Fate, chance, destiny, call it what you will. It has a funny way of its machinations, if you're inclined to believe that there is an order to this madness called "life."
The Winter Knight Taernichanthach had been looking for something to boost her spellcasting: A meeting place of ley lines. The natural lifeblood of a world flowed beneath its surface like a vast and complicated root system or the blood vessels of some great and mighty creature. To drink from these rivers of magic was a common practice among mages, but tracking down and taking from a meeting of these rivers... That was a different thing entirely. Taernichanthach sought power, and taking from a confluence of ley lines would be quite the boon to her inherent magical might.
Finding the place was easy. While most of the folk of this plane had very few ways of perceiving the natural magic that ran over their world, a Faerie could easily track it. Being a creature literally made and bound of magic, Taernichanthach could see, hear, and feel the ley lines running beneath her feet as if she was stepping lightly along a gently-flowing creek. Following that flowing creek through the verdant forests of Northern Serendipity was a simple, perhaps even relaxing walk. The Fae Knight was fleet of foot, and light of step. Vegetation parted and made way for her passing, and her footfalls produced no sound nor left no print in the dirt. Here, in these wintry woodlands, she was most at home. She finally reached a cave entrance at the foot of the mountains to the north.
Finding the place was easy. Dealing with its jealous warden would be the hard part.
A Giant, practically aglow with magic lumbered from the cave mouth, wielding a small tree fashioned into a club. Ten feet tall, heavily muscled, eyes and veins glowing blue with the power of the wellspring he guarded. His wandering out was no accident... He knew Taernichanthach was here.
The Fae knight approached, silvered mithril longsword in hand. The Giant responded by doing what any territorial, magically-hyped-up Giant would do upon seeing an intruder: He tried to kill her.
"Little Faerie..." the Giant rumbled, "Eat... Faerie..."
Taernichanthach was expecting this Giant to be stronger, tougher, and hardier than his kind, but what she wasn't expecting was for the Giant to unleash a barrage of ice shards in her direction before lighting his tree-club aflame. The Faerie twitched a brow and the ice shards stopped short, floating in the air as she re-assessed... This fight would be tougher than normal.
The shards were returned to their sender, and they struck true in the Giant's chest; not that he noticed. His thick hide had done well to catch those icy splinters... But they froze in his chest; even if they only made it into him a little, the shock of frozen blood would hurt.
The Faerie and the Giant clashed, the Giant's massive, fiery club sundering the ground where it landed. Taernichanthach gracefully danced out of the path of the Giant's swings, dealing cuts with her sword with each retreat. Magic had proven frustratingly ineffective against the Giant's warded flesh, hexes of slowing or curses to slow the great foe down or at least slow its attack did all of nothing. The Winter Knight opted for something more direct: She lashed at the Giant with her wind magic, winds so focused and sharp that they cut like razors. The Giant's hide was strong, and its wards only made it stronger. Taernichanthach clenched her jaw in irritation; no matter how many times her blade bit into his flesh, the creature refused to fall. She had had enough.
The Giant swung, and once more did the Fae evade. But this time, she latched onto the Giant's outstretched arm. Her swiftness and agility carried her upwards, past the wrist, to the shoulder...
Silvered mithril sang, and the thief stole one of the Giant's eyes.
The Giant roared, and Taernichanthach tumbled to the ground with feline grace. She landed and redoubled the attack as the Giant recoiled. But she had hyperfocused. An errant swing from the Giant's other arm caught her mid-step and sent her dazed and reeling. She landed in a heap some distance away, her vision blackened with stars as she tried to catch her senses. She had come up just in time to see the Giant's attack, that flaming tree-club already descending by the time she saw it coming. It was nothing her reflexes could not handle.
Call it cruel fate, call it horrific destiny. Centuries of training, honing one's senses... But even an apex predator can fall victim to simple, terrible luck.
Taernichanthach's heel caught a stone, and rather than move out of the arc of the Giant's swing, the Faerie tumbled onto her back, staring up at a Giant about to crush her beneath the swing of a salvaged, burning tree.
"What are the chances," Taernichanthach humorously wondered, "That I would end like this..."