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Ethari isn't weak, he simply holds another kind of strength. Runaan knows this well.
Outside he can feel the moon setting on his last night home for what could be a very long time. Or, just as likely, the last time. His mind doesn't allow him the veil of uncertainty to be drawn in front of the grim truth. It's not in his nature, it's not the kind of life he's led. No, the bravery to hope and prepare for the best alongside the worst? That has always been Ethari's specialty. That is his strength.
Runaan's listless gaze rests on his husband's face and he thinks about the time he'd confessed his love.
Under the silver-cratered moon Ethari had dragged him out into the forest to dance, his hand warm and sure around Runaan's, to secret hole in a tree. A place that had once been a home before being left for the Silvergrove to retake, abandoned. But Ethari, with his warm smile and gentle eyes had shared it with Runaan. And the longer he had looked the more he could see the once-cold home being lit with Ethari's spark, here there were notes left behind, there drawings and diagrams of future projects pinned to the walls. Wiry scraps of projects left in piles. Leftover metals he'd stolen away to practice on and only the best of them inscribed with the endlessly looped graving that served as his signature. He'd been in awe of it all. In awe of the strength of the passion burning in Ethari's heart to change the world around him. In awe of his friend who until that night his heart had loved quietly in shadow.
Then Ethari had shared his campfire and his moonberry wine and in the temperate rain forest outside the Silvergrove they had danced with all the wildness of birds startled into fright, of young bucks in autumn, of joyous rivers full to overflowing. Runaan had studied the roll of his spine, the raise of his hip, the stretch of his skin, the laughter in honey-warm eyes. No detail of Ethari had gone unnoticed to Runaan's sharp gaze.
There had been a sudden rain, though the sky had been mostly clear.
He remembers it all vividly.
It had appeared as if the moonlight had come shattering down on them in a cold sheet. Runaan had glanced up at Etheri's shocked shout and... the rest of the world had simply fallen away. The driving rain that reflected the moonlight as it bounced from his friend's horns caused him to be crowned in a halo of silver. Droplets gathered on Ethari's long white lashes. His wine-dark lips parted in perfect surprise. There had been nothing in that moment but beautiful ethereal Ethari and his own feelings brought suddenly and unbearably to light. Eventually of course the cold had bitten through his lovesick daze and he had run through the mud to get back under cover alongside Ethari. His eyes go soft remembering how that was the first night of many they've kept each other warm.
Now they are well versed in each other's form and flux, comfortably attuned to each wax and wane in years of partnership. Runaan shifts to snuggle closer and delights at the downy feel of Ethari's body hair against his skin. Just as then he tries to sear the current moment into his memory. The even sound of his husband's breathing in sleep, the warmth and textures of him, the familiar scent of his body. His home lies not in a place but in the stubborn beating of Ethari's heart, nowhere but with his steady breaths and his enduring soul. It's Ethari that gives him the courage to embrace the warmth along with the cold. Ethari who had taught him how emotional vulnerability could be safe and empowering. How to be both a loving man and loyal assassin. How to trust and be trusted in return. (Though it had been together that they had learned how to raise a child. A lesson that they are always still learning.)
Runaan loves him with such depth and ferocity he feels that it will burst from him in great waves. That his mere body can't possibly contain it.
He mouths words of love against Ethari's skin in silence as if he could weave his own spells in the half-dark and prays for the dawn to wait.