Music Speak, Silence Listens (Camila)

[Deleted]

They'd returned from the graveyard to his house and Gus almost directly bee lined towards his in house little music studio, only making sure that Camila could keep up. He'd been working on this particular project ever since he'd gotten home from the hospital and he had spent a little too much time on it while he had been contained in his home to avoid spreading the disease. He had written more songs than intended and was halfway down to the part where he had enough music for a new album. Not enough that he saw fit to release of course but enough to fill an album. He'd been thinking too much and had been revisiting some of his old songs as well. He'd found a small collection of songs that he was thinking of sneaking out in an album. He'd talked to his manager who (for some odd reason) had agreed it would not go with the regular promotional activities and would be released under the radar. Gus called it an inside joke, his manager considered it an interesting experiment to gauge his popularity. Either way it worked.

Some of the incriminating lyrics were still on the table but Gus had pretty much forgotten about it. He smiled at Camila as he triumphantly held up a fairly large stack of paper. "I found them! I've been far too bored ever since getting home so I've written several different things we could do. It depends on what you want to go for. I wrote a few ballads, more upbeat romantic songs, some songs suited to fighting. Most duets do best when there is a lovers theme from what I noticed so most of the things I came up with so far are also along those lines. I have a few that are different but they are very old pieces I wrote before we even met." He handed her the haphazard stack of paperwork to look through as he flopped down on the sofa. He wasn't the most organised person in this room, which was a little odd considered every other aspect of the mansion was extremely neat and orderly. When it came to his music, Gus wrote down things and half the papers got crumpled into balls of frustration before he straightened them out and saved them in a box for later. Situations like this often caused him to revisit old bits of writing to see what he could salvage for recycling. The finished and released drafts portion was a lot smaller.

"So, what do you think? Anything in particular that drew your attention or anything you would like to work on? I don't know if you have any ideas but mine sort of ran away from me." He said with a somewhat apologetic smile. He loved his craft, that much was clear. He just wasn't always very good at stepping on the breaks. Even now he wasn't sitting still but buzzing with energy. Making music was an addiction and obsession to him, especially in times of high emotion. It was one of the few times he could fully unleash them.

camila calderón

[camila calderón]

September 2025

As soon as they returned from visiting his mother's grave, Camila and Auguste went to Auguste's home studio. It was amazing how quickly his mood had shifted from only shortly before, though Camila was glad to see it. He seemed energized as he found a sizable stack of paper and held it up to show her. "I found them!" he announced, mentioning that he had been bored ever since he had arrived home, so he had written several different things: some ballads, some more upbeat romantic songs, and what he called "some songs suited to fighting".

Most of them were love songs, from what Auguste told her. "I have a few that are different," he added, "but they are very old pieces I wrote before we even met." With that, he handed her the stack, which Camila had to take with both hands just to keep from dropping any of the papers within it.

In the meantime, he got comfortable on the sofa, his more relaxed demeanor returned. "So, what do you think?" he inquired, wondering if there was anything that had piqued her interest. He said that he didn't know if she had any ideas, but he was out of ideas. Whether it was because he had exhausted his creativity or because of the stress of having gone to visit his mother, Camila didn't know, but she held no shortage of material in her hands.

Camila seated herself on the sofa as well, although she remained more composed as she looked through the stack of options, setting aside the ones that caught her eye to look at more seriously after a first glance. "These are very good," she commented. Most of them were viable options, but she knew that she also had to consider her own public image as well as Auguste's and find something that fit the both of them. "And the song from the hospital," which had been her first taste of how enthusiastic Auguste was about songwriting.

@auguste

[Deleted]

Working with other artists was always a fun challenge. He had a very set public image but he'd found his fans also loved to find hidden meaning in his songs. It helped a lot when trying to work with other artists. They could adjust to whichever version of his public image would work best with theirs. On that point his really bad public image would be very interesting to combine with hers. In terms of press it was likely best to play it off like he saw her as a little sister, which was close enough to reality. He figured this was what it might have been like with him and Alix if life had been easier on them. He loved his little sister to the end of the world and back but everything in terms of family had been strained for him ever since his mother passed away. He was the least resilient and it had shown. That didn't exactly help out.

As she sifted through the pile she said most of them were very good. He loved the compliment. She asked for the song from the hospital and he looked at the pile for a moment before getting up and walking over, peeking at the pile and running his fingers over it as he searched the paper that was clear to be a different quality than the rest. He thought he felt it and shook his head. "It's in the pile. I suspect closer to the bottom, although I made a few edits. It kept surfacing for some reason." Maybe he should see it as a sign that it was the best song, but he preferred to keep options. That usually worked better than deciding for others what would work best for them. He hated it when people did that for him (especially concerning his bad habits, no matter how right they were) so he tried to avoid doing it to others whenever possible.

camila calderón

[camila calderón]

September 2025

When she asked him where the song was that he had brought forward to her when they were in the hospital together, Auguste got up for himself and came over to search for it in the pile that he had handed her. He ran his fingers through the stack of papers, trying to find it, but came up short and shook his head. "It's in the pile," he assured her. "I suspect closer to the bottom, although I made a few edits. It kept surfacing for some reason."

At St. Mungo's, at least, he had been very passionate about it. It made sense to Camila that he wanted to work on it again, and she could tell that he was something of a perfectionist. She was less used to having to make edit after edit to her own work, and a lot of it never really saw the light of day. Before she was famous, when she was still making up songs for the fun of it, she really just wrote what she was feeling as she was feeling it. It was an outlet for her; it wasn't about refining things over and over again and polishing them.

Camila went from page to page, song to song, and continued to readjust the order of the stack until she came across the lyrics that Auguste had. She smiled softly when she realized that she had found the right sheet of paper, and she immediately set aside the rest of the stack of papers to keep those lyrics separate. Reading over the lyrics again, they were admittedly better than Camila remembered from St. Mungo's, though having been ill might have had something to do with it. She looked to Auguste again. "Here," she alerted him, holding up the page so that she could see it.

@auguste

[Deleted]

Gus had always been a perfectionist. He supposed it was in part due to the relationship with his parents. Anything that didn't bring an instant smile to his mothers face was polished and refined endlessly until she did smile. He hadn't realised it quite properly due to his young age but it usually was just when she had good days. The perfectionism that such a pressure on himself had created had never really fully worn out. He kept on going over and over the same sentence until he finally felt it sounded right to him. Sometimes that happened pretty fast but other times it felt like an uphill battle. He dreaded those days and the frustration had regularly caused small waves of destruction on his property. Things had gotten a lot better since he had Sienna, but he still struggled from time to time. At least he could go to her if he needed help. It made all the difference.

When she found the page he smiled and instantly took the stack of paper from her, putting it on the sofa rather carelessly. When in his creative space he had a very chaotic energy while most of the rest of his house was minimalist in decoration and usually very clean and organised. His house often reflected his mental state and the worse he was doing, the worse his house started to look. Lately things had been good so his house was just about spotless. He truly could be a difficult person to get along with, but he figured that there was some balance to him. Otherwise Sienna would have fled from him ages ago, right?

Gus picked up his guitar and started playing some of the chords for the song she held in her hands. "I wrote a French and an English one. They're on opposite ends of the paper. I figured it could be fun to possibly do it in two languages, but if you want to sing in Spanish you'll need to redesign and probably translate some of the stuff I wrote already or write something that would fit the skeleton." He said calmly as he played softly on the guitar. He motioned with his head for her to sit with him as he started to hum the song she held in her hands. He had so many options in his head for how it could play out that he was glad he didn't have to do it on his own. It made everything a bit easier. There was less pressure now.

camila calderón

[camila calderón]

September 2025

With the song that they wanted for the moment found amidst the rest, Auguste took the pile and set it aside, though he didn't seem concerned about keeping it too tidy. It was in contrast to what she had seen of his mansion, which was immaculate. It wouldn't take more than a few seconds to straighten it back up anyhow, so she wasn't focused on it, really. Besides, Auguste picked up his guitar and began to play the music for the song itself.

Camila listened closely as she read through the lyrics, the sound of the guitar mixing with it and making it that much more real—not just a hypothetical possibility among many. "I wrote a French and an English one," he explained. "They're on opposite ends of the paper." She hadn't remembered that from the hospital, but she observed that there were two different sets of lyrics.

Auguste said that he thought that it could be fun to do the song in two different languages, though he added that she would need to be the one to take up the lyrics in Spanish if they were to do that. It would be additional work for her to make sure that it all fit the song—in terms of structure and meaning—and Auguste motioned for her to sit closer to where he'd seated himself.

She moved closer to him, and Auguste began to hum the song. It sounded nice, like a good fit for both of them, Camila thought, reading over the lyrics that Auguste had penned in English. The French lyrics were probably easier for her to translate, she guessed, simply because of the language's similarities to her own, but she hadn't sung in French and did like the idea of doing the song in two languages. "Do you like English and French or Spanish and French?" she asked him, scanning over the French lyrics then. Although she didn't speak French, it was easier for Camila to figure out what the song was saying in its entirety, and it made her feel like less of a fish out of water. She knew that she wanted to avoid messing with the song too much from how Auguste had it already, though, and she really didn't want to butcher his language unnecessarily.

@auguste

[Deleted]

Gus considered her question for a moment after she'd gone through the song on both ends of the paper. There were some differences, although they were mostly due to the translation. Things that sounded beautiful and lyrical in English or French just sounded weird or awkward in the other. He wasn't too familiar with Spanish himself, which meant trusting Camila fully in terms of lyrics if they decided to involve Spanish in the song. It wasn't really in his nature to relinquish control when it came to his songs because he was such a perfectionist but he trusted Camila wouldn't mess it up for him.

He considered her question for a good moment before answering, wanting to make sure he translated his thoughts correctly. "I like the idea of both of us singing our native language, yet both have the same roots. There is a beauty in their similarities but the duality of languages with different roots suits the feel of the song rather perfectly. If we were to sing in both Spanish and French, it would be easy to find more common ground. If we both were to only speak our native tongue from here, we'd likely make some sense of it. I like the idea of the song also dealing with a large language barrier that is so common for young love, especially on vacation. It would be better with languages that are less similar. I'd be very open to combining English and Spanish as well, since that would give it more of a vacation feeling while keeping it easily approachable for the international audience that doesn't know French or Spanish." He mused to her, softly strumming his guitar in a way that almost made his reasoning sound like music on it's own.

He then looked at her questioningly, clearly wanting to know her thoughts on the matter. He liked all three options but did feel that some of them would suit the mood of the song better while others would add to the nostalgia (both singing native) or to the suggestion of summer (using the combination of Spanish and English). He knew that he often put far too much thought in it for most people but it was part of what made his music good. There were hidden messages that people didn't find or subtle choices that could make very unsubtle differences. There were things in his music that almost seemed to be calculated mathmatically while it lost none of the musicality. It was part of why he liked making music, it could be as complicated and intricate as he himself desired it to be.

camila calderón

[camila calderón]

September 2025

"I like the idea of both of us singing our native language, yet both have the same roots," Auguste told her. "There is a beauty in their similarities," he noted, "but the duality of languages with different roots suits the feel of the song rather perfectly. If we were to sing in both Spanish and French, it would be easy to find more common ground. If we both were to only speak our native tongue from here, we'd likely make some sense of it. I like the idea of the song also dealing with a large language barrier that is so common for young love, especially on vacation. It would be better with languages that are less similar. I'd be very open to combining English and Spanish as well, since that would give it more of a vacation feeling while keeping it easily approachable for the international audience that doesn't know French or Spanish."

In other words, it could go any which way in his mind. (At least, Camila was pretty sure that that was the point that he was trying to make, she thought as she continued to listen to his strumming the guitar.) English and Spanish together would be more accessible to more of their fans, especially the fan base that she was trying to develop. French and Spanish would be more intimate. With both of them speaking in their native languages, it would probably come across as more natural, though Auguste spoke English much more fluently than she.

Auguste looked over at her, awaiting a response. Camila didn't want to exoticize herself, though she knew that the "attractive young woman meets foreign man" idea would sell. It wouldn't be unexpected for her to sing in Spanish, though, and it might do even better with her fans back in South America, especially, if they were to put out something summery in the Northern Hemisphere's winter. For the fans who were in the Northern Hemisphere, they would be missing summertime by that point, and they would want something to remind them of sunshine and warmth.

"So… French and Spanish?" Camila suggested. It would make translation and any additional changes to the lyrics easier; they wouldn't need to run it by anyone. She also hoped that it would bring out sides of them that their respective fans hadn't seen (or heard, as the case might have been) from them as much. "I think it will sound better."

@auguste

[Deleted]

She clearly gave it some thought before her reply, which Gus could only appreciate. Thoughtless art was fun but if they put their minds together they could truly make a masterpiece. Something that was a lot less likely if they just went with whatever came up in their minds first. True, he'd never actually release a song that way, even if he had another artist putting pressure on him. If it wasn't good enough to him he'd never release it but at the very least the idea of the song had plenty of potential and the more subtle play on words he'd eased into the various versions wouldn't be lost in translation either way. His mind was already racing in how to use the similarities between Spanish and French to their advantage in writing the songs. Misunderstandings were a part he really had enjoyed about writing in this particular song and with French and Spanish it was sure to be somewhat more subtle in nature than when the differences between two languages were as blatantly obvious as they were when comparing English to Spanish. He nodded slightly, grabbing a blank sheet of paper and a pencil, tapping it gently against the side of his face as he considered.

"For the first part I'm thinking we keep the story somewhat aligned. The moment we, as our songs, met would still have gone fairly smooth, especially with the shared roots of Spanish and French. Then in the second verse we can start to properly play with the differences, as I did with the French-English version I had. Then in the third we can fall back on a mix of both, they feel the same but communicate differently which leads them to believe they wouldn't be compatible and then we can either do the third as a bridge or add in an abridged version of the refrain for the ending in which they both feel and say exactly the same about the summer romance looking back, which in my eyes would be better in a more gentle and cheerful light." The outlines of the French and English versions as she held them had featured both, of course. Both the high conflict and the low conflict versions, although he'd already known that performing it in two would in his mind be decided more by the chosen languages and how they interacted as a whole than the version that sounded best in only one language. He liked playing with hidden meanings from time to time and this song was a perfect opportunity to allow language to do so for them. Things got lost in translation, which only made the opportunities they had with this song better.

He then smiled as he visibly relaxed and tapped the sofa beside him. They were supposed to be doing this as friends more than as coworkers in his minds. "Do you want me to get some drinks and snacks while we tackle the song? I'm a little perfectionistic so if you want it done mostly today you're stuck here for quite some time." He admitted in full honesty. He knew better than to think that he could finish something fast. He tended to be so focussed on getting the details right that most songs took a while to write if he wanted to be satisfied with them. He often finished outlines in a few hours but the fine tuning most of the time was at least a full day of work. He could produce many songs in a week when he was inspired but many of them fell long before getting close to the finish line. He considered it part of the process and sometimes even sold his songs to other artists when he felt they were better suited to performing it but at times it drove his manager completely insane as it meant he had material for months and still didn't deliver anything that he was willing to put on his album until about three weeks before his manager had wanted to publish it. It had only happened once but he was pretty sure the man still hadn't quite forgiven him for it. Oh well, all in a days work. He was good enough for his manager to know that he would get the needed material in time anyway. Same with this song. Gus was sure it was going to be a massive hit, once it was ready for release.

camila calderón

[camila calderón]

September 2025

Camila hadn't really had the opportunity to collaborate with other musicians beyond her usual songwriting sessions, which were admittedly less of her input and more of what her label was interested in hearing from her because they thought that it would sell. They hadn't been wrong about that; her albums had sold very well, but just tossing ideas around and playing around with how things sounded for the sheer joy of making music was something that couldn't compare. She and Auguste weren't under pressure; they didn't have executives breathing down their necks and telling them what criteria they needed to meet. That made it much easier to take in ideas and not think about them as much. It was just intuition and figuring out what would sound good together.

Auguste took up a pencil and paper, which surprised Camila a little. It was probably easier to use a pencil than a quill, she thought, because it took less effort to erase something or switch it around if they ended up liking something else better, and there was no risk of smudging the ink or anything like that, either. For the first verse of the song, he began, he imagined that they would keep their individual songs—what they would be singing their own languages—aligned. That would work, thought Camila as she followed the gist of what he was saying, because it would establish the idea of the song from the start, and it would also clarify the roles or personas that she and Auguste had in the song.

Then, he went on, in the second verse, they could begin to play with some of the linguistic differences—in the way that he had envisioned when he had conceived the song as being in English and Spanish. Camila didn't think that that would be very difficult; it would be easier for her, at least, than thinking of differences between English and Spanish that she had yet to pick up on. And the two languages—with French and Spanish—sounded close enough together that it would probably be more like subtleties. That would still get the idea across, and Camila hoped that the end result wouldn't sound so jarring.

For the third verse, he suggested, they could use a mixture of both languages—"they feel the same but communicate differently which leads them to believe they wouldn't be compatible." They had two options from that point, which would be either the third verse as a bridge or an abridged version of the refrain for the ending.

Beginning to lose track of the exact words that Auguste was saying, Camila hoped that she hadn't strayed too far from the mark when it came to his thoughts on how the song should go. She had managed to catch most of it, or so she thought, so it wasn't going to be a total disaster.

Auguste tapped the sofa closer to where he was seated before Camila had a chance to sort through her thoughts on what he had just brought up. "Do you want me to get some drinks and snacks while we tackle the song?" he asked her. He also warned her that he was perfectionistic, so it was likely that she would be stuck there for a while. Aside from needing to get back to Britain, Camila didn't mind. She'd already extended her visit so that she could go to the cemetery with him to visit his late mother. A few more hours probably wasn't a problem, though, was it?

"Do you want food?" Camila checked with Auguste. "I am not hungry," she told him; she really wasn't hungry, and she didn't want food to become too much of a distraction from the song that they were working on. "It's fine."

@auguste

[Deleted]

Gus had worked with quill and ink for most of his career. Things had started to change somewhat as Sienna became a bigger part of his life. She'd always been a bit at the center of all of it but now that she was at his place more and more he started to get in touch with all the convinient parts of muggle culture and part of it blew his mind. The idea of using the strange devices in order to press some buttons for words didn't really suit him but well, pencils were so much more convienant than ink. When he was out to record he often still used quill and parchment but at home he had a stack of paper and pens and pencils these days. While he was a bit antsy about muggle technology he was less nervous about the things that just seemed like brilliant ways to simplify life. Pens and pencils were that to him and when he'd realised that he'd pretty much boarded up most of his quills instantly.

Another one of those things was a TV. He'd gotten one for Sienna but never really bothered with it. It didn't help you pointed one box at another and things happened. It was just too weird for words. He was convinced Sienna wanted him to start doing more muggle things and use a phone and all of that but he was just not in for that. He found it far too complicated and prefered to do things the more oldfashioned way, although he was willing to compromise a little bit. He did have a sports car after all and not just a broom. Plus, his car could fly so that was a lot better than muggle cars. He was still debating buying a motorcycle but hadn't quite decided on that yet.

For now Camila wasn't being particularly responsive, leading Gus to believe it was better if he kept quiet for a while and allowed her to sort out her thoughts. He knew he could be overwhelming from time to time. It happened plenty of times that he'd just kept going on and on back when his mom had been alive and he'd been enthusiastic. She'd usually smiled and chuckled while softly putting a finger to his lips to get him to be quiet long enough for her to interject anything at all. He'd calmed down a bit on the whole but was still prone to bouts of over communication when he was very enthusiastic about things. So for now he decided to be quiet so that she might gather her thoughts and actually be able to interject her thoughts. It would be far easier to build something based on sharing things rather than him just rattling endlessly while she nodded at most. That wouldn't get them anywhere.

That being said, he fully understood the creative process could take a while to get going. It was why he'd offered her food, which she didn't really need. When she bounced the question back at him he kept his determination to give her space to hear her own thoughts (and hopefully voice some of them). He merely shook his head. He did grab some more pen and paper to write some things down for himself. When he was this into the moment he just felt a highly compulsive drive to write, something that he didn't want to curb or stop doing. Even if the lyrics weren't something to be used by them as a pair in this song it could still lead to material for him to use later on. Some of his best work had come from him writing things down in the middle of a conversation. It didn't alwasy make people happy but sometimes he didn't care too much. It was part of his job in his mind and well, if people hated it that much they just weren't the kind of people he ought to be around too much. He usually only allowed himself to be distracted from music when in scenes of shameless debauchery and those had often enough led to songs later down the road.

He turned to Camila after a while, hoping she'd had enough time to gather her thoughts at this point. "Any thoughts?" He asked, a lot calmer than he'd been so far. He was very curious to know what she thought of what he'd thrown at her so far. Maybe she had some amazing ideas now that he actually gave her the time to think on it. He really needed to keep that in mind when working with other people. His manager was usually best as a soundboard but he didn't have to actually be part of the music. He just needed to make sure any of the music actually left the studio and with Gus that was enough of a challenge on it's own from time to time.

camila calderón

[camila calderón]

September 2025

Because she was a half-blood in the most accurate sense of the term, with a non-magical father and a magical mother, Camila had been exposed to both worlds all her life. She had been more immersed in the magical world, of course, because she had inherited her mother's magical abilities and hadn't been born a Squib, but what British magical society would have referred to as "Muggle" technology wasn't beyond her understanding at all. She had embraced the developments that had allowed for more merging between magical and non-magical items, finding it especially convenient to stay connected to her family and to her fans. It didn't matter where she was in the world—in Argentina, in England, or in France—because she could simply keep the World Wide Wizarding Web at her fingertips.

It also made communication easier across language barriers, which was sort of funny for her to think about. Her mobile phone had allowed her to translate speech and communicate more freely with people like Auguste and Sienna. Without that, she might not have become friends with them. Auguste Courtmanche might have stayed the distant rock-and-roll musician, her impression of him no different from how he seemed in the public eye. She probably wouldn't have become friends with Sienna and realized that she likely would have shrugged her off when she had come to find Auguste at St. Mungo's. What would she have had to do with a friend of his?

And yet she had just spent the night with some of Sienna's friends, at Auguste's home that was really more of a palace. She had kept the promise that she had made to Auguste when they were in the hospital together that she would go with him to visit his mother's grave, and now she was working on a new song with him. None of it had been imposed by any of the executives that had control over their careers, and it was all because the both of them had fallen ill with the disease that had derailed their—and all of magical Britain and Ireland's—summer plans.

It was all very strange to think about in that way. If she hadn't collapsed during rehearsal, she probably wouldn't have been taken to the hospital, and then what? She would have been left stressing herself out over and preparing herself for a tour that wouldn't have happened anyway, and she would have been absolutely miserable.

Having the freedom to just… sit down and take a breath and compose a song without any rush was something that Camila hadn't experienced much at all. She was excited, though it might not have been as outwardly apparent. It was still difficult for her to work in English, though most of the song that she and Auguste were discussing would bypass those issues. Whether that was art imitating life or life imitating art in that moment, Camila didn't know; Auguste was patient with her challenges with the language barrier, but she did feel bad about not necessarily bouncing around ideas as quickly as he tossed them her way.

Auguste shook his head when she checked if he was hungry, saying nothing. Briefly, Camila had to wonder if he was alright—if he had gotten caught up in thoughts of his mother, perhaps, after the emotional experience of having been to her gravesite—but realized that it was probably just that he, too, was busy thinking about the song. He had grabbed some more paper to write, and Camila thought through what they had already discussed. It would work; she didn't doubt that, but they would have to put in the effort to piece it together.

Camila was pulled from her thoughts by the sound of Auguste's voice again, asking if she had any thoughts. His tone wasn't quite as enthusiastic as it had been, but that might have been because they had been sitting in silence for a few minutes.

Turning her head to look back in Auguste's direction, Camila smiled. She had ideas; she just hoped that they weren't too bad. "Okay," she began. "I think… We can translate the lyrics?" Some of the English looked like it would work well enough if translated into Spanish. And French wasn't very far off from Spanish, especially not with some of the words that they would need. "Love", for example, was "amor" in Spanish and "amour" in French. "The idea is the same, no?" Regardless of the language or languages that they would be using, Auguste's thoughts on it hadn't changed the song so substantially that they would be starting from scratch. They still had lots to work with. "And for the music…" If they were going to go off of one of the lines that Auguste had already written, for example, then Camila had a general idea of how that might sound, pairing it with what he had previously played on his guitar.

She eased into the song, warming up her voice a little before beginning, and sang the English lyrics from the page in front of her out of convenience. It wasn't the finished product, by any means, but it sounded good together. As she got more comfortable, she began to improvise Spanish lyrics. What she was singing wasn't a translation of what Auguste had already written at all; she didn't have that kind of skill on the fly. The words were just something that fit the theme and the music, and she sang those as they came into her mind instead. It wasn't perfect, either, and she knew that, but she hoped that it might be a start.

@auguste

[Deleted]

Sponteneous creation was often a far better place to start than attempting to literally translate. He wasn't fully sure of what she was singing but he snapped his fingers and a quill instantly started writing down what she was singing. He often used it himself so he could just play around with the music and the lyrics without having to pause and write them down every time. It saved quite a bit of time and was very valuable to his own creative process since he didn't have to interrupt the one to do the other.

She'd mentioned changing the lyrics and he'd nodded, although he knew he wouldn't be of much help since he had no knowledge of Spanish to the point of being able to rewrite his own lyrics. She was on her own for that part, even though he was willing to help. He waited for her to finish and then grinned as she looked at the paper and the words the quill had managed there. "It sounds good." He said as he grabbed his guitar and started playing a little. "I'll play the song and we'll just improvise. Sing whatever makes sense within the context we decided and we'll try to see how much of that we can fine tune to make it feel a bit more natural." He said, waiting for her to agree before starting the melody. He sung his own part, the natural charm instantly turned on as if he was planning to seduce her. Naturally he wasn't, but he was thinking of Sienna. Any and all love songs made him think of her after all.

camila calderón
[sorry it's a bit short but I wanted to get something out without rambling too much]

[camila calderón]

September 2025

Camila didn't have the experience of collaborating with someone with whom she was actually in love on a love song, so it wasn't difficult for her to think of ideas. She didn't necessarily need a muse, though of course she knew to avoid anything that was too impassioned or too specifically about Auguste. They were nothing more than friends, but obviously the media would speculate about their relationship and if there were any issues and try to make things into some sort of love triangle between her and Auguste and Sienna. Of course she hoped that Sienna, especially, wouldn't be bothered by it. She was the one of the three of them who wasn't in the music business, and it wasn't as though she had her name and photograph plastered all over.

Keeping that sort of distance in mind, Camila continued to improvise lyrics. Auguste assured her that it sounded good, and she nodded back, trying to figure out what sounded the best with what notes in what places as she went along. It would need to be something that would be at least a little bit catchy, she considered. If they wanted something that would appeal to a global audience, they would have to find something beyond just language to keep them hooked.

Auguste added that he would play some more, and he encouraged her to think of whatever would work with the scenario that they had crafted for the song. She was in agreement with that, and she knew that they could work out the little details once they had a rough idea of what they were going for. It wouldn't come together in an instant; nothing ever did, but the lyrics that Auguste came up with for his own part of the song immediately sounded nice to Camila.

It was sort of funny to her how easily he could become like another person through his music. Just by the way in which he sang, it wouldn't have been difficult for someone to think that there were sparks there. Camila then stopped singing for a moment, deciding to change the way in which she was singing a bit, in order to better match the vibe that Auguste was giving off as he sang. In a way, it did feel natural, but it was also manufactured. After testing it out quickly, Camila had to stop herself and laugh, just to get that out of her system.

"It sounds so… real," she remarked to him, grinning. She supposed that that was the goal of it, really. What good was a love song if it wouldn't be believable enough for the people listening to it?

@auguste

[Deleted]

Gus couldn't help himself. He smiled and shrugged. It was one of the few advantages of the lifestyle he'd had up to this point. He could so easily find beauty in everything that he could fall in love for the length of a song but never actually lose his heart to anybody but Sienna. He talked or song himself into believing it up to the point that it looked and sounded real to everybody, but his heart was forever locked away for Sienna alone. Camila was far more like a little sister to him, but that never stopped the magic of the music. He nodded and then stopped playing for a moment. "I had the quill write the lyrics down as you sang. If you want we could go over it a few times and see how it feels. Then we can do some fine tuning?" He suggested before putting the guitar down and looking over his own lyrics for a moment. They'd need a few adjustments in sound more than anything. Things that sounded very similar just wouldn't work as well in what they were aiming for.

He then looked at Camila again. "In a way it's always real to me. Songs are expression of feelings we have and a mutual understanding of them. We might not be in love with each other but we've both seen and felt it. When I sing a love song, even if it isn't to Sienna, she's always in my mind. I remember how I feel about her and how I wish everybody could experience that feeling. That is what I direct towards you when I sing. Not a romantic love, but a wish that you will feel that intensity and magic that I feel every time I look at Sienna for yourself." He paused as he unceremoniously put a thick heavy stroke though one of his older lyrics, in stark contrast to his very gentle and romantic flow of words. "It's always real, but we choose in which way." He said, as if his actions and words were not so unharmonious as they might come across. He picked up the guitar again and handed her the paper.

"From the top. I'll cycle after we finish so you can try some variations. The quill will keep track so we can just try what feels right." He said and motioned at the quill as he began playing the song from the top. As the music started, the Auguste from behind the scenes evaporated again and the performer came back. The man that sounded as though his heart might break or soar depending on the course of the music. A persona that seemed unbreakable, even if you knew the man behind the music. Auguste simply wasn't the same person on stage as off stage. Music was where he lost everything he didn't like about himself and left all his pain and insecurities behind or incorporated them in his music in such a heartfelt way that he'd moved audiences to tears more than once. Music was his essence, no matter which story it told.

camila calderón