#they met at la festival de viña del mar. i have the biggest brain ever

[two-hands-toward-the-sun]

Hi! I was thinking Prompt 31 for Calliope/Gault 💕

Hi! Thank you SO much for your patience in waiting for this prompt fill!! 😅 It turned out longer than I thought it would—turns out I had more to say about this ship than I expected. I really hope you like it, and thank you so much for such an interesting pairing!!

*lovingly tosses another femslash rarepair into the pile*

Calliope was still humming as she and Gault walked down the rain-slick street away from the school, Calliope holding an umbrella over the two of them.

“It’s catchy, isn’t it?” Gault said, sounding amused. “Isaac’s dreams have been full of the soundtrack for weeks.”

“I imagine it would be inescapable in the dreams of humans,” said Calliope.

“The Addams Family is hardly the worst of it.” Gault shuddered. “Not a single entity in the Dreaming can stand Hamilton anymore.”

Gault and Calliope had just finished watching a performance at a high school in the United States. They’d worked together to inspire a teenager: a senior who had yearned to audition every year of his high school career but had never worked up the courage until it was his last chance. Gault would take Calliope with her into Isaac’s dreams, and there the two of them would weave dreamscapes imbued with Calliope’s magic and crafted by the touch of Gault’s skillful hands.

This and numerous other collaborations had come about because of a chance encounter at the Viña del Mar International Song Festival in Valparaíso. Calliope had been looking over who stood near her in the sea of audience members, and her gaze caught on a woman wearing a peacock blue halter top. It could have been a trick of the lights in the amphitheatre but…Calliope could have sworn the woman’s skin glowed.

Calliope had never been queen of the Dreaming, not in the way Oneiros had offered to her. She had her own purview, she’d told him, her own area of expertise. She did not crave another. She had no desire for crowns or titles. But she had still spent considerable time there, and she certainly knew how one of the Dreaming’s residents moved, spoke, held their chin.

So, when the festival concluded, she’d fallen into step beside the woman as the massive crowd funnelled toward the exits. The commotion would hide any indiscreet phrasing. She dipped her head close to the woman’s ear. “You are from the Dreaming, aren’t you?”

The woman’s head twisted sharply in Calliope’s direction, her dark eyes wary. “Who are you?” Immediately Calliope had been struck by the resonance of her voice. From just those three words, she’d wanted to hear more.

“Forgive me, I did not mean to startle you. I am Calliope. One of the Greek Muses.”

The suspicion slid from the woman’s shoulders. “Calliope. Oh, they remember you fondly in the Dreaming,” she said, teeth flashing in a smile. “I didn’t recognise you. I wasn’t created until after your…involvement, with Dream. I’m younger than many of the other Major Arcana.”

Impressed, Calliope said, “You’re one of the Major Arcana?” It was not a title to be bestowed frivolously. The woman seemed to recognise the respect in Calliope’s voice, and her smile grew wider.

“Yes. My name is Gault.” And for a moment, Calliope caught the glimmer of iridescent wings raised behind Gault’s back.

“Gault,” Calliope said, trying out the new name on her tongue. “It is lovely to meet you.”

That had been the beginning of their friendship. Initially, they’d each been curious about how their work could complement the other’s. But after some weeks, they no longer needed a collaboration as an excuse to spend time in each other’s company. They shared meals and stories, discussions and analyses, walks and even a flight or two—Gault with her gleaming butterfly wings, Calliope in the form of a sparrow. Gault had rapidly become very, very dear to Calliope.

“Where do you think you’ll go next?” Gault asked Calliope now. She knew Calliope never stayed too long in one place these days.

“Somewhere with warmer temperatures,” Calliope answered at once, and Gault laughed, bumping Calliope’s shoulder playfully with her own.

“Your poor Mediterranean sensibilities.”

“Gault,” Calliope began firmly, “your body is made entirely of dreamstuff. You have not the slightest idea what it is like to be predisposed toward one climate or another.”

Gault laughed again, head tilting back, and Calliope found her gaze drawn to the apples of her cheeks, the exquisite roundness of her features. “Forgive me, goddess.”

They fell into a companionable silence as the rain pattered down onto Calliope’s umbrella. They were in their own little bubble underneath its shield. Without conversation to divert her, Calliope’s thoughts turned back to the musical. But not the soundtrack, this time. No, what captured Calliope now were thoughts of Gault and Isaac.

By now, Calliope had a reasonably good grasp on the kinds of dreamers that Gault gravitated towards. Isaac, she thought with a squeeze of fondness, was a typical case: a young human who dreamt of being other than what he had always been. He was a reserved, unassuming student, without the resources for voice or dancing training many of his theatre-inclined peers had. He had the drive, quiet but burning within his chest. All he needed was one final push of encouragement to bring himself to audition. And Gault was there to offer it. Gault’s kindness, steadfastness, passion for her dreamers’ futures and their own ability to control those futures: it was all so brilliantly on display as Calliope worked at her side.

Calliope had always seen people’s creations as facets of their own selves, was drawn to people according to the work of their hands and hearts. And Gault created beautiful, powerful things for the dreamers she held so dear.

The two of them were now walking down a street lined with shops. Gault paused to examine the front window of one, an arrangement of art prints, maps, journals, the like. The storefront was well lit, and just as the first time Calliope had seen her, the light found Gault and reflected off of her, and she became utterly luminous.

And staring at Gault now, Calliope knew.

The words escaped her mouth in a low murmur, almost lost in the rain. “I love you.”

Gault half-turned toward Calliope, her attention still mostly on the display window. “Did you say something, Calliope?”

Calliope’s pulse rushed in her ears. She could take it back. It wasn’t too late to shy away.

But it was not in her nature to not speak her mind. In all her years, after all the ways life had bruised her, no blow had ever been able to rob her of that.

So she said again, louder this time, “I love you.”

Gault whipped around. Shock flashed across her face, and then it softened into…Calliope’s fingers tightened around the umbrella’s handle. It looked like—

It looked like—

They were already so close together under the umbrella. Gault’s eyes shone so, so brightly. Calliope read tenderness in them, read affection, read love. “Say it again.”

“I love you,” Calliope whispered. With her free hand, she reached forward and dared to rest it on Gault’s waist. A feather-light touch. If Gault breathed deeply the simple movement alone would dislodge Calliope’s hand. But she didn’t.

“Again.”

“I love you.”

It was so easy, then. For Calliope to dip her head forward, for Gault to meet her halfway. Gault’s mouth moved plush and warm against Calliope’s, and involuntarily Calliope’s fingers dimpled deeper into Gault’s waist, grounding herself. Gault might be a dream, but she still felt so vibrantly real beneath Calliope’s hand, against her lips.

The rain sang down around them.

When they drew apart, Gault was smiling again, and not even her own shimmering skin could compare to that radiance.