The smell of the moss, soaked through with last night’s rain, was thick and loamy. The day was starting to heat up, amplifying the rich smell of the forest: moss, spruce needles, and the perfumey smell of violets which grew in thick patches scattered around the forest floor. After a few days of rain, today was looking to be sunny, finally, and the light filtered down through the leaves. Beneath the leaves, it was starting to get humid and there was a thick sense of reverent hush.

Alex had been following the path of a small creek, sometimes walking through the water, sometimes along the bank, the dampness of the creek providing the right habitat for the mushrooms they were looking for. Now, having reached a low spot in the forest, the creek spread out into a marshy mossy area, so Alex was wandering less linearly, happily finding and collecting the mushrooms that they sought, and placing them gently into their bag. 

They were down on their belly, looking under a fallen log, when they noticed movement out of the corner of their eye. They squinted at a stand of young ash trees, growing close together, dark where they got thick.

As it emerged from the underbrush, it took Alex several moments to wrap their head around the creature. Each moment it resolved into a new mental interpretation, their brain slamming it into a category until it became clear it didn’t fit and trying a new one, until it was clear again that it didn’t fit and so on. At first it looked only like leaves shivering in the wind, then a low bush moving oddly in different directions than the brush around it, as if being moved by an animal that was about to come about from behind it. Then it became clear that there was no animal behind it, it was wholly plant. It was moving under its own volition, not just moving but unfurling, straightening up, standing up. Alex’s stomach dropped when they saw that it was moving, not being moved, but moving. They crawled backwards as best they could, swinging their legs around behind them into a crab position on the ground, then stood up, their feet slipping over rocks, barely not losing their footing.

They never took their eyes off the creature. The next moment, limbs became clear and it looked for a second like a person in strange clothing, a camouflage suit covered in leaves, a bad costume almost. Like if you brushed the delicate leaves away you’d reveal features - a face, fingers, toes, collarbones. That moment passed too, as it stepped forward and it became clearer just how inhuman it was. Its limbs were all the wrong proportions; the torso was too short, its legs just a little too long, its arms also too long, but much too long, reaching all the way to the forest floor. Its torso tilted forward slightly, its posture halfway between something standing and something crawling. It didn’t really have a head, just more branches and their leaves that grew up from the place where its “arms” branched out of its “torso.” Its leaves were small, light green, and looked newly sprouted. The branches never… collected into a head shape, just sort of swept up and to one side, petering out. The effect however, was of a creature with its head cocked to one side, surveying Alex. Considering them. Taking them in. It somehow conveyed an air of curiosity, a dedicated observer. The thing in the corner of your eye when you were alone in the forest, watching you, not unkindly, and depositing its observations into some deep and old storehouse.

A shiver ran from Alex’s head all the way down, rooting them to the spot. They stopped moving backwards, transfixed. The feeling of being looked at, regarded, studied, noted, was palpable and oddly comforting. Despite its strangeness, the closer it got the more at ease Alex felt. It smelled… lush and vegetal and just a bit floral. It moved with such measured grace, intentionality, and strength. Alex was sure it would be able to hurt them if it wanted and was equally sure that if it wanted to hurt them it could have done that easily, without Alex even noticing. No, it was revealing itself on purpose. Just as much as it wanted to see Alex, it was allowing itself to be seen by Alex. This creature, perhaps the forest itself, was revealing itself to Alex.

As it stepped closer, closing the gap between them, Alex noticed the sound that it made was not when it set its limbs down, that was silent. The sound it made was when it lifted its limbs up. It was the sound of roots tearing out of the earth, little clumps of dirt swinging below its “feet” on hair thin roots, pebbles and dead leaves skittering and rustling. It must reroot each time it set a foot down, Alex realized. It was in constant connection with the earth. It moved slowly and deliberately, with a kind of grace and smoothness that reminded Alex once again that it was not only not human, but not animal at all. 

Momentarily, Alex started to panic, their heart was beating fast, they thought about turning and running, they realized they probably should turn and turn. But, taking deep breaths of the forest air, they didn’t. They were fascinated. They wanted deeply, to the core of their being, to see this. To see what was going to happen next. 

It was within arms reach now, drawing still closer, towering over them, probably 8 feet tall. Alex was once again confronted with how strange the thing was, how much they were expecting from it. As they felt the air currents it displaced, let themself be brushed by a few leaves, they expected to feel heat or breath. It again hit them hard, just as hard as the first time, that this was not animal. This was not anything they had seen before and all of their mental shortcuts, all of their categories, all of their experience would lead them astray. They had nothing - absolutely fucking nothing - to compare this experience to and they were acutely aware of how hard they were trying. This is what brains do, they compare, they categorize, they search for some kind of mooring. Alex took a deep breath and tried to simply absorb. Stay with it.

The thing stood still for a moment, so close. Alex’s breathing felt loud in their own ears. With another deep steadying breath they took in the smell of it; damp, a little resinous, lilacs. It raised one arm-limb towards Alex’s face, not reaching with the end of it, but creating a bend mid limb and reaching out with that. Alex shivered as the leaves brushed against their cheek, closed their eyes with the light scratch of a twig. Opened them just as the creature moved again, gracefully, smoothly, quickly, it spun around behind Alex and wrapped its limbs around them. Alex froze for a second, stiff. As the creature pulled them down and backwards, they fought momentarily to stay upright and then bent, stomach in their throat and they lost their balance. Their fear of falling evaporated as they felt how firmly they were held by the creature. It settled them into a comfortable reclining position, stiffening into a sort of chair, and its branches wrapped around them further, not tightening, maybe… growing? instead. Its delicate leaves shaded Alex’s eyes slightly from the rest of the forest and the dappled sun.

A moment passed in stillness. Alex was breathing hard, body showing signs of panic even when their brain was not, heart beating fast, hands slightly shaky. Another moment passed, the hush of the forest returned. Alex took a deep breath and tried to relax their body. They weren’t sure they wanted to escape but it was obvious without trying too hard that they weren’t going anywhere. While some branches of the creature swayed in the breeze or felt springy beneath them, others were totally immobile. Like everything about this encounter, this shape, and not just the shape but the tension with which they held it and the movement they had taken to get into it, was intentional, deliberate. It felt somehow practiced, calibrated, perfectly fitted to Alex’s shape, but that was impossible. Everything about the creature told Alex that they were dealing with a kind of intelligence that was completely other, utilizing senses and kinds of mentation Alex could not imagine.

As they took another breath, their vision began to warp slightly as the edges, getting wavy and hard to focus on any one spot. They blinked, but it only got more intense. They felt dizzy for a moment and took another deep breath. Whatever this was, somehow Alex had become committed to riding it out. They had a feeling somewhere deep that this creature meant no harm. As they continued to breathe slowly, their vision began to warp fully and somehow fade without going black. They remained aware of their vision, looking out into the forest between the leaves of their creature, but it somehow became less central to their experience. In its place rose up a series of internal images, most paired with feelings. Some feelings were things they had felt before, others were new. 

[open blue sky/the feeling of a light warm wind over their skin]

[green spring moss/the feeling of releasing pollen]

Back in their body, Alex felt themself shudder a bit, their breath catching. These feelings were… intense, in a way they didn’t expect. They were still aware of themself sitting in the forest, but the images were compelling and becoming more immersive. They felt themselves get goosebumps from the back of their scalp down over their shoulder and arms as they were drawn back into the images.

[petals on the forest floor/the feeling of leaves being hit with big, cold raindrops]

[storm clouds/the feeling of tiny warm mammal feet scurrying up their side]

[the darkness of dirt as seen by roots/the feeling of the first frost on still green leaves in early autumn]

Alex shuddered again, much harder this time, and heard themself moan aloud. They felt their eyebrows knit together in confusion. Why did this feel… like this. Their breathing was becoming a heavy pant, their chest rising and falling irregularly. They felt heat in their face, nipples, and clit. 

The succession of images and feelings sped up now, coming in bursts instead of pairs and joined by smells, sounds, and sensations less neatly described by human perception.

[the feeling of mist gathering and dripping off leaves/the rumble of thunder in the distance/the smell of a cold morning][the sound of snow falling/the feeling of leaf edges browning in a drought/the transition of bark from brown to gray as it dried after rain][the feeling of connection with fungal mycelial/the tickle of an animal burrowing among roots/the dropping of acorns]

They moaned louder and their body jerked. This… this was sex. Or, at least, their body had no way to process the intensity of the sensations but as sex. Questions fired off in their brain, which they had no way to communicate, “Is it, is it trying to have sex with me? Does it know how this is making me feel? What does it want from me?” As if in response, the parts of the creature that held them slackened, barely but noticeably. They were already painfully aware of the futility of assigning human intentions to this thing that was holding them, but suddenly they couldn’t help but feel as if held by a lover. They took in several shaky breaths, thick with the musk of the forest. Stick with it.

The sensations were so intense now that they were just barely in touch with their own body, inundated, overwhelmed with sensation. What part of them did register it knew they were fully writhing, panting, and jerking, eyelids fluttering and eyes rolling. Meanwhile the sensations rolled on, unrelenting.

water rushing past their trunk in a spring flood, lighting striking nearby and sizzling through the damp earth, the crack of a neighbor tree blown of the in wind, heat, sap unfreezing and beginning to flow again after an overnight freeze, green, the crackle of bending in the wind after an ice storm, hard slapping rain, brown, branches snapping in a too strong wind, cold, light misty rain, black, the smell of soil, squeezing, brightness, flexion, jerking, dampness, darkness, tightness, quiet, so many different types of rain, stillness, motion, stillness, stillness, stillness

Alex became aware first of the sound of their breathing, jagged and rasping. Their eyes were squeezed tight, they relaxed them, but didn’t open. At some point, the creature had rolled them onto their side. Their skins tingled, damp and hot, blood right below the surface. Their clit throbbed, despite, as far as they could tell, never having been touched directly. They took an unsteady inhale and let it out slowly, and opened their eyes. They were still held by the tree creature, but much more loosely, in a sort of cocoon of leaves. They moved an arm freely now, wiped sweat off their brow, moving slowly with post-sex sleepiness. They rolled back onto their back, looking up at the creature. Its leaves were thicker now, darker green, it had clearly gained something from the experience as well. Alex grinned, just absolutely beamed when they noticed that among the collection of branches that made up the creature’s “head” were sprinkled delicate pale pink blossoms, a fresher floral scent emanating. Alex sighed, their breath returning to normal.

After several minutes the creature slowly lowered Alex to the forest floor and withdrew to a few feet away and curled into a compact sitting or crouching posture, only a few feet fall. Alex sat up, back against the fallen tree the had been looking under before… this… all started. They sat there for a long time, regarding each other. Curiosity remained but was now paired with a sense of deep familiarity. Eventually, Alex closed their eyes, perhaps for longer than they intended, and when they opened then again the creature was gone, but several pink blossoms lay on the ground where it had been. 

Alex smiled again and felt a pang of loneliness. There was nothing now to do except pick themself up and go home. Which they did, slowly, and feeling changed.