Sanguine || Astarion x Reader

Bards Being Bards

Astarion stays close beside you, while Shadowheart and Gale wander the shelves of the store despite having no interest nor proficiency in music. You think they're saving themselves from a music lesson or two from either you or Thomas.

They wouldn't be wrong though.

"You have a wonderful selection!" You warmly praise, gesturing at the displayed instruments around you."

The dragonborn's already pleasant expression beams at you even more. His bright orange eyes light up, a toothy grin making itself known on his scaly features.

"You look like you know your way around your instruments, dear patron." Thomas says, eying the lute strapped to your back.

"Only stringed ones, I'm afraid," you explain. "I'm still working on my breathing control to play flutes and clarinets properly."

"Stringed ones, you say?" Thomas hums and he bends down beneath the counter to take out a lute he made. It looks beautifully golden, polished with only the best varnishes it seems. The carvings around the soundhole represent a wreath decorated with summer flowers. "You see, I've been experimenting with Worg hair as strings!"

You tilt your head at him, as Astarion senses the gears turning in your head. "Curious," you say. "And what are the benefits of that exactly?"

Thomas beams brighter, and excitedly speaks "Well, you see..."

Astarion stands there ever so patiently, quietly listening to your and Thomas's conversation about the tensile strength and tone a Worg hair can produce for stringed instruments.

He had never thought that he would be capable of finding happiness, especially not in such a trivial thing— listening to you talk about your craft. And certainly not with the centuries worth of pain and trauma he has within him. Hope was useless and would often cause more pain and disappointment than salvation, or at least he thought.

Not after he met you, of course. All those months ago, with newly tadpoled heads, you slowly wormed your way into his very soul. A simple bard plucked from Baldur's Gate managed to sing the right words to him to make him hope again.

Astarion had been fairly good at crushing hope in his nimble hands a century ago and he was so ready to crush hope again when you told him that the tadpoles would make you all into monsters.

But he didn't.

He initially blamed you then, how you made him feel so weak and stupid to hope for a better life, for freedom, after so many years of accepting his tragic fate.

He blamed you for bringing so much light and happiness in his life, despite him knowing the inevitable— you leaving him because he wasn't enough. He never could be enough.

"Oh, apologies! Would you look at the time, I've kept you for longer than I ought to," Thomas apologizes. "Discounts all around, dear patron! For your time and patience."

When you beamed at Astarion at the notion of a measley discount on instruments, when his undead heart threatened to beat, he knew that— perhaps— he was enough for you. Despite his scars, his past, the difficult healing he has to go through now that Cazador has been felled.

Astarion grins at you and takes your hand, leading you to wander the aisles of the Chromatic Scale.

"I'm sorry, love," you say to him sweetly. "Did that bore you?"

He shakes his head at you, soft white curls bouncing ever so slightly. "Not at all, my dear," he replies just as sweetly. "I do enjoy it when you talk about the things you love."

A soft tenderness tugs at your heart. "Well, why don't I get a new lute and play it for you later? It's on discount!"

"Only if you play it only for me." Astarion drawls out dramatically, placing his free hand on his chest.

"Of course," you reply. "You're always going to be the one to hear my new compositions first."

"As I should, darling. I deserve no less than to be the first one to bask in your greatness."

You giggle in response. "So," you start, grabbing two lutes off of the rack. "Burgundy or emerald?" You hold up the lutes in front of him, waiting for his choice. Astarion stands with a cocked hip, a hand placed on his chin in thought.

"I personally prefer burgundy, but the emerald one suits you more," Astarion replies. "I think you should go for emerald, dear."

You gently hung the burgundy lute back in its rack, all the while grinning at him brightly. "Emerald it is!"

-

That night, you spend your hours alone with Astarion at the rooftop of the Elfsong Tavern.

It's a foreign feeling, Astarion notes. To look out into Baldur's Gate and see hope, dreams, and wonder, instead of sheer dread and torture. With you in his arms, gently plucking the strings of your new (discounted) lute, he feels he can do anything.

Astarion lets himself hope and love, a concept that was once so jarring to him now feels so easy and natural because you taught him how.

His beloved bard. 

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BTW!!

I published a new Astarion x Reader book!

Check that out if y'all like some Dark Urge Tav x Astarion shit!!!!