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The old god took in the muse before him, a woman burdened by a life she didn’t ask for, and the boy that clung desperately to her hand, oversized guitar slung across his back.
Calliope?
The woman nodded, looking around nervously at the empty bar.
Orpheus, sweetheart, why don’t you go sit over there and play somethin’ huh? Mama’s just gon’ talk to Mr Hermes for a minute.
The boy nodded eagerly, running over and hoisting himself onto an empty table. Hermes turned to the woman, handing her a drink from behind the bar,
So you’re leavin’ him?
There was no judgement in the old god's voice. The woman eyed the glass suspiciously as she sat down, but drank from it anyway,
How’d you know?
The old god shrugged, wiping an empty glass dry and not meeting her eyes. The muse spoke again,
You’ll take good care of him, right?
Hermes turned to the boy as he sang a little tune, swinging his legs back and forth, trying to see his toes from the top of his guitar.
When will you come back?
The muse looked to her boy sitting atop the table, now tuning his guitar, dwarfed by it still. She knew that he’d grow to fit it someday.
I don’t know.
But Hermes knew that she lied. She knew. She knew she wasn’t coming back.
Muses were like that, you see. And Hermes knew, there ain’t nothing he could do or say to change her mind.
You see, the old god wasn’t kind. But with the way that little boy was singing in his drafty, old place, his little fingers reaching for the strings with the ease usually wrought by decades of practice and guileless eyes wide with hope and something else Hermes didn’t have a name for, there just was no way he could let the poor boy starve out in the cold.
So he agreed.
And by the time the poor boy finished his song, the muse had long drained her glass, and had left the bar without ever looking back.