For a moment Rhocanth was disappointed that the owl had flown away, even if it had been most beautiful while in flight. The opportunity to watch it was so brief. He would have liked to study it, sit with it, speak to it, touch its feathers -- which were another fascination all together. He wished to know if they were as soft as they were fabled to be, and how they all fit together upon the bird. "Are they intelligent?" he wondered further, "Are they friendly? I want to meet one."
The young dwarf had been effectively distracted, and it took him a bit of time to respond to anything else. At last, he said, "I don't understand this story about elves. If they are not criminals, why are they punished by the chantry? The more you tell me, the less I like this chantry, really. What backwards ideas." What did the ancestors see in humans, exactly? What possessed them to offer them the gift of culture? Was it pity? Whatever it was, Rhocanth wrinkled his nose at it. "So that is how it is today? Elves are reviled by humans? And had them lose their culture? How quickly humans forget themselves."
Folding his arms over his chest, he sniffed vaguely. Perhaps he was getting a little superior, but he didn't think of Imenry as much as "a human" than as someone who had been sympathetic, unique in her opinions. She seemed willing to disagree with typical human ideology. Still, he lowered his voice by way of apology, and asked more tranquilly, "What are elves like now? I have never met one, except for the one who is travelling with us, but I have not spoken to him."