Haleth shakes her head. "You know I prefer forward speaking. It saves time." The gesture and the sentence are both automatic. He has heard her say much the same thing several times in their brief acquaintance.

Even so, she is nearly as red as he is now, still wide-eyed and astonished. She opens her mouth to ask if this is but courtesy among elves, or commonplace--then shuts it, for obviously it is not, or else he would not have apologized for being forward. He would not look as he does now, awkward as a boy and avoiding her gaze.

"I..." She stops, swallows. Her face is burning. What does she do in this circumstance? Thank him? Tell him he is mistaken? Why would an elf, grace and beauty made manifest, consider a human, much less her, to be pretty? She is not. She is strong, practical, she has many virtues, but she is not pretty. Yet Caranthir is blushing so fiercely, and she knows him to be truthful.

Haleth swallows again. "I...will think on this." The same words she has used at the end of nearly every discussion they have had, every time he has given answers to her questions, but this time they feel...very different, and when she turns to leave the tent it is even more brisk than usual, almost to the point of a run.