I think this is the first time I write something this long. The general concept is nothing new, but everyone has their own take on it.
There was a terrible beast in the forest.
It emerged only a month ago, but it has already gained infamy. A demonic beast of tremendous power and great size, it's been terrorizing nearby villages and in spite of numerous attempts to take it down, it had yet to be stopped. Monsters of its kind were always tough to deal with, but this one in particular simply refused to stand down. No matter how many wounds its body bore, they were all knit back together in an instant. Swords, arrows or spells, nothing left a permanent mark.
As peculiar as its abilities were, it's appearance was doubly so. Long serpentine body covered in hard black scales, numerous bony spikes of varying length haphazardly erupting out of its back surrounded by tumorous growths, six long limbs adorned with long claws and a large reptilian head at the front end of its body, filled to the brim with sharp teeth and lined with dozens of glowing red eyes. As it made no attempt to clean itself, it wasn't hard to see all the dry blood on its body.
But perhaps the most unusual part of its body was what looked like a girl growing out of the back of its head, fused below her hips to a fleshy growth covered in a tar-like substance. Compared to the rest of its horrific visage, it was eerily unblemished. Long blue hair, dark red eyes, pale skin and ample bosom, she would have been a beauty worth fighting over if she were human. It didn't remain motionless or limp. When it was resting, its head was lowered and its hands were clasped together as if praying, and when it was active, its head observed its surrounding, displaying little emotions as the rest of its body took innocent lives and various attacks struck its hide. Its purpose was a mystery and everyone was focused on the far deadlier parts of it to learn more.
There were no doubts of its mindless nature, but in truth, it could think. The beast was perfectly aware of its surroundings and its actions. It knew what it meant to take a life and it knew the suffering it brought upon others. It was by no means naive or malicious, it simply acted as a beast should. It had no other reason to live. A beast could not know happiness, it could not know comfort, it could not show mercy and it deserved no mercy. All it could hope for was to be slain and forgotten. Such meaningless existence didn't incite despair and despair wasn't a feeling a beast should feel anyway, it was simply resigned to continue playing its role. That's all a beast could do.
At that moment, it was resting in a self-made forest clearing, lying flat on its stomach with its human torso leaning against its reptilian head. Combined with its loud snoring, it wasn't exactly inconspicuous, but the beast had little to fear. It had yet to be truly threatened by humans and it didn't take long for it to wake up and retaliate. Sleep was the only activity it truly enjoyed as it could momentarily forget about its obligations. Sometimes, it saw dreams it couldn't quite understand, but it couldn't remember them well anyway and didn't dwell on them. There was little point in it.
Unfortunately, it couldn't sleep forever and so it woke up, rubbing eyes on its human head while its other head let out a yawn. Once it rose and stretched its legs out, it prepared to seek out new victims, but stopped before it could take a single step. Familiar smell of a human indicated presence of one. To its surprise, not only was the human well within reach of her limbs, but they were also...sleeping? Yes, a couple of sniffs confirmed that they weren't dead. They weren't there before she fell asleep, but why would someone decide to take a nap so close to a very obvious threat?
Well, it didn't matter. Whether it had to find its victims or vice versa, a beast had only one response. Lowering itself to the ground, it opened its mouth wide, its bottom jaw splitting in half while thousands of bloodstained teeth inside trembled in anticipation of piercing soft flesh. All that was left was to close them shut and engulf the comparatively tiny human. A small part of it wondered what sound their body would make when subjected to the crushing force of its maw, but it didn't care much beyond that.
"Good morning."
The beast froze.
Human speech was familiar to it. It didn't know how, but it could understand what they said perfectly for as long as it remembered itself. It heard many curses and cries from them, felt their hatred and grief throughout its whole short life. It was perfectly normal to do so since it was a beast and deserved no other treatment.
But this? Nobody had ever greeted it and this human was oddly nonchalant about it, as if they were talking to a fellow human. One is not meant to just greet a beast. Promise painful death and judgement for its sins, but not...this. Either they spoke a language it didn't know or they weren't fully awake yet, that had to be the case.
Before it could decide how to respond, the human opened their mouth again.
"You picked a pretty nice spot to nap on, huh? I like it."
...Were they trying to confuse it? But there was nobody else nearby and the human in front of her made no attempt to arm themselves. They simply continued to lie on their back with their hands behind their head, one eye open to look at the giant monster clearly trying to eat them.
At that point, the beast decided to slowly close its giant mouth and take a closer look at the human. Normally, it didn't pay much attention to their appearance, but something about this one drew their attention more than usual. It was a...girl, yes, one with pink hair styled into long twintails and eyes of same color. She looked about as young as the beast's human body, but noticeably shorter. The outfit she wore looked vaguely familiar to it, but it had never seen it before as far as it could recall.
"Who...are you?" the beast asked, discomfort apparent on its human face. Before this day, it never spoke aloud and its own soft voice surprised it. It was all wrong. It wasn't the voice of a beast.
"You know, it's rude to ask that without giving your own name first," the girl replied as she stretched her own limbs out. The beast looked away and clasped its human hands together in response.
"S...Sorry, I-"
"But I guess there's no need for formalities out in the woods in the middle of nowhere, so, just call me Hilda! What's your name?"
A name. It was a familiar concept to the beast, but it could hardly recall any and even fewer names could be attributed to anything. Humans like this one had names though it had never bothered to learn them before. Did it have a name? Probably not. It needed none and it deserved none.
"I don't have any...I don't...I'm just a beast."
There was a look on Hilda's face that it barely recognized, but it must have been mistaken. It didn't get to look closely at human faces often and it probably didn't understand them well enough.
"Huh, I assumed a pretty lady like you would have one. Are you sure you're not just being shy?"
Once again, her words made little sense. It was called many things, but nobody has ever called it that. It was a hideous monster. Even if she were referring to her human body, it was still nonsense. It was unremarkable at best and unsettling at worst with those bags under its eyes and unkept hair. Really, it only served to highlight how unsightly the rest of it was, as it should be.
Still, those words made it feel...odd. It wasn't something it felt before. It wasn't necessarily...bad, but it wasn't exactly good either. It didn't know how to respond.
"Oh, what if I gave you one? I normally don't put effort into, well, anything, but you'll probably like it!" Hilda offered, sitting up with her legs bent and her head propped up on her hand. Once its brain processed what it heard, the monster took a couple of steps back, briefly re-establishing eye contact.
"Wh-What?"
The more time passed, the more it felt like she was still in a bizarre dream. It couldn't have been ignorance, she was dangerously close to a monster the size of a house, one that didn't look even remotely friendly. She didn't look sick and her gaze wasn't fixed on anything else. In spite of it all, this Hilda girl wore a smile, one that was clearly different from those that human warriors briefly had when they thought that a couple of missing limbs couldn't be regrown in a matter of seconds. It wasn't an expression it had seen before.
"Got it! How about Marianne? I think it's a nice name."
Marianne.
Something about that name was familiar to it. Did it hear it before? Perhaps a widower crying out for his lost beloved, taken from him by the beast? Or maybe they were close friends instead? Severing threads of life and causing endless grief was natural to it, it was its only purpose. And yet neither sounded right, it felt as if there was more to it, but it just couldn't think of anything else.
"Um...That...I wouldn't...I wouldn't mind it," the giant monster murmured, just barely audible over the distance between Hilda and its human body. Direct eye contact felt unbearable at that moment and so it looked away, its hands finding themselves fiddling with a long wavy strand of hair. The smile on Hilda's face grew upon hearing a somewhat positive response.
"Then Marianne it is! Goddess, you really are shy," Hilda said before lying back down.
For a while, neither said anything. The human seemed content with simply resting and staring at clouds while...Marianne kept thinking about what had just happened. It couldn't be picky about its new name, it had no right to make choices or complain about anything, but it didn't want to anyway. It wouldn't ask for another one, but it liked this name in particular. It did sound nice.
Then it felt something odd with its human face. When it touched its face with one of its hands, it found that corners of its mouth were tugged up a little. They went back to normal afterwards, but the memory of it lingered for a while. It couldn't explain it.
...It really didn't matter. These distractions had to be ignored.
"Please...leave," Marianne demanded, but in contrast to its imposing size, it held no weight. It was more used to killing others with its massive claws and fangs than communicating with them verbally or rather that's all it knew.
"But the grass is so soft here...and I really don't feel like moving. Besides, if I leave, they'll make me do stuff and I want that even less. What can little ol' me with these noodle arms do anyway? Work? Pfft, as if!" Hilda complained in response, assuming another expression Marianne had never seen before. It was similar to the one it saw many times, one of anger, but it was far more subdued and her voice didn't carry the same intensity as numerous insults it heard.
"Leave," the beast repeated, slamming one of its front feet into the ground while its reptilian head growled for emphasis.
...why hasn't it killed the girl yet?
"Alright, alright, I'll leave you alone for a bit. Hey, maybe you're hungry? People get cranky when they're hungry...Oh, right, I ate those yesterday. Want me to bring you something? You'll owe me for making me work out like this, but I can overlook it this time. I'm hungry myself anyway," the girl offered, completely ignoring Marianne's obvious threat.
"I don't want to burden you any more."
"No, it's okay, you look like you need some. It shouldn't take long. Just stay here, okay?"
And just like that, Hilda left. She didn't run away or hide somewhere, she really did leave.
In truth, Marianne wasn't hungry at that moment. It didn't really need to eat much and it ate not too long ago. It doubted that the girl would be able to sate its hunger even if she offered herself, but it couldn't say no and it was a decent excuse to be left alone. All it needed to do now was to move in any other direction and the two would never meet again.
...for reasons unknown to Marianne, it stayed.