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Dancing.
It was an integral part of Moonshadow culture. It always had been, always would be. No matter what happened, the Moonshadow elves would still dance.
Disaster, famine, war. Life, death, separation, reunion, joy and despair. The elves had been through it all, and still, they danced.
There were dances for everything. Of course, each elf had their ritual entry dance, unique to them and them alone. But there were so, so many more ingrained into the culture.
The solstice dances, each a celebration that all elves who could stand on their own two feet would attend, each as different as the seasons they marked.
Summer, a lazy waltz, like the breezes that swayed through the trees. Autumn, faster, closer to a quickstep, the rush before the snowfall and the cold. Winter, a slow, fleeting, beautiful ballet like the snowflakes that tumbled in the sky. Spring, smiling movements, a swing dance of joy.
Arcanum dances, for when a young elf cast their first spell, thus cementing their connection to the moon arcanum. They were for the families and friends of the elf in question, a more personal celebration, but they all held the same theme - a fast, passionate swirl of a dance.
Then there were ritual dances for pretty much everything.
Death dances - each ever so slightly different, as to honour the deceased specifically, and remember their life. Often slow, a waltz maybe, or something of the likes.
Birth dances - quicksteps full of joy and life and happiness that lasted well into the night and often saw the sun’s first rays.
Dances for friends - jives or jitterbugs - cheerful, fast, near always dissolving into laughter. Dances for enemies - battles, if you were crude and blunt enough.
Close, intimate dances for lovers, sprawling, bustling dances for families. Whatever you wanted a dance for, there was one. And if by chance it happened there wasn’t? Well, just make it up.
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Runaan was an assassin, a more than accomplished dancer. After all, that’s what a fight was - a dance. But this moonlit waltz of sorts didn’t have nearly such deadly consequences.
“You dance like a warrior,” Ethari remarked, his fingers brushing Runaan’s hip.
There was no particular reason they were dancing tonight, in what Runaan always thought of as their little wooded grove. Nothing more than a quiet night alone and a love to be in the other’s embrace.
It wasn’t the first time they found themselves stepping to an imagined tune carried by the breeze, and it certainly wouldn’t be the last.
“As you have told me many a time.” Runaan mirrored his partner’s position, pulling the tinker close.
But he was so much more than just a mere tinker.
He was a weaponsmith, capable of crafting both the most beautiful and the most deadly of of blades in all of Xadia. He was a relentless optimist, always focusing on the good, always pushing forwards, always clinging to the last sliver of hope and pulling himself and all those around him free, no matter how hard.
But most of all, he was the most caring, most kind, most empathetic and most wholly amazing elf Runaan had ever met.
It was years ago now, and although everyone said relationships never remained the same over such time, that people never remained the same, Ethari hadn’t changed at all.
“Something’s troubling you.” Ethari’s voice was gentle, soft as they danced in the shaft of moonlight that fell between the trees.
He could always tell, no matter how finely crafted Runaan’s stoic mask was, Ethari saw through it like the clearest of water. And he wasn’t afraid to ask.
Most treated Runaan - the Silvergrove’s best and most accomplished assassin - with unwanted respect. Not in any means undeserved, but unwanted.
Ethari truly cared. He listened, he asked. He was always there, whether it was a dispute with Lain, or his latest victim haunting his every move. He was always there, whether Runaan knew he needed him, or not. Ethari cared, he listened, he didn’t pry, and if Runaan needed it, he would do whatever it took to help.
“I wouldn’t say troubling so much as…” Runaan trailed off, leaving the sentence hanging in the air beside the waning moon.
“As?” Ethari was pressed to his chest now, their bodies fitting together better than perfectly, as if their sole purpose in life was to be with each other.
“I don’t know,” Runaan admitted.
Another thing that set Ethari apart from the crowd. Runaan felt safe enough, he trusted him enough to empty his heart to his last, most deepest secrets.
“Well, whatever it is,” Ethari said as their positions swapped, holding Runaan so tenderly that he himself felt he could shatter with one wrong move. “I’ll listen. You know I will.”
Both were silent as they spun together, the moonlight making Ethari glow in a way that was so much more than beautiful.
It made Runaan’s mere idea yearn to become a reality. For Ethari to become his, truly his, and for he to become Ethari’s and Ethari’s only.
“As much as my heart aches to keep this to myself, moonshine, I fear it shall have to wait a little longer.”
And his heart did ache for the question unasked. A question that had been waiting - quietly biding its time in some peaceful corner in Runaan’s mind - for the right time. For the right person.
Ethari was that person, about that, Runaan had no doubts. And although the time was ripe and his for the taking and cherishing, the simple fact, he wasn’t ready.
He knew this was what he wanted, he knew that it was what Ethari wanted as well. Ethari would say yes and together they would be more than happy. He just needed… a little more time.
And no, not just because he needed to find a blacksmith that was halfway as decent as Ethari to make an engagement cuff, but that was pretty high on his list right about now. Or it had just moved straight to the top that moment.
He needed time, because he was scared. A rare feeling for an assassin such as he to admit. To even experience for something so seemingly trivial.
It wasn’t life at Ethari’s side that scared him. Sure, it made him nervous, excited, but not scared. It wasn’t that he was scared Ethari would refuse, either.
In all honesty, Runaan didn’t know what it was that scared him, only that he was scared. But he would push through. That’s what courage was. That’s what love was.
He would do it, for Ethari.
For them.