As strong as the seas are stormy.</style>
Earth eyes land upon her own, and she revels in how her presence inspires the curl of his lips around his attractive face. It settles her heart, bouncing in her chest as if it can't possibly still with his eyes settled on her. He was like electricity, setting all her nerves alight and blood fizzing the minute she came near him. It was the best kind of adrenaline, and though she had experienced romantic happiness so rarely that she could not adjust to the feel of it sitting in her heart, Hotaru did not intend to relinquish it so easily this time around.
Like a gentleman he speaks both her title and her honorary place at his side, head bowing as she nears him with no intention of stopping. They have placed this game a thousand times, their public dance so well rehearsed that the choreography is imprinted on the back of her eyelids. Secrecy, facades, illusions...they had kept their feeling so secret for so long that it was a miracle they had ever confessed in the first place. But here, even with all the bodies gathered and even with all their peering, curious eyes, she would not slip on her dancing shoes. She would not bow and dance and entertain them, not when she had eyes only for her golden partner.
They intertwine like the branches of her parents' tree, until the only way to tell where one begins and the other ends is the shades of their skin. The Valkyrie leans into her Laurelin, greedily soaking in every touch and flirtation, her own eyes vixen sharp and lowered so that long ivory lashes sweep across her cheeks. His lips gently pull and tug at her pale forelock, and her laughter is so sincerely amused and unbearably fond that it surprises herself. Neither are familiar with this language, these feelings. It's like trying to read braille with bruises, calloused fingertips, but they try nonetheless. Yearning for that taste of simplicity that so many others fell into so easily. Their only downfalls, the one skill neither Hotaru nor Thranduil had ever managed to perfect. Perhaps that was why they were so fitting for one another.
Her bicolored eyes glint merrily at his teasing, his scent warm and familiar in her nares as she nudges her muzzle against his neck playfully. "Maybe my naughty list, but I don't like to share," the vixen hummed mischievously, lips curling attractively at the edges. Hotaru had no shame for the possession of her love, the iron-branded marks she wished she could lay upon his gilded flesh. He was hers, and hers alone. Just as she was only his.
When he beckons her, she departs willingly, the lights and the tree nothing compared to time with him. Time, that valuable, precious gift. With him so far away, so distant and unreachable from beyond the mountain range of his once-home, any time spent with him was far more important than some annual holiday. With a smile she follows after him, selfishly keeping their steps so close that they risk tripping over one another. He is a magnet that she cannot resist, and with the prying eyes of others disappearing behind their backs, Hotaru doesn't even try to pretend that she has any restraint when it comes to Thranduil.
It feels odd, to have him home once more. To walk through the borders with the Laurelin at her side, as if nothing has ever changed. As if he never left. As if he never spirited her heart away like the thief he was, leaving her distressed and anguished. It still hurts; it's an ache that won't really fade. This isn't his home anymore, and she knows that. So when his shoulder pushes her off balance, Hotaru welcomes the distraction with open arms. Wanting only to revel in his company rather than the pain of her own thoughts.
She has not played tag or chase since she was a foal, but her laughter is bright and surprised as she races off after him. They are evenly matched in speed, but she has far superior stamina, and even if she must hound him to the very opposite side of her homeland then she will. With a grin she surges forward to nip playfully at his sensitive flank, spinning on her heels in the snow to take off in the other direction, trying to save as many strides as possible to keep the lead. He could run her down, with his longer legs.
With the heat in her blood, the primordial chase like an archaic ceremony of flirtation and courting, Hotaru can't deny it's something she wants. So she slides in the snow, racing off for the glittering lake with its iced edges and the copse of trees where he had found her sick and beaten. Where she had first admitted her love. Not the same place - not for something new and bright and tentative like this. But if he will chase her, she will run.
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