Black Crescent Bay

sleuthing like mistah siren detective

 I ran to the library as soon as I possibly could. Half of me expected Feilim to be there and when he wasn't, oooo, why I oughta. I was quivering in my boots. Everytime I didn't want him there, he was there. And now, oh, don't you know he's got other, better things to do than hanging out in a college library all day. Really grinds my gears.

I stalked the history section like a rat, looking for anything that could even slightly pertain to why I'd just heard. People wanted the queen dead. It sounded familiar. Like, I don't know. How the people wanted the queen dead now. Maybe it was a cult. Or a religion. Or a religious group cult that all hated the Queen, maybe they persisted for years and years and years. 

Maybe the cult members had babies with other cult members and raised their children to be even more hardcore cult members. Though, I don't know what could possibly be more hardcore than eating your own people and drinking their blood as some kind of intimidation tactic.

It all seemed quite plausible to me. I don't care that I've failed every history class I've ever been forced to take. This was some real shit. 

I got on my knees and persisted. There had to be something somewhere. Only the books had nothing to do with Endstone. It was just the history of Hollowfaye. How could there be nothing? Especially when some people here CLEARLY know all there is to know about Endstone and Iyael, like I don't know, for a start, that it exists!? That's more than I knew just weeks ago.

I walk up and down the aisles. I pass the colonial period, which is much later than the actual colonial period because Hollowfaye was a late bloomer when it came to genocide, and then the cowboy era and The Ballad of Hollowfaye era. 

I was beginning to run out of eras. 

It was like they knew about everything but it was still a fairytale to everyone. Like something everyone told their kids about and then quickly forgot. How could nobody take any of this seriously? Was it because they would've ended up as disturbed as I am now? Or dead? Was this how everyone was killed? Was this why our death count was so much higher than anywhere else?

I slid like a depressed slug to the fantasy and children's section. Maybe there was something. Maybe they thought they were stories, but they're actually built on fact. Just like Aquamarine. Maybe there was truth in it. 

I dropped to my knees and skimmed like my life depended on it. Nothing. Nothing except the stupid Legends of Iyael. I rolled my eyes and slipped it off the shelf anyway. I mean, come one. The stupid legends. Ha.

And then, of course, the page I flipped to was titled: The Riots of Endstone

There were a few legends that went with it, all pertaining to the topic. Huh. What the hell? Who would've thought?

I skimmed through each chapter. The war between the sirens and mermaids, the bestowing of gifts by Ayaelithe, the Patron Sybil...

And then there it was, the storming of the Siren castle by the blood suckers. Not sirens. Vampyres. Vampyres who had grudges about the betrothal between Sybil and Lucien lasting generations. They wanted an end to Sirens. They wanted to punish the sirens and their queen and, more importantly, the Queen's Knight.

It was all right there. 

The legend had been misconstrued. It hit me then. The vampyre cult must've known about the stigma against sirens, how they used to kill for their food, and how they were seen as cannibals and animalistic monsters. They used it to their advantage. They used it to their advantage so they could still attack without facing the consequences. 

It was all right there.

I wondered if Feilim already knew about this. Was this a crack in the case, or would he roll his eyes? 

It felt like a breakthrough to little ol me though.

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A/N:
I gave up. Hope yall enjoyed.

xoxo, 

handmaidenofvenus

venus-in-fleurs