Their easy verbal and physical bantering was indeed a long-standing habit now, and there was a comfort in it. It was almost a ritual, of a sort, her token resistance to the way he took an interest in her life. She wouldn't say so to him, she wouldn't really even admit it to herself, but she would be disappointed if he ever actually did stop asking.
Morrie followed Krishna up the sloping green, glad that he didn't try to help her as though she couldn't manage a gentle hill with a cane. She nodded a greeting at those they passed, but didn't engage in conversation. Most people around town knew better than to expect cheerful small talk from her; Morrie was not the kind of person who just happily chatted.
Once she was comfortably seated next to Krishna and he asked the follow-up question she knew he would ask, she tilted her face towards him and considered him for a moment. Krishna was someone she had known for most of her life. He had moved to Glynn decades ago, so she had met him when she was very young. Even before she had met Calvin, though Morrie hadn't had much cause to get as close to Krishna as the pharmacist as Calvin the Robor, at the time. She certainly wasn't as intimately close with Krishna, but they had become much closer in the years since her injury, and he had certainly become someone who felt... permanent in her life. Morrie didn't have many people like that.
"I went to see a healer. She was... unhelpful," Morrie replied, but the way she hesitated made it clear there was more to it. There was no point being coy about it. Krishna would figure out Lachlan was back sooner or later, if he hadn't already. "I located my brother while I was there. He has returned to accept the position of gardener at Hiraeth."
Not that it was called Hiraeth anymore. Morrie always called it Rosier Manor whenever anyone might hear her, but this was Krishna, and he likely didn't think of it as truly belonging to the new masters of the manor either.