archiveofourown.org/works/64996so many colours it nearly broke my heart (day two)
Raven (singlecrow
Holi dawned fast and clean and hot, and the energy of the crowds crackled beneath their skin. "Come on!" Padma shouted, running down the stairs of the old house and throwing the doors open to the day, and Parvati watched her run, saw her as though for the first time - the grace and fluidity of her body, the smooth brown of her skin glowing with the sun - and with the mirror of that strength, that beautiful grace, swung her arms and opened her palms in ecstatic libation.
"I hate you," Padma said, a moment later, through a haze of red paint.
"I hate you too," Parvati said, cordially. "Now catch me!"
Padma caught her - after running through the door and down the street and over the water and back and up the stairs and down the stairs and out under the sun. The paint ended up in her hair and in her mouth, tasting pleasantly non-toxic and green. "Gotcha," Padma said quietly, grinning, and Parvati blew paint fountains.
They sat there, out of breath and bespattered, and watched the people filter past - red, green, purple, saffron. A teenage girl, perhaps fourteen or fifteen, was lingering behind a group of boys, surreptitious in her bare feet. "Nithin!" she shouted, sudddenly - the boy turned, and she transformed him, with a swift application, into a vision of gold.
Padma laughed. "For one person at least, he's a god," she said.
Parvati said, "Do you think, if there had been no war, we would have... you know." She waved her hands, taking in girls and boys, sunlight, joy.
Padma nodded. "Probably."
Parvati snorted. "Where are our gods?"
"Inside ourselves," Padma said, and poured some paint down her neck.
