She's naked!

The buxom beauty that had captured Hilda's fancy was just as nude as she was! Just the sight was almost enough to make her flood the ground yet again, if she'd had anything left in herself to flood. As she walked down her porch steps, not looking in her direction, Hilda watched, as confused as she was enraptured.

As dark as it was outside, Hilda could tell the woman was just as ravishing as she'd imagined. Her skin was uniformly tanned, the muted lighting of the night covering her body in a cool blue hue that seemed to mimic the starry sky above. Her blonde hair stood out like a majestic ocean of starlight, rolling over her shoulders beautifully. Even her eyes, staring forward in a trance-like state, appeared like gems in the midnight tones.

As she walked past her naked trespasser, not acknowledging her at all, Hilda's confusion only grew. That morning she'd been furious at her for sleeping in the barn and even more so for leaving her... drippings on the ground. But now she was ignoring her and going about her business, completely naked herself even. This was strange, even for one of Hilda's adventures. Tentatively, she followed the Farmstress as she trudged over to the chicken coop. She opened the gate and calmly walked through, shutting it behind her as she did. Hilda followed her, tripping over the fence and falling into the mud, showing far less grace with the ways of the peasant than she'd care to admit.

As she shook the mud from her hair, sighing at the work of her bath was completely undone, she saw the farm girl kneeling inside the chicken coop, bare butt grazing the wooden floor inside. She waved her fingers past the rows of chickens, some asleep and some quietly chirping at the intruder. It seemed like she was counting them, but her hand was moving in such a fluid motion that it looked more like she was conducting an orchestra. It was calming, in a way.

After a few moments, the nude composer crawled out of the chicken coop and stood up, baring her beautiful chest and lower lips to her grateful audience of one. However, Hilda managed to take her eyes off her skin for a moment to look at her face, just as blank and expressionless as before, and seeing the unfocused look in her eyes finally put two and two together.

This woman was sleepwalking.

Now, Hilda had her fair share of sleepwalking experiences before. Several of her maids had suffered from the ailment, and she'd caught them on numerous occasions making late-night trips to the kitchen and through her wardrobe. Her mother had always told her never to wake a person who was sleepwalking as that could be dangerous, and she passed on this knowledge to the rest of the staff in the keep. It struck her as odd that so many of her servants were sleepwalkers and that they all seemed to partake in her wares and clothes during their trips and promptly stored them in places Hilda could never find afterward, but it would have been rude to chastise them about something they couldn't control. Besides, since she spread the word about the proper protocol for dealing with sleepwalking, everyone in the keep seemed much happier, and some even seemed to dress nicer following that. It was probably her imagination, though.

That was all to say Hilda knew better than to interrupt this journey. Best to let it run its course and keep her out of harm's way until it did. She just hoped that things didn't go too awry.