Fiona trailed quietly behind the maid, scrape-covered hands clasped nervously together and legs aching beneath her. The silence was excruciating but despite her best efforts, Fiona was struggling to get any words out at all. If the maid had noticed her fumbling, she didn't let it be known. Fiona wasn't sure if she was grateful for that or not. She wasn't sure why she didn't just give up, either.

Eventually, she managed to find her voice. "Hey, um, you know, I... don't think I've caught your name yet."

The maid came to such an unexpected stop that Fiona nearly ran into her. She slowly turned around as Fiona hastily backed up, staring at her as if she had never been asked such a question before.

There was another prolonged silence. Somehow, this one was more unpleasant, and the longer it went on the more Fiona started to question if she had just done something she shouldn't have.

"My name is Daniella," the maid finally answered. Then, she continued on just as abruptly as she had stopped.

"Daniella... I'm Fiona." She had gotten an actual response that time. She hadn't expected that. A fresh spark of hope found life in Fiona's chest.

"I already know who you are, Miss." How much else did Daniella know? Did she play a big part in any of what was going on around here?

They stopped once more.

"Here we are." Daniella held open the door.

Fiona, still reasonably wary of the taller woman, was careful not to turn her back to her as she passed through the doorway and tried hard not to be obvious about it.

The door closed softly. Was that a bad sign? Was Daniella purposefully closing off the exits so that Fiona had nowhere to run? Perhaps it was something as simple as her not liking it when doors were left open…

The legs of the high-backed chair scraped loudly against the stone floor as Fiona pulled it out and hesitantly sat down. About ten bowls of soup were spread out in front of her.

Daniella situated herself beside the table, red-stained hands folded neatly together at her waist. It seemed that she wasn't going to be leaving the room anytime soon.

Fiona stared down at the bowl closest to her with apprehension. As much as she would've liked to hope there was another living being in the castle that didn't just want to use her for something, she also knew that she shouldn't just blindly trust those who didn't immediately do so… like whoever it was that had started leaving notes around for her to find. Was this soup safe to eat? The smell emanating from it was difficult to place, but noticeably off.

Dipping her spoon into the bowl, Fiona stole a glance at Daniella, who was now busy blankly staring at the wall.

"My creator said he made me the perfect woman…" the maid said out of nowhere, looking down and catching Fiona's gaze. Heat rose to her face and she hastily broke eye contact.

Fiona was caught off guard, both by her speaking without prompt and by their eyes meeting. The words and their meanings were slow to process in her head. Creator?

What did that imply exactly?

Was Daniella not human? The idea seemed absurd, like something straight out of a book or movie. But then again, the idea of waking up in a castle in the middle of nowhere, being chased around by a large man that had mistaken her for a doll, and getting zapped by floating orbs of blue light that seemed to be attracted to her like magnets did too, but those things had all happened to Fiona recently.

Fiona looked up at the maid once more. She had this slight purple tinge to her skin and lavender-colored hair that Fiona had automatically assumed was dyed.

Maybe it wasn't so implausible?

"Creator…?" she repeated quietly, immediately regretting it because she had clearly cut short whatever Daniella was about to say next. The maid closed her mouth, then parted her lips as if she was going to elaborate but didn't.

Not right away.

"Yes, Miss… But I am broken. I cannot taste... or experience pleasure... or feel... pain. I cannot even carry children… I am incomplete." she stated it all as if it were factual and sounded almost bitter towards the end, which was undoubtedly the most emotion Fiona had heard in her voice up to this point.

She could feel her heart sink. What… or who had made Daniella think that? She knew that she couldn't just not object to that, but also wasn't sure what exactly she ought to say. What if she managed to set her off somehow? Well, it wasn't as if Fiona wasn't used to having to run away at this point.

"Hey... those things don't make you broken," Fiona told her carefully, trying to kill the nervous wavering in her voice because it was making her sound disingenuous when she wasn't. "There people out in the world who can't taste, who are numb to pain, who struggle to… to feel pleasure… And, um, there are plenty of women who can't have children—"

"Not… all women can have children?" Daniella interrupted, a slight hint of something between disbelief and hope in her voice. Her chin jerked towards her shoulder once, then twice.

"No. No, and they aren't incomplete or anything. If they want children, they just… have them in other ways."

Daniella still did not seem as if she was entirely convinced by what Fiona had just told her, but she did not try to argue with her either. Her neck now continued to intermittently pull her head in random directions. She gripped her own hand tightly, barely closed cuts on her knuckles opening up again and beads of blood forming.

Fiona bit her lip, waiting to see if she would get another reply.

"...I have work to attend to now, Miss."

With that, Daniella promptly headed for the door and shut it behind her as she left.

"H-hey, wait!" Fiona stood quickly, nearly knocking her chair onto the floor. Once she had stumbled her way back into the corridor, she found no maid in sight.

Had she vanished into thin air? Was that possible? Fiona didn't know anymore.

Something soft brushed against the exposed skin of her left leg and she inhaled sharply, startled.

"Hewie! There you are."

She dropped to her knees, petting her animal companion's dirtied white fur while he tried to lick her face.

Fiona supposed she would just have to wait and see if she ran into Daniella again. She had already done so multiple times, so the chances of that happening seemed fairly high…

In the meantime, she still hadn't gotten a chance to use the key she had acquired in the chapel.