Archive of Our Own

There are some quiet nights when you can hear a soft pan flute.

You think its coming from Taako's chambers, but that can't be right. Can it?

Kravitz comes across him in the kitchen once, decades after the Story and Song. Magnus has passed, as has Lucretia, and with her most of Taako's anger. He's waiting on some bread to rise, staring idly across the counter at the pans. Kravitz stops to watch him for just a moment, and notices the simple flute in his hands, several small wooden pipes fitted together with purple thread. He fiddles with it, a silent chord progression playing across his fingers. Still not realizing Kravitz is there, Taako raises the flute to his lips and begins to play.

It's slow and soft. The composer in Kravitz can't help but think the piece is missing something, that there's a second melody to this song.

Taako only notices his husband when he sniffs, and the flute is gone so fast it's like it never even existed. He immediately turns back to the bread, ears absolutely beet red.

"Shouldn't sneak up on a fella like that, bones. Coulda been doing something embarrassing."

***

The Twins

Lup used to dream of the stage. They both did, her and her brother. But while Taako dreamed of showy, gaudy, loud performance, Lup wanted to make music.

She didn't care so much what she did, really, so long that it made people smile. She used to love looking into the windows of shops, stocked full of woodwinds and strings, eyes wide and the beauty, the refinement of it all. Her first real wish, for their 12th birthday, had been violin lessons. She didn't intend to be a bard, she wouldn't fool herself into thinking she'd be that good. It'd just be fun. Pretty. A nice, productive hobby, maybe even talent, to have.

Children on the road don't tend to have the time for hobbies.

Lup and Taako knew a good thing when they saw it. They also knew how easy it it was to royally fuck up that good thing. So they (for the most part) kept their heads down, their eyes and ears open. They lied and cheated and stole their way onto a caravan of travelling stage magicians, Charm Person becoming as easy to cast as their collective shadow. It was months of cleaning stagecoaches and taking tickets before they had a full meal each. But they had each other. They didn't need more.

So when Taako fell ill, Lup's world nearly fell with him.

"Show time's 7 o'clock, that means set up at 6 everyone!" The ring leader barked orders across the lot. Lup raced around the caravan, handing off props and spouting call times as fast as her lanky limbs could carry her. Taako sat on their shared bedroll in the back, mending seams in costumes with shaking hands and tired eyes. It's all he had the energy to do, but they'd made it work. He'd been like this for a few days now, a combination of late fall weather and empty bellies making them both susceptible to any virus they might pick up on the road.

"I have to do something outside, I'll be back before the show's done." She tugged the scarf tighter around her brothers ears. "Stay warm."

"Where ya goin', Lulu?" Taako sniffed, wiping runny nose on grubby sleeve. "It's gonna get dark out."

"That's the idea, dingus." She ruffled his hair. "Back soon. Love you, Koko."

"Love you too, Lu."

Hood down, fists in pockets, Lup said a silent prayer to any gods that would listen. One of them sick was a liability. One of them sick meant less work, meant less pay, meant less food on the proverbial table. And that could easily mean one less twin. So, out she trekked, through the streets of a town the name of which she hadn't learned, to find some way to make up the difference.

She scanned the road for life. Nice thing about working for a circus, there's always a circus in town. Always something better to be doing. No need to be on the streets, with most of its shops closed and shuttered. No reason to notice a hooded figure in the shadows, sidling up to a darkened building. No one around to hear the figure cast Detect Magic, or to watch as she found a window on the second floor, un-magically-trapped, and slipped inside.

She had limited time. While the window held no magic, that wasn't to say the shop itself didn't, and she didn't have the slots to waste on checking. Head down, ears open, in and out. Natch. She crept as quickly as she dared, down the wooden steps, round a corner, and cast Knock on the massive ice chest.

Normally, this much panache, this much risk , didn't go into a "shopping trip". They were street rats, not above a good ol' fashioned dumpster dive. But with Taako already sick, there was no way she'd risk anything more with half-rotten food. And if she was being honest, which she was, they deserved a proper meal. So she pulled the first bird-shaped bundle she saw from the ice, and ran. No reason to bother running upstairs, magical alarms were probably blaring already, somewhere. Unlocked from the inside, and go.

She ran. She's not an athlete, she's a wizard and a vagabond, but she ran.

The show was about half over when she returned, sweaty and panting, to the caravan. She ducked in the back of the cook's wagon. She dragged a stool over, threw a pan on the flame, oil, salt. She unwrapped the bundle, Turkey, thank the gods. If Lup knew one thing, it was how not to fuck up a bird. Flour, water, eggs, dip, fry… It's not like the spice cabinet on this travelling freak show was loaded, but it had some basics, and she'd make due.

"What the hell are you doing?"

Well, shit.

"Cookin'." Flip, out, dip, fry…

"Do you even know how? You're like 12." The half-orc in the doorway folded his arms over a messy apron. She could feel his eyes drilling holes in her back, but she'd deal with that later. If ever.

"I'm twenny-five." Come on, flip, fry, out, repeat…

"What's that in people years?"

"I dunno." She didn't. Flip, fry, out, dip, flip, fry, out, dip, flip, fry…fuck. Nine bells. She grabbed what was done, nearly half the bird, and wrapped it back in the parchment. "Rest is yer's, gotta go."

She ducked out under the man's arms, sprinting back to the sleeper car. The show would be ending soon, and if she wasn't back before then, they'd both be out of a job. Out of a warm bed. On their own, again.

"Taako, I'm bac-" Shit.

"And where is it you've been?" Her boss, the venerable ring leader of this bullshit circus, stood tall above her brother.

Lup hung her head, casting an apologetic look at her brother. "Dinner. I- I had to go... Taako's sick so… so I had ta-"

"Not on my time you don't, kid." He looked pointedly at the bundle in her hands, stalking over to snatch it from her. "Let me see that. Stupid kids gonna give 'emselves food poisoning." The man unfolded the paper to find a pile of fried turkey, golden brown, still steaming.

"I can cook , sir. We both can." She folded her arms defiantly. Then, she smiled. "You can... try some?"

And he did.

And little did she know, that was the last night she'd steal food for a long while. The next day, Taako and Lup sat in the kitchen car, watching a, rather perturbed, half-orc put together meals from whatever was cheap at whatever market they passed that day. Lup took notes, proper temperatures, how to fake a decent cut of pork. But Taako… Taako was enraptured. His eyes never left the range, taking in every scrap of information and filing it away. They both knew their way around a kitchen, but Taako had passion.

They spent the rest of their time in service to that troupe in the kitchens. And once they proved themselves, they made a more decent stash of coin for it. Taako got healthy, and once they'd both had a week of full, honest meals , Taako came home with an extra parcel from the market.

"Happy Yeet Day, Lulu."

"But it's not..."

"Just open it before I change my mind."

She carefully unwrapped the brown paper, saving the bright red ribbon for their hair. Inside, sat two hand-me-down wooden pieces.

A violin, and a bow.

***

The Lover

There was always music filling Barry’s home.

His mother was always humming softly, or singing, or tapping out rhythms against the kitchen counter as she swished by, flour dancing in her wake.

You could threaten him with torture, more death, undying torment in the Eternal Stockades of a hundred planes and he would never admit it, but Lup’s bread doesn’t quite match his mother’s.

He learned rhythm from his mother, but the piano was his father’s.

It was the first formal thing Marlena taught him. She sat him down, so young he doesn’t even remember the age, and showed him how to move his fingers on the keys, pressing the pedals for him when his dangling feet didn’t even come close to reaching the floor. It’s a simple base melody, easy enough for even his inexperienced hands, and he has it down quickly enough that he never quite forgets it.

His mother tells him later, before he leaves, that it was a song his father had written for her.

Not that the IPRE was particularly interested in music, especially not when his skills as a (wizard? arcanist? fighter?) were in question. So he quietly put his pianist fingers away, tucking those skills next to his budding interest in necromancy, and focused on the Bond Engine.

That music didn’t come into play when he applied for the Starblaster mission either.

Or when he was accepted.

His ability to keep a beat didn’t save his homeworld from being devoured by the Hunger.

It filled some gaps, some nights, some lonely nights on the Starblaster or on whatever plane they’d landed on. He quickly learned Merle could keep a beat just as well, for all he pretended to know nothing of music.

(He’s partially telling the truth: Merle is entirely and unapologetically tone deaf.)

At Legato, without realizing it at first, he writes his father’s melody into their composition.

Taako transmutes him a piano after Legato, although they don’t always use it.

Lucretia doesn’t join in on these impromptu, always impromptu, jam sessions, although they start becoming regular enough that she’s ready with a journal whenever Barry starts tapping, hand busy as the twins drift over and join in.

(Well. She does. But it takes over fifty years, and she is set back to protective silence for a decade and a half after her year alone. But. She joins in again.

Before they fall apart.)

He doesn’t remember if he plays when he’s in his body.

He never does when he’s a lich.

He wonders, sometimes, if he does, and if his body remembers missing the other half of the duet.

He settles around Lup again, although it takes time, ragged edges where once there was smooth softness, scars where neither of them expect.

They work out something again when Magnus gifts them a beautifully carved piano, a complement to the showpiece of Taako and Kravitz’s home. He adds an additional violin, matching and unique all at once, with carved flames dancing down the sides (because this is Magnus).

Playing together again is like coming home after a hundred years.

***

The Protector

Julia Waxmen was the most beautiful, strong, talented woman Magnus had ever met. And he was absolutely smitten. It was only a matter of time before he was welcomed with open arms by her family as well.

The Waxmen house was truly a home. Most houses in Raven's Roost looked fairly similar; there are only so many ways to build a sturdy lodging atop a massive plateau. But there was something that made Julia's feel special.

That something was Mama Waxmen.

If there was a homemaker award, Mama Waxmen surely would have won. She kept a modest, tidy home, and was always the people pleaser. Some would go as far as rusticly hospitable.  She made a wonderful seeded loaf, passed down for generations, just like the harp she played in the church every week. There was always food on the table, and music in the air in the Waxmen home.

So it came as a shock, to her and everyone, when Julia Waxmen proclaimed she would not be picking up the family tradition.

"I don't have the time, or honestly the passion to do it justice, Mama. You have to understand that. I want to carry on the family legacy… just not this one."

The dinner table was silent for several moments, Julia's father eyeing his daughter, but not saying a word. This was her choice, even if making it would break her mother's heart. Magnus, present as usual at family dinners after the engagement, nervously pushed his potatoes around his plate.  
"Mama I'm sorry… I know this means a lot to you but--"

"Missus Waxmen." The table was thrust into momentary silence again as Magnus spoke.

"I would be honoured to learn to play the harp from you."
"Maggie, you don't have to-- "

He puts a hand over hers, engagement rings clicking together softly. "I know how much this means to you, ma'am, and I," he rubs the back of his neck, blinking until the water in his eyes goes away. "I wish I had something like this from my parents, you know?"
Julia's hand turns in his until their fingers intertwine. She squeezes gently.
"I can't say if I'll be any good," he says, squaring his shoulders and meeting Mama Waxman's warm gaze. "But I promise you, I'll try."

Their lessons started the very next evening. Julia and Stephen would close the Hammer and Tongs together, and Magnus would duck out just after closing time. By the time father and daughter came home from work, Magnus was finishing his scales, and already setting the table for dinner.

It was a few weeks before anything of substance came from Magnus' playing, but what he lacked in talent and nimble fingers he made up for in determination. If he thought of the harp as a machine, all levers and pedals, he could learn to work it just as well. And Mama Waxmen, ever hospitable, never ran dry of patience.

The first time Magnus Burnsides played the harp in public was the night of his wedding.

The ceremony had finished, the reception in full swing. Magnus and Julia took hands, their first dance to the background of Mama Waxmen's expert playing. It was a whole production, the church orchestra filling in the base to her melody. It sounded like home.

When the first dance concluded, however, Magnus bowed deep, placed a kiss on Julia's hand, and passed her to her waiting father. Then, big, burly, rough boy Magnus, switched places with the mother of the bride at her harp. The orchestra backed away, leaving the new groom center stage.

And he played.

***

The Lonely Journal Keeper

Music makes sense to Lucretia. It's like a language, once you figure out the rules, you can use it to communicate anything. The method, the instrument, is secondary. The music is what transcends.

She starts writing music in the margins of her notebooks. Bits and pieces of melodies, a powerful chord progression, written when her tutor goes on yet another tangent. She doesn't pick up anything but piano for quite a while, long after they've left their home.

In Legato, she paints. It takes time, sure, but not as much time as the others take to learn and perfect their pieces. So she wanders, following the music that's always present in the conservatory. She passes by the open windows of a practice hall.

"-just great! So we just don't have a tuba now? Our recital is in A WEEK, SEBASTIAN!" She stops, peering in past the thin curtain, and watches as the elven girl rants on. "It's not like anyone wandering around here is free to learn this quartet! Let alone who can PLAY TUBA!"  She throws her stone of farspeech down in rage. "Great, perfect! How are we going to get this piece accepted without the baseline?"

"I can try..."

Lucretia slowly pushes the door to the practice hall open. She's confronted with three pairs of eyes, all suspicion and exasperation. The elf rubs her temples and speaks up. "What do you want?"

"I- uhm, I can try? To learn the piece?" Her voice is muffled, face half hidden behind the notebook clutched to her chest. She's nearly ready to give up, to run and hide, when the halfling beside her speaks up.

"What do we have to lose, Marina? Like you said, recital's in a week. We're not gonna find anyone else."

They don't need to. Lucretia takes to this massive instrument like a duck to water. She doesn't tell the crew, no need to break the illusion of refinement. She leaves her borrowed instrument in a practice room locker, but brings the sheet music everywhere she goes, tucked neatly into one of her journals. In a matter of days it's covered in notation, her notebook a collect-all for fingering charts and practice scales. By the third day, she can run a bi-octave chromatic scale forwards and backwards in thirty seconds.

The day before the recital, she spends nearly all day holed up in a practice room. The other three are long gone, of to have a celebratory drink before the stress of the morning. Luc, diligent as always, runs through her part again.

"You realise you've been playing the same note for like three minutes, right Luce?" She jumps, and the tuba nearly clatters to the ground. Lup is sitting in the open (since when?) window, backlit by the moon. "Ya'know, insanity is doing the same shit over and over and waiting for something to change. Fantasy Einstein, newly my darling brother."

"Jeez Lup," she sighs, setting the tuba down on its bell. "Don't those windows lock?"

"Yep." Lup swings down from her perch, saunters over, and snatches the sheet music before Luc can react. "Didn't know you played… that."

"I don't." Lucretia says, idley emptying the valves on the tuba. Lup raises an eyebrow. "I just picked it up. For the sh-" She curses herself silently; Lup is far too cool to watch her play tomorrow. Which she definitely would insist on doing.

"You're playing that- excuse me, not playing that, for a recital? " Lup looks incredulous. "When." It's more of a statement than a question. Because, Lucretia had to be real with herself, Lup was going to make it her business to find out.

"Tomorrow."

Lup grabbed the journal on the stand, shoving the papers into it. "Absolutely not. No. You are not spending the night before your big show practicing. " She casts levitate on the tuba. "Now where does this go, you and I are going to have some real fun."

They stop running (it's more of a panicked chase, really) in a field on the outskirts on the Legato campus. Lup tosses Lucretia's journal down and sprawls out on the grass.  Luc sits beside her, dusting off the book. It's quiet, most students of the conservatory already asleep or busy on one of Taako and Merle's impromptu field trips. For once in what felt like ages, all was still.

The recital goes off without a hitch. Her trio of new acquaintances (friends?) share hugs when the piece is accepted by the mountain. Lucretia helps pack the instruments, and tries to slink off before they can ask her for a celebratory drink. She nearly jumped out of her skin when she heard an all too familiar voice behind her.

"You put on a good show, Creesh!" Lup elbowed her arm, "Wanna get out of this crowd?"

Luckily Lup was already pulling her away, so the blush on her cheeks went unnoticed. "Absolutely."

They sat in the same field, of course. Luc was starting to get the idea that this may be Lup's go to get-away-from-people spot. Her heart thudded at the thought that she'd shared such a luxury with her. The wicked grin on Lup's face wasn't doing much to help either.

"What?"

"I've procured a little something for you, dear Luce." She took a moment to dig around in her bag, finally pulling out a little… stick of something? "A little something for a job well done." Her grin became only more sinister as she lit then end with a very small Produce Flame.

"Absolutely not. Lup, no..."

"Luce, yes." Lup passed the joint over. "I've known you nearly… what fifty years? And I've never once seen you let loose. You work so damn hard. You need a break."

She nervously eyed the joint. Smoking fantasy ganja was not exactly part of the Lucretia Brand per sé… but it had definitely been a long week. And no one was around to witness, except Lup.

"You tell no one."

Lup feigns horror, hand flying to her heart. "I would never!" She laughs, and Lucretia can't help but smile. "So…?"

Luc's eyes roll and she takes the joint, daintily, as if afraid of its awesome power, between two fingers. She looks at it quizzically. "I don't exactly..."

A flame flickers on Lup's finger. "You've let it go out draggin' your feet. Now pay close attention." She pushes Luc's hand up to her face. "Pull like a straw, then take an actual breath. Just a little, don't go too har-"

Lucretia coughs a plume of smoke between them. Lup stifles a laugh, but only just. She pulls out a bottle from her pack and passes it over.

"Just water, swear on my life."

Lucretia gives her a grateful nod, passing the joint back and taking several sips before speaking. "I don't think I'm really *cough*.. really made out for this, Lu..."

Lup takes a contented drag. "Bullshit, you've just got those fresh lungs. Uncorrupted." She winks.

They sit there for a while, lying in the grass, Lup taking long drags, blowing smoke at Lucretia. After regaining her composure, Luce takes her chances again, taking small hits when offered. The sun is warm, the smoke hazing their senses, and they can hear the soft sounds of the Conservatory in the distance. A low grumbling, and Lup's ears twitch.

"Hungry already, Creesh?" She giggles, warm breath close to Lucretia's hair.

She's hoping the flush in her cheeks is the fantasy weed, or at least, that Lup might think so.

"Like a bugbear." They both laugh. This is nice.

"Let's see if we can't get Taako to make us some grub, hmm?"

"Baller."

Another laugh from Lup, much heartier. The sound is like a bubbling stream, and Lucretia is perfectly content to drown in it.

They pick themselves up, Lup wrapping an arm around her waist in a lazy hug. They chatter about nothing on the way to the dorms, their secret afternoon forgotten as they join up with the rest of their crew for dinner.

Well, almost forgotten.

***

The Peacemaker

Of course there’s music at Pan camp.

There’s the camp singalongs, the tambourines and the out of tune guitars and the youth leaders with delusions of god-blessed voices.

Merle has never been one for music.

He wanders, instead, slipping out of the firelight, and it doesn’t even matter if your stealth stat is weak if no one cares when you’re gone. He explores the forests, the quiet stillness so different from the endless waves of his beach home.

He was never much for music, so when the light strings drifted out through the clearing, he follows them more for curiosity about their creator than about the music itself.

He finds a stout dwarven woman, reclining on a roughly carved log with a beat up guitar, plucking out seemingly random notes into a friendly, laidback melody. She nods as he approaches, but says nothing. She plays in silence for a while while he listens, sitting against her log.

She’s still there the next day, strumming the same old guitar. This time she sets a beat with her foot, glancing down at him until he picks it up.

Merle might be tone deaf, but he can pick up a beat just fine.

Maeve doesn’t seem to want him to sing, either.

She silently passes over the guitar one day, a week before Merle is set to return to the beach, and he painstakingly picks his way through the same laidback song she’d been playing when he first found her.

He doesn’t continue with it, back at the beach, but he finds his fingers tapping out rhythms and testing out chords.

He does pick up the washboard though, and plays a mean tune whenever someone lets him anywhere near one.

The IPRE doesn’t care that he can’t carry a tune. They’re more interested in his nearly unheard-of ability to understand what was going on with any given plant, no matter how rare. And his healing, when he remembers it, came in handy too.

It wasn’t enough when the Hunger came, swallowing the plants and the people, the guitars and tambourines and quiet dwarf women in their quiet forests.

He practices more often, after that.

He keeps the beat during their jam sessions, at the beginning alongside Barry, but then taking over when Barry remembers his piano skills and his intensifying love for Lup. He gets better, the tempo faster and more complex, and it becomes a game, even for those who don’t like to join in.

He teaches them all the washboard.

Lucretia is the best at it.

Eventually, while they are all very drunk, he sets a beat that Davenport finds irresistible, and they learn that their incorrigible captain can spit .

Merle’s never been more in love.

He doesn’t remember music with Hecuba.

There are tavern songs and rough rhythms while he wanders, alone, static filling his brain more often than not, but his body doesn’t need to remember where he learned the patterns to remember how to play them.

The caravans seem to like having a cleric that can heal and keep a beat.

Mookie takes after Merle, drumming out faster and faster rhythms regardless of time or place or other music playing. Mavis isn’t as quick with the beat, but her piping voice is strong and pretty, swooping like a songbird through the songs Merle teaches them.

It reminds him of something, something he loved, but his mind fills with static whenever he focuses too hard on it.

He tries not to.

When he remembers, it’s with more relief than he would admit.

The rhythms finally have a place, right with his gnome.

He goes out on the ship, sometimes, with Davenport alone, or with Davenport and his kids, and every so often with some of the other seven.

Taako in particular comes out most often.

Slowly, they start to grow again, as Merle waits with his garden, murmuring to his plants and tapping out his favorite rhythm, helping them grow green and strong as he waits for his captain to sail home.

***

The Wordless One

Gnomes, of course, have enormous families, hundreds to a burrow, sharing everything from food to sleeping space to clothes to dating tips to skill sets. It’s not uncommon, for all that gnomes are underestimated, for most gnomes who leave their homes and be technically multi-classing.

The rhythm, the complex beats, the tossing verses back and forth like pieces of fruit, that’s all from his burrow.

The voice is all Davenport.

He discovers it somewhat by accident, when trying to raise his voice loud enough to reach five floors above, to get his hat back from Anika, cousin number forty-three as he calls her when she’s pissing him off like she is now.

“Anika, give me back my haaaaaat! ”

Instead of a shout, what comes out is a powerful baritone, wobbling into a vibrato strong enough to shake the water in the bathing pool.

He passes on a voice teacher in favor of pilot lessons.

But before the Institute, before the light of creation fell, before the bond engine and the spaceship and the crew, he was a sailor.

He was a popular leader as they departed, his powerful voice rolling out as they cast off, his crew joining in: “Way, haul away, we’ll haul away, Joe! Way, haul away, the good ship is a-bolding…”

He carefully packs away his singing when he joins the IPRE, aware of the frivolous connotations some might associate between his voice and his race. And if he keeps his voice in shape, careful and private and conscientiously following the voice repair techniques he stole from a worksheet off Anika’s desk, well. No one’s close enough to him to comment.

When he makes captain, there is no mention of singing, operatic or otherwise.

Maybe if he was a bard, his voice might have done something against the Hunger.

He doesn’t join in on the jam sessions, hanging back in a mirror of their chronicler, even when Merle tries to convince him to join in.

(The twins change that, as they do with so many things. Mostly by getting him drunk. This is before Legato, before he spends an entire year focused on himself and his skills for the first time in decades. He’s more uncomfortable than he thought he would be, but his voice, cared for, carries him through. They’re drunk enough to still be surprised, at Legato, but that night he feels the last of an ancient wall crumble down.)

Not long after that first time, he’s steering the Starblaster through a tricky level of the atmosphere on a new plane. It’s late at night, and even with the ship pitching and swaying in the air currents, he expects the rest of the crew to be asleep, or as close to sleep as most of them get, nowadays.

He start singing under his breath, a sturdy shanty for storms and wild waves, words escaping through gritted teeth as he grips the wheel. In spite of himself, he feels a grin tug at his lips as he sings the familiar, albeit long-dormant words.

Magnus, of course it would be Magnus, just about gives him a heart attack when the husky voice of the young security officer joins in nervously on the chorus.

He jumps, mouth slamming shut, throwing a glance over his shoulder.

He does not find just Magnus.

The rest of the crew is there, some staring at him uncertainly, although the twins are poking at each other, ears twitching with delight. Magnus is shifting from foot to foot, one hand holding his blanket around his shoulders and the other rubbing at the back of his neck. Merle is grinning, while Barry props up a half-asleep Lucretia.

He jerks around back to the helm, cheeks flushing, knuckles going white on the wheel.

A few moments later, Lup’s strong (if slightly pitchy) tenor rises from behind him, uncertain on the lyrics but enthusiastic in volume, “Way, haul away, we’ll haul away, Joe! Way, haul away, the good ship is a-bolding…”

She trails off, and he can feel the now expectant eyes on the back of his head. He sighs, silently, and feels that grin pulling again.

After this long into the journey, he’s done trying to push that down.

“Way, haul away, we’ll haul away Joe! Way, haul away, the sheet is now unfolding…”

The voice of his crew - his family - rising in strength behind him, Davenport lets his grin take over as he guides them over a new plane.

When Lucretia takes their memories, he feels the music go too.

It takes him a long time to find the music again, out at sea. He’s gifted a small guitar by a halfling named Niamh, and his fingers remember what his mind has trouble holding onto, strumming the simple notes Merle taught him decades ago, the same ones that Merle gives him refreshers on when he docks in Bottlenose Cove. Instruments were never his strongest suit, but it’s a relief when his fingers don’t stutter on the strings.

If the notes come out mangled, it’s only due to lack of practice.

He starts singing again, hundreds of miles from any other living soul.

He sings to the stars.

The next person to hear him sing, in a twist of fate he would have never expected even in his long and storied life, is Mookie.

He’s taken both of Merle’s children out on a sailing trip, only a few hours out at most from Bottlenose Cove. The earl himself elected to stay behind, waving his kids onto Davenport’s small, hardy ship with a joke and a laugh and an attempt at sneakily handing Mavis a bag of crystallized ginger.

The day is bright and lovely, a warm salty breeze blowing in Davenport’s face, and he catches himself singing under his breath, a quick and cheery call and response shanty. Mookie is high in the ropes, Mavis clinging to the railing with one hand and holding onto her glasses with the other. They don’t know the old gnomish tune, being a race, a generation, and a hundred worlds away from where it started.

“Way, haul away, we’ll haul away, Joe! Way, haul away, the good ship is a-bolding…”

He forgets how sound carries over water.

“What’s that song, Dav?” Mookie yells, hanging upside down from the sail nearest to Davenport’s head.

“Yeah, it sounded nice,” Mavis adds, carefully climbing up to join him at the wheel. “I didn’t know you sang?”

He looks at their faces, open and shining with sweat and salt water, and for the first time in a long time, he doesn’t feel static.

They take to the song as quickly as his cousins ever did.

And when they listen, eyes wide and delighted, to one of his faster pieces, he’s reminded, just for a moment, of Magnus, long ago.

And the memory doesn’t hurt.

***

Kravitz doesn't see the flute again for a while.

The next time is a rare moment with the remaining birds, plus himself and an aging Angus, settled loosely around a campfire somewhere in the mountains. He forgets exactly where. Everything is calm and slow in the late summer heat, the sun only reluctantly giving up its hold on the rapidly darkening sky. Lup, eyes half lidded, pulls out a fiddle from Barry's (probably-illegal) bag and starts plucking idly, Barry adding in a simple beat, hand thumping against the log they're draped over. There's something familiar about the melody, but he doesn't recall ever hearing anything quite like it.

Merle adds to the beat by hitting his soulwood arm against the rock he's sitting against, unwilling to move much more, while Davenport, head in Merle's lap in a moment of unguardedness rare even after so long, starts humming. The low hum mimics Lup's melody, adding a subtle harmony to the song.

Taako catches eyes with Lup, and she's smiling, perfectly content, tapping her toes to the rhythm. It's just the same smile she wore when they played together, all those years ago, in another world. He recalls a night, well into their days on the road. They'd scrounged enough money, from gambling tricks to straight up theft, to eat comfortably for a while. He remembers his sister's face when he'd come home with a parcel, something he'd saved up for by going secretly lunchless for weeks. A thank you for all she'd done for him.

A small, wooden violin. For the look on her face that night, he'd go hungry forever.

A pan flute materialises in his lap, and Lup winks. He fiddles nervously with it for a few moments, and she isn't sure he'll join. But then he rolls his eyes, lifts the flute, and their song is finally complete.

Kravitz lets out a silent, contented sigh, unheard against the dancing, improvised melody created flawlessly by this impossible family, brought together through suffering and heartbreak and betrayal, and impossible love. He can't do much, especially not with one hand carding through Taako's hair, but he nods carefully at Angus and breathes out a prayer, unheard by all but the Raven Queen. Inscrutable she may be, being a goddess, but he knows she's always had a soft spot for the birds.

For a moment, just for a moment, the ghostly figures of Magnus and Lucretia, young once more, materialize among their family.

They can only stay for the length of a song, but it's enough.