#just casual if throwing in the motifs and imagery we’re working with here

[wexhappyxfew]

Padmavati Solanki had spent multiple nights in the foxhole with Mercy and myself, the deeper we got into the Normandy Campaign; she was a translator who excelled in her area of work. She was by far one of the most intelligent people I got to interact with in the war. Aware, keen and level-headed, Padmavati was well equipped for a war where she knew how to approach it. The first few nights where it was just the three of us there in the foxhole, she was content with silence and listening to the hum of the crickets. She had said it had been an incredibly long time since she had experienced the quiet chirping of nighttime crickets since leaving home. She was a lover of sunrises, she said the day relied on them to awaken the people of the world, and she was an enthusiastic novel lover though I wish I had paid more attention to some of the novels we read in school so I could discuss them more with her! Though, Lucy and Mildred were perfect fits to discuss all things literature and novel related. Padmavati was one of the people you could always trust out there though; whether it was on patrols or sitting in a foxhole, she had your back. And people like that were special in this war.

- Esther Armstrong on Padmavati Solanki, in her book Stroke of Luck