"You needn't apologize," Daine says with a sheepish smile, curling her tail around her forepaws. It makes her look a little like an overgrown housecat, but that's sort of the point. Whatever she can do to alarm him less is no trouble. "I can pick a different shape, if that'd be easier. I just can't change back entirely human, is all." Unless she ducked behind the cottage for privacy or something, at which point, it would hardly matter what shape she was in. She'd still have to holler her half of the conversation.

She doesn't glance back at the cottage, but the tip of her tail does twitch pensively in response to his question. "I'm not sure. There's no mage behind it, as far as I've been able to tell -- or if there is, they haven't been visiting. It's like the cottage itself is bespelled. But it turned one of my friends into merfolk, so it's not above changing someone's shape."