"...Um?"

"Um? Words," he prompts.

"What do you mean not species?"

"My species is not magic. My magic is not species."

"...You're a hybrid?" she guesses.

"No...?"

"I don't understand."

"I don't words to you understand. I get more words when you talk," he reminds her.

"Every species has a magic. Every magic comes from a species. Except death tolls and geneses, I guess."

"My species has no magic. My magic comes from - a species not my species? Words! Teach me words!"

"Another species?"

"Another species!" he agrees. "Another species has magic. My species has no magic. All my species magic comes from another species magic."

"What makes you think your species doesn't have magic? Some people think elves don't have magic, but we do."

He sighs.

"What makes you think my species does have magic?"

"Because every species has magic."

"I don't have words," he says, frustrated.

"I don't know what words you need. Words about magic, words about species, words about something else?"

"Yes! All those!"

She giggles. "Magic! Besides death tolls and geneses, there's species magic. Every species has their own unique magic, although they can be similar. People sometimes try grouping them in artificial categories but they don't come with inherent divisions like that. Elves have elf magic, to make healthy babies, orcs have orc magic, to make food grow, frost giants have ice magic, etcetera. Hybrids can end up with varying levels of the magic of their component species. I'm half-elf half-frost giant, but I have all the elf magic and and less than all of the frost giant magic so I say I'm an elf who is also half frost giant." As if reminded by her mentioning he elfness, she looks down at the blood-soaked glove on her left hand. "...With elves, it's indecent to go around with your left hand bare, because elves have weird biology. Do you happen to have a pair of gloves lying around that might fit?"

"...Ah... that might fit, yes," he says, and goes back up to the main room and hoists one of the boxy backpacks off the wall and pulls out a pair of heavy leather gloves, brown with a silvery sheen.

"Thank you so much. Uh, I'm just gonna step out of the room to change, alright? ...Is there anywhere I could wash the blood off my hands?"

"Yes—" and back down the stairs to a room next to the dormitory with, among other things, a magical self-filling washbasin.

"Thank you so much," she repeats, and waits for him to leave the room before taking her glove off.

Yep, off he goes.

Oh it's good to feel clean.

She comes back in a few minutes later wearing the left half of the glove pair and with the right half dangling from her belt.