It wasn't long after that the woman appeared with his cup. Sugar and cream packets were tucked against the side of the tea cup. There was a look to her and blinked when she spoke of it. The conversation of his race in such a detached way was unsettling, as if he expected scientists to slide down from the ceiling and take samples. Then he shifted one ankle to the knee of his other leg before speaking, "Humans are the same. Culture, race, height... ability. A million variants for them, just the same. Why... demons? There are vampires... werewolves... and minotaurs to perk your interest?"

Saila watched the woman with the tea for a long moment, waiting for her to retreat before she went on. "Because I already know all the things I want to about werewolves, and nobody's made any sweeping judgement about what all vampires or humans are or aren't. Unlike some of these records here," she said, tapping the cover of her book lightly. "--about demons."

Robert looked at her records and, at that, well the curator was made curious. He leaned forward to look at them. One hand held his tea and the other went to the book, but hesitated before he touched it, "May I?" He was asked to see just what it was the book was claiming. Robert himself had done research on his kind and that of the Nephilim in the Alexandra library.

Silvery brows quirking curiously at the way he reached for the book, but a smile twitched into place on her lips when he asked for permission. "Why, certainly," she answered him, splaying her fingers on the book to twist it counter clockwise so he can see. It was a text seemingly published by the
Clave, one that listed the Demons as 'inter-dimensional beings from the Void,' who apparently traveled between worlds for the express purpose of destroying everything. It went on to say that they fed on the pain and suffering of mundanes. "Seems a pretty black and white picture. I've yet to encounter a race yet that was so... uniform."

His fingers pressed on it, applying enough pressure that he could draw the book in closer to him to examine its content a bit more thoroughly. So this was what they were saying, these days. The Clave. It was interesting how much... information there was and wasn't between the different points of the divide. His eyes lifted up to her and he said, with a firmness in his mouth, "We aren't so uniform. But... I suppose the same could be said for humans. All eat, breath and sleep."

"...And there the similarities end?" Finishing his thought with a lift of her brows, that same amusement still lingers on her mouth. "I thought as much." Settling back in her chair, Saila crossed one arm around her narrow waist, propping the other elbow on her forearm. Fingers near her mouth, she waited, mostly patiently, for him to complete his examination of the book. "Convenient, though, that I was reading some ...totally banal foolishness about a particular kind of creature and that same type of creature just so happens to have reason to be here. Want to tell me about you?"

Robert looked up at her when she asked him if he wanted to share. Yes, I've had a story I've always wanted to share. No, this story doesn't end well when I finish it. His hand hesitated upon the page and then turned it, "Asking someone to speak about themselves is a very broad question. Is it a psychology test?" He looked up from the page to her, "What I speak of first being the most important? With queries about a race, if that is your query, it's better to just pose a more direct question." Robert was, if nothing, a scholarly individual. Details, rules, parameters, he seemed to see the lines for invisible equations. Whether or not those were real could be debated.

"Mm, could be," she said, tapping her lower lip thoughtfully with an index finger that sported two different rings, one along the hand joint as traditionally worn and a second, smaller copper one between the first and second knuckle. "I've found that when you ask direct, pointed questions, though, strangers get squirrelly. If you leave it broad -- let them decide what details to share -- they tend to feel safer, less probed, and have a tendency to tell me things they might otherwise have lied about or evaded altogether." Her nose wrinkled then. "I ... don't like lies. So I figure this is the more effective way. But, sure. Narrower. Right then, if there was one thing you wanted to convey about who you are that people either misunderstand or miss altogether, what is it?"

"I prefer the former. Broad questions makes me uncomfortable. I ramble." Robert said, lifting up his mug to sip of it now that it had cooled enough. Without sugar chamomile could have an unexpected bitterness. He didn't fight it, though, or reach for the sweeteners. She asked him about misunderstandings and it felt like a golden question and in true, Robert-fashion, he thought he could have delivered a thesis on the matter. It wasn't that he liked to hear himself talk. There was some discomfort he had in conversation, ever since he could remember, that had him searching for the right words. The right... key to the lock. It wasn't often that he found it readily. "That we need people. I mean... really need people. The way someone needs to breath. We are so codependent on them," he paused, turning his head away and then looking back at her, "It was angels and humans that were made, then demons from the fallen angels. Our whole existence is wrapped up in humanity and we are a product of it. We are the cat that evolved because there was a mouse."

That ... was an interesting answer, and a provocative one. A crooked smile found her features as she sipped her coffee. "...That's really beautifully said, Robert. Do you.. love them?"

"As you love bacon and your pet dog?" Robert's eyebrows knit, "Not all of humanity serves you equally. Some are food... or pets, or lovers. The same as one can lovingly have a pet chicken and eat its unfertilized children. Or... eventually, the chicken itself. I suppose, though, that is much different than a lover." He admitted it as if the nuance then had just occurred to him. His attention went to her, then, "What sort of Underworlder are you? You're in such a broad category."

Sex and food. Hm. Well... Saila thoroughly enjoyed the one and had zero use for the other, so the disparity was an interesting one for her. "So you do feed on human emotions sometimes? Or is this literal... fork-and-knife-gonna-eat-a-people eating?" Hey, these were important details to learn. Strange eyes were downcast a moment, contemplating the rich black surface of her coffee as she mulled over what to say. She'd been taught to be cagey with the details, and yet Robert here had - so far at least- been surprisingly forthcoming. "I'm a hybrid," she said, lifting those unusual eyes to him once more. "More than one thing mixed together. The word I recently learned is? Chimera."

"Depends on the demon. There are flesh eaters." And to clarify, unnecessarily, "I am not one of them." Had he been she would have probably found him more menacing. Or there might have been a greater reaction by those around him, noticing that his dates never seemed to get home all right. Robert could be forthcoming, there was something earnest and seething, like incense or something old when he spoke. The idea, the theories, he wanted to share them all. A hybird. There was a private smile. He thought at first... so many are "hybrids." Then she said Chimera and his eyebrows lowered as if the definition was wrong but that he wouldn't argue. Only said, "I suppose so."

Saila didn't find anybody menacing, much to her detriment. Still, the people around her would have doubtlessly reacted to him differently. Flashing a quick smile, noticing the subtle change in his expression. Setting the coffee cup down, she drew a fingertip idly along its rim, mismatched eyes watching him curiously. "Yeah, it's probably the wrong word. But the gist is there," she said, a wave indicating her dramatically different eyes. "More than one thing co-existing in the same frame work."

"You're like three plates which were broken then glued back together," he observed, almost quietly, but with some admiration. Different pieces collected and placed artfully together to make a seamless, singular entity. If she were a collection of some, he wondered what the other parts had made. He thought of those disjointed things in a silent musing before his gaze lifted to her face to the present moment, "To be at war with oneself is a saying which must uniquely apply to you." In a way that was strange, the modern age interrupted them via his cellphone buzzing. Robert almost flinched before reaching in his jacket pocket to check it, "I am afraid my time is up."

His words were intriguing to her, and Saila paused a moment to pull the pen from the binding of her notebook, writing that down. "You're probably rig---" she started to say, before the electronic buzz of his cellphone interrupted her. Falling silent, the muse offered her new demon friend a light smile. "Such is life. Thank you, Robert, for a most interesting conversation."

"Good luck with your... " he used his finger to turn her book back towards her, "research. May it be a bit more illuminating than it has been." He managed, for the first time since they met, to smile. It came off more like a politely-forced twitch. Yet it had been there. A short moment of warmth, the sort of thing he wasn't particularly good at. Then he bowed just a few inches, leaving his half-finished mug on the coffee table so that it might be collected later. As soon as he was outside, it was time for a cigarette.

Answering that smile with one of her own, she lifted one hand in a friendly parting salute, placing it flat on the cover of the book as soon as he'd departed.