Ammeline swerved out of the way as the man lunged at her with his blade. She dodged two more lunges, slipping her sword out of the bag and drawing it. On his third thrust she clashed blades with him, and age finally had a chance to examine her opponent.

He wasn't human. He looked a little bit like Sylvanandra, the elf, but not quite. less human, more...alien, really. His limbs were too slender and long, his face too thin and aqualine. His skin was a deep blue, and his ears not just pointed by longer and thinner, sweeping back in a high arc over his shoulders. Sweeping back over them were the antlers, left over from his jackalope form. Or maybe he'd just been in the form of a rabbit, and he couldn't get rid of the antlers when he transformed?

His armor was leather, in dark blues and greyish greens, but the patches were cut to resemble leaves. His sword had a leaf motif to it as well, though the blade was long and thin. Though to Ammeline's estimation...

Well, he wasn't very good with it.

With her blade out the fight became...well, not QUITE a farce. He wasn't that bad. But it took only a few exchanges for the eventual outcome to be obvious.

"If you had talked in the first place we could have avoided this!"

"Mortals uninitiated reside in the house!" The slender man responded in his gravely voice. "If you had honor you would have come without being goaded!"

"I have no idea what you're talking about!" Ammeline said, tiring of the pointless battle. She flicked her wrist, sending his sword tumbling away, them stuck her foot out to trip him. He landed on his back. She stepped on his chest and placed the tip of her sword on his neck. "Ahahahahahaha! Victory is mine! NOW we can talk!"

The man glared up at her, though there was something strange I'm his eyes now.

"Go ahead and kill me, unseelie dog!"

Ammeline blinked.

Then she blinked again.

"Unseelie. As in...winter fairies?" She wasn't exactly up on her fairy lore, but some things had been sinking in being around so much magical talk. Two kinds of faries, winter-fall and spring-summer...not that she had any idea how to tell the difference. Though things WERE begining to make a weird sort of sense...

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

"Do not play the fool!" Her captive spat. "And cease this bewitchment!"

"What bewitchment?"

"The spell you have placed upon me with your foot on my chest! You grind it into my bones like I am dirt on your shoe, yet I find my desires for you somehow enflamed! Are you part succubus?"

Ammeline stared at the creature, who she now suspected to be a fairy, with cold, flat eyes.

"Is every male of every species across all existence some kind of hopeless pig?"

"Ah!" The fairy writhed. "You call me a pig and I desire you further! What witchery is this?"

"It's called perversion," Ammeline's voice was dry. "Ordinary garden variety perversion. No magic necessary."

"Your unseelie tricks will not sway me!"

"Look you idiot..."

"Guah! My loins!"

Ammeline paused a moment to pinch the bridge of her nose.

"I'm going to take my door off you now."

"Oh, there's no need, I'm kind of enjoying..."

"That's exactly why there's a need! I'm going to take my foot off, and you're going to respect the fact I won the fight, and we'll talk like reasonable people."

He sighed in slight disappoinment as she removed her foot from his chest.

"Why am I still alive?" He asked. "If you are some agent of the unseelie..."

"I'm NOT though!" Ammeline said. "I think there's been a mistake. Weeks ago, I was fighting an elf sorceress oh my God that's normal for me now anyway she had enslaved the local faries and I helped them out. I'm not part of your little fairy world feud, I'm a human."

He looked up at her, still on his back on the ground.

"You do appear to be human. And while I do still sense unseelie magic from you...yes, I believe it does taste more like a gift than an oath. We sensed unseelie magic in our lands or took it as a challenge that must be met."

"So it's all cleared up then?" Ammeline said. "I've lived in this town my entire life, I don't need trouble with the local faries."

"Not...quite," the fairy said. "It would make things much simpler, now that you are fairy touched, if you would present yourself to my queen. Which was...I could bring you as guest, instead of prisoner."

"Oh..." Ammeline sighed. "Fine. I'll meet your queen. But I'm well liked by both powerful wizards and the United States Government, just something to keep in mind."

"Surely, by now just a formality. But first, would you mind stepping on me agaib? Just for a..."

"No I will not!"

"Oh very well." The fairy stood up and dusted himself off. "I am Mordechai Alchimar Solviten Onibelius, knight of the Seelie courts."

"Y...your initials spell MASO?" Ammeline sputtered incredulously.

"I...suppose they do, in the alphabet of this region of this realm. Your name, my slightly intimidating lady?"

"Ammeline Trent. Alright maso, let's go see your queen."