☂: our muses get caught in the rain outside without an umbrella ★: our muses stargaze together // "I might be drunk." / "You look beautiful." / "Maybe I was right in thinking that I should never have even fallen in love with you." / "What would the world be like without you?" / [text]: I miss you. [CALDEN]
☂: our muses get caught in the rain outside without an umbrella
Arden was huddled next to Cal, but she was facing the other way. She refused to make eye contact with him. There was no way he was going to capture her with his ensnaring gaze. A small smile peeked at the corners of her lips as she heard him ramble on with silly jokes and pick up lines in an attempt for her to face him.
“Nice try,” she cooed. “But you’ll have to put more of an effort into that.”
“Oh, really? Is that it?” she heard him say, and felt a hand brush against her hip. She shivered, but not from the rain. Her grin was growing.
“I hate you,” she whispered, as she spun around and wrapped her arms around his body in an embrace. She felt him rest his chin on the top of her head and comb his fingers through her hair, and she felt complete.
If only she truly did hate him.
★: our muses stargaze together
“What’s your favourite constellation?” she had heard him say.
Arden looked up into the night sky, the knowledge coursing though her mind. She knew every single constellation; every star by heart. It was one of the perks of being a daughter of Astraea. Not that it would ever come in useful, really.
“I like the Pegasus constellation. It may be just because I really like the creature, but …” Arden trailed off, her mind wandering. “I like how even amidst thousands of other stars, the constellation is so bright. It’s shining. Sometimes I look up at it, and it reminds me of greatness.” She laughed, her voice echoing through the night.
“It sounds cheesy, but, sometimes I look up at it, and that’s what I aspire to be. I aspire to be as great and beautiful as the constellation. As a pegasus itself.”
"I might be drunk."
She laughed loudly. That was an understatement. “Cal. You’re more than drunk. I’m afraid if you take a step closer to me, you’re going to vomit all over me, and I’m going to yell at you.”
The Huntress shook her head, slinging her arm around him and smiling. “You’re lucky you have a friend like me to watch over you, you know,” she said, her eyes twinkling.
Arden glanced at him, and she couldn’t stop smiling. How did she pull herself into a mess like this? Here Cal was, in all his glory, swaying and stumbling into doors even with her aid. How did she ever come to lov—to like him? She faltered at the thought, before brushing it off and directing her attention back to her friend.
“Let’s bring you home, shall we?”
"You look beautiful."
Arden looked up at him, and truly saw him for who he was. She looked up at him and smiled, her eyes bright and shining. People had told her that before, but coming from him? It was something else entirely. She radiated happiness. Those words only mattered when it came from his mouth.
“You look handsome,” she whispered.
And yet, there he was, only in jeans and a plaid t-shirt. It didn’t matter what he wore because he was always handsome. He was always beautiful to her, even at his worst. And it occurred to her, maybe that was what he thought of her too. In her trousers and v-neck, that was all he needed to see to think of her being beautiful.
They were standing hand-in-hand, and they were both beautiful to each other, and that was all that mattered.
"Maybe I was right in thinking that I should never have even fallen in love with you."
They were sitting on the ground, and the moment he spoke the truth, her eyes filled with sorrow. Of course he was right. Nothing good could have possibly come out of loving her, when she could not love back.
When she could love back, but only with grave consequences.
She wanted to scream. And maybe he understood that, because when she began to cry into his shoulder, he stroked her soothingly.
“Why is life so unfair, Cal?”
She was at war with herself. She could not love him, she could not love him, she could not love him.
But she didn’t realise that he would be the one to fall in love with her first. And how much it probably hurt him to do so. All she wanted to say was that she loved him. But she couldn’t—never in a million lifetimes.
Love takes no prisoners. Love knows no mercy.
Love was what kept her going.
"What would the world be like without you?"
“What would the world be like without you, Cal?” Arden inquired, her hand slipping into his. “The world has had me in it for a long time, and it hasn’t always been great.”
Her head was cocked to the side in thought. “The world would keep on spinning without me.” Her free hand went to his lips as he was about to interrupt. “Don’t try to deny it, Harmon. I’ve lived long enough to know that without me, the world would do perfectly fine.”
Arden didn’t want to admit that it did pain her to say all of this. She wanted to tell him that if she were gone, the world would stop. It would be easier for him to let her go then. Their love was too destructive. But maybe the world would be okay. She was going to die, after all. Whether it be by the hands of some monster, or by the hands of love. At the end of the day, they were the same thing, weren’t they?
Cal was another story. If he were gone, something told her the world would be a different place. There was so much good in him and she didn’t want it to ever disappear, even if she did.
“Cal, you could change the world.”
[text]: I miss you.
[text]: Gods, I miss you so much too.[text]: Don’t leave me.[text]: Ever.[text]: I mean it.[text]: I don’t care what happens to me as long as you’re in my life, Cal.
