you know what i would read the hell out of? a dark fantasy story which has a pretty bright prologue — friendly mermaids, cautious sirens, tamed dragons, kindred rulers, prank-pulling fae that the main character/s visited often as kids. but then years later, they go back, and guess what? the mermaids roam bloody waters. the sirens lure all that pass in. dragons circle the tops of mountains, towers, killing all that cross their path. cruel rulers. lying and deceitful fae. but they haven’t been there in a while, so they don’t know. so they have to find out the hard way that everything in the terrain wants to kill them.