It had been a couple of weeks since John had run into the poachers on the edge of the Deepwoods. He had decided not to bring up the encounter to Lord Thalon, as the poachers were dead and he was sure the Fair Folk would take care of their bodies. To bring the encounter up after the issue had been solved would make it seem like he was expecting a reward for just doing his duty, or that he was boasting, and none of those were things John was keen on. So instead, he continued his routine of patrolling the edge of the woods, hunting game for the lord’s table and making sure the forest was protected. Aside from poachers bringing down game within the forest, the warden also protected the trees from being unlawfully cut. Some of them, like oaks, could take multiple generations to grow, and their expensive wood would fetch a good price. Such trees had thus become rare in the common forest and they were often only found in the lord’s weald or past the threshold into the Deepwoods. And while John could not do anything to protect the latter, the former was his charge.

That afternoon, he was headed towards a cluster of oak trees located not too far from the border with the Fair Folk. The trees had grown just past a clearing near one of the hollowed-out trees that the common folk would use to leave offerings to the forest kin and collect their own gifts in turn. The clearing itself was a reference John often used when navigating the area. A relatively flat ground, with a strange circle of small stones, none much bigger than a human head, evenly spaced. And strange spirals and sigils had been carved deep in the sides of those rocks facing the interior of the circle. The circle itself was ancient, and if tradition was to be believed, it was there before the first lord arrived in this land to build his castle, and even before the first human settlers. John didn’t know about any of that, and he treated the place with the same distant and respectful reverence he held for any other part of the woodlands. He passed through the hollowed-out trunk, which should be empty as no one, that he knew, had come into the woods to leave out offerings. But he thought he had spotted something from a distance, and approached, to look inside and be surprised to find his missing arrow, the one he had fired and missed, placed within, carefully leaning against the interior of the empty husk so that the fletching was not damaged. He smiled at the kindness of the Fair Folk in returning him his arrow, before taking it to stick in his quiver. And then he noticed something attached to the tip of the arrow, by a simple extension of plant-fibre yarn. It was a simple piece of bark carved in the shape of an oak leaf, and in the centre of it, a hole shaped like an acorn. The whole thing was rather small and could fit easily in his palm, and the way the yarn was attached to what would be the oak leaf’s petiole suggested that was a pendant for a necklace.

With a chuckle, he placed it around his neck and tucked it inside his tunic. He expected no boons for helping Sybil, but that was a nice gift, and he’d be lying if he said he did not appreciate it. A quick look inside the trunk to make sure there was nothing else within, and he carried on on his path towards the lord’s oaks. His plan was clear in his mind, to make sure they remained untouched, and then sit by their shade and eat his venison jerky and bread lunch he carried in a leather pouch on his belt, enjoying the solitude of the woods before returning to his cabin at the edge of the forest. Yet, as he approached the oaks, he spotted through the trees something too brightly coloured to belong with the greens and browns of the woodland. His first instinct was to nock an arrow on his bowstring and approach cautiously, but soon he recognized the shape of the antlers and the autumn colours of hair.

Sybil was lying on her side with her torso raised, leaning on one of her elbows, facing away from him. Her leg seemed caught in something like a rope, and she pulled on it until it was taut. It didn’t appear to be the most formidable rope, and neither did her struggle seem too energetic, but nevertheless, he moved towards her, lowering his bow. And while she didn’t turn to see him approaching, he could tell her ears moved in twitching bursts as he came closer. Seeing her from the back, he could see how her tunic and armour were both tied behind her neck and then again on the small of her back, leaving her exposed from shoulder blades to the bottom of her spine. Inked in the centre of her back was a tree, done in pale blue ink, and whose branches curled in stylized ways, before reaching out to her shoulders. The vine-like lines he saw spreading through her arms and reaching her wrists before were likely a continuation of those branches, just as the roots of the trees reached down and then disappeared under her tunic on the small of her back. The deer-like fuzz and spots were more evident on her shoulder blades, just like on her thighs, before fading out and merging with her light-tan skin.

As he approached her, he placed down his bow on the ground, ducking to get under the large, old oak branch, whose own weight had brought it down to the ground, and touched her shoulder.

“Caught again, I see,” he said in a quieter voice meant not to startle her, though he was fairly confident she knew he was there.

“Oh… John!” she spoke in unconvincing surprise, which was quickly dispelled as she carried on, “it’s… Fortunate you happened by here. Yes, I’m afraid I got caught in another contraption.”

John looked down at her leg, trying not to think much of the shapely form of her hips despite her elegant figure as his eyes went to the rope tied around her ankle. The brown plant-fibre rope didn’t seem particularly sturdy, and he placed his knife underneath it, to cut it off with a single, firm pull of the blade. She retrieved her leg back as it was freed and gently caressed her ankle through the boot, where the rope had been tied.

“Once more you have my gratitude,” she said, brushing a lock of her autumn-coloured hair from her face as she looked towards him for a second with those bright amber eyes, and then looked away.

John looked back at her. He had not paid much attention to how small she was the first time he rescued her. He had been too worried about getting out of the Deepwoods safely and not offending his hosts. But now, looking down at her reclining body, he reckoned that the top of her head would only reach his shoulder, if that much, should they be standing next to each other. Yet there was nothing childlike about her features. If anything, she seemed strangely timeless. Her eyes especially had some strange deep wisdom mixed with a youthful gleam of hope and joy. He could believe she was maybe twenty or something years old, but he also would believe if someone told him she was older than him by a couple of decades.

“I didn’t know your kin to leave your domain.”

“We do, just not often,” she said with a light flush.

“And this trap… Quite strange that a trapper would set it here. Not a lot of animals to eat,” he reckoned out loud, glancing around the clearing. “And away from the main deer and boar trails.”

Sybil’s cheeks gained a deeper flush and she merely offered him a shrug of uncertainty, as if his guess was just as good as hers regarding why a hunter would want to trap that location. But John wasn’t done with his musing.

“Usually, these rope traps are for small game… Like hares. I wonder why they would make the loop big enough to fit your whole foot through it.”

She looked at him with an expression of struggle, her mouth opened but she offered no clarification or suggestion towards the hypothetical trapper’s strange idea of what and where to trap it. John sheathed his knife back while maintaining eye contact and an expressionless face that betrayed nothing beyond idle musing. And then, he felt like he couldn’t hold it anymore. It was involuntary and hard to suppress, but the edge of his lips wanted to curl, and there was a snicker wanting to burst from his chest. When it finally did, she was briefly shocked, and then suddenly offended.

“How long ago did you figure it out?” she asked simply, sitting up and folding her arms, curling her legs closer to her chest.

He sat down on the floor across from her and smirked.

“Pretty much from coming into the clearing.”

“Well… Thank you for playing along, I suppose,” she offered with a defeated sigh and her head bowed down to hide in her arms, now resting atop her knees.

John couldn’t help but chuckle a little louder at the Fair Folk’s embarrassment at the revelation of her rather staged encounter. He reached into his tunic though, to pull out the pendant he had found by his arrow. The bark-carved oak leaf held at eye level as he looked at the Fair Folk through the acorn-shaped gap in its core. When she lifted her head, her eyes sparkled at the sight of the pendant, and likely at the fact he was wearing it.

“I’ll take that you are the one who left this for me?”

She nodded slowly, arms lowering to instead hug her shins and pull them closer to her chest, before she once more fidgeted with her hair, pushing another lock out of her face.

“I made it. I know you said no boon but… Leaving just the arrow there looked so sad,” she said with a faint shrug.

“How did you even know I was going to find it before anyone else? Or that I’d be here today?”

“I didn’t know anything. But the trees did.”

“You speak to trees?”

“No, that’s…” she interrupted herself suddenly and shook her head, deciding that whatever she was going to try to say next would likely be too complicated to explain. “I suppose that’s a way of describing it.”

He nodded. He could only imagine it was not that simple, but John was never versed in matters of the arcane or the mystical. He knew about bows, hunting and, when needed, violence. But he knew very little of anything else. Or at least that was how he reckoned it. The hunter allowed his pendant to drop over his chest and he exhaled a sigh of enjoyment. That was where he planned to have his lunch and spend a few quiet hours, and he would usually do it alone. But he found that then and there, he did not mind her presence. He could smell those scents of the woods, wet earth, pine resin, dead leaves and hints of moss, and feel the soft breeze that blew across the oak cluster, less dense than most of the woodland, though still shaded, unlike a clearing. The way the freckles of sunlight danced on her skin and hair was also endlessly fascinating. He always preferred to be alone in the forest, ever since Lyla’s death. But Sybil felt almost like part of the forest, or so he reckoned, because her presence felt just as natural beside him as the trees.

“Can I ask something?” he broke the silence that had hung comfortably between them for a long moment.

“Yes,” she responded, leaning forth in expectation of the question.

“Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why fake getting caught?”

“I thought you were smarter than that, master Forester. But if you are going to make me say the words; to meet you.”

“No, I reckoned so,” he said shaking his head and turning to look at her this time. “But why did you want to meet me?”

She didn’t respond immediately, and this time the silence between them wasn’t comfortable and easy as before but felt charged like the interval between lightning and thunder. She didn’t look away this time, her amber eyes remained fixed on his, and then she just leaned forward, uncurling her legs to kneel and then lean further, until her arms were on each side of his waist and he had baulked back slightly at her approach. Her small, soft lips touched his and he found that while she might smell of wild honey and berries, her lips tasted much like flesh, perhaps a notch sweeter than normal. But the last time his lips had touched anyone’s had been over a decade ago, so he did not trust his memory. His first instinct was to push her away but he repressed it because he didn’t want to offend the Fair Folk, but perhaps more importantly because part of him found itself starved for another’s touch. Had she felt it, communing with his heart in the same way she did with trees?

Their lips parted and her small tongue pushed inside his mouth, meeting against his and whirling around it, dancing, coaxing it. The way she kissed him felt like a playful dance, pushing forward, braving out and then backing just a little when he tried to do the same. Teasing, taunting him out of his stoic shell. His arms found her exposed shoulders, and then one of his hands held the back of her head, fingers entering between the strands of her hair. He heard the sounds of the forest over the sound of his own heartbeat and their tongues enlaced, and he felt the smaller girl moving even closer, guiding him down to lay on the dead leaves underneath that oak branch until she was laying on top of him. She was light, but as his hands caressed her arms he found that despite her size, she was strong. The hint of the tone on her muscles made her both soft and firm at the same time, and the texture of her fur was softer than he expected.

“Sybil,” he called in a break between their kiss, and he meant to utter her name with the inflexion of a question, but instead it came marked by a tenderness he had seldom allowed to come out of his throat in many years.

“John,” she echoed, calling his name in a similar tone, sultrier and throatier.

Instead of sealing lips again, as she lowered herself once more, her mouth kissed the side of his chin, and then gently she grazed her cheeks against the roughness of his stubble before her fingers found the edges of his tunic and she began to untuck it from his belt. John felt his member hardening with the warm weight of the girl over his legs and stomach, and he knew that she would feel it too, as he grew within his breeches and the bulge pressed against her upper thighs, and then her stomach. Sybil worked her way down from his chin to his neck and then raised his shirt to expose his chest. He had only a short patch of hair just beneath his collar, and she buried her nose there and inhaled deeply, drinking the musky scent of his sweat before tracing with her fingers over a number of his scars. She said nothing. The time for words had passed them, but her lips suddenly sealed around his nipple and she sucked against it.

John felt a strange intense sensation of pleasure that made his already fully hard member twitch painfully against her stomach, and she let out a muffled chuckle against his skin, mischievous and triumphant, before tracing a path with her tongue to his other nipple and repeating the act, seeing the impact it had on him. He arched his back and relaxed, allowing himself to fall again on the ground and finding her hands sliding further down and now busying themselves with his belt. And the last of his reservations about what was going to happen seemed to melt as his desire flared.

His hand found the buckle and lacings of her armour and tunic, respectively, behind her neck. The open back of her clothes made sense when he considered the antlers, as removing or donning a tunic overhead was likely not an option for her people. Once the bindings were undone there, Sybil raised herself from lying over his chest to kneel beside him and loosened the sides of her clothes to allow them to fall down and pool on the ground below. His eyes were drawn by the baring of the Fair Folk woman he had rescued, as she exposed the small mounds of her breasts. Only the very top of which were spotted in that deer-like pattern. Her nipples were a shade darker and two shades redder than the rest of her skin, with small rings around it, and visibly stiff. She had a narrow waist with a dramatic curve to her strong, shapely hips, and her body was otherwise slender and lithe. Her sex was framed by a short patch of hair with the same fall colours as the ones on her head.

As she shifted herself from being on top of him to removing her own clothes, he took the chance to pull off his tunic that had been left bundled up by his neck, and then finish the unbinding of his pants. But before he could tug them down, Sybil placed herself between his legs and pulled them off in an abrupt, almost aggressive fashion. His member sprung upwards, emerging from the coarse patch of dark hair on his crotch and standing in attention, the thick head pushing out of his foreskin, now pulled back by virtue of his own erection, as beads of clear fluid dripped from the tip. She didn’t hide her enjoyment and excitement at the sight of his hardened manhood, grasping it with her hand and pulling his foreskin further taut against his shaft before she took on stroking him. His pre-cum flowed down, smearing itself against her fingers that in turn spread it and coated his whole member in that glistening film. Her eyes met his while she caressed his cock, and John found that his pleasure seemed even more intense as he looked into those amber-coloured jewels and caught the utter shameless enjoyment in her face. He wondered as he grunted in pleasure, if the Fair Folk had no taboos about their bodies and pleasure, or if this was something that was only Sybil’s. His experiences with Lyla had always been surrounded by subtle inexplicable guilt even after their wedding. The men and women of the faith had cautioned them their whole lives about the dangers of hedonistic pleasure, anyway. But Sybil carried none of that with her, and John felt that it was easy to shed it himself when she seemed so free of any concern beyond the pleasure of the moment.

And then she moved onwards, straddling his waist, and hovering with the glistening petals of her sex just above his throbbing member. The difference in size concerned him, but she appeared not to share it. However, as he realized the deer-like woman intended to lower herself onto his manhood, he suddenly remembered something.

“Wait… What about your leg?”

Sybil’s first response was a chuckle before she shook her head.

“Fully healed. My people have a gift for this sort of thing,” she assured him.

“Do yo-“

His question was cut short as he felt the warm and wet embrace of her sex against the very tip of his cock, and then furthering itself down his shaft, wrapping tightly around it with a velvety embrace. She seemed to struggle to fit him inside her, at first, letting out a pained grunt and then another, and placing her hands on his chest. Curling nails and scratching him in the effort as she tossed her head back, with her eyes closed. But she continued to push down with the trembling thick thighs that straddled him. Slowly he felt more of his shaft being taken inside those near unbearably tight and warm confines, and Sybil’s voice broke into a delighted moan. She was no blushing virgin, that much was clear, and he felt relieved at that. Just as her lack of shame was liberating, her confidence and how clear it was that she knew what she wanted were as arousing as her strangely beautiful body of both human and inhuman proportions.

Eventually, her hips found their way to the base of his member, sinking him deep inside of her, and she opened her eyes again to lean further forward, her hands over his pecks shifting to his collar for better balance as she began to move and ride him. He placed his hands on her waist, first seeking to guide her and give her rhythm, but soon it became clear that she was doing just fine without his aid, so he shifted his hands to her breasts, caressing the soft mounds of flesh, kneading them and running her stiff, somewhat long nipples between his fingers. That seemed to send a shiver down her spine, and a wave rolled down from her shoulders to her chest and stomach, ending in a grinding motion of her hips, as her sex squeezed a bit tighter for a second against his member. She rode him, moving faster and slamming herself harder by the moment, as her muscles relaxed and she became more used to his girth. Her pained grunts had a hint of pleasure in them, and with each thrust and each moan, the pain diminished and her pleasure grew. She moaned louder and louder, knowing they were surrounded by nothing but forest for miles, though as he was being mounted by the very enthusiastic forest-kin, John reckoned that she would likely not be any quieter even if there was anyone around. His member twitched harder as that familiar pressure began to build inside him, deep against his crotch and the pit of his stomach. A slowly thrumming ache for release grew each time she forced herself to be speared onto his manhood.

Perhaps out of excitement and perhaps a little accidentally, his hands grew rougher as he grasped her breasts, and he almost flinched as he felt like he might have delivered too hard a squeeze, and maybe pinched her nipple to a painful degree. But she cried out in delight and brought herself harder against his waist in the wake of it. John realized that he was maybe treating her too softly due to her small size as if he was afraid the Fair Folk woman would be a frail thing.

Feeling himself coming closer and closer to that point of no return, one of his hands was brought down across her stomach until it rested on the mons above her sex, pulling the skin there taut and placing his thumb over the sensitive button of flesh on the apex of her cunt, now stretched around his member. And as she rode him, he let his hand follow her body up and down, and his thumb began to circle that very sensitive spot, faster and faster. Her nails sunk deep into his collar, nearly breaking the skin and drawing blood, and he felt her sex squeeze him tighter again, and then shortly after once more. The milking motions caused by it paired with her riding were enough to push him over the edge. His member twitched one last time before swelling and contracting, spraying her insides with his seed. And just as he came inside her, she brought herself down in a final hard hammering motion, taking him as deep inside as she could and shuddering. Her back and hips bucked and trembled as her sex clenched around his member and milked the last drops of his seed in the orgasmic contractions. She cried out in pleasure, her nails clinging to his neck and collar as her eyes closed tight and her mouth parted. She was left there, moving her back in fast arches as she panted, before lifting her hands from his chest to instead support herself on the ground. Her hair draped down, framing her face and his own, so he could only see the flurry of bright red and orange colours and the occasional streak of sunlight breaking through it, and her face, looking down at him with earnest infatuation openly stamped on her visage.

He couldn’t see his own face but he felt like he ought to look the same, between being drunk in pleasure and feeling his heart race and yearning for more of her. It was strange, powerful and a little scary but even though she was still there, and he was still inside her, he already felt like he missed her. Once again, after their climaxes, they lingered in comfortable silence, until she finally raised herself to sit straight in her straddle and then dismounted from him. There was a wet sound and a soft plop before his half-hard member spilt out from inside her, falling over his stomach, and his seed dripped down his crotch and waist as she moved to lay herself by his side. She didn’t say a word, only placing her antler-bearing head on the floor and looking up at the leaves. He followed her gaze and together they watched the sunlight break through them and felt the breeze washing over their naked bodies.

John didn’t realize at which point he had fallen asleep, but when he woke up, she was gone. The clearing felt emptier than the other times he visited it as he touched the ground where she had lied down. He could still see the disrupted pattern of the leaves where she had been, but any heat from her body was long gone. The hunter took the next few moments to beat the dried leaves and twigs off his naked body and dress up, grab his bow and attach his belt again to then begin his journey back home. But just as he was leaving the clearing, something occurred to him. He stopped by the old oak, closed his eyes and rested his head against the trunk. He had no idea of what he was doing but he did it as she had done, and then he moved his lips to whisper onto the bark:

“See you soon, Sybil,” he said or maybe vowed.

And then he waited there, unsure what he was waiting for. Surely, he did not have the abilities the Fair Folk did, and he could not commune with them. But maybe the tree could tell her when she came back? He chuckled at the thought and lifted his head, opening his eyes. A bittersweet sigh broke from his lips and he began to walk back home, leaving the forest behind.

Somewhere, far away, a sweet voice whispered onto a tree:

“See you soon, John Forester.”