we live like thieves
     kings among men

Haldir heard him first, as usual. The dark stag’s head lifted with the usual tense alertness of an interruption. Yet as soon as he saw the dark shadow of the Reaper slip through the stag gruffs in recognition. The dark deer settled back in ease, but his moon eyes watched intensely the stallion’s coming. Haldir had never found fault in the elder Reaper. His memories of the beast were made in the eyes of a child, with the usual innocence of a child. So the dark lingering threats that usually dripped from Deimos’s presences, never affected the deer much. Yet, this was no longer then. The last time they had met under the herd meeting, the deer had seen a different side, and with the manner of their leaving, he now watched with baited breath.  

The deer’s gruff wakes the gold from his private moment. His harks flick back momentarily. His deep satisfaction at his physical exhaustion and overflowing reassurances of his power and prowness (and ego) made him loathe the end of this moment. But when Haldir’s thoughts revealed who it was, his harks come forward again.

Crowned head lifted with the dark smirk and earth eyes flashing with rebellion. Haldir may have been worried for the gold’s reaction, but he need not. Thranduil was delighted to see his old friend. Like many of the others who haunt the mountains the Reaper had been become part of the locks and links which held the gold in place. It had caused a bile of bitterness to rise in the back of this throat whenever the gold remembered the demon’s cutting words from that admittedly disastrous meeting and how the gold had to simply swallow them. But now, that was no more. Now, the Reaper held no command over him. True, some of the dark seeping foreboding that followed him still pressed against the gold’s chest (some reminder that this was a Reaper, and the gold was mortal), yet even that could not weigh down the curl of his lips as the shadow stepped forward.

The Reaper’s mood seemed to increase that feeling, as his eyes glinted with tensity. Yet ever was the demon reserved. The gold had hardly ever see the Reaper let loose his fury (which surely presided within), and it was perhaps one of the more irritating aspects of his former colleague. Though the black being may fault himself for losing his cool, it was nothing compared to the golden’s dramatics, so he should count himself in the win. The gold only shook this from his mind with a tilt of his head and widening of his smile. “Hello Deimos.”

A hind cocks in false bravado, but the crowned head still held to the height of the other. He would not dip his head to the other now in some admittance of the reaper’s superiority. Oh no. Tasseled tail flicks and curls around his heels. Now the golden had broken free from those chains and imprisoning rules. Now he need not heel to the other’s commands. And oh how the gold reveled in that. It was the same sensation which had carried him rebelliously into World’s Edge, and tempted him into taunts and tricks.

The dark stag looks to the gold’s cuttings on the trees and his low words make the gold practically giddy, intoxicated as he was by his pride and the love of this sport of speech now fully available to him again. To the observation though he only settles back. Earth eyes watch the other hungrily for any sign of or movement. He had learned from the doll on the beach that not much in the Basin had changed, and he doubted Deimos exactly missed the golden’s presence. But still he couldn’t resist, his vanity rolling to new heights with the influence of adrenaline and endorphins from only moments before. So with a sly smile, quickly growing wicked, he probes, needling. “Miss me?”

OOC::

"Talk?"