Eilidh's eyes had grown heavy long before she started her trudging trek up toward her home, but with nothing in terms of a respite until she broke past the threshold of her entryway, she had no choice but to press on, forcing her feet to carry on, one step at a time. Night had fallen some time ago, leaving her with a lantern on loan from the McPhee estate, which Ariella had assured her she hadn't a need to be returned, but of course it would end up back in her home. After dinner, the three guests hadn't stayed much longer, with Bella making a swift exit before the two others following along soon after. Skyla had asked, to the point of insisting, to accompany Eilidh home in the darkness, but she had been adamant that Skyla had need of returning home for her work in the morning, and such responsibilities needn't be disrupted for the purposes of fawning over wild animals.

So, she had made the trek on her own, finding the solitude rather calming beneath the curtain of stars and the moon, the heavens beckoning her on even as exhaustion did the opposite. She had begun to grit her teeth, griping out loud as she approached her hermit home, as though verbalizing her complaints were a helpful method in keeping herself awake.

"Alright, you stupid hill," she uttered under her breath, stopping just outside her door and turning around, eying the path from her doorstep all the way down the foothills to Dumbarton, "Once again, you bow down to /me. Think you can get one better on me, huh?"

Snuffing the lantern and sitting it aside, she unlocked the door and pushed it open, stepping inside, "Dumb little hill. That's about the most surprising thing you could have thrown at me. Making me submit to exhaustion. Pshaw! Like you haven't ever met-"

Eilidh dropped the basket in her hand, hitting the ground with a weighted THUNK. Her eyes bulged in her head, staring across the main living area of her home, altogether awed, confused, and befuddled by the sight in front of her. There, near the fireplace, where she had left the seal, there instead lay-

"Naked lady in my home..." she whispered in a worried utterance, "Naked lady in my home."

She quickly scooped up the scrolled-up parchment, retreating into her kitchen and ducking behind a cabinet, eyes still wide in shock. She unfurled the parchment, "Good gods, Bella, what did you say about this?!"

Her eyes only scrolled for a moment before she recognized her own shock, tossing the scroll aside, "Oh, you stupid-!" She peeked overtop the counter, glancing over toward the woman lying naked on the floor, strewn out in a messy sprawl as though she'd simply been rolled out there.

"Okay, Eilidh, calm down," she whispered to herself, quietly, "Just- calm down. What would- Oh, what would anybody do if they came home to a naked woman lying on their floor?!" She spun around, sitting there on her kitchen floor, biting at her knuckle. "Just breathe for a second. Empathy always is a good start. If I were lying there, naked- I'd want to be covered up. Okay."

She stood up, rushing to her bedroom and grabbing a blanket from atop her bed. Rushing back into the living area, she raised the sheet so that it hid the woman from view, forcing Eilidh to stare at her feet to keep herself from stepping onto the woman's body, halting her advance just nearby. She readied herself, launching the blanket overtop the surprise guest where it fluttered lazily in the air, hovering back toward Eilidh as it hung there toward their ground, ultimately covering just the woman's bottom half. Eilidh bit her lip angrily, turning back around and returning to her room for another sheet, this time making sure such an outcome wasn't possible.

Now covered from the neck down, Eilidh stepped back into the supposed safety of the kitchen, arms crossed as her hand held her chin, self-soothing her ambling mind as she watched, curiously, the mystery woman before her. Who in the hell /was she?! and, for that matter, where had the seal gone?! That matter had escaped her in the jolting surprise of it all, but now, she had noticed that the creature was nowhere to be found. Had this woman overheard something in town? Was she an employee of Ariella's? having overheard and rushed out here to meet this animal only to befall such an odd fate?

Perhaps, but- Eilidh's eyes examined the woman's face. She didn't look like she was from here. Her hair did, auburn as it was, but her skin was tawny and brown like the fleeting leaves of autumn, so evocative of something Eilidh had forgotten so long ago in this dead of winter. It was warm and almost- /alive in a way she hadn't known skin to be before.

"Who are you?" she asked quietly.

Shaking her head, Eilidh muttered to herself, "I'm going crazy, aren't I?" She spun around, grabbing a sack of Dutch-imported coffee and shoving it against her face, inhaling the smell until her olfactories fired across the whole of her brain it felt like. She pulled it away, turning back, still finding the woman there.

"Fuck," she complained.

She pinched herself, she rubbed her eyes, held her breath, tensed her toes inside her boots, spinning in place.

The woman was still there.

Eilidh sighed, "Okay. Maybe you're real, then." She slowly returned to her room, grabbing a pillow and gently leaning out beyond the threshold of the door, peeking across the room as though even that might have shuttered the mirage, though it clearly hadn't. She frowned at the result, groaning before approaching the woman, this time kneeling near her head as she readied the pillow, preparing to lift her head and slide it beneath.

"Oh gods," she complained in near silence, reaching for the back of her neck, where she then slid her hand up to take a gentle cupping hold of the back of her scalp. The woman's hair fell in a cascade of whisps as she slid the pillow beneath her, a gentle sigh escaping Eilidh as she seemingly managed to walk away from the situation without incident.

She shut her eyes, pulling her hand free, "Okay... Well, she can't complain if she's comfortable."

Her eyes opened, only to meet-

"GODS!" Eilidh threw herself backward, recoiling at the sudden sensation of shock at the woman's eyes staring up at her. She quickly stood up, stepping behind a nearby chair as the woman tilted her head to the side, staring at Eilidh with what seemed to be awe in her eyes.

"I-! I have a-!" Eilidh recalled having left her musket in town, suddenly having to reorient her strategy, "-something!"

The woman lifted her arms, pausing before turning her eyes down to examine her arms, confused by the barrier that had constricted her movement - the sheets. She waved her hands around, apparently entertained by the sudden sensation of being concealed, leaving Eilidh confused.

"Are-" she muttered, "Are you okay?"

Without much more preamble, the woman kicked off the blankets, causing Eilidh to throw a hand in front of her, "Hey! Now, let's have a little decorum, shall we?!"

She stood, turning her head around, distress growing on her face. Her head tilted to the sides, her body crouching here and there as she examined beneath furniture, leaving Eilidh perplexed, before stepping rather quickly toward the front door. Hurriedly, Eilidh stepped into her path.

"Hey! Hey! It's freezing out there! You're not going anywhere without any clothes on!" she stared at the woman's eyes, rather angrily, before slowly raising a hand to, once again, cover the lower frame of her vision.

The woman watched her in return, her distress grown into confusion. She turned, looking out of the nearby window, making a move toward the glass pane.

"Hey!" Eilidh dove to cover the window, "Don't you just-!"

With a vicious quickness, the woman twisted back toward the door before Eilidh could even tell she had done so, ripping the door open and dashing out into the snow. Eilidh's eyes flew wide as she followed her rush past the window, up the mountain where she had been recovered just the night before.

"Cheeky little fucker..." she muttered to herself before giving chase, shutting the door behind her.

Thankfully well shocked upon entry, she hadn't shed her coat nor her boots, leaving Eilidh well able to pursue the woman, quickly hurrying along the hillside, trudging as best she could through the thicker patches of snow. Thankful for the lack of blustery flurries, at least, Eilidh still spat curses as she did her best to give chase, equally at the conditions as well as the woman whom she was currently bounding after.

"What in the fucking world?!" she cursed under her breath, "You wake up and just dart out into the winter's night?! Have you absolutely lost your mind?!" Her head rose to examine the trail of footsteps left for her to track. "Give me a reason to go right back home; I dare you. I swear. I'm sure I'm just as nuts as you are, putting in this much effort for somebody so ready to die of frostbite or exposure or- whatever else."

Shoving her hands into her coat pockets, Eilidh's teeth chattered, rounding a bend in the hillside, coming near the area where she had first spotted the seal encased in ice. The change in conditions allowed a much better view of the environment, though it did little to sate any of her curiosity, based upon anger as it was; Eilidh cleared a small divot in the hill before peering down a slope where she saw the woman on her hands and knees, digging amongst the snowbank where, Eilidh surmised, she had freed her just last night.

"What are you doing?!" she shouted, "Do you even understand how cold it is?!"

The woman ignored her, causing Eilidh to curse once more as she began down the embankment, "Fuck me!" She began shedding her coat, yanking it furiously from her arms and dragging it behind her in the snow as she approached the now-panicked woman. "Hey! I'm not gonna have this on my conscience, so put this on before you-"

She dropped the coat over the woman's shoulders, causing her to whip her head around in a moment of shock. Her eyes reflected the night sky, causing Eilidh's jaw to drop as she noticed such a phenomenon; they glimmered in the darkness, lights unto themselves. The more she stared, it became apparent that they were reflecting; less like the moon, they were like the sun, almost as if they were producing some miraculous iridescence.

"You-" Eilidh forced herself to speak, "You're going to die out here."

The woman didn't scowl so much as frown with disapproval before returning to her digging, though she did her best to continue in such a way that Eilidh's coat remained overtop her. Shaking her head, Eilidh grumbled with frustration as she glared off into the distance, rubbing her arms as the chill immediately began to assault her skin.

"I swear, if I catch a cold because of you, I'm never gonna hear the end of it."

Eilidh returned to the woman, shaking her head in bewilderment before noticing- Her forehead tensed, narrowing with a glaring realization that she had failed to notice in her shock. There, around the woman's ankle-

"What..." Eilidh's breath was vacant, stolen by the chilled night air as she turned, watching the woman grab at something within the snowbank. She gave a ferocious tug, the sound of ice tearing apart forcing itself across their ears as she rose to her feet, shedding Eilidh's coat and picking up, ostensibly, what she had come all this way to retrieve.

Her eyes like the moon itself, Eilidh watched as she opened up the cloak of seal pelt, covering up her entire body with it until nearly concealed fully by its mouth. Whatever cold she had been feeling, it had entirely been lost on her - the only sensation she felt in that moment was awe at what she was seeing.

The woman reached down to grab the coat, offering it back to Eilidh. When she didn't readily accept, due to her shock, the woman jiggled it in her hand until Eilidh was pulled back to reality.

"You-" she took the coat, though failed to immediately put it on, "-you're a-"

Appearing rather comfortable, now encased within her pelt, the woman tilted her head, watching Eilidh in curious thought.

"A selkie...?"

The woman's ears wiggled, though she didn't otherwise answer.