Setting: That same evening at Sanctuary – sky turning deep blue, café lights flickering on
Eiran offered to walk her to the retreat house.
Aira didn't speak much during the walk, and Eiran appreciated that. Most people filled the silence with noise. She let it stretch, let it breathe, as the gravel path curved past the vineyard and opened to the small collection of stone cottages.
"This is yours, then?" she finally asked, nodding toward the café lights in the distance.
Eiran nodded. "It started as a dream. Something I used to sketch at night when I couldn't sleep."
She looked back at the horizon, where the sun had melted into orange and blue. "And now it holds people like me."
There was a quiet admiration in her tone—not flattery, but recognition. Like she saw not just what he built, but why he built it.
She paused at her cottage door, her hand resting on the handle. "I've been feeling a bit… out of place lately," she admitted. "Like I've been walking in a world that doesn't speak my language anymore."
Eiran didn't respond right away. Not with words. Instead, he bent down and plucked a small sprig of lavender from the bush near her porch. He handed it to her.
"Maybe this place can learn your language," he said.
Aira took it like a secret. "I think… it already speaks it."
Later That Night
Location: The café porch. Eiran sit alone, but not for long.
Eiran was sipping a cup of tea under a canopy of stars, the warm light of the lanterns casting a soft glow on the wooden deck. Eiran haven't expected company.
But footsteps came again—barefoot this time. Eiran looked up.
Aira.
She wore a simple linen robe from the retreat house, her hair pulled back loosely, face free of anything but calm. She carried her notebook, the one he saw earlier, and a cup of something steaming in her hands.
"Can I sit?"
Eiran gestured to the chair beside him.
She didn't speak at first. Just took in the stillness. Then, flipping her notebook open, she said quietly:
"The air is scented with rosemary and lavender, And somewhere between the silence and the breeze, I think I found a part of myself I forgot I missed."
Eiran turned to her.
"You wrote that just now?"
She nodded. "I write when I feel something shift inside me."
"And did it shift today?"
She looked at him—not searching, but already knowing. "Yes. The second you handed me that lavender."
He said nothing. The wind answered for you, stirring the trees with the gentlest of sighs.
And So It Began…
Not with fireworks. Not with confessions or bold declarations.
But with a shared silence. A poem under starlight. A sprig of lavender in her hand, and a new softness in your chest.
She didn't just arrive at the Sanctuary. She arrived for you. And slowly, without rush, a story began to write itself between their two hearts.