query - pros and cons of a faerie familiar

Hello,
One of my troupe is aiming for a Faerie Familiar.

I am somewhat unexperienced on the RAW about Faerie Familiars. To those with experience, what is it I should be most aware of?

So I played a Merenita in my last saga, and I much preferred having a faerie familiar over the regular magical animal: they can speak as default (rather than lassie barking that Timmy fell down the well) which makes them in my view more interesting. We did not follow the faerie XP rules, instead, all the familiars and apprentices just got 15xp/yr.

Something to remember is that you don't need to forge the counter-balancing Cords. Yes, the Cords will fade. But it uses the Aging Point system, and Aging Points disappear when they lower a Characteristic, so they'll do the same here when they lower a Cord. That means, if you're willing to reforge the bond every bunch of years, then you don't need do bother with the counter-balancing Cords and can avoid their negative effects on your Familiar.

As for the direct benefits, there are some very useful ones. Shared Fatigue can be huge, but it only substitutes one at a time. Still, that can let you go a bit further in Certamen, with spontaneous magic, etc. And the Might Pool recovery is great either way. I'm not usually as excited about the other two, as you can probably ask you Familiar to use a Power, I generally don't like to use my Familiar in combat, and I probably have Second Sight already with a Faerie-oriented mage. The exception is if you're a Faerie via Becoming and have a non-Faerie Familiar. Getting to spend Might Pool as Fatigue reopens some things you lost and can be extremely useful.

I really like Binding the Gift, though. That can provide a big boost in certain scenarios. As a Merinita, you're probably focused on either Faeries or animals, and those are where this shines. So it can work very well for many Merinita.