#m talks stuff

"Was it you… Was it you that freed me?" "You smell like rotting flesh… and bloodlust and a lack of respect for life…" "But don't think I'm just going to follow you around from now on! We could have a lot of fun together… if you remember to treat me well!"

The first time you find Serenade sealed behind a bloodied rock in the Fractured Shrines. Note that everything it says here is surrounded by quote marks, unlike any other NPC (at least out of those I had screenshotted).

Who are we fighting!? Ah… Who cares! I hope you've got some food for me. *yawn* …What did you wake me up for? "I missed you so much." "It's just me and you from now on." "It's so much better when we're together." "Where have you been? Who were you with?" "I'm not letting you out of my sight ever again."

These are things Serenade says when invoked, meaning when you activate the skill, letting it roam and hit enemies on its own.

At least the landscape is nice. That last monster was kinda spicy… I feel like the island has changed a bit… Nah, I must be imagining things. I'm glad I don't have a sense of smell.

These are what's called 'smalltalk' lines, Serenade just commenting on things in downtime. Kinda funny how it says it doesn't have a sense of smell after pointing out Beheaded's smell at their first meeting… I assume it's an oversight, but who knows. None of these are in quotation marks.

I'm boooored… Come on, hit something! Give me monsters!! Where's the fight?

When Serenade complains about getting bored, none of it is in quote marks either.

You never use me anyway! I'm off. You're boring, ciao! Wake me up when there's some action. "Why can't we kill things together!?" "You're always busy!" "We don't kill like we used to anymore…"

This is what Serenade says when disappearing back into the skill slot, which happens when you don't take it into your hand and use it for about 30s (I think, I haven't played in a while).

When you do take it into your hand, however,

Yes! Let's kill them! Come on! Kill them! "Nobody handles me like you do."

you get some enthusiasm. And it's one of my favourite visuals in the game, the fading golden afterimage of the Beheaded standing with Serenade raised in the air so proudly. like a beautiful statue.

When you release it to mark enemies on its own again, it will say

Let's go hunt some more!

There is a bunch of lines related specifically to marking enemies that I've decided not to include here, it's not particularly interesting besides Serenade saying "Yummy!" and "I wanna eat it!" for itself and asking "Feels good, doesn't it?" after encouraging the Beheaded to "Consume the marks!".

In the transition areas between biomes, you have the option to summon your pets. If Serenade is activate at the same time as a different pet, it will make a bloody mess of it and say

Is there something wrong?

netting you the achievement called "Me, jealous?". However, if you try to pet Serenade and don't respect its boundaries the first two times, you'll get the sharp end as well.

The dialogue file lists the following lines here:

Never try that again! No touching! If you go looking to get sliced, you'll get it... Okay, we're on! So long, dummy.

though in my several attempts I was only able to get the ones you see in the video. Additionally, unlike all other Serenade words that don't have the frame (like its introduction), these are in white instead of red; I have no idea what that could mean or how intentional it was, since this was a later update than the Serenade DLC.

The curious thing about Serenade is that it seems to speak in two voices - metaphorically, since the actual sound is always the same; some of its words have markedly more emotional attachment or even possessiveness to them, and those are in "quotation marks". It seems unlikely to me they'd be actual quotations from someone else, like when the Beheaded reads out passages from grimoires, letters etc., so I think it's simply a way of denoting that something is plainly different about how or why it speaks those things. One person I shared my findings with suggested it sounds like emotional manipulation, which I'm inclined to agree with, but am leaving open to interpretation and would love to get your thoughts on.

One last thought I'd like to share about Serenade has to do with the mechanics around how it works - the dual skill/weapon mode of operation and the time limit that resets when a mark on an enemy is consumed. The way it's set up means that if you want to effectively use Serenade as a weapon, you're forced to dance with it - take it into your hand, deal blows, let it roam again, repeat. The first time that I managed to properly use Serenade this way and realised this, it was such a beautiful moment to me…