It's been a while. Got a bit busy.

Since such details are never gonna be relevant, Marianne's beast marks are split between two bodies. "The Devil XV" is carved on the monstrous head as you'd expect them to be while the crest is sort of tattooed on her human tongue, near the tip.

A few days had passed just like that. While Marianne didn't talk much, Hilda made up for that silence by chatting away for hours. It was not only quite useful for letting its eyes rest, but it also enjoyed listening to the human talk. She seemed to be quite talented at holding a one-sided conversation, which was definitely needed here when the other party was so inept at something as simple as talking to others. It felt bad for wasting her time like that, but it couldn't even tell her to stop.

Hilda kept talking about her friends, all of whom were apparently studying at an academy together. It had a general idea of what that was, but it learned more about it from what the girl told the beast. Simply studying with all those people seemed to have given her so many stories to tell, which she was great at too. Unfortunately, that unpleasant feeling always came back and soured the mood when she talked about her friends. It still had no idea what it was, but it didn't want to trouble the girl any more than it already had so far to ask her about it.

There was nothing wrong with that though. It wasn't supposed to feel good, it had no right to. Perhaps that feeling served as a reminder of it when the beast started feeling too comfortable, which has recently been the case.

Currently, it was asleep and dreaming again. It was another odd one, but if nothing else, it wasn't stressful. It had only its human body with legs again and it was in a very large room it couldn't recognize, but it felt something unusual at the sight of it. Marianne itself stood alone with its hands clasped in front of its face and its head tilted down. This complete silence was calming.

Then it heard footsteps. For a second, it was alarmed and turned around to face whoever that was, but once it saw them, it felt at ease, maybe even safe. It wasn't the kind of safety it felt when facing humans completely incapable of meaningfully hurting it and thus was in no danger to begin with, no, it was different.

Their features were blurry save for their colors and especially their eyes. They had a blank stare that one would normally find a bit disturbing and yet Marianne didn't mind it. It was glad to see this person for some reason.

This mysterious person with blue eyes opened their mouth to speak and, as it generally went in its dreams, no words came out, but it somehow felt better anyway and even seemed to respond to them. When they finally turned to leave, it desperately wanted to stop them, but they were gone before it could say a word.

The next moment, right before waking up, it saw a scarred face and red hair.

Now awake, the beast had to stretch out. Sometimes, after having dreams like that, it needed some time to readjust to its body, which it found weird though it didn't take long enough to become a concern. It just had to be careful not to let all the books fall off its monstrous head. Picking them up would be rather difficult if they fell onto the ground.

Then the smell hit it. It recognized Hilda's smell, but there was another one, the one it had far more experience with. It was human blood.

It didn't take long to find out where it was coming from. When Hilda arrived, Marianne immediately noticed the tears and cuts on her clothes and some relatively minor wounds. Her hair was a bit messy too, but in a different way from the day they first met.

"Good morning! Slept well?" the human greeted it. Her expression was strained and her movements weren't relaxed like they normally were.

"…Good morning," the beast replied, more focused on her body at that moment.

Hilda made a gesture it now recognized as a request to lower its reptilian head to let her climb on top, something that took longer this time. The smell of blood was unbearable at that point and if it weren't for a mix of self-restraint, curiosity and the girl's position making it physically impossible, it would have eaten her.

It wasn't until she was several feet in front of her human body that it finally noticed she was carrying something.

"How about we try something new today? I brought pastries before, so, I figured we could host a tea party," she said, wincing a bit as she started preparing for whatever she had in mind.

"Come closer."

"Hm? What is it?"

As soon as she got close enough, Marianne suddenly reached out and grabbed one of her wrists, startling the girl as it yanked her arm. There were some bruises under her sleeve and one much more noticeable cut on her palm.

"Who hurt you?" it asked, maintaining eye contact for once.

"Oh, that, well, I ran into some bandits. They thought I was easy picking and attacked me to take my stuff, I guess."

Bandits. Something about that word made it feel uneasy and it didn't know why. It did encounter some before, but they always ran away at the sight of such a large beast. Even when they posed no threat, it always felt off when it saw them.

But hearing that brought an entirely different unpleasant feeling. Was it because someone else tried claiming what was the beast's to take? That felt like the most obvious explanation for it. It didn't waste days waiting for the right moment to end her life only for someone else to do it.

"Really worked up a sweat back there, but-"

Without waiting for her to finish her explanation, the beast brought its face closer and licked the cut, slowly dragging its abnormally long tongue along the wounded flesh and making Hilda shudder for some reason.

Marianne briefly thought about it before, but it turned out that Hilda's blood tasted very similar to its own though the differences were noticeable. It was rather similar to how buns differed in taste. Did other humans have blood with different tastes as well?

While its human body was stronger than regular humans, Hilda was stronger and freed her arm with moderate effort before the beast could move on to the rest of her arm.

"D-D-Don't do that!" she yelped, making a weird face as she tried to shake off its saliva. Marianne noticed how her face turned red as well, but it wasn't sure why.

"Is something wrong?" it asked, tilting its human head.

"W-Well, don't do that again! Why did y…" she trailed off, looking at her hand. It had already healed.

"I was trying to help…"

"No no, it's okay, I just didn't…Well, can you do this any other way?"

"Oh, um, sorry, I-I'll try…"

As sturdy as its hide was, healing magic was necessary against human forces properly prepared to fight it off. That was the main reason Marianne lasted this long in spite of its frequent encounters with humans.

Hilda's wounds were relatively minor, taking little time or effort to heal.

"Phew, I feel so much better! Thanks a bunch!"

Marianne still thought about those bandits, but for now, she was safe and that was more important. It needed her alive for now at least.

"Now where were we? Oh, right, tea!"

Watching Hilda prepare tea was oddly interesting and somewhat confusing for different reasons. It felt like it knew some steps, yet others weren't familiar to it. It still had no answer to why it had fragmentary knowledge of so many things, let alone why it even knew anything like this.

The strong smell of what it assumed to be tea was another thing it recognized. It could almost give it a name too, it was on the tip of its tongue, but it couldn't quite grasp it.

With everything done, Hilda sat down next to where everything was laid down. Unable to do the same, Marianne's human body had to lean forward and rest on the scales of its monstrous head. It was rather awkward, but it let it reach out for pastries and its cup of tea without forcing Hilda to get up and hand it everything every single time.

"I probably should have asked this way earlier, but are you okay with this? I mean this is all a part of your body, right? I can't imagine someone having a tea party on my back or something," Hilda asked.

"It's okay, I don't mind," it replied. It felt extra weight, but it wasn't enough to bother something this big and even if it did, it wouldn't complain.

"Well, if you say so. I'll admit, I don't drink this blend often, but you might like it," the human said, pouring tea into cups.

"It smells good…I'll try it."

"Wait, no, it's still-"

Whatever warning she had, it was too late as Marianne had already emptied her cup. It was sweet, but it was a very different kind of sweet from the buns it ate before. An…interesting taste, but Marianne loved it.

"Are you alright?" she asked. There was another expression on her face it had never seen before.

"…Yes?"

"Um…nevermind. You're supposed to let it cool a bit before drinking so that you don't get burned, but I guess it's fine for you. Oh, and don't drink it all, savor its taste. If you run out of tea so quickly, you'll have less time to chat with your friends too."

"I see…This is…more complicated than I expected…"

"Don't worry, we're not at some big important event, there's nobody here to judge you for making tiny mistakes! Hey, why don't you help yourself to some pastries as well? These should go well with this tea. While we're at it, got anything you want to talk about? I have plenty of topics to choose from if you don't."

There was one topic Marianne was very interested in.

"I want you to tell me more about yourself," it replied. It was about to drink its tea again, but then it remembered her advice.

"Hm? That's what you want to know? There's really not much to talk about. Daughter of House Goneril, spoiled and lazy. You probably know everything there is to know about me at this point…Well, I guess there's one more thing. I make all sorts of pretty things in my spare time, which I have plenty of. Necklaces, bracelets, that kind of stuff. You know, I could make some for you too! Got any suggestions?"

"O-Oh, um, I…I don't know. I don't think anything will look good on me either…"

"I have an eye for things like these. I can tell you that you're wrong and why. Let's start with your neck…"

Marianne didn't even realize how far off the topic they went from that point onward.