With the receding footsteps, Fintan had the chance to run. Escape, get back home and hide. There was no way the human, inexperienced in tracking and with a nose that couldn't smell Fintan's specific scent and follow it wherever it was going. He didn't run, though; it might have been stupid but this time he knew he could run if he just zig-zagged instead of taking a straight, predictable pattern. He collected some low-lying branches and tested the strength of a thick, albeit dead, tree. It had seeded possibly four or five years ago, and didn't get enough sunlight to grow or survive before it got to be more than a few feet high. He snapped it off near the ground and added it to the large collection, then untied the cloth from around his waist and cinched it around the large, heavy bundle, and threw it over his shoulder.

Fintan knew what his mother would say. Not to trust the humans that came in and looked for ghosts. That spread rumors and then got scared of the very things they were chasing. And this human, Blaine, had chased and tackled him, had painfully attacked him, because why? Because Fintan, in his curiosity, had wanted to know what was in those oddly formed dwellings. He shook his head as he caught the familiar scent on the breeze, arriving and feeling tense all over again.

Fintan's tongue was between his teeth as he surveyed the place. Simple, open to everything, and under one of the especially huge trees that called the forest home. Nodding at the question, he stepped forward and felt his tail do a small dance in anticipation of what he would do next. Run? Stay? If he ran it would be in the air, alerting to any nearby as the ethereal glow of pure white fur made the silent warning clear. Danger.

He decided to stay, though. Fintan wasn't one to run off when he said he'd come back. Stay, for how long? Not long he hoped as he set the bundle down and started arranging them in a latticework, then an upward form. "What... is that?" He nodded to the tiny sticks with red heads in Blaine's hand.

There wasn't much to go on for dry grass, but Blaine had managed to find some, somehow, and had it against the woodwork to hopefully catch quickly. Then he startled at the sudden flame, bursting to life as if by magic with just a flick of the wrist on Blaine's part, and Fintan took a step back that was so minute he didn't think he'd actually moved. The fight or flight response was so powerful it had his chest vibrating with the intensity of his heart thumping, but Blaine seemed to be in control of the fire. "Ah..." He managed, though it sounded more like the baa of a goat. He blinked when the painful light nearby was turned off, and so quickly, and was given a blanket that felt so much softer than the ones he had at home.

"This... how do you make it?" He studied the fabric in the growing firelight, still where he was, standing and staring and running a hand over the pale color. Nothing like the dark tones from leather and dyes he made himself.

Blinking, Fintan looked at the strange little seat, and moved forward, gently sitting and gasping as he felt sure the cloth under him would give out. It didn't, however, and sagged under his weight as it seemed like it was supposed to do. "I see..." He muttered. "My mother used a loom. But she said the easiest way is to... take wool, fluff it, soak it and let it dry in the form you want it. And sew layers of the wool and dry moss or wool scraps together to make it warmer." He smiled at the gentle memory, his delicate mother, more than him even, sitting in front of the fire with Fintan and a bone needle, some thread she had made herself and showed him how to craft, sewing a colorful blanket and tugging now and then at her brown and white hair. He had been born with brown and white hair, but it had lightened and the white had gone as he matured. He hadn't gotten his antlers until much later than the rest of his kind, however.

"What is that?" He asked suddenly, pointing at the domed thing he had found so interesting before. The flap was still open from where he'd undone it.

Fintan's tail twitched left and right, his ears following suit. He didn't often like to be in the night outside of his home, but now he had little choice. No doubt if he tried to leave again Blaine might tie him to a tree or sit on him to keep him where he was. And that frustrated him to no end, though the frustration was trumped by curiosity. Curiosity when it came to those clothes, those 'tents', those 'matches', and the things that looked alike and went on Blaine's feet. He pointed. "What are those?"

Swallowing slightly, Fintan turned his big eyes down to the ground. "I'm sorry for asking so many questions. I just... I want to know... And I've never spent time around humans like this before... I don't know what much of this stuff is, or what it does..." How would he keep everything in mind? He could easily forget it all in a second.

Fintan looked down at his feet and wiggled his toes. The soles of his feet were tough and difficult, if not impossible to cut through without a blade of some kind, and he'd never had it happen. "I see..." Shoes. How would those things feel? They looked like they would pinch. Hurt. Maybe that was why humans were so clumsy when they went trudging through the forest. He shrugged, feeling his ears lower. "Um, well, kind of..." He shrugged. "When I'm afraid it goes up, kind of like... a warning to others nearby. The bottom is white fur so it can be seen at night. And my ears... yes, those too." He absently touched the tip of the left one, stroking the short fur there.

Fintan gasped, then slapped his hands to his mouth to stifle the laugh, forcing it to die in his throat. He hadn't found the seat difficult to use but at the same time, hadn't fallen. Slipping off the fragile thing, he crept forward on all fours until he sat above Blaine, ears lowered. "I suppose..." He looked back and gave his tail an appreciative flick left and right. "It's pretty useful for others. I guess others' are useful for me too... There aren't many dangers here, but... When there are, we hide from them, or try to scare them away." He shifted, folding his legs under himself and leaning over Blaine. His hair shifted forward, touching Blaine's nose and cheek. "What are your friends doing, anyway...?"

Blinking, Fintan looked up through the tree branches. Here, where the grass was green and long, it allowed those on the ground to see through the high branches and stare at the swirling mists and dust in the sky. He settled down alongside the human, folding his limbs under himself in a way that humans might find uncomfortable, and stared upward. "Ghosts...?" He sighed, lowering his gaze. "They'll be chased back here by everyone else. There aren't ghosts here." Not that Fintan had seen, at least, and he had lived here all his life. He leaned down to the ground and rubbed an antler on the ground, digging up some grass and earth and relieving an itch.

Fintan felt his throat constrict. He hadn't thought of that---or at least, hadn't recalled that he'd be around two more people when those two got back. Them and their mechanical stuff. He breathed quickly, then settled his racing heart and turned his attention back to Blaine. "Well... I had an itch." He shrugged a little and shifted. "They have feeling... And they're useful when you want to put a distinctive marking on certain trees to claim your place of residence... Antlers leave a specific style of mark different between every male and female..." He shrugged a little and lowered his head to his arms.

Fintan blinked curiously, looking down at his hands and flexing his fingers a little. "Finger... prints...?" He held them close to his face and squinted in the firelight, seeing little ridges he didn't think anything of most times. Was that a finger print? He was curious about how they came to be left. Did they come off? The idea seemed painful, so he looked up at Blaine to ignore it.

"Um, I don't---" He froze and his ears raised when something shifted nearby. Tensing, Fintan scanned the area nearby. What was it? What was happening? He wanted to run but that meant leaving Blaine where he was. And the human didn't know his way around.

His ear was twitching with every footfall, pairs making it louder than it should have been. He was up, ready to take off, but cast a wary glance at Blaine. "... It... I don't know... It sounds like footsteps. Like... Voices too... They're whispering. I don't..." Something snapped and Fintan startled to his feet, crouched down just enough to bound away at the slightest provocation. "I... what if it's your friends? I should... Should I leave? They won't hurt me,will they? They won't be loud, right?" He didn't want to leave so quickly. Blaine was utterly fascinating and talking to a human felt like a once-in-a-lifetime chance. Even after being tackled by him before.

Fintan swallowed hard between a dry mouth and constricted throat. He nodded, backing away and slipping behind a tree out of the pool of firelight and clinging against the smooth bark as if his life were depending on it. Absentmindedly, Fintan rubbed his antler lightly against the bark and lowered himself to the ground, watching through his lashes as two people appeared lugging their heavy-looking mechanical things with them. Fintan didn't think he'd ever be able to tell any of that stuff apart, and the idea of doing so was hard to imagine. He breathed carefully, as if his breaths were loud enough for the humans to hear.

Swallowing hard, Fintan rubbed his antlers a little harder against the tree. The tiny vibrations through the ivory sprigs let him release a little of his nervous energy as the other two humans came by. He felt his face grow warm when they said they didn't believe in 'deer people', but insisted that there were ghosts in the forest. He wanted to go back home but had to go around the clear area and the firelight. Creeping out from behind the tree, Fintan picked his way through the sparse undergrowth and did his best to avoid the fallen branches that had long ago dried, but hadn't been taken or eaten away. He was absently grinding his teeth in the effort to keep quiet, and didn't realize it until after he was sure he cracked a few.