The lanes were already scrubbed clean. Cleaner drones hummed in formation, their brushes folding away as their chambers sealed the last embers of Bhogi fires. A fine mist hovered in the air, the residue of their sweep, soft as breath. Yet even with the fires erased, the scent lingered—burnt wood, jaggery, and something sharp, like memory refusing to be tidied away.
As the drones rose toward their charging nests, the mist parted, and sunlight spilled across the city. Tiles gleamed, balconies shone, garlands draped like molten gold over smart walls that adjusted their tint for the season. Vaidyanagari looked freshly washed, as if Sankranti itself had ordered the streets reset for celebration.
Down through this glow drifted a shadow—the bulk of a shuttle, silver and wide, its flanks polished to a mirror's shine. On its side, letters gleamed in blue-white: Amaravathi CSA Academy. The insignia of the Continental Science Authority caught the sun and burned brighter than the garlands. People paused mid-lane, craning their necks. The Academy shuttles rarely entered these neighborhood streets; their presence carried weight, like an omen, like proof that someone among them had been touched by higher places.
The shuttle slowed with a low hiss, its thrusters parting the mist into ribbons. Doors folded back.
A figure stood framed in the entry glow.
A young woman, straight-backed, silky black hair pinned neatly yet loosened by the festival air, eyes bright with unshed excitement. Ananya. She lifted her hand in a quick farewell to the friends still seated inside, their Academy shuttle a sharp contrast to her simpler kurta now softened by travel. Their voices carried faintly—laughs, half-jokes, "See you after Sankranti!"—before the doors sealed and the shuttle lifted again. In a breath, it was gone, only the shimmer of displaced mist left behind.
Ananya adjusted the strap of her bag against her shoulder. For a moment, she stood still, breathing in. The Academy halls of Amaravathi had been vast, cool, and echoing with formulas. Knowledge there was clean, precise, and sharp-edged as glass. But here—the air itself felt thicker, warmer. Here were noises no drone could categorize: a rooster protesting its cage, a grandmother yelling at a kids, festival drums warming up off-beat, laughter spilling from windows without warning.
Home.
Her throat tightened, surprising her. She hadn't realized how much she had missed it. Not the city itself, nor even the festival—but the warmth beneath it all, carried in familiar voices waiting down the lane. Amma's scolding, Nana's measured disapproval, Ajja's dry mutters, Dev's shrieks of mischief—each one part of the rhythm that no Academy discipline could ever replicate.
And above all, one face she searched for without meaning to.
Kalki.
Her oddball brother, who made neighbors laugh for the wrong reasons, who questioned things no one asked, who could turn a dinner table into a battlefield of arguments. In the Academy, when people asked about her family, she spoke of her grandfather's wisdom, her mother's food, her father's discipline. But the one who pressed hardest on her heart was the one everyone teased. The one who, in letters, always added a line that made her roll her eyes but smile anyway. The one who once promised her that sparrows remembered kindness.
She exhaled slowly and stepped forward into the lane.
The lane came alive the moment she set foot inside.
"Ananya!"
Amma's voice cut through the noise with joy. She stood in the courtyard doorway, pallu clutched in one hand, ladle still in the other as though she had run straight from the stove. The steam of sambhar curled out behind her, richer than any perfume the Academy girls wore.
Before Ananya could answer, another sound barreled toward her—"Akkaaaa!"(sister)
Dev. His hair looked like it had lost a war with a rooster, his shirt already streaked with soot from Bhogi fires. He crashed into her legs, clutching her with both arms, then immediately pulled back, grinning. "See? I grew taller! And smarter! Ask me anything."
Ananya bent, ruffling his hair. "Taller? Maybe. Smarter? Let me test that later."
Ajja shuffled into the courtyard, leaning on his staff like a king pretending to be frail. His eyes, however, were sharp as ever. "Finally, our scholar returns. What did they feed you in Amaravathi, hmm? You look thinner. Don't they have dosas in that big Academy?"
"Only flat discs they call nutrition plates," Ananya laughed. "Even the birds wouldn't peck at them."
Amma snorted. "See! Didn't I say they won't feed you properly there?" She thrust the ladle like evidence at Nana, who was folding his newspaper with practiced calm.
Nana raised an eyebrow. "Knowledge, not food, is why she went." He paused, though, and the sternness cracked enough for pride to seep through. "Still… it is good to see you home."
Ananya's eyes blurred suddenly, and she laughed it off. This was what she had missed—their noise, their contradictions, their love hidden under arguments.
And then, at the back, her gaze found him.
Kalki.
He leaned against the pillar, hands in his pockets, as though he belonged both inside and outside the gathering. When their eyes met, he smiled—shy, crooked, not sure if he should step forward.
For a heartbeat, she saw him as the world did—the odd one, the dreamer, the boy whose essays spoke of trees gossiping and silences carrying truths. But in the next heartbeat, she saw him as only she ever could: her brother. The one she had missed most.
Her feet moved before thought. She crossed the courtyard and wrapped her arms around him. For once, he didn't joke, didn't deflect. He only hugged her back, warm and silent, as though he too had been waiting for this moment.
Ajja coughed loudly, thumping his staff. "Enough of this sentiment! Come, come, sit. Let the girl eat like a human, not a saint surviving on Academy air."
Amma clucked and rushed inside, dev already shouting for extra vadas. Dev immediately began tugging Ananya's bag, searching for sweets she might have brought.
The courtyard filled with sound again—laughter, scolding, teasing.
And Ananya thought: Yes. This is home. This is the warmth what no Academy can teach.
Inside, the dining table gleamed faintly, its alloy surface already shifting into cleaning mode as Amma thumped down steaming vessels. The smell hit Ananya in a wave—sambhar rich with drumstick and tamarind, golden vadas piled high, chutney bright and fresh.
Dev made the first move, of course, fingers stretching toward the vadas. Amma swatted his hand with the ladle so fast it almost sang."Wait for your sister, you greedy crow!"
"I was only checking if they're hot," Dev muttered, shaking his fingers."By burning your skin?" Amma snapped.
Ajja lowered himself onto his chair with theatrical groans. "Let him try. If the boy burns his hand, he'll learn something."
"Or he'll learn nothing and do it again tomorrow," Amma shot back.
Nana folded his paper and placed it beside his plate with the precision of a man filing evidence in court. His eyes swept over the food, then his children. "Discipline at the table," he intoned.
"Discipline is overrated," Ajja said, snatching a vada before anyone could protest. He popped it into his mouth, eyes closing in bliss. "Ahhh. See? This is why dharma survived—because mothers fried, not because fathers lectured."
The whole table erupted—Amma scolding, Dev laughing, Nana scowling, Ajja smirking through a mouthful. Ananya couldn't stop grinning. Even the alloy table chimed irritably as chutney smeared across its supposedly stain-proof surface.
She reached for a dosa, tearing off a piece. The taste hit her tongue—spongy crisp, sambhar clinging with just the right bite of tamarind—and her eyes pricked with tears she hadn't expected. No "nutrition disc" in Amaravathi, no neatly measured calories, could compete with this.
Across the table, Kalki was half-listening, half somewhere else. His fingers played with a morsel of dosa without eating.
Ananya studied him quietly. He hadn't changed, not in the way people measured change. Still the same unkempt hair, the same grin waiting to break free. But something about him felt… sharper, charged, as if the world itself pressed closer to him.
Ajja suddenly thumped his staff against the floor. "See? Even my joints feel better today. Must be because Ananya has returned."
Dev snorted. "Or because Kalki finally lifted the staff last night and cracked the witness stone instead of his bones."
That made Ananya's head snap toward her brother. "What?"
Kalki gave an exaggerated shrug. "It was nothing. Maybe the stone was tired of standing so long." His grin tried to sell it as a joke, but the glance he shared with Ajja—quick, serious—said otherwise.
Ajja chuckled, but his eyes lingered on Kalki with an intensity that unsettled Ananya. For a heartbeat, she thought her grandfather looked… younger. Not by years, but by some hidden spark that had returned to his posture.
Kalki caught her staring and waggled his eyebrows. "Don't look so shocked, Akka. If Bhogi fires can burn ghosts, maybe they burned Ajja's wrinkles too."
The table roared with laughter. Ajja slapped his knee, Amma hid a smile behind her ladle, and even Nana allowed the corner of his mouth to twitch.
Ananya laughed too, but inside, she felt a shiver. Something's different here. I can feel it in the air itself.