Lythia felt her cheeks burn when the newcomer turned his attention to her. Body not settled from the earlier rush, she tripped over herself in responding with an awkward smile, taking him in in the soft comforting glow of the hearth.<br/><br/>She was about to murmur her ascent before rooting in her pack for her notes to get back to studying, when she noticed something about him. Something different.<br/><br/><em>His ears...</em><br/><br/>A bolt, like a boulder of pure electricity, jolted and spun her stomach on its head. Her eyes widened as they zeroed in on the pointed tips of his ears, and her throat ran dry when she tried to open her mouth to respond.<br/><br/>She coughed awkwardly, than, carefully, responding in the plodding, guttural Trade tongue he'd spoken to her in - hers far less fluent and refined, to her ears at least, than his - she replied meekly, "You...you're an elf?" Then she immediately averted her gaze, damning herself as her cheeks flushed again and her heart pounded against her ribcage. She quietly chided herself for her shyness, even when faced with probably the first other elf she had ever met, and again, in the deep recesses of her subconscious, there was that flicker of...<em>something</em>...something that tasted uncomfortably akin to guilt.