After a few hours spent on reading, Marianne's human eye hurt. It was an unfamiliar feeling and not one it liked. On top of being unpleasant on its own, it also prevented it from continuing to read as it could no longer focus on text. While it had a few more pairs of eyes on its other head, their vision wasn't all that great and compared to them, the books were too tiny to make anything out without straining them far more.

"Ugh, let's take a break," Hilda suggested, having noticed how often Marianne rubbed its already red eyes. "All this lounging is making me hungry...Goddess, I sound like Raphael right now."

"Raphael? Who's that?" Marianne asked. It was another name it recognized. Maybe from one of the books?

"Ah, he's one of my friends. Big and strong, but you don't even need to spend much time with him to know that he's got a big heart...and an equally big stomach. Fill a table with meat and it will be gone before you know it. I'm sure if he got hungry enough, he could eat even something as big as you!" the human replied, closing one of her eyes for a moment.

"I-I see..." the beast stuttered, quite disturbed by the description of that man. It had seen many humans, but it had never encountered a...monster like that. Simply imagining him made its human face grow even paler than it normally was, which was an accomplishment.

"Is something wrong? Oh, did you just...Did you take that literally? It was just a joke, don't sweat it!" Hilda said, making an odd sound afterwards.

"A...joke?" it repeated, tilting its human head.

"It's something you say or do to lighten the mood or just to make people around you smile."

Marianne didn't really understand the idea, but choose not to ask more questions about it. It was more interested in a different topic, but first, it had to do something about its sore body. Lying down like this for so long in such uncomfortable position took a toll on its body, but it didn't want to scare off Sophie. Thus, all it could do is try stretching out its human body, twisting both its stem and individual body parts around until it felt a bit better.

When it looked back at Hilda, there was an odd expression on her face.

"Please don't do that again," she said weakly.

"I'm sorry..." it apologized, not sure what was wrong, but it was clearly in the wrong there.

"Don't apologize, it's just...people aren't supposed to move their heads like that," Hilda explained, waving her arms around her own head. Admittedly, it had yet to see humans do it, but it was very hard to tell where the similarities between its human body and actual humans ended.

"Oh, you mean this?" Marianne asked, tilting its human head until it was rotated sideways. It could go further and rotate it upside down, but the girl visibly recoiled at that point.

"Yes, that!" she yelped, turning away. This was the first time it saw her panic, but it wasn't quite fear. It had seen frightened humans enough times to tell the difference. She didn't run away either.

"I didn't mean t-"

"It's okay, I told you not to apologize. When someone apologizes a lot, I start feeling bad for them instead. Ignatz does the same thing," she said, already looking a little better...That name was familiar to the beast as well.

"Another friend of yours?"

"Yeah. He apologizes a lot, even over things way out of his control. I even caught him apologizing over apologizing a few times! He's a nice guy, it's just that he puts feelings of others above his own and tries to live up to their expectations at his own expense. He really should think more of himself..."

Living up to expectations at one's own expense...

"He's a very good artist too and he's so passionate about it, but when you try complimenting him, it's so hard to make him actually accept praise and trust me, I'm really good at giving people praise they deserve...Hm, maybe I could get him to paint you a picture! I'm sure it will look great!" Hilda said with a vigorous nod.

"H-Huh? What do you mean?" it asked, more confused about the idea of someone painting her than the concept of painting itself. It was another thing it somehow knew.

"He's always looking for something to draw and you seem like a decent choice. I'm confident in his ability to recreate your beauty. It will be so good, the whole painting will come to life!" she replied with another nod.

"Come to life?" Marianne repeated, now even more confused. Was it normal for paintings to animate themselves or was this Ignatz simply that skilled?

"It's just a figure of speech again. Maybe we should work on that later..."

"Do you have any other friends?" it asked, slowly growing more curious about the human's acquaintances.

"Mhmm, I have plenty of them. Let's see...I guess there's Lorenz. He's super helpful and I know his heart's in the right place, but I think he just doesn't know how to express himself properly. It took me some time to get to know him properly because of it and I heard it got him in some trouble. He keeps taking about this noble's duty and I found that annoying at first, but now I know where he's coming from. Doesn't mean that I agree with him on everything, of course. 'It's a noble's duty to be diligent and serve as an example for others' just doesn't fit me," she replied, speaking in a weird tone at the end.

A weird noise escaped Marianne's lips. It was short-lived, but it almost startled it anyway. Another involuntary action it wasn't familiar with. How much more was there that it didn't know about its own body?

In any case, Hilda seemed to be pleased by that. Was it something good, then?

"Um, it's just...that...that really does sound like him," Marianne tried to explain. The girl gave her an odd look, then shook her head. What was that all about?

"Hey, I got to hear you laugh for once. I hope I can hear that again!" she said, making a similar noise...laughing? It wasn't exactly the same, but it was easy on the ears.

Hilda kept talking about her friends for a while and every name she mentioned provoked same feelings. It was starting to get somewhat concerning, but Marianne couldn't figure out why it kept recognizing these names in spite of never meeting any of these humans. It didn't ask about it either. There's no way she would be able to answer that question anyway.

At least the human's wish came true, some of the stories she told made it laugh again. Humans really were an odd bunch.

But there was another thing that bothered Marianne.

"There is something I wanted to ask...If you don't mind it..."

"Hm? What is it?"

"Earlier...you said that someone taught you how to handle animals...Who was that?" it asked, looking at Sophie resting nearby.

"Oh, right, I did say that...Her name was...Edmund," she replied. She didn't speak with the same energy as she did when talking about her other friends. Her expression was slightly different too.

"Can you tell me more about it? Or is it..."

"No, it's okay, I'll tell you. She was a pretty timid girl, so reclusive that some people had never heard her talk. As you've probably figured out by now, she was really good with animals. She spent a lot of time with them. It seemed like she was more comfortable talking with them than people. It's not that she hated us or anything, she just lacked confidence in herself. She got along with us eventually, but it took some effort to get her to open up...Unfortunately, she had to leave not so long ago...I kinda miss her," Hilda said, looking...elsewhere.

"I hope you'll see each other again."

"Yeah...me too..."

The two remained silent for some time. Marianne wasn't sure what to say, it wasn't exactly good at starting conversations. Hilda's words from earlier came to mind, but it had no idea how to make a joke.

"You have good friends on your side..." it said, unable to think of anything else. Its words were genuine, but there was an unpleasant feeling that gnawed on her. "I have none...A beast can't have friends..."

"Don't be like that, you have me, remember? And I'll introduce you to them, so, my friends will be yours too! I'm sure you'll get along nicely."

That was such a ridiculous idea. There was no way that would ever happen. Marianne was a beast, a vile, disgusting beast who only knew how to kill. Just one human tolerating it was already unacceptable, but for others to offer it company? Never. It didn't deserve anything like that in the first place.

...And yet, it didn't tell the girl any of that.