Title: Starfruit
Characters: Padma Patil, Parvati Patil
Author's Note: Eek, this one filled me with so much nostalgia about my own summers in India I gave my big brother a call.


Padma's childhood summers were filled with starfruit. Starfruit and India and Parvati. Sitting right outside their grandmother's house, with cotton skirts and bare feet and sticky fingers- that was childhood. The jingling of the bells around their ankles as they danced, adults chattering unintelligibly in Hindi and Telugu- that was childhood. A time of smiling and laughter and Padma and Parvati.

They were always Padma and Parvati. Parvati and Padma. Padmaandparvati. Parvatiandpadma. The serious one and the reckless one. The one who would make up the stories and the one that would act them out. The one that would eat slowly and carefully and the one that would stuff her mouth full. It was what they were and what they always would be- two pieces of a puzzle, integral to each other's very being.

Until they weren't.

Until they weren't Padma and Parvati anymore. There weren't bare feet and hot, Indian summers. They stopped wandering into each other's rooms at night and stopped dressing alike. They stopped being Padma and Parvati. They stopped being Parvatiandpadma, Padmaandparvati. Instead, there was just Padma. Just Parvati.

But, once, every summer, they still eat starfruit, with sticky fingers and bare feet and cotton skirts. Remembering the unintelligible Hindi and Telugu and the sound of bells jingling around their ankles as they danced. Remembering Padmaandparvati, Parvatiandpadma.

Because, at the end of the day, no one loves you quite like your sister.