>>5882368“Isn’t it… Isn’t it about time YOU, who ISSUED this damned challenge, introduce YOUR champion?” you bluster.
“Oh, you’re looking at her,” the female boasts, lifting her head and rolling her shoudlers as she assumes her (admittedly not very impressive) full height.
…Oh.
“And,” she continues, now mirroring her male counterpart’s grin, “there’s the matter of MY steed.”
…OH.
From the depths of the shadowed woods surrounding the sacred clearing come the sounds of dark fairies shouting obscenities and instructions, heaving and huffing and crying out in disarray as they labour towards some unseen task. Then, you hear the low rumble, as if of some great and terrible beast. You feel a pit open up in your stomach, wide enough to fall into, as the darkness itself seems to breach the treeline—a huge, rippling wave of midnight black spilling out into the clearing, only to split open into a blood-red cavern rimmed with white stalactites and stalagmites. A great, fanged mouth snaps and gnashes inches from your face, so that Muffins leaps forwards and—with cloven hooves upon his hind feet—kicks you back to save you from becoming a snack.
The monster—a great mass of matted, black fur in the rough shape of a canid—is bound about its waist, neck, and limbs by long, thick chains. It is by these that the beast is dragged back—though to accomplish this, each of the chains is manned by three or four of the Unseelie Fey.
“What on the Gods’ green earth is THAT?” your mother gasps.
“Bloody hell,” hisses your father, raising his sword in his—and your—defence.
“Poor bastard was going to be our champion, in his other aspect,” the male representative says, daring to pat the terrible, black wolf’s flank as you patted Muffins.
The beast doesn’t appreciate it, and he quickly ahs to dodge another ‘love bite’ of his tremendous and terrible captive.
“Instead,” the female enthuses, stroking his fur, “he’ll be my ‘mighty steed’,!”
When the wolf-thing wheels around to remove the offending hand upon his hackles, he instead comes eye-to-eye with the Unseelie in question. She casts a spell, some form of mentalism or mesmerism which you don’t have time to properly analyze, and it freezes in place, mouth half-agape and drooling. Slowly, the terrible wolf shuts its maw, and lowers its head. After a moment’s whispering, a few Unseelie risk to unlock the cuffs and manacles which bind this beastie. You watch with horror as the female fairy who has declared herself Champion of the Unseelie Court flutters up and alights, legs spread wide around monstrous midsection, atop the beast.
