A Tale of Faerie | the Nevermore Wars

Lady Sabine

The Legendary Sabine-Toothed-Tiger
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Fantasy is number one. Steampunk, sci-fi, alternate history, and everything else that isn't boringly realistic are also fine by me.
Siodorhan Springwater.
Six months ago, he was nobody. Just an outcast of the Unseelie court, another young Pixie living in Austin in exile. He came a dime a dozen; no one knew how many runaways and criminals and hermit Fey there were living in the area, but doubtless the number was in the dozens, likely in the hundreds. They had been that way a hundred years, coming ironside to avoid justice, jealousy, and general hatred of their own kind. Iron killed Fey, killed them pretty fast, often within five decades, but sometimes it was worth it.
Siocorhan had not considered an early death "worth it" by any means. His exile was, in all truth, a misunderstanding between the Queen and her daughter over his status in the latter's bedchambers. If he was going to be tried for the ravishment of a princess he would have much preferred to have actually ravished a princess, but c'est la vie.
Here Ironside, things weren't so bad. Humans were endlessly entertaining, and stupid. He had made some money cooking meth and refining cocaine- though the substances were highly dangerous to mortals, to the Fey they had little effect. The money, however, had been enough to rent a little house of his own.
Once set up, he turned his new equipment and old knowledge of alchemy to better use. It took quite a while, but when he held up his final product, the world shifted profoundly. He promptly named it Nevermore.
Nevermore. It should be taken never more than a pinch at a time. It should be taken never more than once a day. It should be taken never more than three days in a row.
Nobody paid any attention to his rules, of course. Who could blame them? Nevermore made you feel awesome. It made you all but impervious to iron burn. It made your glamour ten times stronger. It made you a god among the humans, capable of feeding them any lie. It was a beautiful thing, exactly what the exiles had been waiting for. With Nevermore they could come out of hiding, walking among people with no fear. They could touch iron and walk away, breathe in the fumes of the city, embrace life to the fullest.
Then his human runners had discovered that, if they took it, they also felt awesome. They also felt fearless, impervious to harm. And they also could use glamour. It wasn't long before the deliveries started to come up short, his runners selling the stuff on the side. It was only a matter of time now before human cops learned about Nevermore as a drug, and if they managed to trace the source... Siodorhan was good, but he wasn't that good.
He was quite a lovely young pixie, pale as a snowflake with deep silver hair and cobalt blue eyes, dimpled cheeks and a smile that promised mischief. Not quite five feet tall, he was a tiny little creature, and his hands trembled as he held the spoon over the lighter, melting a small pile of what appeared to be sand.
It smelled like brown sugar and coffee and chocolate and blood and frankincense and rain and sex and lipstick and a hundred other things he couldn't begin to describe. It was a complex scent, a heady scent, but when he drew it into the needle and sent it into his veins, the scent faded into insignificance. He was taking more than a pinch, and this was the seventh or eighth day in a row.
He didn't care any more.
As he left his house he stepped carefully over the line of salt, locked the door and checked the iron & silver bars over his windows. The entire thing was protected against every sort of creature imaginable- iron to foil Fey. Silver to foil Werebeasts. Salt as a magical barrier and ADT as a more mundane one. It was as safe as he could make his home and lab.
Glamoured to make his hair black and eyes a somewhat less vivid shade of blue (and hide the dragonfly-like wings entirely) he stepped out onto the sidewalk looking significantly more human. His destination was just a few blocks away, a park he had instructed all the applicants for assistant and bodyguard to meet him. Public places were better, safer- when everybody wanted a piece of you, you could never be too careful.
 
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