A/N: Meet our next protagonist, Daya! <3 

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The week-long wedding is finally coming to a close.

I sigh, running a hand through my long, dark hair. The tendrils of black blend with the dark whorls of henna painted along my fingers and hands, snaking along to my wrists and arms. My anarkali suit is making me sweat, and my eyelids flicker in tiredness.

Celebrations are always plentiful in my culture. Indian weddings have so many traditions— the meeting of the families, the sagai ceremony, the sangeet...and as part of the bride's family, I have been paraded everywhere.

I don't mind. Not really. Weddings are fun: the gifts, the dresses, the music. I can't complain when, next to eating, bhangra is my favourite thing. I can dance all night, even better than in My Fair Lady.

But I do mind the incessant, nosy, inconsiderate questions.

Now that my eldest sisters are all married, all the attention is on me, the youngest. I was too young when Lakshmi, the eldest Sawari daughter and my always-perfect sister, married. Back then, I was only fourteen, and the only thing I was questioned about was what mischief I was trying to get into.

And around two years after Lakshmi, Maryam, the second eldest, married. At sixteen, and preparing for exams and university, I was left alone. Anika, two years my senior, had taken the probing questions and snapped that she never wanted to marry, or have babies. I'd honoured her, I'd worshipped her, and most of all, I saw in her what I hoped for myself.

No complications. No husband.

Now Anika is newlywed, and my hope for the future seems to wither before my eyes.

Only Maryam's marriage has been arranged: she requested it from our father. Ever practical and obedient, Maryam hadn't wanted to talk to boys until there came a use for them. So, she had met and married within a few months, and now had two children.

Lakshmi had been the romantic: she'd confessed to falling in love at nineteen and dating a boy in secret for a year. When they told their parents, they were engaged and married quickly after. Regardless, Lakshmi and her husband remained my idea of heterosexual love and cuteness...until Anika.

Anika, the headstrong third daughter of the Sawari family, ran headfirst into her future husband— literally.

She was late for a job interview and was sprinting down the road in the pouring rain, her umbrella hiding her vision, until she smacked hard into someone coming out of a door to the building she was aiming for. He'd been so apologetic, even when it had been her fault, and bought her a coffee to warm her up— she was soaked from falling into a puddle— and by the end of it, had asked her on a date.

Anika, snarling that she'd missed her job interview, rejected him.

Then he offered her the job, revealing that she'd been dashing to meet him when they'd run into each other.

Anika took the job. The man worked for a prestigious law firm hiring graduates, and Anika's luck meant she'd ran into her interviewer, and he'd fallen in love at first sight. She continued to work there for a year, until she finally agreed to date the man who had pursued her so earnestly.

They were engaged within a few months. Anika's sudden romance caused everybody shock, but our parents were delighted. Out of all the daughters, Anika was the hardest to control, always wilful, doing as she pleased. Now Anika spoke of family and marriage and children.

And, finally, attentions were turning to me.

'So who's the special guy going to be?'

'I've got a brother who has a son that's just your age...'

'You must be jealous of your sister and her perfect romance!'

The party is filled with nearly seven hundred people, of family and friends, and they'd each outdone themselves to surprise me with yet another personally intrusive question. The best had come from my grandmother, who had taken me aside as I stuffed chocolate into my mouth and asked me whether I'd had any feelings towards men...ever.

I'd smiled wryly.

Lakshmi interrupts my musing spot alone in the corner.

'Daya!' she yells, braceleted hands tinkling over the din of talking and festivities. Everyone is milling around, eating food and waiting for the dancing. Lakshmi elbows her way through, breathless and laughing.

All the Sawari sisters are alike and beautiful, so it is said, but each has a different glow. Someone has spread rumours that each of us had been born in a different season and taken a little bit of nature's magic with us. We each have long, flowing locks of dark black, heavy with waves, and deep brown eyes with huge eyelashes. Prominent brows and noses give our sharp, intelligent look, and a thin, curved mouth is one of gentle politeness. All the women in our family are slender rather than curvaceous.

But what we share does not touch what we vary in. Lakshmi, the steady autumm, is the eldest, grown to have a swanlike beauty of grace, dignity and the responsibility that being the one that looked after all the others usually has. Maryam, the spring child, is kind and happy, and where Lakshmi is stern, Maryam is forgiving. Anika, the child of summer winds and laughter and fun, has always been a crowd favourite; loud, boisterous and ambitious, she had set her heart on becoming a lawyer by the age of thirteen and every step she's taken since has aided that. Including now, when she's married one of the most successful lawyers in the city, and the two are a powerful team.

I am, in some respects, no different to my sisters. I suppose I, too, shine with a personality that is solely mine alone, but I just haven't yet discovered what it is yet. In my mind, each sister has a role to play, and I'm not sure where I, the child born in winter and stillness, fit.

Lakshmi wears a beautiful lehenga of pink and gold. My own anarkali suit is a deep navy, flecked with silver jewels that reminds me of the stars. Together, we look like the sunset and the night that follows.

'What is it?' I try not to sound too bone weary. This was a happy celebration, of course. Sounding miserable on my sister's wedding is a crime of siblings. And, if Lakshmi even thinks I'm bored, she'll start trying to set me up again.

'Anika wants to see you,' Lakshmi says, her gaze faltering over my face, reading something there. 'Where have you been? She misses you.'

I shrug. 'I thought she was busy with guests.'

Lakshmi links a guiding hand through mine. 'She's still your best friend, you know, even now she's married,' Lakshmi says, leading me into the crowd. The air is heavy with perfume and incense, and the smell of spices from the banquet table. My stomach, impossibly full, still growls. The room is low-lit, hung with golden lanterns that glow on the ceiling overhead. Lakshmi has decorated flowers and drapes of wonderful colours throughout.

Anika handed over wedding planning to a keen Lakshmi. 'I don't care what my wedding looks like,' Anika had said, 'I just want it to happen.'

Well, it's happened. My last hope has gotten hitched.

Children whizz by underfoot, shrieking and laughing. I watch them with a sense of frailty, as if those days of freedom are long gone, and I can feel the noose of adulthood coming towards her, faster by the minute.

Lakshmi tugs on my hand. 'There she is.'

Anika is dazzling.

As is tradition, she wears the deep red of the bride, her bridal gown trailing in pools of crimson around her. Her hair is beautifully arranged, spilling over one shoulder in a cascading waterfall of curls, and her eyelids glitter with gold. Heavy jewels and sparkling lace trail the edges of her dress, and swathes of beautiful material cross her chest and flow into her skirt. Seeing my sister dressed in her bridal outfit still takes my breath away.

She laughs at something a guest says, hand in hand with her new husband. A nasty green flash of envy, of jealousy, spears through me. I can't remember when I last made Anika laugh like that. And what ignites me, infuriates me, is that beside her, her husband is a simple, plain man in comparison. Like a puppy, he follows Anika, watching with a gooey expression wherever she walks. I know my dislike of him is foolishness, but before him, everything had been different. Anika and I, the twins-that-were-not. She, the lawyer, me, the doctor. We joked that she'd have my back if patients tried to sue me. Anika is special. Anika shines.

And this boring, dull man made her fall in love.

Lakshmi keeps leading me forward towards the happy bride, and I school my expression into a state of neutrality. Bored, even. Better that than pathetic misery and jealousy.

Anika turns and sees me. She grins and waves us over.

Clustered around the newlyweds are a group of men and women, all around the same age as my sister and brother-in-law. I ignore their stares churlishly, instead walking up to my sister and ignoring everyone else entirely.

'Hello, sis,' I say, my voice false and chirpy.

Anika smiles. If my tone is off, she doesn't show it. 'Daya. Meet my friends from university.'

She turns and introduces them, one by one.

The closest two females give her broad smiles and nods, resplendent in their blue and purple sarees. Their names are Vahini and Gandha. Next are two men, Nadin and Saatvik, and then another girl, Treya. Treya has tight, curling hair pinned up at the nape of her neck, and a close-lipped smile. She stands closely next to the man beside her.

Anika, pausing slightly, introduces him last.

'And Baasim— we all call him Baz.'