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When he finds the disgusting thing, buried in the sand and coated in grime, his first thought is to throw it back to the sea and find something actually useful. Like a shiv, or a sharp piece of driftwood, or a dagger if he’s lucky.
He’s disoriented by the blinding light— the sun, he will realize once he comes to his senses and stops clawing the beach like an imbecile— and his primary instinct is to find something sharp. There will be hell to pay once he’s called back. Once he’s found. But if he can try to fight off his kidnappers, better yet, prove that he tried, perhaps it will be enough to prove this escape wasn’t his idea.
He needs something sharp.
His second thought is less rash.
The gentle lapping of the waves and warmth on his skin shock him enough to bring him out of the haze of animalistic panic and back into the present.
He is, for better or for worse, utterly alone.
The world is a blur of vibrant color and light. Of salty air and the sound of songbirds beginning their morning ballads. Shrill, he thinks with a grimace, too sharp for ears that are far more accustomed to the rumbling sounds of a tavern or the still night air.
With this new clarity the thing in the sand reveals itself to be a flute. A crystal one, clear and engraved with milky white patterns and swirls
It will take some effort to clean up and make it usable but he can pawn it, he thinks. Probably for a good price too. Musicians— vain idiots that they are— fawn over useless, decorative shit like this all the time. So he pockets it.
It fits nicely enough through a loop in his belt, and with a bit of string to ensure it won't slip out, it becomes a seamless part of his wardrobe.
He doesn’t have long to think about his new treasure though. There is a person heading towards him from the beach and he can tell even at a distance that they’re armed. Upon closer inspection, he recognizes them too.
That bastard he saw on the ship, running around like a chicken with its head caught off. They had been free . Astarion had been decidedly not. He’d pounded on the glassy casing on his prison— clawed at it too. Had he been able to move enough he would’ve taken his fangs to the damn thing. Unfortunately he hadn’t had enough room to do that and resorted to screaming himself hoarse instead.
But he’d been either unseen or purposefully ignored. He’s bitter enough to suspect the latter. Regardless, he has no reason to trust this person, so when he finds a dagger discarded in the sand only a few meters from where he’d been flailing, he takes it.
The flute remains forgotten as he puts his new blade to the stranger’s throat, and it lends him no favors when he nearly gets his nose broken as they escape. It’s only by luck that they come to an understanding. Luck, and the little parasite in their skulls.
He thinks about it only once as he takes up his new position in this stranger’s party. Just long enough to consider how much gold it’ll line his pockets with.
***
The answer is none.
Oh, he thinks about selling it, certainly. Frequently. He evaluates each new strange person his traveling companion enlists in hopes of finding a buyer. The gith is a no. He doubts she’s ever heard music in her life, much less would appreciate something so delicate and frivolous. The broody cleric is also a lost cause. She may appreciate the decoration but is clearly too preoccupied with her own laundry list of issues to care.
He thinks he’s found a one when the wizard tumbles out of that rock. He looks like the type to appreciate silly collectable items that he can’t even use. Unfortunately, he has as much gold on him as an urchin, so Astarion keeps it.
Later, when they meet, he will briefly consider selling it to Wyll. There's an air of nobility about him, Asterion can sense it, and it's not long until he will learn the man likes dancing too, so something musical would be perfect. But he will decide against it and tell himself it’s because he thinks the man’s heroism is endlessly irritating and he doesn’t deserve the thing.
By the time he meets Karlach he will have given up the excuses and admit that he just doesn’t want to sell it. That and the fact she’d melt it into a puddle.
But for now he spends his first night polishing it up for his future prospective customer.
Plus, it gives him something to do as he watches the sun dip below the horizon. There is loss in a sunset. Palpable, all consuming loss that sinks into his stomach like a stone. It’s…unsettling.
For a vampire, a sunset is usually somewhat of a gift. Oh goody, he can go outside without burning to a bloody crisp. But there is no relief or even anticipation in this one. Just profound emptiness.
For a long time he could hardly remember what the sun even looked like. Yes, a big yellow ball of light is easy enough to imagine, but he’d forgotten the true breadth of it all. How the warmth sinks into your skin like a balm. How each and every color becomes alive in the light.
So he watches the sun descend with a growing sense of anxiety. It will return. He knows that. That’s how it’s been for eons and he doubts Lathander is going to decide to stop the dawn just for kicks.
But he picks at the skin around his nails anyway and bites the inside of his cheek hard enough that it’d draw blood if he’d been fed enough to bleed.
Which is where the flute comes in.
He takes some water from a stray water skin (maybe Tav’s, he doesn’t much care) and washes the grains of sand from the outside. He worries briefly about making the thing unusable if he flushes out the inside but then decides he shouldn’t care and does it anyway.
Once it’s rinsed he takes the hem of his shirt and begins to polish it. His technique is probably wrong. He’s probably supposed to use a special fabric. Or a special polishing oil. But he doesn’t have any of that she he sticks with just being extra careful. He even picks the grime out of the engravings with his nails until they're spotless.
It’s properly night by the time he is finished.
It gleams like a jewel, glittering and reflecting pale, silvery moonlight back onto his skin. There is a short, very short, moment where he feels something akin to pride.
That promptly ends when his stomach cramps and anything he feels is replaced by all consuming need. His teeth ache, as does his head, and he can feel the muscles in his arms spasm. They still work even without blood, a perk of vampirism, but it is unpleasant. Like gears grinding against one another without any oil.
It’s been a while since he’s fed.
Not the longest stretch he’s endured by any means— it’s been less than a tenday— but he is hungry. Ever so hungry.
Once his muscles have decided to settle themselves he gets to his feet and abandons his shiny new toy in favor of something red and full bodied. Maybe he’ll find something properly filling out here in the wilderness.
In the city, it’s mostly rats.
***
He keeps the flute on him most every hour of every day and for a long time he doesn’t stop to consider why he does it. It’s simply part of his morning routine.
He tidies up his hair and dusts off his jacket. Then he loops his daggers into his belt along with the flute, and finishes by polishing off his boots before Tav drags him and whoever else off to adventure. He doesn’t think anything of it until the wizard asks him if he plays.
No, of course he doesn’t, and Gale should keep to sticking his nose in books rather than other people’s business. That’s the reply he gives, but once the wizard is put off from asking any more nosy questions, Astarion stops and considers it.
Why does he bother to keep it?
It’s not like it’s of any use to him. And it’s not like he’s ever had any particular fondness for music. Hells, it’s been literal centuries since he’s heard any aside from the occasional pitchy bard in a tavern or whenever Cazador dragged some poor soul into the manor to play the piano and then get drained dry.
And yet he keeps it. Even after finding a few merchants in the Emerald Grove who would take it, he decides against it.
It takes him some consideration but he realizes, after a long day of traipsing through the wilderness with nothing but his thoughts to occupy him, that maybe it’s just because it's…his.
It has been a long time since he owned something. Sure, he has his unparalleled wit, and devastating looks (so he’s been told), but he has not so much as owned the clothes on his back in two hundred years. There’s something novel about the flute. That he’s able to just have it.
He kept a small collection of trinkets in his chest by his bed for a time during the first decade of his un-death. Little things, like a copper piece he found wedged in a brick in the street, or a simple brass ring he nicked off of a bar patron. Once, he’d found a small wooden doll half rotting in a puddle, and hid it under his bed until it dried out and could be stored properly.
They were pathetic little things. Nothing of any value, but they felt significant at the time. Like little reminders of his ‘humanity.’ He’d spend hours sometimes just fiddling with them. Running a rusty coin or a button through his fingers like he was the richest man in the world to have found them. Because they were his and his alone.
That habit had gotten squashed quite severely after a while.
Now though, he can have whatever the hells he wants.
His tent (which itself is stolen) is filled with knickknacks he finds on the road. Silken pillows from a wrecked cart, silver mugs that haven't been used in decades from a dusty old crypt, even two mirrors just for the irony of it all. He can fill his pack with as much menial garbage as he wants and nobody could make him stop without risking life and limb.
But he still favors the flute. Perhaps because it’s the first? He doesn’t quite know. And he doesn’t want to.
That is quite enough introspection for a lifetime, he doesn’t need to dig any further into his psyche.
He does, however, enjoy having an answer.
And if he spends a little extra time polishing it that night, well. That’s his business.
***
They have to find out he’s a vampire eventually but he really wishes it hadn’t gone the way it did.
He had just been so hungry and the squirrels and rabbits were wonderful but they were not cutting it with the amount of energy he has to use to keep up in a fight. So he’d made the decision to be a bit bold and try something new. To test the boundaries of his freedom just a bit.
It went poorly.
Tav was unhappy, of course. They were stuck with two wounds in the side of their neck and a horrific headache from blood loss, Astarion (as much as he'd like to) couldn't blame them for being a bit cranky. At least they didn’t stake him.
It was made very clear he was to stick to feeding on wildlife and their enemies only, but he’ll take what he can get.
Besides, it’s always nice to be open about yourself. At least so he's heard. He can see the wariness on the other’s faces though. Some more than others, certainly, but no one is completely comfortable.
Lae’zel looks ready to kill him if he so much as glances at her neck, and Wyll— monster hunter extraordinaire that he is— is on edge every time Astarion gets called to come with on an adventure. At least Karlach seems alright with him, but he couldn’t bite her without burning his face off so she never had anything to worry about in the first place.
It’s fine. Really. It’s not like he wants to get up close and personal with any of the lunatics he's traveling with. But it does mean he gets left at camp more often than before. At least while the others warm up to the idea of a vampire in their midst.
He’s most often left with Gale or Shadowheart, and while he’s usually up for some gossip with the latter, he tires of being at camp incredibly quickly.
So he’s forced to entertain himself.
He starts off with books.
He’s always liked reading whenever he got the chance, so he tears through the few books he’s collected on their travels in only a couple of days. Then he resorts to stealing from the wizard’s stash (which is a mix of incredibly boring non-fiction and surprisingly raunchy romance.) Eventually Gale catches him though and Astarion decides he’d rather not get fire-balled into a pile of ash. The wizard doesn’t have the guts to of course, but sometimes tempting fate is not worth it.
Eventually, painfully, he turns to the flute.
He may have come to appreciate the thing, but that doesn’t mean he knows how to play it. And he’d rather not look like a complete fool in front of any of his companions and ruin the reputation he’s so carefully built up for himself.
But boredom does eventually win out over pride, as it turns out.
He makes a vague excuse about going hunting to Shadowheart while she's busy with her cleric duties (what that even entails is a mystery) and dashes into the woods with the instrument tucked into his shirt. He hopes he travels far enough so that she won't hear anything.
Somehow it’d be far more embarrassing to be caught with the flute than with a mouthful of rabbit fur and blood soaking his shirt.
He’s committed though. He takes the thing and delicately turns it around in his hands until he’s examined every inch of it. In his mind's eye he can imagine what he’s supposed to do. He even mimes it to himself before he tries it.
His hands are poised, fingers placed artfully over the tone holes as he puts his lips over the mouthpiece and blows.
It's horrible. Of course.
He is not skilled with any instrument much less a flute, so he had expected it to be bad but not this bad. The noise he makes is so sharp and discordant he suspects he just scared off the entire forest population. His own pointed ears ring and he cringes, nearly dropping the thing.
But it feels… good, to put it to use.
Like something clicking into place.
He frowns at it. It is, in essence, a useless chunk of glass. Pretty glass, his pretty glass, but nothing else. There’s no need to learn to play it. To dedicate his time to something so menial when he could be hunting. Or sharpening his daggers. Or formulating a plan of how to convince Tav they really should give using the worms in their heads a shot.
He should just go back to camp, or actually get a bite to eat.
But he tries again instead.
And again.
And again.
By the time he decides he really should be getting back before Shadowheart notices he’s gone, he has improved.
It’s not much, mind. But the notes he produces are less ear piercing and instead simply unpracticed. He finds he actually has a knack for it. As it turns out, the dexterity required for lockpicking also applies to instruments.
Shadowheart doesn’t say anything when he returns hours later. She does give him a strange look— something between confused and amused— but he chooses to ignore it.
Ignorance is bliss.
***
It becomes a habit.
He’s soon brought back into the fold when it comes to adventuring— Tav prefers to have him around just in case they come across a locked door Karlach can’t obliterate— and the rest of his companions mellow out. They come to see his vampirism more as a quirk, and sometimes a very useful one since his teeth make for convenient weapons, than a threat.
But when he’s not slogging through hag infested swamps and an abandoned village overrun with goblins, he spends his time practicing with the flute.
Usually he feigns hunger and pretends to hunt. Sometimes he doesn’t make an excuse at all and just vanishes into the wilderness. Everyone doesn’t seem to mind as long as he returns in time for supper.
The flute becomes as much a part of his day as sharpening his weapons or packing up his tent.
He wouldn’t be caught dead calling it a hobby, but he is at some point forced to admit that's what it is.
A hobby.
Gods it’s ridiculous. But at the same time, much like owning the flute in the first place, it’s refreshing. He likes having something to do with his spare time aside from sunbathe and fantasize about killing Cazador once he gets Tav to agree to help him.
He learns what notes go together mostly through trial and error. The wizard has no books on musical theory, and he would rather drink wyvern poison than ask one of his traveling companions for ‘help.’ So he makes a lot of errors.
But he also makes a number of break throughs.
The first time he gets through a melody without fucking up he finds himself cracking an unintentional smile.
The sensation is strange. It’s been a long time since he’s had a reason to do s without anyone watching.
He can’t do anything very complicated but the series of notes he can piece together feels like monumental progress.
Even if he doesn’t share that progress with anyone.
Until that changes, of course.
Because his life has become nothing if not an ever changing mess.
The next time Tav drags them all back to the grove, this time under the pretense of stealing Kahga’s hidden chest and doing some light trading, Astarion runs into the damn bard. Her name starts with an ‘A’ he’s sure, but he doesn’t bother to try and remember it.
When she spots the flute hanging on his hip and her pupils grow to the size of dinner plates. He’d avoided talking with her the first time they explored the place, instead sitting back while Tav played an absolutely horrific tune on a lute. She must not be very observant if she’d missed the flute the first time though.
She asks if he plays.
He hesitates.
In that moment of hesitation is a choice. One he is startling unsure about.
His first thought is to give her the same response he gave to Gale a tenday ago and go join the rest of his party in their heist. To continue with this new interest of his as a private, solitary endeavor. Hidden away.
But first thoughts are not always the correct ones.
When he nods, and reluctantly begins to tell her yes, he does, she wastes no time in convincing him to play with her. She grabs her lute and beckons him back to her little camp set up. Shes so eager her tail is swishing back and forth just above the ground.
Perhaps he should have listened to his instincts.
Though he will admit, as he begins to play along as best his amateur skills will allow, it is fun.
She teaches him a few basic chord progressions and the names of the notes he’s playing. He dislikes being treated like a student, as if he isn't her elder by two centuries. Woth great effort he swallows the biting words on his tongue and tries to apply her tips. The flute is not her instrument of choice, but she has played before, and so her advice is admittedly sound.
They cycle through simple songs, ones he is able to keep up with, but also attempt one rendition of The Weeping Dawn.
It’s less awful when he’s the one playing it, he decides.
He sways along with the music, focused and intent in a way he finds he is with few things other than self preservation. His fingers fly from one place to the next in fluid, flighty movements. A bit like a bird, he thinks inanely.
A morning song bird perhaps. One with eyes like ink black buttons and mossy brown feathers, flitting from branch to branch as it announces dawn's arrival.
He quite likes those ones.
By the time the rest of his party is done with their business he has put the flute away and is halfway through unlocking a padlocked chest. They usher him away, not wanting to get caught with Kahga’s dark secrets in their pockets.
They seem none the wiser about his music though.
He runs a cold finger over the edge of the flute, and hums.
***
On a whim— a stupid, stupid whim, driven by nothing but desperation and idiocy— he ends up reaching for the thing the next time he finds himself in a bind.
If it had been left up to Astarion, they wouldn’t be in this situation at all.
There is no reason to go digging around in Kahga’s dirty laundry like this, even if it was entertaining to uncover. He can appreciate the drama of it all, and he has no love for the druid herself, but he knows when to leave well enough alone.
Being up to your knees in mud mephits and swamp water is a sure fire sign they should have done just that.
But Tav wanted to investigate. Damn hero complex.
He clutches at his side with his free, daggerless, hand. There’s blood on his fingers when he pulls it back, mixing with the mud plastered to his coat to form an ugly maroon color. A waste. He’s been feeding so well recently. It’s a shame to lose it now.
He’s one of the few people left on his feet. The wizard is down, debatably dead but Astarion will leave that thought for later. Shadowheart looks fit to join him. She’s entangled in a mess of vines and roots, her spells long since spent and her mace buried in the muck. Tav is hanging on against the remaining wood woad, but even from a distance Astarion can see they are worn down. Healing potions can only do so much.
Astarion himself is busy with three mud mephits. They should be an easy fight, but the bastards keep making more of themselves and exploding every time he gets a good strike in, leaving him bloodied and bruised. So he keeps his distance and gets pelted with hunks of rock instead. He suspects he’s broken a rib.
Then he sucks in an involuntary (and unnecessary) breath and changes his guess to two ribs.
They won't make it out of here like this.
They’ll all die in this disgusting swamp and he’ll be left to rot in the mud with nothing to show for his freedom. His dagger is useless at a distance. Sure, he can throw it, but then he’d be left with nothing but his teeth.
A mephit hurls another hunk of earth the size of his head at him and he barely has time to stumble out of the way before it can slam into his chest.
Tav isn’t helping. Their fight with the wood woad is going poorly, he can tell as much from the way their arm hangs limply at their side.
So he reaches for the flute.
He doesn’t have the faintest clue what he’s going to do with it. He just reaches for it, tugs it free from it’s tie, and brings it to his mouth. Acting on instinct.
He has only one, insane thought as he puts his lips over the mouthpiece: I will not die here.
He expects the sound to be shrill, and make no mistake, it is. It’s so sharp he feels his ears begin to ring and has to fight the urge to cover them, but what he doesn’t expect is the sheer volume. It starts as a rush of warmth that runs from the center of his chest up through his throat and to the tips of his fingers, along with a strange tingling sensation. Like he’s filled with pure electricity, all coursing violently through his useless veins before being expelled into the flute.
And then there is an explosion of noise.
It barrels through the mephits several feet ahead of him, a shockwave of thunderous energy that tears them apart at the seams, splattering everything in a several meter radius with rocks and soil. It even reaches the wood woad, shattering several of its weaker branches into splinters.
Astarion stares.
Realistically, he should get back to the battle. Tav is still struggling against the wood woad, and Shadowheart is still struggling to get free of her viney prison, but he can’t bring himself to. He just stands there lamely and stares at the flute.
Astarion knows what magic feels like. He can wield a firebolt as well as anyone, even if he’s no sorcerer. The tingling. The release of energy. It’s all familiar. But this feels different.
It feels…natural.
Powerful.
Right.
Later, in the quiet of his tent after the wood woad has been dealt with and Shadowheart shoves a healing potion down the wizard’s throat, he will examine the flute again.
It’s such a simple, sad thing. Abandoned and left to rot on the beach. There is no world where he should have kept it. He should have tossed it like the junk it is or sold it to the first bidder dumb enough to buy it.
But here it is. Solid and real in the palm of his hand. Glinting in the dying firelight.
***
He doesn’t use the flute again for a long while. Not like that, at least.
They get through the goblin camp with just their wits, blades, and more than a little help from Halsin in wildshape. In the end two out of three of the leaders are dead where they stand and the drow is left knocked out cold on the stone floor. He doesn’t know why Tav chose to spare her life— they had claimed it was something about seeing potential in her as an ally, though Astarion didn’t buy that. But he has no complaints. Her armor suits him well and as long as he gets to keep it he doesn’t care what happens to her.
It feels too easy, almost.
All Astarion did was unlock a few doors and slit a few throats; the standard fair. And yet here they are, surrounded by tieflings drunk off wine that tastes like vinegar celebrating their victory like they are gallant heroes.
And in a way, he supposes they are.
He doesn’t like it.
He tries another sip of wine, as if it’ll taste any less horrible than it did a minute ago, and pulls a face. Perhaps his companions have something better. Shadowheart’s been nursing a glass since the revelry began and he knows the wizard keeps a supply in his tent that he breaks out when he thinks no one’s watching. But the idea of rummaging through their belongings doesn’t have the appeal it usually does.
He tries another tactic. He closes his eyes and briefly, for only the smallest of moments, imagines something more…flavorful, in his bottle. Something rich and indulgent. He imagines that he can smell the iron— can taste it on his tongue as he runs it over his teeth.
He brings himself back to a far more disappointing reality with another sip of shitty wine. He’s not hungry, not in the way he’s used to being, but he still can feel an ache.
Or maybe it’s just boredom.
Despite being a party it is awfully dull. The tieflings are loud and overly joyous, but he’s a bit disappointed to find that their form of partying is less reckless debauchery and more dancing by firelight. The rest of his companions seem to enjoy it though. Karlach especially, judging by how her laughter carries from across the whole of their camp site.
He can see her now, watching with Tav as Rolan performs some parlor tricks with his magic. He frowns.
He’d thought about propositioning Tav. Hells, he had planned on it for a good while. It never hurts to have insurance. But, as he’s learning more and more often recently, his plans always seem to go awry.
Tav is most certainly not interested, and to his immense surprise, seems intent on keeping him around regardless. So he leaves them to their fun.
Instead, he turns to his only other source of entertainment.
The flute.
It’s laughable, really, how attached to it he is. He feels more at ease with it latched to his hip. As if it'll actually do anything of use for him once the tadpoles are gone and he’s left in the dark once again.
But he knows, even now— even in the throws of uncertainty of his future and his present— that he’ll never part with it. It’s his, and if anyone wants to take it they’ll have to pry it out of his cold, twice dead hands. It is as much a part of him as any limb.
Nearby, he can hear Alfria beginning a rendition of the Weeping Dawn. Her voice is slightly raspy from hours of socializing and drinking, but she opens the song with confidence. With hope.
Astarion watches her, an idea slowly growing in the back of his mind.
Hope is a funny thing. It’s an elusive, tricky little bastard, and something Astarion hasn’t been able to find since his death.
But it’s also stubborn. Once it roots itself in a person’s chest you’d be hard pressed to get it to leave. Like a flame, fighting against getting snuffed out. Even the tiniest amount of kindling can grow it into a bonfire.
And for the first time in centuries, Astarion feels a spark.
Once Alfira ends her performance, he makes the possibly hairbrained decision of joining her. She looks delighted, urging him forward and making a show of talking him up to the curious looking tieflings and his doubly curious party members. He appreciates the flattery, if not the pressure.
They chose a drinking song in the end; something lively and light. One he’s heard a dozen times in taverns late at night in the lower city. So he’s confident as they begin to play.
Astarion is used to performing. His entire life is performance, but as he pours himself into hitting each and every note with unmatched precision, keeping in time with Alfira, he realizes this feels different.
The music warms him, surrounds him, filling every pore of his being until he blends with it. He is no longer set apart from the melody, he is the melody. It’s impossible to tell where the music ends and he begins.
He throws himself into it. He can vaguely hear Alfira’s lute and her singing, but it’s faint and pales in comparison to the pure electric energy he pours into his playing.
It takes a moment to come back to himself once the song ends. He can still feel the beat of the song deep in his chest. Like a heart.
The applause are raucous and he adds a little flourish with his hands when he bows, giving them all a sharp toothed smile. But for once, he finds it is genuine.
There will be countless trials ahead. Most he can never even begin to predict. From devils and gods, to the temptation of power beyond his wildest dreams. But for now, he focuses on the feeling of the flute in his hands, and enjoys the moment.
“Gods that was brilliant! Are you up for another?”
“Of course, darling. It’d be cruel to deprive them of my talent.”