Rowan sat underneath the maple tree and sighed happily. It had been twenty years since he'd last been here, and this was the first time since then that he'd felt this content.
His mind wandered to the girl. He could barely remember her face now. What was her name? It began with an L. Or maybe an M? The memories around her seemed especially hazy, but as they had faded, the feelings became sharper. He let himself be swept up in them. The sensation of wading barefoot in the river, his hand gently brushing across the leaves while the other held hers, falling asleep together beneath the mountain laurel.
"Rowan?" a voice called out.
Rowan knew who it was before he'd opened his eyes. "Laura," he said softly, taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly.
He opened his eyes and saw her green ones staring back at him. She was all grown up now, and breathtakingly beautiful, her long black hair trailing free behind her.
They didn't speak for several minutes. The pair sat there beneath the maple tree, staring into each other's eyes. A flash of memory came back to Rowan, and he was reminded of the long periods of silence between them when they were younger. Come to think of it, had she ever said a word to him other than her name and his?
Rowan was distracted from this thought by the touch of Laura's hand stroking his cheek. He felt a blush come over him as their lips drew together in a kiss. There wasn't much time to think about this, as Laura had already grabbed his hand and pulled him to his feet.
The next few hours were a familiar blur of sensation as they repeated their familiar dance from so long ago. In a flash, the sun was setting and Laura was giving him a sad wave goodbye.
As she faded out of sight into the darkening woods, panic gripped Rowan. He needed to get out, NOW! Like a man possessed, he sprinted out of the forest as fast as he could. Even as his muscles screamed in protest, he ran. He couldn't have stopped even if he wanted to. He emerged from the forest to find a paved road then collapsed to his hands and knees, desperately filling his lungs with air. Jolts of pain shot through his body as he rolled over on his back and stared at the twilit sky. He was safe.
He couldn’t recall how he learned the rules, but they’d been inscribed in his mind for as long as he could remember. Never go into the woods after dark, never eat anything grown nearby, and never under any circumstances accept gifts from strangers. And he was compelled to follow them, even though he had no idea why they were so important.
He pondered this as he made his way back to the dingy motel that he'd been staying at. The familiar malaise was coming over him, that feeling of unease that had been ever present since he'd left this place all those years ago. It had been shortly after his mother disappeared that his father moved them across the country, seemingly wanting to put as much distance between him and the town as possible. He'd died barely a year later, leaving Rowan an orphan.
Rowan had drifted from place to place since then, never able to settle down anywhere. He hadn't noticed it, but he had been moving ever closer to this place since his father's death, until one day he'd found himself at the edge of the forest of his youth, the only place he'd ever been happy.
Rowan stared at the popcorn ceiling of the motel room as he lay on the stiff-matressed bed. When he was a child, he had never questioned the strangeness of his experiences in the forest with his friend Laura, but now he was determined to figure them out. Why could he never seem to remember the exact details of their times together? Why did she always disappear when it got dark? And why were the rules so important?
He tossed and turned these mysteries in his head, eventually falling into a fitful sleep. He didn't even bother to change his clothes or get under the covers. His dreams were a green haze of frolicking in the woods with Laura.
Rowan woke up the next morning feeling strangely well rested despite the uncomfortable circumstances of his sleep. After getting breakfast at a nearby diner, he resolved to figure out the mystery of the woods, Laura, and why he felt so... complete when he was there with her. He wasn't sure how he was going to figure this out, but he'd never entered the woods determined to do... well... anything really. Somehow he felt that going in there with purpose... with intention... would get him somewhere. Every time before this, he had just wandered aimlessly until Laura came across him, and then she'd lead them through the forest together.
Before he knew it, he was standing in front of the forest. He could feel a familiar haze threatening to overcome his mind, but he shook it off. Whatever happened, he was not going to get distracted by anything today. Not even Laura, if she showed up. Thinking about Laura momentarily distracted him, but he recovered. With purpose, with intention, he set off into the wood.
Thirty minutes later, he felt invigorated, and more clearheaded than he'd ever been. He was finally getting somewhere, he thought, even if he had no idea why he thought that, or where he was going.
He came to the river that he and Laura had spent so much time splashing and playing in. A flash of memory came back to him; a vision of Laura offering a raspberry to him as he rested on the shore. He felt a chill run through him as he remembered the second rule. He shook it off, reasoning that it had happened so long ago, and obviously nothing bad had happened to him. But it did make him wonder why the rules seemed so much less important when Laura was around. He had always spent far too much time with her, leaving precious little room to escape the forest before nightfall.
As he turned to leave the river, his foot caught on a branch and yanked his right shoe off. It didn't seem very important to go back for it, so he left it where it lay. There was something freeing being without it as well. He barely noticed when the other shoe slipped off his foot a few minutes later.
Another hour, and he came across a large rock formation that he and Laura had loved to climb up and down. He remembered her looking at him with an unusually pensive expression, and in a desire to comfort her, saying "Don't worry. I promise I will always be with you." Another chill came over him, though he didn't know why.
Ten minutes after he had left the rock formation, a bramble caught one of his socks and pulled it off his foot. Once again, he ignored it, feeling exhilarated by the feel of the ground beneath his bare foot. He happily pulled the other sock off too, and left them both on the ground. He didn't notice the oddity of a bramble grabbing his sock but leaving nary a scratch on his skin. He felt his hair start to tickle his neck as he moved even deeper into the forest.
The further he got, the more his memory seemed to sharpen. He had been unconsciously retracing the steps they had taken so many years ago. He recalled feeding a deer together with Laura, and the surprise at how calm and friendly it was around the pair of them. He was only mildly surprised when the distraction of this memory caused him to veer too close to a branch that caught on his T-shirt and tore a big gash in it.
He didn't even hesitate as he pulled off his shirt and tossed it to the ground. What did give him pause was the tickle of his now much longer hair down his back. He grabbed a handful of it and noticed that it had changed color too; it was now a light brown, or maybe a dark blonde. He felt the hair tickling his nipples, and reached up to touch one. He shivered. They had become larger and more sensitive. Touching his chest made him realize that the hair there had disappeared, leaving him very smooth.
Clad in nothing but his trousers, he sat on a nearby rock, tense and clammy. Intellectually, he realized something bizarre and unnatural was happening to him, that he should turn back before he was too deep to escape the woods before nightfall. He might have passed that point already. He was farther into the wood than he had ever been. Instinct was guiding him now, or perhaps a sixth sense, a compulsion that had been growing stronger and stronger as the day wore on.
He needed to find out where it led. No matter what happened to his body, discovering the source of his restlessness, his malaise, his ill humor was the most important thing in the world. In a very real sense it was the only thing he’d ever cared about, the only thing he'd ever truly chosen to do, as opposed to the aimless drifting that had defined his life to that point.
Another hour, and he was just as invigorated and motivated to find the answer as he had been at the start. He paid no heed to the fact that several hours of hiking had not affected his energy level at all, if he was even consciously aware of the fact. Nor was he hungry or thirsty. It took him about a minute to notice that his pants and underwear had slipped off his legs, leaving him completely nude. He gasped as he noticed a very significant absence, and a very significant presence.
He was a girl. How long had he had the vagina that was now adorning his body? He felt a blush come over his face as he reached out to touch it. Then he shook his head and returned to the matter at hand. He was now a girl. Or rather, SHE was now a girl. For she was surely a she, in mind as well as body. How else could she explain the utter feeling of contentment that she felt at the absence of the masculine organ that had previously dangled between her legs, the organ that she had never bothered to use? She thought back to all the times in her life that she’d most acutely felt that familiar awkwardness, that discomfort, and it was always when felt most uncomfortably masculine. Staring at her reflection in the mirror, feeling her penis harden when she saw a pretty girl… Yes, it all made sense now. The forest had stripped away the lies that her body had been telling her all her life. Her smooth skin, budding breasts, and skinny hips lent a pubescent awkwardness to her otherwise adult body. Yes, she was definitely a girl.
But she still needed to get to the end of the forest. She wasn't sure what answers were held there, or if they even mattered now that she knew that she was, in fact, a she. She was going to find them, no matter what.
The thrill of being naked in the woods thrilled and excited the new girl, and she started to run, the air and the leaves kissing her body. Nature seemed to embrace her, leaving not a scratch or bruise on her as she clambered over rocks and branches. Everything seemed bigger, louder, more intense. Her masculine limbs and body shrank and softened, becoming delicate and lithe. She giggled as she stretched out her smaller hand and stared at it. Her long hair tickled her ears, and she reached up to touch them. They were now long and pointed. Another flash of memory hit her, this one from only yesterday. Laura’s ears had been just as pointed as hers were now. In fact, they had always been pointed. The forest had been slowly revealing things bit by bit to her, saving this final revelation for last. Laura wasn’t human. “She” wasn’t human. Not anymore. She recalled reading a big book of mythology when she was younger. There were all sorts of nature spirits described there. Perhaps she had become something like that, a dryad or a nymph? Whatever she was, it didn’t bother her in the slightest. Being human had brought her no joy, only the forest had. If it wanted to make her into a girl, into another species entirely, she would embrace that fate wholeheartedly.
The sun was just about to sink beneath the horizon when she came to it. A crystal clear pool that she had never seen before. She knelt over and smiled at the feminine reflection that stared back at her. For the first time today, a powerful thirst came over her, and she cupped her hands before taking a long draught of the water. She sighed as it flowed down her throat. A pleasurable tingle filled her, and she reached up to cup one of her breasts. She gasped as she felt it start to swell between her fingers. She stared again at her reflection to see her body rapidly maturing, breasts growing, hips widening. And then it stopped.
She had been a girl. Now she was a woman.
The new woman blew a kiss at her reflection. She felt a heat rise between her legs, and not the unwanted male arousal that had felt so unnatural to her. This felt wonderful, entrancing, seductive. She brought her fingers to her labia and felt a wetness. A moan emerged, unbidden, from her throat as she started to rub herself. She began to yearn for Laura as she masturbated, imagining their bodies entwined.
She let out a scream of pleasure as she came for the first time as a woman. She had a beatific smile on her face as she stretched out on the bank of the pool in post orgasmic bliss. A minute later, she was wading into the water, swimming lazily, enjoying the feel of its coolness against her skin. Her thoughts drifted to her mother. Had the same thing happened to her, lost in these woods? She blushed as wondered what she would think of her new daughter, a horny nude nymph.
Suddenly, she felt a presence. She looked up and saw Laura, just as naked as she was, standing on the opposite bank of the pool.
"Maple," she said simply.
Maple smiled and blushed. The new name suited her, and she took to it instantly. With a playful smile on her face, she offered a hand to Laura. She reached out to grab it, and Maple pulled her into the pool with a great splash. Soon they were giggling and playing just as they had years ago. Later still, when the moon rose and the stars came out, they were kissing, stroking, and making love.
And so it was that Maple found her place in the world, with a little help from her true love Laura, and the magic of the forest. They would spend the rest of their days as playful wood nymphs, living in the shadow of the towering trees, happy and carefree, forever.
