"Okay. 'Cept I'm not." Well, that's, technically speaking, a lie. He is dead where he comes from. He didn't arrive here dead, and that's the bottom line. He ain't dead by default. That was an unrelated thing that just kinda happened along the way.

He leans forward, bracing his elbows across the surface of the table. For all she's having difficulties lookin' him in the eyesocket, he keeps his gaze fixed, unwavering, on her.

"The weird thing here 's that you're the only one who's bothered. Or, uh, the only one who's takin' their sweet time gettin' over it. Lots of people here? They see me, they dunno what to do with me." He opens a hand to sweep a vague, two-fingered gesture up and down, as if to say well, look at me. Except she won't. Too much for her, right?

Yeah. Figures.

"Think I'm some kinda evil thing from the caves out to chomp 'em. But eventually they figure, hey. We're all stuck down here together, yeah? Might as well get along."

All the while, his tone never deviates from its pleasant, personable rumble.

"You got call to be suspicious, sure. But so've a lotta other people who come from crap worlds where, I dunno, skeletons're somethin' to be feared. Somethin' real unnatural." If there's a bitter twist to the last word there, it's faint. Barely perceptible. He keeps on going. "But those standards don't apply here. 'Cause I ain't from your world, Doc. So bottom line? whatever you dealt with back home - that don't mean squat."

He drives those same two phalanges into the table's surface, emphasizing the space the pair of them occupy.

"I follow different rules, 'cause things're different here."