[ She nods when given his permission, but needs a few more moments to think of how she should speak of this. Somehow, it's so much easier when someone prompts her for this information, but for her to simply offer it up without real reason—

Well, no, there is a real reason. She wants Winter to know about these things... ]

Nothing I say is... a secret, exactly, but it's not something I've often talked about, especially at the inn, and especially to guests.

[ A deep breath. NPC dialogue cutscene time. ]

...You know, of course, how long-lived elves are. Astral elves especially, given the amount of time they might spend in the Astral Plane, where time doesn't pass. My family has always been a bit of an outlier even among their people, given how much time we tend to spend outside of the silvery void. But still...

Normally, the inn changes hands every decade. For elves, a stint at the inn for that long is rather short indeed, yes? But for people like us, Winter... we won't live as long. And I've just completed my tenth year...

[ In so saying, the real reason her family had been so adamant about her taking a break... is because her time is up. ]