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I wouldn’t expect anyone else to be this deep in the woods, this far off the trail, but someone is singing - a high, wordless, melodic wail somewhere among the trees. Curious, I follow the voice - the voices, several of them, men and women in harmony. A choir, it sounds like, further out in the forest than any choir should be. Weird.
The sound stops just before I can see where it’s coming from - but there’s something up ahead there, not people, but… a wall. A wall of sticks driven upright into the ground. Willow branches, most of them still green and alive. And at the end of the wall, a circular stone archway. Cautiously, I peek through.
Two stick walls form a short, broad hallway, with a stone arch at each end. In the middle of this space, a single tree is growing, a species I don’t recognize, its branches dripping with pinkish flowers. There is no sign of the singers, but there are strange piles of things here and there on the ground - a mound of bright green leaves and another of yellow leaves, a stack of shiny gray stones. A small pile of blue feathers, and another of blackberries. A mound of white bones, crowned with a crumbling, single-antlered buck skull.
Whatever this place is, it’s cool. Weird, and giving me a distinct impression I’m not supposed to be here, but cool. ...I won’t move anything, I think. I just want to look. ...And maybe touch a little. The moss under that tree looks temptingly soft, and I’m always interested in bones and feathers, weirdly piled up in someone else’s secret forest getaway or otherwise.
The ground, aside from the moss under the tree and the neatly sorted piles of things, is bare dirt. Not a single fallen leaf or petal to be seen. Recently cleared. Very recently.
...I should probably go.
I turn to hurry away, when the choral voices sound again. “Sorry, I was just…” I begin awkwardly, turning again to apologize to the singers - but I see only one, a very tall man dressed only in fur leggings, a short cape of black feathers, and some sort of antlered headdress.
All of the voices are coming from him.
And those...aren’t fur leggings. That’s probably not a headdress, either.
He gestures for me to stay, to sit down on the soft moss carpet under the tree. Still struggling to process what I’m seeing, I comply.
The deer-man stands a few paces from me on the bare earth, still singing with many voices at once, eyes locked on me. I do my best to hold his gaze instead of staring in amazement at the way his body stops being human around his waist. His bearded face is young and startlingly handsome, his eyes are dark and intense, and the way he’s looking at me is making me feel… warm, somehow, and self-conscious, but not afraid.
Then he raises the feathers from his shoulders (oh god, that’s not a cape, those are part of him too) until his head is haloed in dramatic, iridescent black, and I realize - the walls of sticks, the piles of colorful objects, the carefully-cleared dirt floor - this is a bower.
I’m being seduced, bird-style.
I’ve never been able to do casual hookups - it takes me too long to grow comfortable with the touch of a new partner. And that, I realize, is somehow my only objection to this seduction - not that this man is definitely not human, not that he’s trying to impress me using techniques from an entirely different class of animals, certainly not that he’s unattractive.
There’s no reason not to at least stay and watch the courtship dance, right?
The bird-deer-man (forest spirit? forest god?) raises his arms slowly, dramatically, to shoulder height. Then… he shimmies. There’s no other word for it, and there’s absolutely nothing graceful or seductive about it. I have to stifle a laugh. After a few good shimmies, he straightens up and bounces, just hopping up and down in place on his hooves. I bring my hands to my face to hide the laughter, but it’s no use. His intense face breaks into a smile for a minute, like an acknowledgement that yes, this is silly, but the smolder soon returns, and the incredibly dorky dance moves don’t stop coming. He hangs his arms and legs loosely and sort of blorb-blorbs them in and out like a jellyfish. He performs an exaggerated shuffle that looks like the bastard child of a jig and a moonwalk. He wiggles his shoulders like someone kinda-sorta enjoying a school dance. Finally, he does a sort of how-low-can-you-go and scoots his way toward me in a crouch.
“You know I’m not a bird, right?” I choke out through the laughter and embarrassment that are both twisting my face into something I can’t fully control. “And… and if I were, I wouldn't be that kind of bird, I think, I’d be one of those birds that fall in love and get bird married and build a nest together, I know ravens do that, and, penguins I think? and maybe swans? and… lots of birds. Lots of birds have bird love instead of bird sexy-dances, oh no, I’m babbling, I’m sorry, I’m babbling, your bower is incredible and your feathers are beautiful and that dance was… well, it was something, heh, and if I was a bowerbird, well, consider me seduced, but…” I trail off, burying my face in my hands again. Part of me - a big part, really - wishes I could be that kind of bird - sure, the dance was incredibly unsexy by human standards, but it’s not like it wasn’t cute in its own weird way, and the moss and the flowers set such a scene, and this bird-man-deer-creature is beautiful, more beautiful than any man I’ve ever seen, and the intense but gentle way he looks at me is - well, I can’t say it isn’t doing things to me - but I know myself well enough, know that my body will reject his touch, no matter how much it wants it too, unless we take the time to build up trust, and - and I can’t seem to let go of the bird thing -
“Grebes!” I continue babbling, my voice weak. “Grebes have bird love and sexy-dances! Well, kind of, they -“
The deer-bird-man takes my face in one cool, soft, human hand, tilts it upward until I can see that he’s smiling, the intensity gone, only amusement and kindness in his eyes. With his other hand he plucks one gleaming feather from his shoulder and holds it out to me. I take it, and he takes my hands and helps me to my feet.
“Come again tomorrow?” he says, with just one voice, soft and resonant, with an accent I can’t yet identify.
“You mean - ” You mean I haven’t just blown my one and only chance to get with a gorgeous otherworldly forest being who sings like a choir of angels and dances like a complete dweeb?
“To court like grebes. Or ravens.” Yes! Still got a chance!
“How about like humans?”
He smiles a dazzling, infectious smile. “We could do that. I believe the phrase is ‘Buy me a drink’?”
“Yeah? What do you drink?”
“Hmm, I haven’t had a whiskey in decades.”
“Whiskey, got it. It’s a date, then?”
“A date.”
So. I’ve got a date with a forest god.