Incubus: Pick the androgynous faerie

From Create Your Own Story

Casually, you slip out of the alley and cross the street, making for the front door of the inn. You glance at the faerie as you approach--you still can't tell what gender, if any, it is--and then pretend to do a double-take. You smile at the beautiful creature and stop.

"Are you waiting for someone?" you ask. The faerie looks you over, eyes like rubies moving down your body.

"Maybe," the faerie replies, its voice soft and throaty, neither feminine nor masculine, "but not you." It turns its face away and you draw closer, catching the faint scent of hyacinths and oranges.

"Why not?" you ask, making a show of looking down at yourself. "What's wrong with me?"

"Do you want a list?" the faerie asks, but you know better than to be insulted. Being rude and sarcastic is part of their culture. They're naturally confrontational. The faerie struts a circle around you, making disparaging sounds. "Well, you're clearly human," it says at last. "Your clothes are too nice to belong to a rough, tough farmer or fisherman, and not nice enough to belong to a sadistic, eccentric lord. You hands look strong and you might have a decent length of wood in those trousers, but I don't see any scars on you, so I doubt you'd be interested in the games I want to play."

The faerie turns away, presenting you with a view of its back, and you stiffen at the assortment of scars and bruises spread across its shoulders, visible through the lacing up the back of the corset, even over the faerie's fluted wing ridges. That surprises you. The ridges are highly sensitive erogenous organs, enabling a faerie to use their glamour and project wings made out of light into the air behind them. The wings and the glamour are a measure of a faerie's status. Briefly, you wonder if this creature was a harlot before it got the scars, or if the injury forced it into the streets.

"Scars like this, you mean?" you ask, unbuttoning your left cuff and pushing the sleeve back to reveal a wide, pale band of scar tissue encircling your wrist. The faerie glances at you and its ruby eyes light up, a hungry, envious look replacing the previous scorn.

"You've been shackled," it says, its voice becoming breathless and smoky. "I suppose you're here looking for more of the same."

"Actually," you say, stepping closer to the masochistic faerie, "I was hoping to be on the giving end this time. My ship is just full of implements that I've been wanting to put to better use--ropes, whips, knives, belaying pins--" The faerie makes a soft, desperate sound in its throat. "Does that sound like a game you'd be interested in?"

"Your ship?" the faerie asks, its voice a breathless whisper. "What sort of ship?" You hesitate. Even in a town like this, some people still frown on piracy.

Do you...

• Incubus: Say, "She's a merchant vessel."
• Incubus: Say, "She's a pirate ship."
• Incubus: Say, "Come down to the dock and take a look."