DISCLAIMER! I DO NOT OWN LOST GIRL OR ANY OTHER COPRIGHTED WORKS MENTIONED HEREIN. THIS IS A WORK OF FICTION AND ANY ACTIONS TAKEN BY THE CHARACTERS OR REFERENCES MADE ARE BY MY DESIGN.

Chapter 1 The Truth

When I was a little girl my village was destroyed. I alone survived. Somehow I was put on a boat and sent away. I don't know why I was chosen, I don't know why I was the only person on the boat. I don't even remember anything before I washed ashore in England. I know I was Greek but during my escape I suffered severe head trauma; I remember nothing but what happened after. All I have left of who I was then is my name. Just one word...Circe.

I never tried to find out who I was. It is better that I never know for then I cannot miss what will never be. It was a blessing in a way, a fresh start. There are things I do want to know. I want to know where I came from, where I should have grown up, married, had children, then grown old and died. More than anything I want to know who took that life from me and then I want to make them pay.

Its something I've always wanted, dreamed about. One day that was not enough, like a switch, one day it had to be real. I suppose if I was human it could be considered a midlife crisis but I wasn't. I was fey and at a little over 400 years old I wasn't considered middle age. I'll never understand how it could be ok for 400 years and then suddenly be not. Maybe it was me growing up, a quest to understand who I had been so I could find who I wanted to become.

Thing was I had never really been unhappy before. I never questioned the way things were. I never questioned the role my king gave to me. I liked being an investigator, or a bounty hunter, or an assassin, anything my king needed me to do.

My king was not an overly good man, he was dark fey after all, but he didn't believe in unnecessary death. What harm he caused or asked me to cause never came without a reason and for that I was always grateful.

I liked my job for the most part, it was a calling. However there comes a time when you have to come to terms or stay in your past forever consumed and trapped by it. I had to know, I had to avenge my past.

*Lone Wolf*

I went to the king, my adoptive father to find out what he knew. When he decided to take me in he made sure to find out everything he could about my village and its destruction. He knew more about what I needed to know than anyone alive.

Once I was allowed in I burst through the doors to his office. "I need to know."

He was working on something at his desk when I came in. He sighed as he put his work away to give me his full attention. "I figured this might happen. You have a right to know."

Looking he straight in the eye, something that can be dangerous to do to a werewolf. "You shouldn't feel guilty. I know you want to go after whatever did it. That's your right, its nothing to be ashamed of. Its justice not revenge. A fey that would do something like that is too dangerous. You're ready now. Its time."

I was shocked and my face painted it perfectly. As a werewolf I always had so much trouble concealing my emotions it was hilarious. Here I was thinking I was gonna have to steal his files and run off and shit.

"I'll tell you what I know about the attack, it isn't much though. You're the one meant to solve this. It was some kind of fey, what I have no idea. It feeds on fey in a way I have never seen before. The autopsy notes and everything about the attack are in this journal."

Then he reached into his desk and retrieved two bound tomes. He reached out and handed them to me.

"The other contains everything I was able to find out about your village and your family. It may prove helpful if the killer had a motive. If there is anything to find I am sure you will be the one to do it. You have a gift for this kind of thing, this is your mission."

Shaking I took the books from him. I knew he wanted to say something but I couldn't. I felt heavy and giddy all at the same time. I just sank into a chair in front of his desk staring at the tomes blankly. This was it, I was holding in my hands the answers I had been looking for my whole life.

He was watching me waiting for me to say something. Eventually he figured if something was going to be said, he would have to start that conversation.

"You're silent as a stone. I thought you would be happy. I know I could have given this to you now because its time."

"No its not the timing. Its just that I...well I thought you were going to fight this. I thought I was going to have to steal these and run off to get this guy."

"That won't be necessary, obviously. I thought I had been supportive of you. This is very important to you. Standing in your way would only make you unhappy and rebel. I do my best to make my subjects happy. Facilitating such urges as I'm able, makes my job so much easier when people think I give a crap about their petty little problems. Yours I actually care about, I raised you for Christ sakes and you're one of my best and most loyal subjects."

"I appreciate that very much. I just don't know when I'm coming back, if I'm coming back actually. If I come back at all it could be years. Who knows what I'll find out there, I may not want to come back after all is said and done."

He just sat there staring into space thinking. He did that for so long that I almost turned to leave, the only thing that stopped me was that if I was dismissed he would have said so.

Suddenly and without warning he spoke again, "You don't really belong here, I've always known that but you made it work all these years. You're trying to find your place, your path, leaving here is the first step. I don't expect you to come back, it would be nice if you visited once and a while when you settle. You've done plenty enough for us that if you want to leave us in your rear view that's fine by me. Not everyone will feel that way but I'll take care of them. Its perfectly legal to move if one chooses to."

This conversation just got weirder and weirder. I just sat there stupefied. This wasn't how I thought this conversation would go at all, he kept throwing me curve ball after curve ball. After the last one I'm not sure it would register if he hit me in the face right now.

Next thing I knew I was alone in the room. It seems that while I was spacing he left me to it. Apparently our conversation was finished and I was free to leave when I was ready.

*Lone Wolf*

That night after I had packed for traveling I settled in my bed to read the books that contained the answers I had been waiting for my whole life.

Earlier I'd had things to do, mostly things to get ready to track the killer down. I waited until I was alone in my room for the night to even crack the leather tomes.

The anticipation nearly killed me, often I would carry my case work around and looking through it, working the evidence everywhere I could.

I wanted this to be different. I didn't want to share this with anyone. I did this sometimes on really tough cases when I needed to concentrate. This crime was 400 years old, if I was going to find something I was going to ave to really commit.

Sighing deeply I finally opened the smaller volume, the one that contained the crime scene and autopsy notes. Dad was right, this was a weird one, never seen anything like it.

It was a fey kill for certain, no other kind of creature could or would do something like this. I solved crimes and hunted down fey for a living. As a result I knew a lot about feed signatures, powers, and methods of ritual killing but I had no idea what did this.

When I looked at a body and had no idea what killed it I went to one man. Normally it wasn't worth the trouble but he knew more than I did and if he didn't know something that could help me he had the means to find out or at least point me in the right direction.

So it was off to Russia to visit my friend the elder Vaylish.

*Lone Wolf*

I left first thing the following morning, no pomp or circumstance. I had no one to say goodbye to to speak of. King Noctis and I had already said our farewells and most others it was better to find out after I was long gone.

Traveling by car it would take me a week just to get to Russia let alone to my out of the way destination but being a werewolf I hated flying. I didn't mind the time though I could use it to familiarize myself with my materials.

I set a reasonable pace. Sometimes I found a hotel to sleep in, sometimes I slept outside, I even drove through the night once or twice to make up for lost time. Even at a decent pace it took me two weeks to get to the village where he lived.

In that time I read and reread the book containing my evidence. It sickened me but if I was going to find this guy, probably by tracking down similar crimes, I would need to know everything I could.

It took me longer to read the information about the village itself. The fey in the village were all light fey. They were decent folk, kept to themselves, didn't cause trouble. They stayed so out of the way that most people didn't even know the place existed.

Now I knew what Noctis was talking about when he said I might not want to come back after I found my answers. I couldn't go back now, not to the dark fey.

Sighing I parked my car in front of Vaylish's house. This was going to be long and boring, leg work always is but I need answers and if anyone can help me find them its this guy.

*Lone Wolf*

Awhile later after I had exchanged pleasantries with my old friend I pulled out the leather volume containing the evidence. I told him all about the case that brought me here.

He was intrigued by this one, as he always was with the weird ones. He liked a challenge and he liked when his vast knowledge and experience proved useful.

We already knew this was something that doesn't make itself known so we skipped the usual literature. That left us looking through ancient texts detailing fey that were mostly extinct or so rare they might as well be.

We found a lot of interesting stuff but nothing fit. Then I was looking through a book about the last great fey war I noticed a pattern. Some of the deaths were similar to the killings in my village, it was assumed they were killed during the battle but no one could figure what had done it.

I showed my find to Vaylish. We were making progress, we had found similar deaths.

He had a find of his own. He was looking through the journals of his great grand mum or something like that. He seamed to recall similar strange unexplained killings from a period even earlier, somewhere in her writings. I decided to help him go through her extensive records.

She had recorded many strange occurrences in her time.

I noticed that she liked to keep track of and categorize the more dangerous fey she encountered. It was all very fascinating but I wasn't finding much.

I found several fey that fed on other fey but nothing near powerful enough to destroy a whole village. I decided to switch tactics then, I had been looking at the feed signatures. Maybe I should be looking at vulnerabilities or lack there of.

This thing had killed near a thousand people. It hadn't killed them all at once, they were able to send me off. There was no evidence that any of its victims managed to hurt it which was strange, many of them had obviously put up a fight.

However some fey are nearly invulnerable, maybe that's what I should be looking for instead. I shared my idea and he agreed with me. It made sense. We had no idea what the fey was taking from its victims as sustenance. We did know that nearly all of its victims fought it or each other.

Strife, aggression, and/or manipulation were not uncommon when things get ugly between fey but this thing was on a whole other level.

There's no way a Valkyrie or a Mesmer could do anything like this, they could never be powerful enough do control so many people like this thing had while at the same time fighting off others.

Next thing I knew it was so late it was early. I needed to sleep so bad I could barely keep my eyes open. That's how I noticed how late it was.

Putting down the book I was looking through I stood up and stretched, I told him, "Keep at it if you want but its late and I'm gonna get some shuteye."

He looked up, "Fine, you know where the spare bed is you don't need to ask permission."

*Lone Wolf*

The next morning I woke up slowly. I wasn't looking forward to another day of looking through ancient books but that's where the answers were, its just a matter of finding them.

We ate heartily before we started again.

We hoped to cover a lot of ground today. This case was very frustrating, once we knew what we were looking for it might not even get easier either.

This fey could be so obscure that even when we knew what it was we could still have trouble finding information on it. If we were lucky once upon a time this thing made a lot of noise and there's a lot about it written somewhere.

We didn't find anything that day or the day after. We had gone through more material than we usually did but we had no idea what we were looking for.

After I had been there almost a week we had still found nothing but we kept at it. We had to find something, just had to look in the right place.

Then I started looking in this very weird book "Scourges of the Ancient Past" there was a lot of strange fey in there, I swear most of them were made up.

I was looking for creatures associated with fire and invincibility when I saw something that caught my eye.

Supposedly extinct but it fit. The enemy of all fey, the Garuda. How's that for a title. This thing was some kind of fire bird that caused and fed on war, anger. It had no weaknesses save for one fey whose venom was reputed to be able to kill it. That creature was also extinct, supposedly.

Now that we had a name Vaylish and I looked up historical references. The Garuda supposedly extinct for a millennium almost killed all the fey once upon a time. There were wars, never ending battles, complete chaos. Then one day the fighting stopped, the war was over, they were all dead.

Then came the divide between light and dark and the fey started fighting again, this time they fought against themselves. That war was ended by the Blood King nearly 1000 years ago.

My village was destroyed by a Garuda less than 500 years ago so obviously at least one survived. It could still be alive and if it could only go about 500 years without feeding it would have to surface soon.

With the way things are in the world today it would probably start a war amongst the fey.

That left me with waiting, I didn't like to wait but maybe it was a good thing. By my calculations it would be about a decade before it was likely to surface again, give or take. I could use that time to train find allies. This thing was supposedly invincible. It fed on hate, rage, violence.

Any act of violence was likely to be absorbed. That's probably how it could have a whole village going after it and come out the other side without a scratch.

If a Garuda was alive I was willing to bet the Naga was alive too.

Having exhausted Vaylish's resources I wasn't going to stay much longer. Once I had a plan I was outtie. Not that I didn't like the old man but I didn't really do downtime.

*Lone Wolf*

Vaylish and I talked about my next move. I was going to try finding the [blank] but if it was as reclusive as its prey, finding it was going to take some doing. I could look the world over quite a few times and never find it.

If I could find the Naga it could prove a powerful ally.

Chasing rumors in Europe seemed as good a place as any to start. Somebody had to know something even if they didn't know what they knew. Amsterdam wasn't my favorite city but everything there had a price.

The Naga knew someone. If I was lucky I'd find it instead of just information.

The next morning I set out for the Netherlands. This time heartfelt goodbyes were exchanged.