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orqheuss · 1 year

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In any version of reality

(Ominis Gaunt/F!Reader FLUFF)

Reincarnation!Soulmate AU

Summary:

In the world of soulmates, ties told through memories of past lives and reincarnation, Ominis was sure that he had to be a very new soul. *** Ominis Gaunt was more sure than anything in his life that he did not have a soulmate. He had heard tales from others about their experiences, how lovely it was to finally find the one you had been searching for through any timeline, and he had resigned himself to the fact that his soul was too new to have a past life. But, after hearing you sing in the deserted music room sends him on a journey back in time, could he have truly found the person he had been longing for since before the dawn of creation?

Story is based off of "Epic iii" from the Hadestown 2017 Original Cast Recording.

Word Count: 4.7k

In the world of soulmates, ties told through memories of past lives and reincarnation, Ominis was sure that he had to be a very new soul. He had heard stories told through grapevines, whispers in the night of people finding their loves at a young age; how their timeless histories came flooding back to them like a torrential downpour of emotion they couldn’t identify until they tasted their loves name on their lips— heard their voice flitter through their ears like a soft ocean breeze for the first time. Some said it happened suddenly, as soon as they brushed against each other or looked into each other's eyes for the first time. Those people said it was like being struck by a falling star, burning to the touch and gloriously wonderful all at the same time. Some said it happened gradually, after years and years of knowing each other, only to be triggered by an oddly familiar moment in time or a feeling, like a song murmured from an ancient gramophone in the corner of a room they’d long forgotten about. Those people said it was warm, like a blanket you’d just cast a drying charm on— like they were coming home after a long trip and the hearth was already lit for their arrival. No matter how much he longed to tell stories like this himself, how much he yearned to find that grand, timeless love that he could only read about in books, the universe did not have a past life to spare him.

For a while he blamed his parents, like they were the ones that ripped him into the world before one of the many ghosts floating around in the stratosphere could latch onto him and call him theirs, but he knew that they had no control over ethereal beings like that. Then, he blamed his disability for his woebegone-ness. Every story he had ever heard told tales of looking into their soulmate's eyes and seeing the world as it was for the first time— could it be that because he could not see he would never know the feeling of holding someone's gaze and seeing yourself as you truly were the day your ageless soul was born into the world like a bursting supernova? Not knowing anyone else that suffered the same blindness as him, he didn’t have anything else to go off of. And so, that was the only answer his feebly human mind could give him— the only thing that actually made sense in his brain.

Being born without sight had never really bothered Ominis much until he got to Hogwarts. His childhood home was dreadfully quiet, and very few members of his family were home at a time, so he didn’t have any sounds invading his sensitive ears very often. All of that changed as soon as he crossed the threshold of the grandiloquent school. The tall ceilings echoed all voices like a cathedral tower echoed the hymns of a choir— he knew everyone's business better than his own, sometimes before his peers even learned of it themselves. With that came the knowledge of everyone's soulmate encounters, each story different from the last but just as magical each time. Down the castle stairs, tucked away in the corner near the one-eyed witch, Ominis heard Adelaide Oakes recount her story of brushing against a muggle boy in her village and seeing a post-colonial British soldier standing at her doorstep, stretches of farmland spanning farther than her eyes can see over his shoulder. In potions, he heard Garreth Weasley whisper to his cauldron partner about how he had known his soulmate for years, only realizing that they were meant to be after seeing them lounging on the shore of the pond behind his house— one moment they were strewn across the damp, summer-green grass, and the next they were curled around his past in a bed made of purple silk, the Paris skyline just beyond his reach through their bay windowed apartment. He could distinctly recall all of the details of Sebastian’s revelation, having heard how he saw himself galloping through a field of flowers with a lovely princesses arms wrapped around his waist, pressing her delicate fingerprints into his shiny chain-mail armor as they laughed into the sun many a time before drifting off into a dreamless sleep in their common room. Even Leander Prewett found his one true match, spinning the tale to anyone who would hear in their herbology class about how he was a British king once, married to a beautiful woman dressed in green with a matching choker necklace of pearls and emeralds— how the large “B” charm caught the light just right during their private garden strolls to make her blue eyes sparkle (Ominis also remembered the next day when he stumbled upon the frazzled Gryffindor in the library annex, filled with dread as he poured quite anxiously through the books and reading about that particular necklace, as well as the pretty neck that went along with it. Poor sod).

No, Ominis Gaunt had not found his soulmate yet, nor did he think he ever would, and he was perfectly fine with that, thank you very much.

At least, that’s what he told everyone when they asked.

What didn’t help his case, unfortunately, was that he was irrevocably and incandescently infatuated with the new fifth year. It had taken him some time to get used to their presence in his inner circle. All of his friends had a very distinct magical signature that he memorized after knowing them for some time— every magical being had one, really. Magic to Ominis felt like the fizz of cider against his skin, some slightly more carbonated than others and carrying a different taste in his mouth. Anne felt like the sparkling citrus water that the kitchens would bring out on particularly hot days before finals. Sebastian felt like the burn of firewhiskey on an autumn night, the bonfire in the center of the circle warming the tips of his nose and ears. Both were refreshing and lovely in their own right, but his newest friend was something he had never felt before. He was never able to feel someone else's soul under their skin and determine how old it was, but there was no way you were a young, or even new soul like he was. Even your magic felt old. Your signature was the most distinct one he had ever felt in his short life; it wasn’t a soft fizz like the others, or a pleasant warmth, it was a firework in his chest. You smelled like the smoke after a particularly rowdy Guy Fawkes Night and felt like tiny smoldering ashes falling against his skin, not too hot, but more of a pleasant kiss of heat. He got used to your voice quickly, no matter how your laugh made his knees want to buckle and cause his heart to race faster than a stampeding graphorn, but your magic took some time, even after he found out about your proclivity to ancient magic. There was something so distinctly familiar about it to him, like he had met you before coming to the castle. He didn’t recall ever doing so, but his family threw so many parties in his youth he wouldn’t really question it if he did. Once he started to get used to the feeling, maybe even crave it a little, he realized it was too late to stop the tumble his feelings were taking off your sweet, summer-side cliff.

Ominis knew that you hadn’t found your soulmate yet, but it was only a matter of time before your soft brushes and lingering stares disappeared into the air like everything else in his life. He was doomed to never have anyone by his side, but he knew deep in his heart that you were not destined for loneliness like he was. You were a flowering weeping willow at the edge of a monumental body of water, and he the lowly lake lapping at your petals as they fell, forever in the others orbit but never within arms reach.

That’s how Ominis found himself wandering that day, high up the many stairs of the magical castle and steadily walking towards the deserted music room, his favorite place as of late. Very few people knew where the room was, let alone that the school even had a music room to begin with. Here, he could wallow in his self pity with only the soft sound of his piano to keep him company. About a week ago a line of melody came to him in his dreams, soft and sweet but full of so much empty melancholy that he was on his feet at that very instant, quickly jotting down the notation on one of the many pieces of sheet music that he had lying around his desk. Ever since then, he had gone to the musical tower in the sky to sit by his lonesome and chart out chords like constellations. The song was ethereal to his ears, something that came from the universe itself as a gift that he was destined to write. Ominis was nearly done with it after hours of slaving over the parchment and quill, his fingertips surely staining the ivory keys of the baby grand piano to the point where the house elves despised his presence. He was like a man possessed whenever the melody came to mind, like something in the world was trying to tell him something very important but it couldn’t find the words to do so. The notes rose and fell like a bird flying south for the winter, wings stretched across the sky, swooping and diving only to rise again and kiss the sun. Some parts felt like a walk through a beautiful meadow, the sun on his shoulders and the wind blowing through his hair. Others were dark, like descending a staircase into the very center of the world with no light to guide you, just its ghostly melody to call you home. And some were both at the same time— a shady spot under a corkscrewed sycamore, tiny graves for the woodland creatures of the forest taken over by the wilds of nature, hidden off the beaten path in lamentable isolation. It told a story of everlasting, encompassing love that was ripped away too soon, found again after searching every possible and impossible place for their hand to hold, only to have to part ways once again until their effervescent hereafter. It reminded him of some of the muggle mythology he picked up last year for some light reading during one of his bouts of nightmares— how each tale began weaving together a love that would break the very fabric of the universe until it was taken from the pair by Fates' terrible string. The blond could tell that the song needed lyrics to be complete; Ominis was many things, but he was not a poet. So, much like his future to come, the song would forever remain unfinished. Even still, his forlorn melody kept him company, and he was perfectly fine with that.

Today was different; Ominis knew that as soon as he rounded the bend to the music room and felt a presence inside. The blond cursed to himself, resigned to find another corner of the castle to mope in his hopeless romanticism for the time being until the other person left. He turned on his heel and was about to leave when a sound stopped him in his tracks, his ears pricking up like a startled deer. From the crack in the door came a haunting voice, soothing through a melody that was vaguely familiar to the boy. He curiously took a few steps closer, pressing his ear to the tiny opening to hear better. The voice was one of the most beautiful things he had ever heard. Its tone was clear like the church bells outside his family home, soaring around the room up to the top of its spiraled ceilings and diving downwards towards the bordeaux patterned cherry floor. It caught the acoustics of the room like a wind chime in the beginnings of spring, and his entire body visibly softened at each lift and fall of its gentle ballad. Ominis listened intently to the lyrics as they made their way through his ears, swirling around his brain and kissing him just behind the eyes with winsome adoration.

Heavy and hard is the heart of the king King of iron, king of steel The heart of the king loves everything Like the hammer loves the nail.

The woman’s voice was like honey in his favorite tea, soothing and with just the right amount of sweetness. Her dulcet tones took Ominis into their arms and waltzed with his heartstrings like two ghosts lost to time. He couldn’t help but keep listening, diving deeper and deeper into her saccharine song.

But the heart of a man is a simple one Small and soft, flesh and blood And all that it loves is a woman A woman is all that it loves. And Hades is king of the scythe and the sword He covers the world in the color of rust He scrapes the sky and scars the earth And he comes down heavy and hard on us.

Hades. Something about the name shook the blond to his core, the word feeling strange at the tip of his tongue like a word he knew but couldn’t remember. Little flashes of light burst behind his closed eyes, bright but not painful, carrying the feeling of…grass under his feet? He wasn’t truly sure what he was feeling, but he knew it wasn’t the wooden floors of the hallway anymore. For a moment he could feel the luscious heat of the spring on his skin and hear the soft call of whippoorwills from the tree tops just beyond where he stood, even though it was a cold and stormy winter outside the stone fortress walls. He continued to listen to the song, careful to not let himself be known to the angel of music just out of his reach.

But even that hardest of hearts unhardened Suddenly, when he saw her there Persephone in her mother's garden Sun on her shoulders, wind in her hair.

Persephone. Why was that name familiar too? Why could he suddenly feel the phantom of long, thick hair stream through his fingers like a waterfall, the tresses gently caressing his skin in a way that he only dreamed of? Ominis flexed his fingers, swaying his hand in the air to feel around for a sudden body in front of him; he found nothing there except dust and stale air. The scent of wildflowers invaded his nose harshly, leaving him twitching and fighting off a very unbecoming sneeze until the strong scent pittered away to a delicate gale of sugared anemone and aster flower. The taste of nectar and pollen were heavy on his tongue. He listened closer, eager to hear and experience more. There must be a charm on their voice, the boy reasoned. That had to be the reason he was experiencing all of these things so suddenly.

The smell of the flowers she held in her hand And the pollen that fell from her fingertips And suddenly Hades was only a man With a taste of nectar upon his lips, singing: La la la la la la la…

It was like suddenly being dropped into the icy waters of the black lake. That melody, no wonder it was so familiar to him; it was the piece of music he had been working on nonstop for the past week! Just as the realization dawned on him, the magical aura of the person behind the door struck him harder than anything he had ever felt before— harder than when he had first felt it outside the Undercroft what felt like years ago.

It was you. You were the one singing.

You were the missing piece to his lonely symphony.

Seeing flashes of your past self did not feel like how Ominis originally thought. It wasn’t quick like a speeding bullet into the brain, or loud like a confringo smacking into the pillars of the Undercroft. The flashback started soft and hazy— his vision blackening around his normal shadows and all sense but sight returning first. First came his smell, his hearing, his touch, and his taste while he listened to your silvery cadence fade away into the heavens. All of the feelings that had come one at a time earlier suddenly slammed into him in an influx of sensations, shocking his system into a more startling consciousness than before. Lastly came his sight, coloring his once grey and silhouetted world with a plethora of hues that he had never heard of before. If the boy was being honest, in all the moments where he had imagined finding his soulmate, he hadn’t pictured anything at all. He had never known the gift of sight, so how could he truly prepare himself for what it meant to see? Was that what green was, in the grass below his shined oxfords? Was that blue, in the sky above that stretched on forever? Was that yellow, in the little bumblebee that buzzed around his head searching for a flower to land on? There was so much that he wanted to see, so much that he wanted to know now that he could. His subconscious reminded him that this was not the time for that though, when he spotted a figure bent at the waist in the garden just over the hill from him.

Ominis gulped against the knot forming in his throat, the lump pounding with the beat of his heart just under his ribs as he stepped out of the trees and into the clearing. He had never seen a creature as beautiful as you before; it was like everything in his life had led up to this very moment of meeting. Watching the way your hair glimmered under the summer sun like the jewels adorning his home as you tended your mothers garden, he was nothing more than a man in the presence of a nymph of the forest— something otherworldly, something too beautiful to touch. The sun danced across your skin like the finest silk, creating star-kissed freckles at the apex of your shoulders and down your toned arms, and oh, how could he do anything but remove his hat from his head and gaze at you with awed, enraptured revelry? The air around you smelled like his future— like pomegranates and the promise of forever. He felt in his very being that you were his one love, far before he truly understood the meaning of the word. The emotion could not be named with words, only the feeling of coming home. All he knew is that he needed to know you more than he needed to breathe, more than he needed to eat and drink and sleep and live. Your souls sang in tandem with each other, calling your names into the void and waiting for the shout to come back to them— to sing with them forevermore. Ominis was useless under your charm, like a siren luring an unsuspecting but oh so willing sailor to his doom under the frothing sea waves. He had never spoken to you, but he knew in that moment he would happily die by your hand if you would just meet his gaze one time. He would build whole worlds for you if that was what you wished— tear down entire galaxies if it would make you smile his way.

All of his dreams came true seconds later when you stood from your hunched position, tossing your hair over your shoulder in the intricate braid you wore, each strand decorated with the honeysuckle that bloomed at your feet, before turning and staring at the man before you. You startled at first, unaware that you were being admired for so long by someone so breathtaking. The blond haired beauty under your maple tree was like winter incarnate. His hair was quiffed and slicked away from his face, allowing you to see his strong jaw and perfectly sculpted facial structure. Your eyes drank him in like a garden in a drought with his tasteful three-piece suit, black from the collar at his neck to the wing-tips of his shoes— an unusual color for somewhere so sunny. He was as pale as fresh fallen snow with tiny moles breaking up the color— birdseed trapped in a thin layer of ice. He would be called monochrome if not for his eyes. They reminded you of the Grecian sea, those eyes. Like two pools of seafoam, or two small bouquets of baby's breath and cornflower. Your heart called to him like a lighthouse across a stormy ocean. Fate rarely ruled your life, you’d decided that from a young age after listening to the warnings of your mother, but if the Fates brought you him, you would listen to their words from now on. With one glance it felt like you had known him for years, and yet you didn’t even know his name. He was your past, your present, maybe even your future if you allowed it. He was not one of the flowers like you, more like one of the dead, but you’d happily plant your gardens in his domain. You’d plant flowers that thrived in the dark and the cold, flowers that only bloomed under moonlight, if it meant the universe would be kind enough to let you keep him.

It was you that spoke first, breaking the spellbound trance you both were in from the first moment of contact. “Hi…”

Your voice was like the sweetest music ever played— sweeter than those of the muses, those of the deific. They were nothing, for it was you who was truly divine. He was the moon, and how he longed to know the sun.

His voice was little more than a breath as he murmured in return, still caught up in the sheer transcendence of your beauty. “Hello…”

Your soft laugh shook him from his stupor, softening the frozen heart in his chest as you warmed him in both body and soul. He cleared his throat, shifting his feet for a moment before taking a bold but respectful step forwards, his hand reaching out for yours like a sunflower reaching towards the brightest star in the sky. Around you, the mockingbirds began to sing a tune for your love. You couldn’t help but think it was familiar, like something from a dream you’d had long ago. Their soft song echoed through the trees, each new whistle bringing a new melodious harmony.

La la la la la la la~

“My name is Hades,” he said, the softest smile you had ever seen turning the corners of his mouth.

You return his gaze shyly. There was a smear of dirt across your face, painted across the turn of your nose and the rosy apple of your right cheek like a thick splattering of freckles. The man thought he had never seen anything so beautiful.

“Persephone,” you whispered, smiling ruefully at the flustered pink that colored his face. “What took you so long?”

In a moment it was all over— Ominis’ world dyed grey once again and only the shadows of the things around him visible. Never had he mourned his sight before, but before he had not known the beauty of seeing the night sky in your eyes; he did not know the delightful turn of your lip when you grinned or the crinkle of your nose when you laughed. He knew now that you were not the thing that he could not have, you were the thing that the universe created just for him to hold. You and him were not just a weeping willow and a babbling brook; you were the water that breathed life into your roots and the tree that fed the fish under his waves. You were not simply the sun and the moon, passing constantly but never crossing paths for long; you were an eclipse, two celestial beings dancing together and showering the world with your lovely glow.

You both had done this dance before many a time— taken many a shape before. How could he have ever thought of you as anything other than his other half, his soulmate, his world? He revolved around you, and your benign gravity kept him steady.

That pull was why he had just enough courage to push open the door to the music room, stepping into the sunlit space and basking in the feeling of your seraph-like presence. Ominis knew exactly where you were when he spoke, his soul knowing the feeling of yours for longer than this earth had been breathing.

“Persephone.” It was a breath. A whisper. A prayer.

You looked at him like he hung the very stars you love so much in the sky. There was no one else in that moment, just the two of you and the soft echo of your past lingering in the lines of sheet music strewn across the piano bench.

“Hades,” you simpered, a smile glowing in your voice.

It was moments later that he was upon you, hugging you like your body needed to be a part of his, kissing you like you were the oxygen he needed to live. You met him with the same enthusiasm, finally whole after years of being apart. You pressed your face into his neck, soothing tiny kisses along any skin you can reach, stretching from his collarbones to the tip of his nose. He smiled down at you, his hands reaching up to cradle your face like he was holding starlight in his palms.

“I never thought I would find you again.”

You laugh, your own hands reaching up to cover his. His heart skips a beat when you nuzzle into his skin. “I knew we would find each other again, just as I knew the sun would rise again every morning.”

He was frowning now, a look that did not suit his face in the slightest. He couldn’t help but feel insecure after his years of festering in his terrible self worth. “But how?”

You flipped his world on its axis, removing his hands from your face and in turn placing your palms upon his, caressing your thumb along his jawbone. “Ominis, my darling Hades, did you think I ate those pomegranate seeds unwillingly? Did you think I did not wish to fall into your darkness with flowers in my hair?” You stood on your toes, bringing his face down further and raising yours to rest your temple against his. You found your happiness in his tiny smile. “My love, I chose you that day in the garden. I would find you in any lifetime, any version of reality that calls our name. I would never let you stay too far from me, that I promise to the gods themselves.”

He sealed your words with a kiss, accepting and agreeing with your terms proudly and eagerly. Never would you ever separate again.

And so there you stayed that day, curled in the far corner of the music room with your soft, no longer so lonely melody singing from the baby grand piano. You took turns feeding each other grapes from the vine, laughing like you were the world's sunlight and lounging under the tresses of your own created sky. Behind that, now closed, door was the real world, a terrible thing that brought torment and woe to even the happiest of souls, but in that little space at the top of the tower, you had found your own personal cosmos.

The king of the dead had finally found his queen of the flowers once again.

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