The gray woman smiled warmly at Aeria's questioning on the topic of parentage, even responding, "oh, yes, she's a short girl, messy black hair, quite insane, always has at least one knife on hand. You'd like her."

Miss Steel sat back, sipping this time at her tea, and pondered over the gray-eyed woman before her. Acid green eyes wandered away from the conversation to the walls, then circled around and settled on Aeria's again. Steel smiled as the conversation steered back to the tea.

"Xen root," she said plainly. "With a healthy dose of oversteeped black tea to keep your stomach from accepting all of it, hence the bitterness. Now weapons... I should think something more brutal would be of use to you. Say, the scourge over on that wall, or perhaps the spiked staff in the entryway, or the small collection of explosives buried under the nest. Oh, no, wait, you can't smell them, can you? Right. I forget humans haven't a nose for plastiques." The gray woman leaned back in her chair and nodded once more, taking another sip. "I think I have a way you can earn your weapons. Either you must let me use them on you first, or you must forge them yourself, though I cannot guarantee protection on your way to or from or within my lair from beings other than myself, and I can offer no instruction on the process of forging them. So, if you would like your bag of knives, well, I hope you don't scar easily."

With her headache now gone and the fact that she was not yet being attacked by the creature before her Aeria began to relax. Steel wasn't entirely like what she expected from the brief description she had gotten from Elise. She had seen her masochistic side and her insane regeneration but as of yet had not experienced her sadistic side. And she did believe the creature had one. She trusted what Elise told her. But at the same time this creature seemed oddly human, both in reasoning and in appearance. Unstable maybe, but human. She could hopefully work with that.

Aeria's expression was both pensive and thoughtful as Steel lay down the terms of their makeshift deal, her bottom lip being caught and chewed gently by her teeth as she considered it. Finally she leaned back into the chair and responded "I am curious as to why you call a female your father... and from the sounds of things a human one to boot." She took in a faint breath before continuing, "And I am very grateful for your offer... I am afraid that I am uncertain of how well I scar and how much blood I can lose safely so I don't think testing or using the weapons on me will be very beneficial to my health... especially those of the explosive variety, but..." She considered what she was about to propose carefully before voicing it "I wouldn't be adverse to coming down here to forge a few things for myself." And she might even get a copy of the Anarchist Cookbook and make herself some explosives as well if Elise had that lying around in her stocks. Having explosives would be rather comforting. "And thank you very much for the tea and the xen root." Now the only question was whether or not Steel found the terms of the deal she set herself to be valid.

The gray woman chuckled softly at Aeria's comments, leaving all the questions unanswered. Instead, she steepled her fingers like a merchant preparing to haggle bitterly and set her expression to be cool as frozen nitrogen.

"That leads us to two difficulties. The first, and much more intriguing of which, is how we should go about letting you earn materials. One cannot forge tools, after all, without access to good materials," the gray woman mused. Her eyes slid up and over Aeria's head in contemplation.

"You need weapons, and I need victims," Miss Steel said, bringing her eyes back down to meet her guest's. "I'll trade you, 20 for 1. I think that's fair, don't you? I mean, what's an average young lady weigh, 140 pounds or so? 7 pounds of iron's enough to make a small sword."

"That I'm willing to discuss with you," she said, jabbing her finger at the table, "but what I'm NOT willing to negotiate is that you owe me for all this time. I'm hungry, young lady. Very, very hungry. What, exactly, are you going to do about that?"

Aeria's expression went flat when Steel struck up her posture, recognizing it as the one that usually meant she'd have to pay a price she wouldn't like. She was silent, listening to Steel's musing with hidden trepidation and her eyes widening for a fraction of a second at her final determination. Flesh for steel, she'd have to willingly bring another student down here and let Steel do God knows what to them for a twentieth of their body weight. It was an atrocious offer and she was beginning to see why Elise had so feared the woman. What worried Aeria was she was already running through a list of students that had pissed her off, one's she wouldn't mind giving up for a chance to strike back at a few certain individuals. She shook her head faintly, clearing such dark thoughts from her mind, almost missing the final addition to Steel's comments. She blinked, winced and then met the gray woman's reptilian eyes flatly and uttered "I would strongly prefer you not eating me" It hard to tell if she was trying to amuse Steel with her comment or if she truly thought Steel meant hungry in such a manner. She took in a small breath before continuing "Beyond that small preference though... no. Afraid I really don't have any ideas about what to do. Running wouldn't work and I wouldn't want to ruin this business proposal of ours." 'yet' her mind added on.