He became quickly aware of the fact that the white stag had grown tense, and was sorely tempted to make a remark about it, but instead decided to listen to what he had to say. Testing his boundaries with the stranger could come later. Right now he wanted information, something which was denied him for the first time he had ever known. "Hide." Not a question, but more of a confirmation to himself. The white male's self-sure grin was beginning to nag at him. He grimaced. "It is pleasant here I am sure. But I do not belong in this place."

The irritating sound of sarcasm was ignored for the most part, while the grey stag took to just staring at the white with an expression of bored interest. He was affronted by the mockery, but set that feeling aside for another time. "You are strange." Not that he himself wasn't, but there was something provoking and weird about this one. It bothered and interested him simultaneously. "Do you enjoy harassing strangers, or are you too simple to find other hobbies?" A deadpan insult thrown at this Jack. Testing the waters, as it were.

Barachiel held only a bland expression at this point as he gazed lightly back at the white stag. Musing over everything this one said was too much brain work, but he reluctantly had to admit that it was better than being alone. He had some information to offer, at least, if not irritating company. "You do not speak with everyone you meet, then." Though it was a question, he phrased it as a blanket statement. He didn't wait long for a reply. "And you would not be interested if there was not something I had to offer, I think." The grey male let his wings drag to the ground, heavy as they were. "Same as every other. You want something."

The first explanation severed Barachiel's curiosity like a knife, negating any possible interest in the matter. He received his answer and that was all he had asked. When the white prattled on about the pendant- which, when brought up, was defended subconsciously with a protective shift of his wings- and other deer, he just blinked and stared, not even caring to nod. His eyebrows were raised slightly when the other male pursued yet another route of mockery, imitating him. Barachiel turned his body so he was facing him fully again. "What I want has little to do with you, you can be sure." Almost as an afterthought, he added, "And that is not to say I want anything in any way."

The painfully obvious paranoia was beginning to agitate Barachiel. As he had never had any need for suspicion or mistrust, he didn't understand why this one did. He disliked what he didn't understand. Nothing should be beyond his ability to think. "I do not like being... Classified... as 'everyone'." His dispassionate expression was now sour, truthfully not enjoying this conversation much anymore. "If I had any intention of staying forever, I would not be asking you these questions." He turned away, hooves making gestures of wanting to leave. He didn't move otherwise.

The first question was well put, as it was both true and it peeved him. This white beast's crude jesting did not make Barachiel angry, so much as it benumbed him. He was growing weary of the witty remarks. Without turning his head, he commented dryly, "Your revelations are boring me. You state the obvious as though it is a game." Throughout the conversation the grey stag had maintained an easy heart rate, never slowing nor increasing. It was a practiced pace, and it allowed him an unusual appearance of permanent calm, except when his face showed the emotions. That face flicked its gaze over his shoulder at Jack, in thought. "You may be right. I could have asked. Still may consider it." Having forgotten his prior wish to leave, he turned back slightly to look at the white stag better. "But yours is the type of soul that does not part with the right answer. You play with your food and then release it uninformed." A biased statement made, and spoken as though it were an absolute certainty. His expression was of stony disinterest.

Sorry if Umay's stiff behaviour was bothersome, bahaa.
Anyways, really interested in this character. Love the artwork. <3

"Hmm... no I don't believe anything.... I just never ignore a possibility, yes?" he nodded, mirroring the other's movement with his head. "Just told you, you are interesting... great chance that there is something..."
The next words made him laugh again. "Who needs to understand a game to enjoy it eh?"

The wite had silenced again. There was a strange look on his face now... somehow thoughtfull. Every hint of a smile or a grin had vanished completely. "Duty..." the word dropped from his tongue as if it was well known to him, but also with a great amound of dispise. His ears fell back and he shook his head again. "Pah... duty.... Ehre... Pflicht... Disziplin... obey every word, yes?" he growled, the look on his face darkened. "Talked like you.... just like this... he...hehe... long time ago... pah... foolish talks...erbärmlich..." for a moment he looked like he wanted to spit out in front of the grey but something obviously kept him from doing so.

He started to chuckle, slow headshakes followed, as if in disbelief. Then, suddenly the nervous smile returned to his face... as if he had just noticed that there was a crack in the facadé... and that information had been leaking out.

Despite the growing lack of interest for this conversation, Barachiel noticed when the others' smile vanished from his face. Obviously something he had said triggered this. Unless he was just psychotic- which Barachiel wouldn't be surprised if such was the case. The white stag answered his questions without them needing to be asked. "Yes. Duty. Obedience." This Jack called it foolish, but the ex-archangel called it honor. "If you used to speak like this, you must have failed your duty. Elsewise you still would." Though for the most part the grey stag had maintained an indifferent demeanor, there was a clear note of disgust when he spoke. "I keep to my duty. You can keep to your failure." Almost as an afterthought, the sea storm eyes cast about, almost frantically, as if searching for that duty. Trying to find something he had lost.
The white one's smile had betrayed some of his information, but Barachiel's apprehensive stares were giving away his uncertainty. He spoke with absolute confidence, but was plainly lost about what to do.

Thanks Rhyya. (:

As he was no stranger to battle, the drastic drop in the stranger's mood was enough indication for Barachiel to tense himself. Unlike this one, though, he had no will to fight. Barachiel's eyebrows connected in a disappointed frown when the white stag opened his jaws, and when the other leapt forwards to get a bite out of him, he instinctively pulled back, and put distance between them. He was quick, but the white stag still managed to catch some skin and fur on his shoulder. He unfurled his wings to keep balance. The frown turned into a pained grimace, and Barachiel hissed between his own bared teeth, "I speak as I will, heathen."

The grey stag shook himself when the other one passed by, wrapping his wings up tight against his sides and glaring thoughtfully down at the bloody bite on his shoulder. It was an unusual sensation to him, pain. Not that he had never felt it before, but it was significantly less... Painful when he was an archangel. This... This hurt. His attention was snapped back to the raving white beast as he ranted about what seemed to be murder, some horrific event. Barachiel's mild irritation mellowed out to morbid curiosity, though he was still tense. He didn't feel insulted at the spit, nor the anger with which the white one regarded him. He looked genuinely intrigued, behind the cautious frown. He feigned irritation, though. "You take offense at me over what others have done?" This wasn't true, and he knew it. But he felt like prying rudely. "My opinion is my own. Do not compare me to the lowly creatures in your life." He grunted, running his lips over the wound carefully, keeping one eye on Jack.

The grey stag refused to 'nurse' his wound like the common animal he had been transformed into, not licking it and instead letting it bleed. He hardly paid any mind to what the white stag was muttering about, once he had clearly calmed down. Barachiel didn't show any surprise at the unsettling speed with which the white stag went from mocking to furious to calm, but it was on his mind. He didn't ask about what had been said, because it wasn't his business. He asked about something else that had caught his attention. "You bite yourself." Phrased as a statement, as usual. "Dogs bite themselves." An unwise comparison spoken with a frank carelessness.

A wing was immediately snapped out to shield his chest in reflex to the second attack, though the ex-archangel was fully aware that wouldn't be enough to defend. To keep his wing from being impaled by quickly-sprouted horns (which at least caused him to show some surprise), Barachiel attempted to leap to the side and forwards, past and away from the enraged stag. A tine scraped his hind leg on the way by, but otherwise he managed to escape further injury. He rounded on the other male then- not to attack, but to keep his back safe. He showed no more anger nor agitation than before, though he hissed in response to the burn of the first wound he had on his shoulder. Moving like that had bothered it. He bit his tongue to deal with the pain of the shoulder wound, ignoring the scrape on his hind leg, and spoke again. "Common beasts attack because of simple-minded provocation." He frowned. "Control your temper. It does not become you."

The continued assault was disturbing his thoughts, and he was beginning to wonder what was keeping him here. He reminded himself that maybe this one had more information. Plus, though he was in no rush to admit it, this manic white stag was, in some strange way, fascinating. Being cursed at and then charged again gave him the signal to move out of the way again. He only shifted a little bit, though, enough to take another gouge off his already heavily-scarred chest. He grunted in pain, wincing and pulling back to assess his injury. This was growing old.

Without him mentioning it, the white male seemed to agree. He stopped, and as soon as the rage had come, it was gone. The look he was giving Barachiel was confusing. The ex-archangel returned the stare with a flat one of his own, before he bent to poke at his minor wounds with dried lips. After a breathless while, he looked back up, brown hair sticking to his face with sweat. "You cannot possibly tell me you still find me interesting." Why was the other still there? It didn't make sense. "You are angry with me. Dislike me, perhaps. Why stay."

The grey stag blinked in mild surprise when the white male denied what he had said. He grunted to show he understood, before grimacing back down at the worse along of the two wounds, the one on his shoulder. Though he was sure to keep at least one grey-blue eye on the other, he was obviously not much more alert than he had been in the first place. Jack offered what few reasons he may, and Barachiel didn't press further. "You prefer the company of equal intelligence." He hummed to himself, thinking. "I must admit, I have similar interests." He didn't mention why. Instead, the ex-archangel relaxed his wings and leaned slightly, showing his ease with the situation despite what had happened. After a pause, he went back to the first statement. "You do not like anyone, but it is mutual, I am sure."

The grey stag let his lips run over his wound again briefly, half-tempted to suck on it, but he stopped himself from stooping so low. He turned to the side slightly, being painfully obvious he wasn't a threat by exposing himself, much as he disliked doing so. The white one's question doesn't inspire an answer, so he let it slide without so much as glancing at the other. Barachiel was sorely tempted to take him up on a minor tangent, perhaps to test more water, to 'enrage the bull'. But looking at the couple cuts and wounds he already had, he chose not to push it. "A pity indeed. Your wit matches your temper. I find it... Valuable." He had no idea what else to call it. 'Interesting' was becoming grossly recycled in their conversation, and this white male was beyond that. "It would be moreso if your wit could... Surpass your temper."

Ears snapped to the side when the other made mock of his professed interest. If he knew enough about dislike, he probably would have sneered. As it was, Barachiel settled for a glare, though it was hardly even that. "Surprise me then, and save your future tantrums for another." Spoken mildly, as if the matter wasn't even that important. A common topic of conversation.

Barachiel returned the scrutiny with a balanced neutrality, sea storm eyes betraying only vague interest. "I have known what it is to have a temper." Almost humored by the suggestion that he had always been as... Peace-prone as he was now. "And I have no relation to man but for..." He seemed about to say something else, but improvised when he caught himself. "But that I have watched them."

Boring was a far cry from what Barachiel believed himself to be. He was half astounded enough to make a protest about what Jack had said, but settled into his own quiet musings on the matter. Maybe, to these strange things, he was boring. Perhaps because he wasn't psychotic. Sociopathic, maybe. But not psychotic.

When the white one inquired further about the possibility of his 'watching', Barachiel averted it entirely. "Eyes watch. And so I watched with mine eyes." A deadpan remark in place of honest truth. He frowned again at the pacing stag opposite him. "You are like an infant; always moving. Stop."

The fact that the white stag didn't push the matter further immediately earned some fraction more of Barachiel's respect, though whether that mattered or not in the long run, who knew. At the very least, it ensured the grey stag would be less liberal with his rude remarks. Maybe.

He didn't dispute his wishes not to be ordered around, at first. In fact, he actually found himself on the verge of a smile, lip corners almost turned upwards. He could relate to that. He was finding as many similarities as he was differences. Interesting. He was sure to keep his eyes trained on the white when he circled for the umpteenth time, before arguing more. "What terrible thing would happen if you should stop moving?" He grunted at his own sardonic quip. "Nothing. You fear stillness as if the trees themselves will creep up behind you."

The grey stag watched the white with a dispassionate expression when he returned to his seething. He would have smiled if he felt the effort was necessary. His lips remained flat-lined, unimpressed. Despite his composed air, he took a cautious step back. So many times... What? He was gradually becoming more curious about this one the longer he stayed, though he hadn't admitted as much yet.

When the crazed white male grinned and claimed there may be unforeseeable dangers behind the trees, Barachiel actually found himself glancing at a trunk or too, disconsolate. "You said you had seen... More peculiar things than I, here." He began, frowning back at the others' pacing. "I have seen predators..." No questions, but questions were implied. Was it truly necessary to be prepared like the white was? Or was the white just crazy?

The other seemed to get a kick of enjoyment out of this predicament, but the grey stag felt no contempt. Just a certain sense of... Need. This one, for all his flaws, clearly knew his way about the forest and its nature-defying inhabitants. "My sentence has no expiry date." He finally admitted, as his storm colored eyes drifted back from the trees and to the white. "I have met a demon. And a... Man-stag. He wears such a skull." At the very least, he had seen some. Dragons though? Hah. The ex-archangel eyed the other male with a dispassionate thoughtfulness. "I have also met a lunatic who is as sane as he is psychotic." A pointed stare towards Jack. "Yet you seem... Among the least dangerous. I may be incorrect in such a judgment, however. Time will tell."

Blueish eyes caught every movement the white one gave away with his quick anger, making note each time he touched a nerve. Whether for his own safety or his future use, time would decide. The growl did nothing but make Barachiel's eyebrows raise. "I didn't say 'at all'. That would be pushing the matter too far." He narrowed his eyes speculatively and added frankly, "You and I both know you aren't entirely safe either." How did he know? He already had wounds to prove it.

The winged grey stag regarded him neutrally for a second, considering the rhetorical question the white male offered. He had no absolute way of knowing, but he felt certain enough about it. Still, so as to not embarrass himself in the future, he didn't give an answer, so he couldn't be proven wrong at a later date. Better safe than sorry.

It was when the smiling stag brought his own intentions to light that Barachiel raised his own head, looking disbelieving. His eyes remained flatly dispassionate, but his expression showed vague surprise. "I am about as dangerous as a leaf to the wind," he deadpanned. "Whether you believe that or not, though... Is your issue."

"I have no reason to... Become 'a million leaves'." The scarred grey stag was becoming more and more used to the repetitive pacing of the white. He stared flatly at the others' scars, then, boredly examining from afar. "You no doubt underestimate others plenty, if you have that many scars." The blanket certainty of his critical statement is spoken without warning. "Or perhaps you just couldn't fight the leaves, regardless."