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"I don't do research myself," she said, dipping her head slightly in a nonverbal apology. "I'm more of an errand girl. A gofer, I guess you could say. They don't tell me much about the nature of the research since I'm not directly involved in it." Even still, she was mostly telling the truth. What was she doing now if not retrieving requested information from a research site? Just because the means weren't entirely ethical didn't invalidate the assignment.

"I don't have much aptitude for sciences," she admitted, fiddling idly with the pokeball still in her hands, "so I find the processes interesting. I'm generally not allowed to observe, though..." One day she would find a legitimate way to enter the labs and see for herself what kind of work they did and how they went about it. One day.

"Not much fun at all, no." Now that one was a blatant lie if one was considering it in the context of her job as a whole. She enjoyed a great deal of fun on her assignments and missions. In matters concerning the labs, however, she frequently did feel rather left out, especially given her interest in the area.

"I don't have much aptitude for anything specific, if it makes you feel any better," she said with a smile that suggested her comment was in no way self-depreciating. Another lie, that. Her talents were simply a bit too specialized to mention in the general public. "Mm, I came because I was a little ahead of schedule. My work sent me here to fetch some information from the archeology department, and since it was hot and I had the time, I thought I'd stop by the beach for a while."

She continued to fidget with the pokeball; this was as good a lead-in as any. It just needed to be said and be done with... "Actually, I was planning on stopping by Sandalwood on my way back. I thought I would give you this." She held out the pokeball for him to take, only the slightest falter rising in her practiced poker face.

Well, she was good at getting into places where she didn't belong. She was good at documenting, evading, and disabling security systems. She was good at deceiving others, and she was good at taking what didn't belong to her. None of these seemed very good for light conversation, and so she merely dismissed his objection with a smile and a slight shrug.

She held the ball slightly more forward to further entice him to take it. "I think you should press the release and see for yourself," she encouraged. She felt awfully silly, actually, and she hoped she was doing a good enough job of hiding it. He wouldn't like it. He wouldn't need it. He'd say as much and hand it right back to her. She was being ridiculous, and it was going to come back to haunt her. Maybe she should set up an escape in case that came to pass, as it invariably would, "You don't have to keep it, of course. If you don't like it, I mean." But Arceus she hoped he did, for the sake of her dignity if nothing else.

Inwardly she hoped 'you didn't have to' wasn't a translation to 'I wish you hadn't.' His reaction to the thing was... questioning, it seemed. Understandable, if one had never seen one of its kind before. Aila had been vaguely bewildered by it as well.

"It's called a Deerling," she explained. "It is a grass-type, from Unova. Their appearance changes with the seasons." She had at least done cursory research on the thing - enough to know that it wouldn't learn any poison-type moves without the use of a TM and thus was of a bit less interest to Aila than the Cottonee she had chosen to keep. Remembering Inigo's research on grass-types, it had seemed a good option to entrust the little deer to his care.

"She's female," she commented, if not a bit offhandedly. An awkward pause. "Do you like her?"

"Deerling change color depending on the season. She's pink now because it's spring, and when it's summer she'll turn green." It was an interesting phenomenon; to her knowledge, no other pokemon had ever exhibited similar characteristics. "Its evolved form, Sawsbuck, has antlers that mimic tree branches in the way they change with the seasons. I believe a lab in Unova is researching the cause, but from what I've read, they aren't making a great deal of progress." There had been quite a bit of reading regarding that particular species, but Aila had made sure to review all of it before giving the Deerling to Inigo. It was unbecoming to present a pokemon about which she knew nothing.

She folded her arms behind her back, still feeling a bit silly, though not as much knowing that he was happy with it. "I'm glad." She regarded the Deerling, "This is your trainer." It seemed polite to inform the thing of what was going on, after all.

"Fall is represented by orange, and winter by brown," she responded. "One of the best theories right now," because who didn't love a good theory? "is that, despite its animal-like appearance, Deerling is more flora than fauna, so it reacts to the seasons the same way trees do. The problem with this is that the more flora-like pokemon like Bellsprout and Oddish don't have similar properties, making Deerling an oddity no matter how you look at it." Her volume began a steady decrease from halfway through her explanation, doubting that Inigo wanted to listen to her ramble about research that he could very well do himself.

"If you're interested," she said with a partial shrug, "I have another Unova grass-type with me as well, a Cottonee." Hopefully she wasn't being too presumptuous in assuming he'd like to see it. The Snivy didn't appear to want to be too sociable, so Aila felt a strange need to fill in for it somehow.