Desmond couldn't help but raise his eyebrows a little when he heard the dryad say that she had not ever heard of Shelley. This was somewhat surprising, because all of the dryads that he had ever met were very fond of the arts more than anything else in life. In fact, many of them had ONLY been fond of artistic things like music and poetry. But then again, things had changed so very much, and it had been quite some time since he had seen a dryad. Who could say what all had changed in the spanning centuries of time between now and then. He nodded though, as he put his gloved hand to his chin. "I am a little," he paused, as he tried to think of the word that he had heard around campus, in reference to himself. "Old... school." he said, betraying his unfamiliarity with the words.
He watched her quietly as she clung to the tree for dear life, it seemed, watching him like he was some sort of predator in the woods. This was not too atypical. Like all things heavily connected with nature, the dryads he had met tended to be a skittish lot, especially when it came to something new that they did not understand. Had he not been alone that night so many years ago he doubted that he would have seen a dryad at all unless they had tried to chop down one of their trees, which was a sacred offense to a dryad. Legends spoke of their lives being connected with such trees, though Desmond did not know how true such a rumor actually was. Dryads weren't exactly open to outsiders any longer.
As she let the how slip from her mouth, he tapped his nose lightly. "It's the smell. You smell like a dryad." He said simply. It was true, she smelled different, in the way that people of different origins would smell different to him. But ultimately all humans tended to have a similar underlying smell, as did druids, and vampires, and other creatures, he imagined. A part of him wished that he had gotten a good chance to smell Tobias when the sunlight was not in the sky so he could see if he could recognize djinn around campus, but djinns tended to be tricky, and he wasn't sure that even if he had smelled him that they would carry a common sent given their nature...
"Stereotypes are stereotypes for a reason, and are usually somewhat general. So even if we don't fit the complete stereotype, it's pretty odd that someone winds up breaking all of the things about a particular stereotype. " he said. He was about to say that he rather fit the description of a stereotypical dhampir, but then, he wasn't really sure if there was such a thing. He supposed an outsider, and the looks were the same, but in terms of actions, dhampir usually were across the board in what they did. Some hid what they were, others reveled in it, still others hunted vampires or people for money. But they tended to be so rare, that he wasn't certain that they consistuted an actual 'type' to begin with.
He smiled a little, though it didn't show in his eyes as she mentioned the fact that she had in fact been dancing before she'd come to spy on him. "See, and there's one part of the stereotype that you meet right there." he said quietly. "The eavesdropping, well, I would say I'm guilty of it as well. It tends to be a curse of being able to hear exceptionally well." he said. And it was true, often times he would overhear something that he didn't want to. The world was often a buzz around him, and he'd learned to live with it, but like white noise, ocassionally his ear would focus on one particular sound and he'd manage to pick up on something, a tidbit of a conversation that he didn't mean to.
"I danced. I do not currently dance." he said simply. He had the ability, of course. At one point in time, dancing was an actual requirement of any social interaction. Back in the days were campfires were more mandatory than they were in these days, the only way to socialize and catch a girls eye was to dance with her, and vice versa, so even when he did not want to dance, in his younger years he had often been constantly bombarded with requests for him to dance. And, depending on where he was, sometimes those requests turned into demands rather quickly when he had politely refused. It was simply a matter of how much leeway women were given in the culture to do such things.