Trope Tuesdays #2 - male forest spirit x short reader (sfw) (Patreon)

This reader is a bit different from my normal formula, in that I’ve specified that they’re small/short. Still kept it gender-neutral though. I don’t normally add physical descriptors (unless it’s a commission), but I wanted to make this a reader insert, and the trope that won was ‘Big Scary(TM) with smol softie’. If you’re not super smol yourself, then you’ll have to use your imagination a bit more for this one, but I think almost any human would feel a bit smol next to this week’s friend anyway… :).

Also, these are still supposed to be SHORT stories. Again, this is about 5k words long because I apparently have no self control, especially when I'm ill... Anyway, enjoy!!

Content: short human reader, one bouncy husky-cross, one scary-looking, skull-headed cinnamon roll, a skunk, a werewoof, and lots of fluff. Wordcount: 4939

You drew to a halt in the parking lot of a small, nondescript-looking diner and cut the engine. As the big truck died, blissful silence pressed in on all sides like fog against the windows of the car. And after hours of driving through the dense pine forest that blanketed the hills in these parts, it was a relief to look up and see more than a tiny ribbon of the sky above. 

The wet, green scents of the forest rolled in through the open window, and just as you were about to clamber out and let your husky-cross out from her spot on the passenger side, you caught a flicker of movement between the trees on the edge of the gravel parking lot and turned your head to look. 

Stepping out of the forest was a large, grizzled werewolf walking upright, their fur a light brown, shimmering with silver, but behind them walked a creature, the likes of which you had never seen before. 

Seven or so feet tall, with a bleached white deer’s skull for a head, crowned with an impressive rack of antlers that added easily another two feet to their height, the creature had a thick mane of shaggy black hair that ran down over their hunched shoulders to the base of their curved spine, making them look bulkier than perhaps they really were. Long, gangly, lanky arms dangled down to their mid thigh, with creepy, knuckly fingers, each one tipped with a curved, onyx talon, and their hind quarters were those of a powerful stag, with thick, rippling fur and large, black hooves. 

They followed the werewolf in eerie silence as he prattled on about something, though you were just a little too far away to catch his words. As they passed your truck on their way towards the steps and access ramp of the building ahead, you caught the flash of sharp, over-sized canines in their skull as they passed. 

Frozen in place as much by fascination as fear, you watched from the safety of your truck’s cab as the pair made their way to the veranda of the diner and then paused. The werewolf seemed to be explaining something and the cervine creature nodded once and then knelt down near a gap beneath the decking. You continued to stare, transfixed, as they reached beneath the veranda and spoke softly. Their voice, like the scrape of shattered stone against stone, carried on the still air and it made the hairs on your arms rise into goosebumps. 

The idea that perhaps they were conducting some kind of ritual spell crossed your mind and you shivered. What kind of place was this?

After perhaps a couple of minutes, the strange figure straightened and turned to the werewolf with a nod. Whatever it was that they had been brought here from the depths of the forest to do, was clearly done. A heartbeat later, and a dart of black and white flitted from beside the diner into the woods and you watched a skunk vanish into the bracken with its tail held high, affronted, and the werewolf laughed, gratefully clapping the cervine creature on the shoulder with a huge paw-like hand. 

He gestured enthusiastically, obviously trying to get his friend to come inside, and after only a little persuasion, the creature nodded and followed, leaving the car park quiet and still again. 

How bizarre, you thought. Perhaps the creature was some kind of forest spirit?

It took only a little courage, and the arrival of someone else in the car park who looked and behaved like a local, for you to muster up the courage and head on inside. You hadn’t come all the way here just to lurk in your truck after all. Before you did, however, you let your dog out to stretch her legs and do her business, promising that you’d give her a proper walk when you reached the cabin that afternoon. 

The diner was simple and undistinguished inside, with an old, rusty-looking jukebox in a corner near a scuffed pool table, and the bare floorboards had the patina of age and beer that only came from a well-loved and oft-frequented place. Standing at the polished, wooden bar, head bowed and turned slightly to one side, was the cervine creature. Inside among the handmade tables and chairs, the glass bottles, and the industrial lampshades hanging from the ceiling, they looked even more unusual and out of the ordinary, and all the shadows seemed to be reaching out for them somehow, as if their night-black fur absorbed the light somehow. 

From a door beside the bar, a man who looked to be just about forty emerged, scrubbing a hand through his shaggy, greying hair, and rolling his shoulders the way a shifter does after a transformation, adjusting to his new form again. There was enough similarity in the way he moved for you to realise that this was the werewolf you’d just seen outside. 

He looked up as you approached the bar and grinned a broad, open, welcoming smile. “Well now,” he chuckled softly. “You’re not from around here.”

“Nope,” you grinned, feeling more than usually short as you craned your neck up to look at him. Beside you, his cervine friend didn’t move at all and remained hunched over the bar, as if you’d go away if they didn’t acknowledge you. The werewolf’s eyes were the most astonishing, powder blue, with tissue-paper crinkles at the corners. “I’m here on holiday,” you added. 

“Really?” the werewolf said. “You’re on your own?” 

His surprise wasn’t unkind - or wholly unexpected, given how short you were - and you nodded. Your height often made people underestimate you. “I’m not entirely alone - I’ve got my dog, Rain, in the truck. We’ve done a lot of the Glasspeak Mountain Trail already, but I wanted to stay in one place this time and hike out from there. I’ve rented the old logger’s cabin for a couple of weeks.”

“Awesome,” he said. “I’m Jack, by the way. I run this place. And bring the dog in next time - we love dogs here.”

You introduced yourself and shook his massive hand. 

“And this is Hemlock,” Jack added nodding at his friend. “He lives in the forest between here and the start of the Starfall River, but he came over to help me with a skunk problem.” 

You giggled and said, “I saw that. I thought the pair of you were doing some kind of ritual on the place.”

Hemlock turned his huge skull to regard you and you couldn’t help the way your eyes widened when you noticed the glowing red light in his empty eye sockets. You’d been right about the size of his canines, which were as thick and dangerous as a boar’s tusks. His tongue, briefly visible between the exposed teeth in his bare skull and jaw, was a vibrant, blood red as well. Up close, you could see that his arms were bare of fur, the skin a dark, purplish brown, and the backs of his huge, spider-like hands were dotted with geometric tattoos, right down to the pronounced knuckles of his long fingers. 

Realising you were staring, you smiled and repeated your name to him by way of a greeting. He just inclined his head and then turned to look at Jack, nodding more curtly before turning and leaving without a word. As he went, however, you caught a deep, guttural growl emanating from him, and you shuddered. 

Once he’d gone, you turned back to Jack with a quizzical look on your face, and he sighed. “Don’t mind him. He’s not much of a one for talking and socialising. He might look like the kind of thing you wouldn’t want to meet on a dark night, but he’s alright though, I promise.”

You stayed there long enough to grab some lunch, struggling to get up onto the tall bar stool and laughing good-naturedly when Jack playfully offered to get you a crate to step up on. The food was amazing, and Jack laughingly admitted that he couldn’t take any of the credit for that. “All the cheffing is done by Kass,” he said, jabbing a thumb over his shoulder at another door behind the bar. 

“Duly noted,” you grinned as you paid for your beautiful meal. “Tell me, is it hard to find the turn-off for the logger’s cabin from here?”

He shook his head. “Nah. It used to be, but I think Marnie had Ellis put in a swanky new wooden sign for it. Turn left out of here and head maybe half a mile up the road, and you can’t miss it. It’s on the left.”

Everything was exactly as he’d said it would be, and after bouncing down a long, rutted track into the woods, you and Rain made it to the old logger’s cabin. It was everything it had said it would be online and more, and in half an hour you had settled in and unpacked, and Rain was scrabbling at the door and whining. 

“Come on, you,” you grinned, and you grabbed a local map and your phone, and locked up the cabin behind you. 

The brown and white husky-cross took off into the woods behind the cabin, barking and bounding joyously after being cooped up for so long. 

You didn’t spend long out that afternoon, intending to take your first proper hike the next day after making some decent plans, but as you trod the narrow deer track between the trees, your skin prickled again and you halted, looking around. 

Rain was nowhere to be seen, but it wasn’t unusual for her to shoot off and loop back to scold you for taking so long and for being so slow. A raven’s hollow call from a large sycamore up ahead startled you, and as you blinked, you saw the figures of two deer watching you from beneath the branches. You smiled at them and left them to their business, whistling for Rain to come back to you. The husky-cross barrelled out of the bracken about a minute later, covered in burrs and sticky weed, panting, and looking thoroughly pleased with herself. 

You had to laugh. “You’re a mess!” you snorted, fussing her ears as she paused at your side, tongue lolling. “Come on.”

The lingering feeling of being observed stayed with you, but however unnerving it was, you didn’t feel threatened by it, and when you closed the cabin door behind you that evening and started the fire going in the log-burner, you felt particularly safe there. Rain was more than usually relaxed too, flaking out in front of the fire almost immediately after you’d finished brushing her down, and barely stirring except to gobble down her evening kibble. 

Your hike the next morning took you through the mist-wreathed shoulders of the Glasspeak Mountains, along a river that roared with spring melt-water over moss-covered boulders, their tips smoothed by time and barely peaking above the water now. Dippers bobbed and weaved in and out of the spray, hunting the early insects as they danced above the water, and the whole place sang with life. 

More than halfway round your chosen trail, with slightly sore feet and aching muscles, the hairs rose along your arms and the back of your neck, and Rain went utterly still on the needle-strewn path in front of you. Her tail arched high, fluffy and alert, and her ears pricked forwards. A soft growl rolled off her and you stepped close. 

“What is it, girl?” you murmured. These parts were a known haven for bears and wolves, and while they tended to mind their own business, it was never wise to blunder into their home with all the subtlety of a construction site wrecking ball. 

Rain’s dusky lip rose to reveal her teeth and she lowered her head, paws flexing on the soft turf. 

“Easy…” you whispered, reaching for the collar around her neck to stop her launching herself off into the undergrowth and into god-knows-what else. In a slightly louder voice, trying to convey calm confidence, you said, “If there’s someone there who can understand me, we don’t mean any harm. We’re just passing through…”

After a heartbeat, a harsh, scraping voice responded. “I know.”

“Right,” you said. “Any chance you could… you know… show yourself? My dog’s freaking out a bit and I’d like to reassure her.” She wasn’t the only one freaking out a bit, but you endeavoured not to let that show. 

“I don’t think that would help,” the voice replied and you stared hard at the trees a little way off to your right. 

A tall, dark shadow was lingering there, darker than the rest of the pines, and you narrowed your eyes. “Hemlock?” you asked uncertainly. “Is that you?”

The shape moved and a flash of pale bone broke the dim stillness between the trees. “You remember my name.” It was not a question. 

“Sure,” you said with a smile, relaxing slightly as you recalled what Jack had said about him looking alarming but being harmless. “I’m -”

“I remember your name,” he interrupted bluntly, coming to a halt in a patch of tangled bracken not three yards from where you and Rain now stood on the path. “You can let her go. I won’t hurt her.”

You released her and Rain stayed exactly where she was, unsure and defensive. “I didn’t think you would,” you said. “She’s a bit of a loner though.”

Hemlock murmured something under his breath that you didn’t catch, and the dog took a tentative step towards him. He crouched down, his antlers still reaching above your head even from that new position, and stretched out one strange, eerie hand towards Rain. The colour of his skin and the way his gnarled knuckles moved reminded you of roots. 

She snuffed the bony knuckles of his dark, taloned hand, and then she gave him a tentative little lick and began to wag her tail softly. 

“There,” he crooned, scratching under her chin and making her pant happily. His eyes flared redder suddenly and he looked back up at you. “You’ve been out a long time,” he said, and the odd timbre of his scraping voice sent a shiver through you again. 

You shrugged, adjusting the weight of your pack on your shoulders. “Not an especially long hike for us,” you said. “And Rain could go for days. She runs circles around me.”

“You should get going,” he said. “It’s going to rain.”

“Right…” you said, deciding it would probably be best to believe this strange, forest-dwelling being. “Listen, I’m thinking of going to Jack’s for dinner tonight. Do you go there very often? Will you be there, I mean?”

“Not if I can help it,” he snorted and turned away, taking a few steps through the russet bracken and was almost immediately consumed by the shadows of the forest. The foliage crunched softly around his huge hooves and you glimpsed how his hocks were decorated with a ring of spherical burrs, almost like an anklet. You wondered idly if he’d like the feeling of having them brushed out. You had a centaur friend back in the city who couldn’t stand having messy fetlocks and just adored going to get groomed.

You also couldn’t help the way your disappointed response fell from your lips as he disappeared. “Oh. Ok. Well, it was nice to meet you again anyway.” 

Hemlock froze and half-glanced back over his stooped, shaggy shoulder at you. The slenderness of his bare, hairless arms beside the fluffiness of his pelt was stark, but it made you want to touch his skin and see if it was as smooth and leathery as it looked from a distance. As if sensing the direction of your thoughts, Hemlock ever so slightly raised his right arm, as if about to inspect it for some trace of dirt, but all he said was, “And you,” before stalking silently away from you. 

At your ankles, Rain looked up at you and whined. “I know,” you said regretfully. “Me too.”

That night when you returned to Jack’s, you found it almost full. Plenty of people gawped at you as you entered with Rain at your side on a lead, and you tried not to feel self-conscious as you realised that, with the exception of one satyr in the corner, they were all a heck of a lot bigger than you. Three boisterous gnolls were mucking around by the pool table with a couple of humans, a naga was coiled up in the far corner in deep conversation with another naga, a human and a goblin were sharing a romantic meal in one of the little booths on one side of the diner, and an array of other people were eating at the tables dotted around the rest of the large, homely space. 

When Jack spotted you, he waved and grinned, and you relaxed a little, crossing over to the bar with Rain, who immediately looked up at him and woofed softly. 

“Oh my god, she’s beautiful!” Jack cackled gleefully. “Can I say hi?” 

“Sure,” you said. “She’s not normally a people person, but things seem to be different here.”

Jack spent so long fussing with her ears and cooing over her that she actually rolled over for him and he became utterly engrossed in giving her belly scratches. Finally he looked up at you and seemed to remember that he was running a restaurant, not a dog-petting service, and flushed. “I’m sorry,” he chuckled. “What can I get you?”

He ducked back behind the bar and washed his hands before taking your order and passing it through to the kitchen. Retuning, he poured you a drink and asked how the cabin was and whether you’d found places in the village like the general store alright. Soon the topic moved round to how your first hike had been. 

“Great! We did the trail that starts by the cabin and then went up along the Starfall River. I actually met Hemlock on my way back.”

“Did you now?” Jack asked, midway through polishing a glass. He went thoughtfully still and regarded you for a moment before humming. “Interesting.”

“Why?”

“If he doesn’t want to be seen, he won’t be. He must have wanted to meet you.”

“I asked if he’d be here tonight, but he said no.” You left out the ‘not if I can help it’ comment for fear of offending Jack. 

The werewolf barked a knowing laugh just as an orc stepped out of the kitchen with your plate of food and set it down in front of you. 

Jack introduced you to Kass, who nodded and smiled shyly at you before ducking back into the kitchen again, and you tucked into your dinner. Jack lingered a little while to chat with you and tell you a bit about the history of the tiny collection of houses in the area, but the diner was busy that night and he was constantly flitting away to take orders and help serve. 

When you were done, you smiled, thanked him, and dragged a very unwilling husky across the bare floor towards the front door. She grumped and whined all the way, and only agreed to go willingly when Jack made a soft chuffing noise at her that was distinctly non-human. 

Outside, the air was fresh and chilly, and as you marched along the road, you inhaled the deep, green scents again. “It’s beautiful here, isn't it?” you said softly to Rain as you walked together along the road towards the cabin. It wasn’t unusual for you to natter away to your dog, though you didn’t exactly get any answers from her. “You fancy moving to somewhere like this?” you chuckled. “Yeah, me too. I’d love it. I’m sure I could find something that would let me work from home and spend half my time in the woods.”

Just as you paused at the edge of the small gravel clearing in front of the old logger’s cabin to let Rain off her lead, the dog went still again, and then boinged up and down on the spot like a crazy puppy before taking off at a dead run towards the trees. “Rain!” you yelled after her, but she ignored you completely. 

You shouted yourself hoarse and tramped about in the bracken looking for her for a fretful half hour before she trotted out of the darkness as if nothing had happened and as if she hadn’t just given you a complete heart attack, and she headed up to the cabin without so much as an apologetic glance. You scowled, hands on your hips, staring out at the blank darkness all around you. In the distance you thought you saw two red eyes, little more than pinpricks, but you blinked and they vanished. 

Shivering, you went inside, bolted the door, and drew the curtains. 

Your next day’s hiking took you in the opposite direction, up to a towering waterfall that fanned out over a broad expanse of bare rock before plummeting into the broad, quick river on the other side of the valley. You ate your lunch on a boulder at the edge of the water and watched Rain hurling herself repeatedly into the water after trout, coming up spluttering, jaws empty each time. To her credit though, she never gave up. 

The diner was quieter that night, and you spent longer talking with Jack about the area. When you told him where your adventures had taken you that day, he groaned jealously from where he was busy fussing Rain’s silky ears, and said, “It’s so beautiful up there. I’m glad you went that way. Anyway, tuck in!” he said, standing up with a soft grunt. “Don’t let me keep you from your food.”

“Compliments to Kass again,” you said as you did as instructed. It really was amazing, and exactly what you needed after your long day’s hike. 

Tired and full, you made your way back to the logger’s cabin again and, exactly as on the previous night, Rain took off at a flat-out bolt for the trees before you could grab her. 

Cursing your stupidity, and absolutely not feeling like another evening’s bushwhacking in the dark, you trudged after her, only to find her lolled over in the grass at the edge of the clearing this time, and with a brooding figure looming over her. You'd been about to scream in shocked surprise, adrenaline surging through you, when you recognised the blank, cervine skull and hunched shoulders, the gangly arms and cervine hind quarters. 

“Hemlock,” you sighed, almost dizzy with relief as you approached the pair. Where at first you thought he’d hurt her, you now saw that his long fingers were tickling her belly.

“You, lassie,” you told the dog as she looked sidelong at you, pink tongue lolling out of one side of her mouth, forepaws crooked, pale tummy exposed, “You are one greedy little lady. That’s your second lot of cuddles this evening!”

After a little pause, you looked at Hemlock and said, “I didn’t expect to see you here. Were you here last night too?”

He went still and turned his head a little more to face you, nodding once, his eyes quite literally glowing in the dark recesses of his pale skull. He should have looked like a breathing nightmare, with blood red eyes and a maw full of deadly teeth, but all you wanted to do was touch the ruffle around his neck and see if his mane really was as soft as smoke. It certainly looked like it. 

You took a step towards him and he lurched to his feet, rearing upright and spooking Rain, who shot out of the way of his enormous hooves and skittered behind you. His antlers tangled in the lowest branches of an old, lichen-studded tree above him and he cursed softly, struggling to free himself. 

“Here,” you said, “Keep still.” With tender fingers, you carefully unravelled his impressive antlers from the spindly branches, and took the time to smooth his mane down again afterwards. At the way your fingers raked through the thick, downy fur, Hemlock shuddered, his jaw rattling as his teeth clacked together. “Alright?” you asked. 

He straightened and ducked cautiously out of the way of the low branches, stepping onto the gravel beside you. He regarded you with his steady, scarlet gaze, and then tilted his head a little to one side. “You aren’t afraid of me,” he said. 

“Should I be?” you snorted. 

“You’re so small,” he breathed, almost in wonder. 

Again, a little, indelicate laugh wrinkled your nose, and you said, “So’s Rain, but you don’t seem to want to hurt her… Why would I be afraid of you?”

In answer, he raised his twig-like fingers up and turned his hands palm-up, regarding them before bringing the fingertips of his left hand to the bone of his skull. In darkness the bone gleamed quietly like the moon itself, and he scraped his talons over the hard, dull surface of his cheekbone. Watching the tattooed fingers move, the claw-tips glide, only made you ache to touch him again. 

“You’re beautiful,” you said, your voice barely audible. 

The soft rustle of his hoof disturbing the grass behind him as he took a step back was the only sound in the clearing for a moment. 

“Don’t tell me no one has ever said that to you before…?” you whispered. 

Hemlock lowered his head, half bowing and half bending, and you took it for the invitation it was. Reaching one hand up, you buried your fingers in the deep, soft fur of his shoulder, sliding up to the boundary where his mane met the skull and running your fingertips over the arch of his eye socket. A low-frequency rumble echoed from deep within him. 

“Can you feel that?” you asked in a hoarse voice and he shook his head. 

“Not really. I can feel the vibrations of it here,” he added, bringing one hand up to the point where his fur began. “But I have no sensation on my face.”

“Can… Can I ask what you are?” you asked, heart pounding. 

“My father is an ancient forest deity,” he said. “My mother was a wood nymph.”

“I’ve never met anyone like you.”

“May I touch you?” he asked in that harsh, scraping whisper. 

You nodded, and with trembling hesitancy, the huge, lethal claws swept, light as a butterfly’s wing, across your cheeks. 

The cold of the late evening prickled against your skin, seeping deeper into your body, and you shivered. Instantly, he withdrew his touch but you snatched his wrist before it vanished and said, “I’m cold. You want to come in for a while?”

He seemed to be deliberating, and in the end it was Rain who decided it for him. She bounded back over and barked at him, forelegs flat to the ground, butt in the air, inviting him to play. 

With a low, quiet, rumbling chuckle, he nodded. “Alright.” 

You let go of him and walked beside him across the gravel, acutely aware of just how small you were beside him, and he caught you looking up at him and asked, “What?”

Giggling quietly, you said, “You’re just so tall. You’ll have to watch those lovely antlers on the doorway!”

Hemlock shook his head slightly in stunned disbelief and you grinned again. 

At your invitation, he stepped carefully over the threshold, ducking low and turning his head sideways to make sure he didn’t crack his antlers on the door frame. His hooves knocked softly on the wooden floors and he wiped them fastidiously on the rough doormat; an action that seemed incongruously domestic for such a strange looking creature. 

As you reached for Rain’s comb and began to groom her on the porch outside, you asked, “Since you live in the forest, is there any chance you can point out some good trails on the map for me?”

Observing the steady back and forth of your hand as you worked the comb through the husky’s thick fur, he shrugged and said, “Would you like me to show you them instead?”

“You mean… you want to come hiking with me?”

He looked away, the light dimming in his eyes. “Only if it’s what you want.” When he risked a look back at you and saw the broad grin on your face, the red in his eye sockets flared again and he chuckled. “Is that a yes?”

You turned to Rain, who was currently on her back while you teased the burrs off her belly, and you squidged her cheeks between fingers and thumbs. “What do you say? You want to go with him tomorrow?”

She yipped a loud bark, wiggled out of your grasp - which sent tufts of her flyaway fur floating away all over the place like dandelion puffs - and bolted indoors and begged to be fussed by him.

When Hemlock didn’t respond immediately, she barked, and he stopped staring at you and looked down at her. “Quiet,” he reassured her gently. “I’ll show you somewhere that I know you’re both going to love.”

“Can’t wait,” you said with a smile, and as you gazed at him, you sensed that he was smiling too, although the blank expanse of his bare skull showed no outward change. 

___ 

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