said referring not to the spell but me cutting off the flow as she explained.