A commission for Ijou

Tenni was a Fae of the Spring Court of the Seelie. Her home island was far from the polluted shores of man. It was an ethereal paradise that had existed in harmony with nature for millenia. She started her day as she had every day for the past five hundred years, with a short breakfast of lichen and bark, and a brisk flight over the southern coastline to stretch her wings. She left her young daughter Caledia sleeping in the carved out tree branch that was their home.

The salty sea air always invigorated her for the tasks of the day. The exercise woke her up fully, and gave her a chance to catch up with some of her sparrow friends who had a nest in the rocky outcroppings at the island’s cape,

No sooner as she had landed, did she spot the new thing that had arrived. It was a boat that some of the mortals sometimes piloted through the nearby waters. Tenni was well aware of the Humans. There was an entire town of them on the other side of the island; they were loud and noisy, and smelly, and Tenni wanted nothing to do with their giant, lumbering ways. Thankfully their monarch Marina had used the magic of her true name to seal a glamour over the entire Seelie village. It was quite the sacrifice for a leader to make, given the power that a True Name held over the Fae. At the time, every villager had to form a binding geass with the leader that they would never use it in any fashion to betray her. Most Fae would never suggest such a personally disadvantageous thing, but Marina was no ordinary Fae.

There had been lots of haggling and loophole tightening before the contracts had been signed with the true names of every villager into stone and laid in the hollow of an holy old dead oak. Every Fae other than Marina had then had a glamour to forget about the location The end result of which was that Marina was in possession of significant leverage over every Fae villager, but unable to use it to her advantage unless she wanted to break the very geass that protected her own power. It was a complicated arrangement that ensured that a glamour of invisibility was permanently cast over their village, so that no human could see, or accidentally stumble upon the homes of its citizens.

This tenuous peace had lasted for the past millennia. Not for a lack of clever unseelie scheming, but for the fact that no Fae had managed to rediscover the stone tablets that ensured Marina’s eternal leadership. Tenni had to hand it to the young monarch, she had secured her position through guile and cunning with the plan, undercutting the previous leader’s powerbase in a single move. They’d never even seen it coming. No other Fae would have ever thought that giving more than you take in a deal could ever result in such a coup. But eventually, every other member of the village began to realize that they couldn’t raise a hand to Marina without breaking the glamour, losing their Fae powers, and raising the ire of every other resident. Once that happened, Marina was the de facto ruler of the village. It was a clever, bloodless coup; the kind that every Fae wished they could pull off.

And yet, for all that deft political maneuvering, the glamour had done what it was supposed to, making the Fae undetectable to their human counterparts. Tenni looked down at the boat moored by the rocks, and studied the visitors intently. They were unpacking an exploration kit. There was a female, just like Tenni, but also a male. The Fae didn’t have any male members. Tenni knew that most of the animal species had males. Humans looked so similar to the Fae, that Tenni wondered whether if male Fae existed, whether they’d look something like human males. She found the thought rather funny.

She followed along behind the humans at a distance, watching as they stumbled and hacked their way through the underbrush towards the center of the island. They looked really silly trapped on the ground without wings. Tenni fluttered her own transparent blue wings, and admired them, vainly. She giggled happily. The female one read a map, and talked a lot, while the male was more reserved and silent, choosing to stop and examine every bug along the way. Tenni liked the way he paid attention to the animals. It showed he was a kind individual.

The humans arrived at the deepest, darkest part of the woods. Right on the edge of Unseelie territory. Tenni thought about doubling back. She really didn’t want to be captured by the Unseelie. She knew how cruel the winter court could be when it wanted to. Still,something seemed to have caught the eyes of the humans.
Tenni couldn't quite make out what it was. Everytime she tried to look at it, her eyes just slipped over the hazy outline of the object. It was always stuck in the corner of her vision, no matter how hard she tried to stare. Was this some kind of secret human magic? If so, she’d have to trade the report back to Marina. If she played her cards right, Marina might just give her command of her own wing of the spring court militia.

The female human pulled out three stone tablets, aged and weathered by time. Tenni froze.. it was the contract that Marina had forged, that contained the True Names of every Fae villager. With that, the humans would be able to enslave her and her fellow Fae with the right words. Her little heart skipped a beat before she realised that the humans could no longer speak the old words. She knew that their languages had changed over the long passage of years. It would be useless to them.

Greedily, Tenni fluttered in closer than she usually would have been brave enough to. She was so close to the human woman, that she could smell the stink of her fake flower smelly liquid that covered her natural sweat smells. Tenni never understood why humans did something so foolish like that. Her own armpit smell was natural, the way the old gods would have wanted.

She settled onto the human’s shoulder, and looked over to the tablet below. She smiled wickedly as she read the true names of her fellow villagers off the stonework, careful not to say them aloud, so as not to invoke their power prematurely.
When Tenni would return to the village, she would have become the most powerful of all the Fae.

So wrapped up in her thoughts of power, Tenni didn’t recognise the human running her finger along the lines of text, and translating them. Then she spoke the words with breath formed from life itself, and the little Fae spirit felt the world go cold as the names of power were invoked. It made the hairs on her arms stand on end.
The human read all the names of her friends. When the human female spoke Tenni’s own name, she felt the magic worm its way into her head. She stood frozen in place, unable to resist the call of her true name.

It was all still Ok, Tenni thought, in panic.. the glamour still kept her invisible, and the stunning effect of having her true name called would wear off in an hour or so. She’d still have to obey any direct instruction the human gave for the rest of her life… but that would hardly be relevant if she stayed away from her for the next twenty or so years. humans had such short lifespans after all.

Then the human called out Marina’s name, and Tenni felt the glamour crack and wane. She felt… seen.
The human let out a startled shriek, and she felt the weight of a Fae spirit suddenly come into existence on her shoulder. She freaked and threw Tenni to the ground in front of her.

Tenni coughed into the dust, unable to raise herself without a command from the human that had bound her with her own name.
“Is that a fairy?” The female human asked her partner, puzzled.
Tenni found herself compelled to answer.
“I am Tenni of the Spring court of the Seelie Fae”
“My god, you’re right… I can’t believe my eyes.. this can’t be real.” He replied, speaking for the first time. “I’ve got to get a picture, quick.” He said, fumbling for his camera.
“Come closer so I can see you properly, " the woman asked, picking up her bifocals and placing them on her nose from the chain where they hung around her neck, to get a better look.
Tenni begrudgingly obeyed, the force of magic tugging at her brain, and forcing her to comply with anything the woman said.
The woman got an excited look on her face
“Are you alone here?”
Tenni smiled, she could twist her words to answer honestly, without revealing her village.
“Yes, I am alone here.” She smiled sweetly, realising the poor gullible human woman would be easy to manipulate.
“And are you answering this only because I invoked your true name?”
Tenni choked. How did this woman know? Humans were supposed to be stupid brutes. She didn’t think humans put any stock in the old ways anymore. Her stomach felt awful.

“Yes,” she replied honestly.
“Oh, good then..”she said, reaching out and grabbing Tenni by her midriff with a giant hand and placing her into a clear glass container.
“Can you lead me back to your Fae village, no tricks, or misdirections, or letting your friends know I’m coming. You will be silent and still when you are not giving me accurate and safe directions.”

Tenni was really beginning to dislike this smart woman. She was far too clever with words, and seemed to be far too well versed in Fae mythology.
Tenni nodded, desperately looking for a loophole in the woman’s words that she could take advantage of… but she needed more time to figure out something that wouldn’t break the geass and strip her of her own Fae powers.

Tenni guided the woman back to her village, still trapped in the glass container.
When they arrived, her fellow Fae all looked at Tenni trapped in the glass cage. They teased and laughed at her misfortune,

“Look there’s Tenni, so clumsy she accidentally got trapped by a human.” Said Nymissa with a giddy derision.
Tenni wanted to warn her friend, to tell her to take her family and run, that they were all in grave danger. Tenni’s own daughter, Caledia, wept, ashamed that her mother had fallen into such an easy human trap to avoid, unaware that her True Name had been used against her.


Marina, always the clever one, put it together first. It must've been the way the human stared at the village, or perhaps she could feel the glamour had been broken somehow.
“She can see us,” Marina whispered with the kind of shock, only someone with absolute power could when it had been lost.
Ruuun! She screamed.
The human just looked at her with the kind of pity one usually reserved for a wayward child Fae.
“Marina” she said coldly, and the leader of the Fae froze in place, ready to be commanded by her true name.
“Get in the canister” she commanded… and the leader obeyed without question. She fluttered up, and entered the canister.
“Now say and do nothing until I command otherwise.”
The villager cowered in their hiding places, and looked up at the giant as she humiliated their queen with imprisonment.

They had no idea how the human had learned Marina’s true name, but each of them was confident their own true name was safe and secure. They were wrong.
One by one, the long lived Fae were mind controlled into surrendering themselves without a fight. It was a bloodless invasion. When it was finished, the jar was full to the brim with Fae women, and the village was left empty.

There was a long boat trip back to the human world. They were taken to a human academy of higher learning, where they were questioned by the two humans about all the mystical things in the world in front of something the humans called a ‘Vidyo recorder’. For a long time that worked well, then some of the less cautious Fae tried trickery to escape… They used magic to set fire to a nearby curtain when they’d been released for an interview. They had hoped to distract the humans long enough that they could make a mistake. it did not end well for them. They were caught, and their True names called. Instructions were given that closed off the verbal loopholes they’d used. Now none of them could reattempt an escape the same way.

The humans debated what to do with the Fae. The term Human rights was thrown around a lot. When asked, Marina insisted that they shouldn’t be offered any of those rights, because they weren’t human. Tenni was in awe of her leader for seeing through that word trap the humans tried to pull on them. It was never wise for a Fae to promise anything without knowing all the minute details in advance.

In the end though, the humans did what the humans always did best, destroy things.
They said that they were preserving them for science. They took Marina from their enclosure and pinned her hands and feet to a strip of entomology paper. They sliced her dark skin down the middle and opened up her belly. Tenni didn’t understand how their ‘science’ could be as cruel as an Unseelie feast.

Marina squealed like a rat roast as her skin was delicately peeled back by expert human hands until it separated entirely from her blood red meat. They took notes on her internal organs, removing them one by one, weighing them and taking measurements. Tenni watched as day by day, her friends and family disappeared from the plastic container that housed them, and appeared on the wall behind her. The humans stretched their skin around smooth plastic dolls and pinned them onto sheets of paper that listed their true names.

The days rolled on by, and the number of Seelie Fae dwindled, until only a handful were left. They called her daughter, Caledia by True Name. It made her easy to handle as they ran iron pins through her hand. Tenni spat at the very thought of the unclean iron. Surely, they did it to humiliate the Fae, even as they snuffed them out.

Caledia screamed as she was flayed alive, pissing and shitting herself as the knife extricated her from her skin. A mockery of her daughter’s corpse was hung on high. Her beautiful blue wings pinned behind her hands. Caledia looked almost peaceful in death. It belied the horror of how she had been slaughtered.

A few days later it was Tenni’s turn to die.
He called her out by her True Name.
“Tenni” he spoke, as an order.
She felt absolutely obedient, like puppet strings were pulling at her very soul.
“Come to me,” he said. She fluttered to the top of the container as he opened it for her.
“Undress for me.” He demanded.
She let her gossamer Fae-weave skirt drop to the floor, and unclasped her bra.
“Lie down on the paper.” He pointed to a strip of paper that read

Tenni
Odysia Fae
428 years old

She did as she was instructed. She had no other choice. Name magic was simply too powerful. Tenni disrobed as slowly as she could without violating the tenets of Fae magic. Then she lay down and spreadeagled herself so that he got a good look at her fair fae pussy and asshole. It was humiliating, but she was forced to obey. His fat human fingers brushed her labia as he corrected the position of her legs slightly. He took fine pins of iron and drove them through her hands and feet. The iron burned even as it touched her natural Fae skin. She grimaced, and the tears flowed down her face. She looked up at the rows of taxidermied Fae, and saw the next blank space available for her own corpse, high above.

She tensed as his blade lowered down from above her. Tenni shivered as the cold iron touched her breastbone, burning as it drew blood. She bit her lip, anticipating the cut. The human slit her from breastbone to pubic bone in one movement. Tenni pissed herself, never in her hundreds of years of life had she ever felt such excruciating pain. He rubbed giant human fingers across her belly, and it just opened up for him, revealing her shocking pink innards. With a pair of shiny iron tweezers he reached inside har and began pulling her guts out. It didn’t take him long. Tenni watched as he pulled her frantically beating heart from her chest. It beat for a while, then stopped. She was still barely alive as he began to strip her out of her skin entirely. The remaining Fae in the jar just huddled, transfixed with Tenni’s vivisection in a kind of morbid fascination.

Tenni died just before the human entomologist finished the procedure . He continued coating it with alcoholic fixant, and drying out her skin with a bed of salt, before boiling it with selected tannins. When her skin was properly preserved, he stretched it around a 3d printed articulate match of her body type. She looked just as she had in life. The human male had done an excellent job in capturing her beauty in an eternal moment.

He picked her up, along with the sheet of laminated paper that listed her name, species and age. Carefully, he glued it to the display. He was almost ready for his presentation . The entomologist was nervous, he and his wife’s scientific credibility would rest on how well it went. After this, they’d either hold guaranteed nobel prizes, or be laughed out of academia as conspiratorial hacks. He admired his handiwork, letting his eyes look over the beautiful Fae bodies for any imperfections. There were none. He let his nerves settle and let confidence in their discovery return to him. He was ready to reveal the greatest biological discovery the world had ever known. This was going to make him and his wife household names.

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