I normally play 2nd ed AD&D, but this is something I wrote for a 4ed game I DM'd. The character (an Aaenshi, which is a 3ed anthro fox!) starts off leaving her parents Forthvax and Itheena and tell how she found herself a long way from home and all alone.
Looking back at their den, Forthvax and Itheena steel themselves to the knowledge that they may never return to it. The newly reinforced entrance and welcoming bonsai that had seemed so import only days ago seemed trivial and childish now. Forthvax had only a week before been promoted to Sky Martial of the Aaenshi Wrath-legion, the first of his burrow to be awarded the honour. Itheena, high-priestess of Melora, forces a smile to her face as she takes the hand of her only child and says "I know you are not yet come of age my Evenstar, but the Wilderness Mother has called you and She sees the courage within the mouse and the greatness in the acorn. Your father and I will always love you. Be brave and follow the scents of the heart". With that Forthvax grabs his daughter and pulls her close breathing deeply as he nuzzles her scent gland, words ash in his mouth as he lifts her to the Fire Eagle they will share.
Behind them the Wrath-legion follow suit, mounting their various flying comrades and they take to the air, circling the ground forces assembled before the swirling Portal. The first ever Feywild army, poised ready for an historic invasion of Shadowfell.
The transition through the Concordian Portal is brief and peaceful. Green and apricot patterns swirl and phase and then the Fey host materialises in Shadowfell. The dread Gloom that penetrates the bravest heroes seeps into the army, doubling the sense of loss of the Fey enchantment that is their constant companion.
Then the Dread Legion crashes into them. It's a trap!
Fell winged beasts swoop through the air as shadow juggernauts charge beneath Forthvax and Itheena. Charzheil, their Fire Eagle, bellows its war cry as eldritch blasts erupt around them. Forthvax urges Charzheil to go lower as he spots the wave of dark Trolls burst out from a spider's web of glossy darkness upon black. The dark Trolls so alien compared to the humourous bridge trolls of the Feywild, spread like a plague across the rank scrub, unseen by the Eladrin archers covering the Wrath-legion.
"Look!" calls Itheena, "they are led by an Ogre-magi, we must end him" and as one they swoop down upon their ominous foe.
Then all goes dark for an instant and a sub-sonic rumble knocks the tiny family from the air. The life gone from Charzheil's eyes before they hit the ground.
The Fire Eagle's body takes the brunt of the impact and all three Aaenshi fall in different directions. The high-priestess stunned for a moment, doesn't see the fate of her daughter. Forthvax draws his mighty sword: Atrousbane, it's gleaming blue blade aflame with magical motes of red, "Foul Ogre-spawn, you shall taste the power of Atrousbane and know the price of your cruelty!" he cries and growls menacingly. The Ogre-magi laughs, a dread sound that has no humour to it, the sound of gallows decaying underground, and he replied in the voice of the death of hope "I SHALL REND YOUR SOUL FROM YOUR BODY LITTLE DOG, AFTER YOU WITNESS THE FATE OF YOUR OFFSPRING BETWEEN MY TEETH! THE STENCH OF YOUR AFFECTION BETRAYS YOU BOTH!", his sickly white pupils turning to face the Aaenshi cub as she lies in the rank stream of grey that winds into the rubbery, black trees. The vixling hears her parents cry in unison "Noooo!" and she scrambles into the jungle, clutching the amulet of her mother's Goddess then passes through to the rotten pit hidden by the decaying plant debris, and... the penetrating sense of Gloom that marks the Shadowfell ceases. It is dark and damp. You hear the muffled sound of human voices in the distance.
