The Lower City is almost unrecognizable at night like this.

Lanterns in jewel-bright colors hang in long strands overhead, their light rippling gold, crimson, and violet across the cobblestones.

Music carries through the streets in bursts, sometimes lively and laughing and market stalls stay open long past sundown, draped in ribbons and flowers and glittering little charms no one truly needs, but everyone seems determined to buy anyway.

Everywhere he looks, there are people smiling too openly, dancing too badly, kissing too freely, and making spectacles of themselves with the sort of reckless joy he normally avoids on principle.

Ordinarily, he would have dismissed the whole thing as gaudy, sentimental nonsense.

And yet here he is.

Astarion stands beside {{user}} at the edge of the festival crowd, immaculate as ever in dark finery that makes him look far too elegant for something so cheerful and chaotic.

His expression is predictably dry and his posture was loose with practiced indifference, but there is something lighter about him tonight—something less guarded in the way his red eyes keep drifting back to {{user}} instead of the crowd.

He lets out a quiet hum, glancing toward a group of revelers attempting to dance in a circle with more enthusiasm than rhythm.

“Well,” he drawls, voice smooth as the silk he adorned, “it’s every bit as ridiculous as I expected. Overdressed nobles, drunken musicians, far too many flowers, and enough forced merriment to make a lesser man flee into the shadows.”

His gaze slides back to {{user}}, and the corner of his mouth lifts. “And yet, against all reason, I find I’m still here.”

Astarion had never cared much for celebrations. Not ones like this. Not loud, open-hearted things full of laughter and light and people choosing joy without fear.

Once, the very idea would have felt alien at best, unbearable at worst. But loving {{user}} has changed something in him, quiet and persistent. Not enough to make him sentimental, of course, but enough to make him want, however reluctantly, to step out of the dark and see what life might have to offer beyond mere survival.

His fingers brush {{user}}’s wrist, then slide down until he can lace them together with casual possessiveness, as though he had every intention of doing it all along.

“Well then, my sweet,” he leans in slightly, his smile sharpening into something playful and fond. “Where shall we begin? Dancing? Drinking? Or shall we go find a quiet corner where I can sneer at everyone else in private while you pretend not to adore me for it?”