He loves to inlay “swirlies” into all of his metalwork. No piece, whether it’s jewelry or a weapon, is complete without a good pattern of swirlies.
Okay, so. Let’s look at this:
We can see that both of Runaan’s horn guards very clearly have the swirlies, meaning Ethari made them. The hair clasps also have swirlies on them. So obviously, they’re also Ethari-made.
But Ethari’s horn guards don’t have any, which is kind of weird, since he’s the one inlaying them into everything he possibly can.
So, what if those weren’t made by him? What if Runaan had gone out of his way to make them but he had no skill to do the swirlies, so just left them plain (except the gem(s)), to gift them to Ethari?
On the very first pic of him we ever got, he already has those, but he’s also portrayed making Runaan’s necklace at that time.
When I gave its match to Runaan, I told him, “My love will be with you even when the moon is not”.
Doesn’t strike me as something said casually. So they had been very clearly in love by that point.
Perhaps the guards were Runaan’s idea for a courting gift - to show Ethari that he was so important to him he was willing to learn his craftsmanship, even though it’s far from what he does.
Runaan and Etahri are portrayed as two opposites that make a whole and I love it.
For example, Runaan's design is lighter with blue marks that contrast against his skin while Ethari has darker skin and softer marks.
And the of course, there are the Shadowhawks!
Both are crafted by Ethari, and the first one is send by Runaan: a message of death, the arrrow is black and red, shot from someone who is injured and just killed.
The second one is shot by Ethari: a message of life, the arrow is white, pristine and gleaming and shot by someone who just lost the love of their life but also got reunited with his adoptive daughter.
There is no physical injury but it's clear that Ethari is mourning and not in a good place. He talks to Runaan as he crafts the second arrow as if to grasp onto that bit of connection he has left to his husband.
Tl;dr: Runaan and Ethari resemble yin and yan and complete each other as a whole and I think that's beautiful.
Concerning the Danger Soup ask, it takes me back to one of your earlier fics where Runaan was feeding Ethari in the healers place and... danger soup. It still gets me.
It took me waaaay too long to find that ficlet again, anon, because I forgot it wasn’t on Ao3 and also it predates S3 so I had it tagged with “tinker” instead of “Ethari”. Ha. But I think it’s fair to say that any food prepared by a Moonshadow assassin is danger food.
I love how tv has evolved so much that the gay ships being canon isnt an improbability anymore. Seriously. We no longer have to be satisfied with only fan made content (not that that’s all that bad). Just look at the new dragon prince season, or legacies. I’m so happy!!!