He wonders the same of Toriel--and everyone else on the Moira. Or rather, he wonders its reverse--humans are so easily invested, so easily entangled in things and people outside themselves. It's as though they can't not. Six months now, and he is no closer to understanding that than he ever was. Their angers and sorrows, their frustrations and joys... all of it comes from this hopeless, helpless tangle with everything not themselves.

"You say it is no longer itself. Do you mean to say, then, that it is something else?"

His expression has fallen back into seriousness--of a speculative sort, at first. Then he pauses, putting a bit of weight on the silence. "Something that is not a person to you?"

There's little pause before he continues: "Is that why you pity it?"