Iona hesitated only a moment before she moved, easing herself beneath the covers beside the older woman. The mattress dipped with her weight, the familiar scent of herbs and dried leaves wrapping around her in a way that felt strangely comforting.
For a time, she said nothing.
Erin waited.
The silence stretched.
“I am happy,” Iona said at last, her voice softer now that she was lying in the quiet of the room. “Happier than I have been in a very long time.”
“Aye,” Erin said. “I gathered as much.”
“And it feels…” Iona paused, searching for the right shape of it. “It feels easy.”
Erin snorted quietly. “That sounds suspicious.”
Iona smiled faintly. “It does, does it nae?”
“Aye. Life rarely makes a habit of being easy for long.”
“That is just it,” Iona said, turning her head slightly to look at her. “I keep waiting for it to stop.”
Erin’s gaze softened, though she did not interrupt.
“I keep thinking,” Iona continued, her voice growing quieter as the truth of it unfolded, “that something will happen. That I have overlooked something. That this… this peace will be taken from me because I was foolish enough to believe I could have it.”
The words hung between them, fragile and honest in a way Iona had not allowed herself to be in some time.
Erin let out a slow breath through her nose.
“That is a habit,” she said. “Nae a truth.”
Iona’s fingers tightened slightly in the blanket. “It has been truth before.”
“Aye,” Erin said. “And it has made ye expect it always will be.”
Iona did not deny it.
“It is difficult,” she admitted, “to believe that I may simply have this. That I may be… content, and nothing will come to take it away.”
Erin turned her head more fully toward her then, her eyes clear despite the late hour.
“Ye think happiness must be paid for,” she said.
Iona swallowed. “Aye.”
“And that if ye daenae see the price yet, it will be demanded later.”
“Sure.”
Erin studied her for a long moment, then reached out and flicked her lightly on the arm.
Iona blinked. “What was that for?”
“For being foolish,” Erin said.
Iona let out a small, startled laugh. “I thought as much.”
“Listen to me,” Erin continued, her voice firm now in a way that left little room for argument. “Ye have lived through enough hardship to earn every bit of ease that comes to ye now. Ye daenae need to fear it away before it has had a chance to settle.”