#The Symbol of the Mara (serial)

[mmummydust]

I Named Her Hunger

CHAPTER 1: Oh well, whatever, nevermind

Characters: Cortney Azazel, Rowan Greer, other plot characters

Warnings: Descriptions of gore

She's over-bored and self-assured 

Oh no, I know a dirty word

The thing about studying psychology is that you never actually know what’s going on in someone’s head. As much as one hopes they tell the truth, some don’t confess their real intentions and what led them to do something.  Although, serial killers seem to have a certain greed when it comes to ending lives. It satisfies some of them, no matter the situation that has led to such an ending. But killing someone out of pure anger isn’t the same as killing someone who has wronged you. One feels guilt, the other feels relief.

That’s what Azazel managed to learn over her time studying criminal minds. They’re complex and difficult to understand. But not impossible. Azazel had learned to look past the blood and violence, into the silent rage hidden between words. The ones who smiled too easily. The ones who cried at the wrong time. Guilt could be faked. Grief, rehearsed. But motivation - that was harder to mimic.

She found herself drawn to the ones who claimed they felt nothing. But, unbeknownst to them, their body made uncontrollable movements. A twitch in the eye. A crack in the voice. A memory that was very clearly mulled over. A lie. The eyes never lie though. As uncomfortable as it gets, Azazel forces herself to keep eye contact with everyone. That way she knows the other person has her full focus. And she’s reading them like an open book. In those moments, she takes advantage of how much she can coax out of someone. And she isn’t afraid to listen. Or to look.

That’s why she chose the unsolved murders for her assignment - not necessarily because she thought she could solve them, but because the case simply pulled her in.

“Ew,” she muttered to herself, clicking between pictures of the same mutilated body taken from different angles. The woman’s jaw hung crookedly, a smear of dark red trailing down her neck where the skin had been peeled like fruit.

Mara Hensley. A young woman, the same age as Azazel. She worked as a barista and was found missing after a night shift. It took the authorities a few hours to find her, her body left near a dumpster behind an apartment complex. The photo was grainy, but there was no mistaking what it showed.

The victim lay twisted in the dirt, limbs splayed at impossible angles like a broken marionette. Flesh had been flayed from the arms in long, clean strips, exposing tendons that looked almost surgical - disgustingly clean. The eyes were gone. Not closed, not gouged - gone, leaving behind two dark pits rimmed in raw red and peeling scabs of dried blood. Azazel blinked, jaw tight as she zoomed in. The cut across the sternum had been deliberate, deep enough to expose the ribcage beneath.

And the unmistakable symbol carved onto her face.

“Jesus Christ,” with a click she closed the tab on her browser, taking a moment to look over her notes. And, honestly, Azazel couldn’t figure out shit. She needs a break.

The clinking of a glass as it’s picked out of the cupboard is what brings Azazel back from her thoughts. At this point she’s doing things on autopilot, thinking of what could she possibly do when there were no suspects. Who was she supposed to read like a book if there was no one to see? Looking at her reflection in the glass, she tries to read herself like she reads others. Pale. Hollow-eyed. Her blonde hair was tied up messily, strands stuck to her face like cobwebs. She looked tired. Not just physically - emotionally. Like someone who had stared at ugly things for too long. Emotionless, maybe. Definitely drained of her vigour. The running water was a sharp, clear sound. It grounded her. Until she noticed the slight tremble in her fingers.

“Shit…” she whispers to herself.

Turning the water off is like a scream across her mind from the squeak the tap lets out. Azazel can’t study herself. It’s almost hard to judge how pathetic she looks in the first place but to try and analyse herself internally felt like a chore. Like a chore she hated. The cool liquid felt like a balm against her dry throat. She figured it would be better if she just started her day and stopped looking at corpses. Mara’s friend agreed to let Azazel interview her for maybe some insight into what could have caused the sudden murder.

⋆

Buttoning up her shirt, Azazel took a long look at herself in the mirror. Compared to how unkempt she looked that morning, now she was more collected. The shower had done her good. Her hands worked in practised motions - button, tuck, straighten. Just like her mother had taught her. The more presentable you look, the more people trust you.

Keep a gentle look on your face, Az . Your patients will think you’re mad at them.

Azazel ran her fingers through silky strands of her hair and then leaned closer to the mirror. Her make-up was done nicely, just to cover anything that she didn’t like. Professionalism, for her, meant looking like your best version. No imperfections, no slips. Just composed and cleaned. And annoyingly organised. A messy mind meant a messy person, and that was Azazel described in a few words. 

One last glance toward her laptop on the desk. The image of Mara Hensley’s missing eyes flashed in her mind again. Focus. This wasn’t about that now. This was about Kayla McBride, Mara’s best friend and former roommate. The girl who found Mara’s shift schedule still taped to the fridge. Who’d insisted the barista never walked home alone. Who’d shown up at the police station three times demanding justice. And who, for some reason, agreed to speak to a psychology student about her best friend’s murder.

Now that she thinks about it… Kayla agreed because she wanted someone to understand her. Policemen probably considered her pushy and crazy for insisting on further investigations. Maybe talking with someone who understands humans better would help the woman in some way. Someone who wouldn’t judge because what was psychology without a bit of abnormality?

Azazel grabbed her notes and keys, shoving both into her bag. She wasn’t sure what she expected - tears, rage, maybe even denial. But whatever Kayla had to say, it might be the only emotional clue tied to the case that wasn’t cold and disgusting. As she stepped outside, the wind bit against her skin, sharp and brisk like something watching.

⋆

They meet at a café. Somewhere safe and private. It’s warm inside, the scent of coffee bitter and strong in the air. Kayla missed Mara, which led her to choose a café. That was easy to figure out, but maybe Kayla wanted to be as obvious as possible. The bluenette before her was looking down at her cup of coffee, mulling over her answers. Azazel never forced answers out of people who weren’t involved in the murder. They were just people who cared for the victims and had to suffer because of some cruel satisfaction.

“Thank you for agreeing to meet with me. I know this is hard for you.”

Kayla shrugged. Her fingers tightened on the mug. “It’s not like I can do anything else about it.”

She’s dead already . She can hear Kayla think that.

There was a beat of silence. Azazel looked at her reflection on her phone.

“Is it okay if a record? Just for accuracy.”

Kayla nodded. “Sure. I don’t care.”

Very cooperative, Azazel thought. Depression clung to her. But she wouldn’t pry. It wasn’t her place to do so. If Kayla wished to talk about her problems, she would. Azazel didn’t dive in. Not right away. Instead, she observed.

Kayla’s eyes kept drifting - to the door, the window, her mug. Never at Azazel for more than a few seconds. Her leg bounced beneath the table. Her nails were short, bitten to the quick. It felt like Azazel was intimidating her. She hoped that was not the case.

“How long had you and Mara known each other?”

“Three years,” Kayla replied quickly. “We met in college. Roomed together by accident. Got along better than either of us expected.”

Azazel nodded. “Was she the kind of person who made friends easily?”

Kayla’s jaw clenched. “She was the kind of person who tried. Even with assholes who didn’t deserve it.”

“Mhm,” Azazel hummed, looking at the notes she had written down in her notebook. Motivated. Friendly. “Did she have any hobbies? Maybe something you two had in common?”

Kayla gave a small, mirthless smile. “She loved photography. Street stuff. Candid moments, you know? Said people showed their truest selves when they thought no one was watching.” Her voice cracked faintly at the end, and she took a sip of her coffee to cover it. “She had this old film camera she carried around like a limb. Even had a name for it. Don’t ask.”

“I won’t,” Azazel said gently, lips twitching at the corners. “Did she ever capture anything strange? Or… unsettling?”

Kayla’s brows furrowed slightly as she thought. “She… used to say that the same guy seemed to appear in many of her photos. I believe this started after she developed some sort of obsession with this thing called.. Marble Hornets, I believe?”

Azazel’s pen paused mid-word.

“Marble Hornets?” she echoed carefully.

Kayla nodded, her gaze still on the steam curling up from her mug. “It’s some old YouTube horror thing. Weirdly edited tapes, guys in the woods being stalked by this faceless figure. Creeped her out, but she couldn’t stop watching. Said it felt real somehow.”

Azazel filed that away. People didn’t just randomly associate fiction with real life - unless they were looking for something in it. “Did she ever show you any of those photos?” she asked.

“Yeah.” Kayla’s fingers drummed once on the ceramic. “It wasn’t anything special. Just a guy in a hoodie. Mustard coloured, I believe. I can’t remember.”

“Do you have the pictures?”

A scoff, then a long sigh. “I wish. It’s almost like everything just vanished after her death. I looked through the stuff - her camera, her laptop. I couldn’t find anything. Her phone was found smashed next to her, so obviously I couldn’t check it.”

A chill slipped under Azazel’s skin.

“Did she go to the police?”

Kayla huffed. “About a man in her photos? Come on.” She shook her head, bitter. “They already thought she was nuts. Especially after she said she thought someone had broken into our apartment - nothing was taken, but her closet smelled like blood."

“Blood? Maybe halucinations.”

“She..” Kayla seemed sceptical to answer that question. “She claimed it was someone who she referred to as 'him'. I’m not sure what could have made her so anxious.”

“Did anything else happen before…” she trailed off, not needing to finish.

Kayla’s throat worked as she swallowed. Her voice, when it came, was barely a whisper. “She stopped sleeping. Kept saying she saw something outside her window, even when we lived on the third floor. Started drawing symbols. I asked her what they meant. She just said she didn’t know, but they made her feel safer.”

Azazel’s hand slowed over the paper. “Did they look like this?” she asked, flipping to the page where she drew the said sign among other things she deemed important.

Kayla’s expression crumpled instantly. She slapped her hand over her mouth and looked away, tears brimming. Clearly, it made her sick.

“That one,” she choked. “She drew that one everywhere.”

Azazel leaned back in her seat, heart hammering in her chest beneath her composed exterior. Stay calm. “It’s a reoccurring symbol that is found at those unsolved murders. No one knows what it means or where it was taken from. And, Kayla, I think you just helped me find out something really important.”

Kayla didn’t respond. Her shoulders had hunched inwards, like the memory physically hurt. Azazel gave her a moment, her pulse steadying only after she pressed the record button off. She gently slid the notebook closed.

“I’m sorry if that was too much,” she said softly. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”

Kayla shook her head. “No. No, it’s okay. I’m… I’m glad someone’s asking the right questions.” Her voice was raw, scraped. “You don’t talk about the way someone changes before they die. People just want a motive.”

Azazel looked at her carefully. “And you don’t?”

“I want them to remember her as someone alive. Not just… a fucked-up photo on the internet.”

A pause. The café around them hummed quietly-milk steaming, cups clinking. Someone laughed from a table near the door.

Of course. Unfortunately, Azazel would probably remember Mara as a fucked-up photo on the internet as well. Just like her professor used to say. You can’t look at bodies like that and stay normal. You just learn to look longer than most.

Azazel stood. “Would you be comfortable if I reached out again?”

Kayla gave a shaky nod. “If you think it’ll help.”

“It might.” Azazel offered a small smile. “And Kayla? You were a good friend.”

That seemed to break something in Kayla. She nodded again, quickly, and looked away. Azazel turned to leave, her fingers brushing the edge of the notebook inside her bag. But Kayla’s voice called out to her.

“Hey-”

Azazel glanced back. Kayla was staring into her coffee, hiding her expression like Azazel didn’t already know she was crying. “She used to hum. All the time. Especially when she thought she was alone. But in the last few weeks, she stopped.”

Azazel’s brows furrowed. “Okay?”

Kayla looked up at her, eyes rimmed red. “Except… the night before she died, I swear I heard someone humming in the apartment. And it wasn’t her voice.”

That silence returned - thick this time. Azazel stood frozen a second too long. Then nodded once and slipped out the door, the bell overhead jingling like a warning.

⋆

The walk home felt torturous. Only because Azazel was thinking at probably a hundred miles per minute. It was messy, so messy she accidentally bumped into someone.

“Oh- I’m so sorry!” She quickly apologised, looking up to meet the gaze of a ginger woman. Her notebook had fallen from her hands, remaining open on the page with that cursed symbol drawn upon it.

The woman’s eyes flicked down to the notebook, then lingered. Azazel noticed. For a heartbeat too long, neither of them moved. Then the stranger crouched down slowly, picking up the notebook with careful fingers. She didn’t speak - just stared at the symbol, her brows knitting ever so slightly.

Azazel cleared her throat, reaching to take it. “Thanks. It’s… for a project.”

Her anxiousness quickly dissipated as the woman only smiled at her. “It’s no problem. Be careful with your things.” Then she walked past Azazel with hurried steps.

Weird..

Looking down at the notebook in her hands, Azazel stayed in place for a few seconds before resuming her walk back home.

⋆

By the time she got home, her nerves were shot. She dropped her bag on the floor, slid her coat off with a shaky sigh, and fell onto the couch. Her hands trembled slightly as she pulled her phone from her pocket.

A moment of hesitation. Then she tapped on Rowan’s name. It didn’t take long before the video call connected. Rowan’s face filled the screen with messy curls, an oversized hoodie, and that ever-so-slight smirk that made him look like he already knew something she didn’t.

“Tired?” he asked, raising a brow.

Azazel exhaled through her nose. “Mentally wrung out.”

“That bad?”

She nodded, turning the camera slightly to show the notebook in her lap. “Kayla confirmed the symbol. She claimed that Mara tended to draw it everywhere lately.”

Rowan leaned closer to his phone, eyes squinting as he read over the scribbles in Azazel’s notebook. “That’s the same one you showed me last week, right? Still haven’t found where it’s from?”

“Nope. No origin, no culture match, nothing in occult forms. It just.. exists, I guess.”

Rowan rubbed his jaw. “Anything else that could be related to the case?”

Azazel nodded, shifting uncomfortably on her couch. “She said that Mara liked photography. But, after some… I suppose research, some guy started to show up in a bunch of her photos. Not all of them, but still. It weirded her out.”

A pregnant pause, and then Azazel spoke again.

“Mara was seeing things. I believe it could have been Schizophrenia. Maybe the stress and paranoia made her start hallucinating.”

“Look, Azazel, you’re overthinking things.” Rowen tried to convince her. “Weren’t you supposed to study criminal minds? At this point, I feel like you’re digging way too deep. Remember, Professor Armand said not to get involved.”

“Yeah, I know.” She cut in, voice clipped. “But.. how am I supposed to understand someone if that someone is unknown? Maybe if I solve this case the police will give me some money.”

A long and tired sigh sounded from her phone speaker. She could see Rowan rubbing his forehead in clear exasperation.

“Curiosity killed the cat, Azazel.”

“And satisfaction brought it back, Rowan.”

A laugh, and then Rowan finally looked back at his phone. “You’re a bad influence for anyone close to you.”

“And you don’t know your sayings.”

Rowan chuckled again, but there was a tightness behind it now - subtle, but there.

“Seriously though,” he said, voice softer, “you don’t look so good. You’re not sleeping, are you?”

Azazel glanced away from the screen. “Define sleeping.”

“That’s what I thought.”

The silence between them stretched, comfortable and strained all at once. Rowan was one of the few people who knew how to talk to her when she was like this. Or when this started becoming normal. He leaned back, hoodie bunched up around his neck. “Look. I know this stuff matters to you. But don’t lose yourself in it. You’re already on the edge.”

Azazel stared at her notebook again. That damned symbol stared back, carved in her handwriting like it meant something. Like it had always meant something.

“I’m fine, Rowan. Really.”

“Uh-huh,” he said. “That’s what you said last time. And the time before that, too.”

She didn’t answer right away. The silence sat between them again, only broken by the occasional rustle of fabric from his side of the call.

Finally, Rowan sighed.

“Alright, Az. I gotta hang up. I’m going out.”

Azazel raised an eyebrow, looking at the corner of her phone to check the time. “This late?”

Rowan nodded then answered. “Yeah, we’re going to a club.”

It was Azazel’s turn to sigh, long and bored this time. “Alright, Ro. Take care, don’t let the scary symbol get you.”

“Oh, shut up, blondie.”

Both of them chuckled, then said their goodbyes. The call ended with its usual sound, leaving Azazel alone in silence. Maybe she needed a dog or something.

“God, I need sleep,” she muttered, setting the phone down as her gaze drifted towards the open notebook on the coffee table.

How ridiculous! Why draw such stupid things? She gets it. She does. It’s cryptic, it’s probably cool for its creator. But why make it? To confuse everyone? Maybe it’s a way to throw the authorities off.  Her mind suddenly settles. The decision is final for Azazel. Thinking too much about this would stress her out, which is not good for her at the moment. So, instead of trying to burn her brain, she gets up from the couch. Her assignment could wait some more. She still has a few months left of this semester.

The feeling of being watched suddenly hits her. It’s like the faintest ringing in her ear, announcing to her that someone’s gaze is fixed straight on her. It reminds Azazel of the good old times when her coach used to watch her train, but he was loud and always corrected Azazel. Now it was just silence.

It’s probably because I’m tired , she thinks, brushing it off. Definitely, because she’s tired.

⋆

As she’s getting into bed after a thorough self-care, it’s almost as if her mind decides to be active once more. Her laptop was set on the nightstand, playing a boring series of baking she liked to watch. It was enough to help her fall asleep and make her mind quieter. Could the victims have something in common? Maybe all of them had something to do with that symbol. Could it be some form of obsession? The chances are, some of them could have developed a stupid obsession with it. The human brain would always find things that could entertain it.

Kayla also mentioned the YouTube channel Mara used to watch. She’ll have to look into it. Maybe it will give her some more ideas of what could be behind this symbol. As her eyes drifted closed, the thought of her current assignment disappeared, replaced by an odd silence in her head.

Unusual. But not unwelcome.

[inspectorspacetimerevisited]

The Rama, a gestalt consciousness in the form of a newt,

featured in two of the most critically acclaimed serials of the Fifth Inspector era.

[chapterbookluvr]

“I’ve taken a life, but never shared a life.” - A Comprehensive Review of Sophie Lark’s Serial Killer Romance Novel, There Are No Saints

Content Warning: Abuse, sexual assault, murder, domestic violence, self-harm Spoiler Alert for There Are No Saints by Sophie Lark

“Well. Looks like I’m into serial killer romances now. So that’s brand new information. In my defense, sociopaths should not be this attractive.” writes Larissa, giving Sophie Lark’s romance novel There Are No Saints a five-star review on Goodreads. When typing in “serial killer romance” into Google, you’re greeted with listicles titled “Serial Killer Love Stories” and “5 Horrific Serial Killer Romance Books (Psychopath Love Story)”. Lark’s story is one of hundreds being mass-produced for Amazon’s Netflix-esque book subscription service, Kindle Unlimited.

Something that should be said about this novel before the full review: this book is not intended to be ‘good.’ L. Brown, who gave No Saints 4/5 stars on Amazon, says “Just please read the synopsis and content warnings before jumping in. And don’t take it too seriously while you’re reading it. It’s for the best”. This is the nature of these ‘trashy’ romance novels. They are known to be mediocre but incredibly attractive because they are filled to the brim with sexy characters and fantastical smut. This quality designation does not absolve them of criticism, though. But any ‘negative’ aspects books like these can have tend to fall into the rug-sweeping ‘taboo’ category. Toxic relationship? Taboo. Poorly written characters? Also, apparently, taboo. Any piece of criticism these novels receive fade into the background, as loving readers clamor to say, “If it’s not your cup of tea, don’t read it!”

Smut, as a category, is sexually explicit content. Content that could border on assault (or just plain be assault), consensual sex, passionate moments. The more absurd, the better. Quality falls wayside, predictably, as written porn comes to life. What this does to the culture surrounding these romance novels is conjure an immense aura of shame. Women are sly about reading their ‘smutty’ books. Those who do not want to purchase a Kindle (thus discretion), can get books from smut authors who market their novels as having “innocent covers” compared to the traditionally more lewd ones, ex. half-naked men, buff werewolves, women in the throes of passion, etc. While all being romantic in nature, these books boast strong female characters and caring male love interests. Never mind that she is pregnant, homeless, kidnapped, sick. He is a Mafia boss, a professor, a dragon, her step-brother. The core of all of these stories is love and heart, marketed in a very sharp package. Sometimes, though, the package is opened, and the only thing left inside is blood.

There Are No Saints fits perfectly into this ‘smutty’ romance genre. The book details a serial killer obsessing over an up-and-coming artist. The killer, Cole Blackwell (no relation to Edward Cullen or Jacob Black from the Twilight series by Stephanie Meyer, though Cole is regularly described as very pale and is compared, multiple times, to Dracula), is a famous artist from an old, rich, San Franciscan family. He has no loved ones, emotions, or redeeming qualities. Mara Eldritch (Lark loves a symbolic last name) is a young starving artist, desperate for studio space and traumatized (in a sexy way) by her abusive past. Any other characters in the books are useless, serving only as placeholders for cheap plot points (abusive parents to explain trauma away, best friends being murdered for sexy thrill, etc.).

Romance author Sophie Lark opens No Saints, confessing, in her dedication, “Writing this book was intense therapy for me, dredging up some deep hurts from a long time ago”. Therapy can look like a lot of things for different people - for Lark it looks like a heartfelt statement followed by a book drenched in dubious consent, assault, murder, and abuse. There is no additional satirical or critical layer. If Lark was trying to make commentary about women having to endure in the face of abusive men, she missed that mark entirely and ended up playing directly into it. It’s an unfortunate result to an interesting concept. Instead of Mara  being independent and daring, she has meaningless calls-to-actions that ultimately get snuffed out by the man she apparently is trying to rebel against. It’s a lesson in futility marketed as feminism.

There are No Saints begins in Cole’s point of view (the novel alternates between his and Mara’s), while he is gloomily presiding over an art show, wherein his serial killer rival is also showcasing a piece. His enemy is named Alastor Shaw (possible reference to the chief torturer demon in the hit CW show Supernatural, knowing Lark), an older, uglier man who has been in not only an art battle, but a killing battle, with Cole, for an indeterminate amount of time. The difference between the Good serial killer (Cole) and the Bad serial killer (Shaw) is that Shaw kills women. That’s it. There Are No Saints does not contain a “killer-of-killers” redeemable love interest. Cole kills 14 innocent men, but no women, “I don’t kill women, typically, This is not out of any petty moral constraint. It’s just too fucking easy”.

Enter Mara into the gallery. Described by Cole as “a nobody” wearing “a loose white shift dress” with “battered Docs [that] look older than she is”, she is immediately identified by Cole as an anonymous girl that is dirty and small.  Someone bumps into Mara, spilling wine all over her dress. She runs to the bathroom, Cole thinking she’s trying to wash the stains out of her dress, but this “nobody” returns, doing “quite the opposite: she’s tie-dyed the entire thing”. This quick Project-Runaway-style turnaround is what Lark attempted to do with Mara’s character for the entire novel: be quirky in the face of destruction.

Throughout No Saints, Mara is repeatedly described to be unique. She wears overalls with nothing underneath, she reads Dracula (highlighting only topical quotes for Cole to read when he breaks into her house later), she listens to EDM. She has an abusive mother, no money, and shit luck. These novels, with their unfortunate protagonists, all possess negative traits that are never accompanied by negative  qualities. They want a romance with all of the edge but none of the grit. Mara has “never known what it would be like to swipe a card without wondering if the balance would clear” but has “never starved yet”. She’s down on her luck, but God, not starving-down, that would be unbecoming.

Female protagonists in dark romance novels tend to be either 1) demure, quiet, and inexperienced, or 2) snarky, haughty, and whorish. Either way, their character arc always peaks at becoming as ‘dark’ or ‘twisted’ as their male love interest. Their subsidiary personality traits, like being kind or witty, act as seasoning to their congealment into their boyfriend.

As far as how Mara is interpreted by readers as a character, some, like Ayman’s five-star review of No Saints on Goodreads, regard Mara as: “…so admirable, strong, and will put this psycho in his place when needed. she isn’t the “i can change him” type or the super submissive type that would make me say “stand up girl”. cole does that all on his own. she literally makes him feel regret for the first time for some shit he pulled. and if there’s one thing i’m gonna eat up, is a woman bringing wreaking chaos on a very organized man UNAPOLOGETICALLY!!! the shear revenge she pulls…she’s the puppeteer and he’s the puppet!”

While other people, like Lori, with their one-star rating, disagree, “A sexually aggressive heroine does not a strong heroine make”.

The collision of these characters, Cole, Shaw, and Mara, happens after the gallery showing. After smoking some weed in the alley with one of her friends, Mara is struck on the back of the head and wakes in the trunk of a moving vehicle. Lark then spends a lengthy paragraph detailing the duct tape, bag, zip-ties, and rope used to gag and bind Mara. She gives the readers all the gory details of the kidnapping, details you’d hear on Forensic Files, TikTok compilations, all the warnings women are given about strange men. How to break out of zip-ties, how to find the emergency pull-tab in the trunk (“WHERE’S THE FUCKING LATCH!” wonders Mara), what cuts duct tape. Mara inventories her trauma exactly how someone who likes true crime would want to hear about it.

After drafting this Criminal Minds script in her head, the trunk Mara is in, flings open, “It’s only when the cold air hits my flesh that I realize I’m naked – or at least, partly naked”. How, in this detailed description of her current state, did she not realize she’s naked? The answer is obvious: it wouldn’t be sexy. Mara is dumped in an alley way by a mysterious man. He dressed her in a skimpy BDSM outfit and ‘stripper heels’. Every trauma Mara goes through in No Saints either makes her even more resilient or, just hotter. Before leaving her to die, the man pierces her nipples and slits her wrists. The chapter ends.

Back to Cole, walking home from the gallery and wondering if he’s going to be caught for his most recent kill (he isn’t, the whole situation is forgotten immediately because there has to be room for sexy moments). He stumbles upon Mara, gagged, and bound, and immediately understands her presence in ‘his territory’ as a message from Shaw, “I don’t kill on impulse. I prepare my location. And I never lose control. He hopes I’ll break all three rules”. Ignoring the fact that those three rules are all fundamentally the same, character-wise, Mara becomes a question mark for Cole, “I’ve never killed a woman. I assumed I would at some point, but not some skinny girl, and not in some frenzy of fucking and stabbing like that ghoul Shaw”.

This is where our love birds get introduced. Cole, standing stoically above bleeding Mara, while she whimpers for help, and he thinks of killing her. This is where character development happens, right? This is the moment where we see Cole start his redemption towards Mara? –“I take one last glance at the girl’s beautifully tortured body. Then I step over her and carry on my way”. No. Cole leaves Mara to die. Thus is their meet-cute.

Mara, through sheer power of will (“I’m not dying here. I’m not fucking doing it.”), gets up and survives this murder attempt by Shaw. The rest of No Saints is Cole and Mara orbiting each other, him growing more possessive over someone he thought he watched die, and Mara just needing money and a place to make art. They are, not subtlety, given the Hades and Persephone motif, though Cole expresses his distaste for such obvious reference in the first chapter, insulting a sculpture that has “all the symbolism hitting you over the head”.

As the plot continues, Cole inevitably does something murder-y, like threaten to kill someone Mara has sex with. She does this as revenge, Cole knows, because he puts a camera in her art studio and Mara purposefully has sex with someone else on a giant canvas (that she later hangs in Cole’s office) while making direct eye contact with the security camera the whole time. Cole threatens to kill someone who slapped Mara’s ass (bar is on the ground, as he is already a serial killer), and Mara, throughout, all but gasps and stares.

Lark attempts, again and again, to define Mara’s character. Unfortunately, those definitions tended to be mutually exclusive. For instance, at an art show that Cole demanded Mara wear something specific at (which she rebelled from, saying “Well fuck him, I pick out my own clothes.”), they have an intimate moment after Cole manages to get Mara’s painting sold. She finds herself suddenly attracted to the man that left her for dead, saying “I wanted death. I wanted HIM” (Lark loves using capital letters in place of description). Mara offers a sexual favor to Cole, internally thinking “This is the deal with the devil. He owns me. He controls me”. Then, a mere four sentences later, tells him “I wanted to fuck you. But you don’t own me, Cole. And you never will”. Lark makes it hard to ignore inconsistency in character, especially when it happens on the same page.

Mara and Cole’s relationship can be crudely defined by a phrase Mara tells herself while in one of her many painful contemplations of Cole: “Rage isn’t the same thing as ‘caring’”. Cole is violent, disrespectful, and cruel. He compares having sex with her as being “strapp[ed] into an electric chair”. His redemption comes from the misery he spares Mara from, though it was him putting her in it in the first place. Cole dares to admire the strength Mara has to overcome her trauma, like a predator playing with his meal. Even outside of their interactions with each other, Cole is disrespectful - Mara tells him about when her dad died, saying “I loved my father, the day I lost him was the worst day of my life”. Cole, ever the loving partner, responds with a smile, “The worst day so far”.

Cole, like Mara, is a very contradictory character. Not in a anti-hero, grey-morality-type way. Cole doesn’t make sense in a poorly-written way. His violent profession is emphasized in the beginning of No Saints and used only as a spunky character trait for the rest of the novel. His serial killing distills down into him just being a violent and broken man. Something attractive and fixable. He later starts developing feelings for Mara, “Mara warps who I am. But in the moment, when I’m with her…I like it. I see things I never saw before. I see things, Hell, I even taste things differently”. Mara, just being her, poor, inconsistent self, is curing this man’s murderous instincts. Cole, as someone who didn’t ever kill women, doesn’t make sense to have this redemption arc. Mara is not hard for him, she’s just new. If Shaw fell in love with her and resisted killing her, that would be character development. Cole has not grown, nor has his serial killing done anything for the plot but be shock value. In fact, the mention of the 14 people he killed is rare, and he doesn’t kill again after he meets Mara. He’s never caught, either: “Getting away with murder is pretty fucking easy. Only 63 percent of homicides are solved under the best of circumstances—and that includes the cases where the idiot criminal is literally holding the smoking gun. There are precious few genius detectives, despite what network television would have you believe. I’ve killed fourteen people and I’ve yet to receive a single knock on my door.”

If Cole’s violent crimes are the equivalent to a day job in how they impact his life and intimidate Mara (both meaning, not at all). It brings up the very important question of: why is Cole a serial killer in the first place?

Back in the beginning of No Saints, we see Alastor Shaw make a pass at some young girls at the gallery showing. Cole, watching, thinks to himself, “Alastor’s need disgusts me. He’s such a cliché of himself. College co-eds, for fucks sake.” Cole goes out of his way to snidely mock Shaw, whispering under his breath, “You and Bundy”. This reference to a real-life killer makes the true-crime loving audience that will inevitably devour No Saints feel included – as seen in RenegadeWoman’s five-star review of No Saints on Amazon, “I have never read a book so psychologically dark – except about Ted Bundy”. But what true, narcissistic, sociopath cares about other killers? Especially long dead ones? Lark makes her characters just culturally literate enough for the readers to sit up and go “OMG! I know that reference!”

There Are No Saints is a part of the growing “violent criminal romance” subgenre, something consequential to the recent hyper-popularization of true crime content. Especially on the social media platform TikTok, where it is hard to parse out the difference between fake crime and true crime, and the fans of both tend to be one in the same. So, lines between crime and romance, fact, and fiction, are destined to blur.

Mikayla Raquel, reviewing There Are No Saints on Amazon, says: “what is it about serial unaliver smut that is just sending me into a tizzy lately!! Cole is yummy yummy yummm…now i want a psycho artist unaliver control freak to rent the house across from me and watch my every move and become obsessed with me…and be really rich and sexy LMAO.”

The phrase “unalive” comes from users trying to circumvent TikTok’s rigorous yet unpredictable explicit content tagging system, so “murder/killing/suicide” has transformed into “unalive”. The presence of the word here, in an Amazon review that does not scan for such verbiage, indicates the origin of this person’s exposure to There Are No Saints: BookTok.

“Dark romance”, as a genre, is very popular on ‘BookTok’ (the term coined for the reading community on TikTok), hijacking recommendation lists and Goodreads charts. Most dark romance stories bank on the fact that these readers will be so caught up in the subversion of classic romance tropes that they will not notice the decreasing quality of the writing. It’s a lot of “look at how bad this man is treating this woman, BUT he is also nice to her a few times”. The disparity between these two concepts: abuse, and subsequent love, is what drives the popularity of these novels. They bank on the idea of “he’s an asshole to everyone but me” , while the audience don’t realize the relationship they’re reading about is going far deeper than domestic violence.

Redemption arcs in dark romance novels seem to have no limits. When talking of heterosexual romance, the man can keep the woman locked in a cage (Birdie’s Biker, Misty Walker) or even stalk and sexually assault her (Haunting Adeline, H.D. Carlton). It does not matter, as the man is redeemable, even when he says he’s not. His irredeemability is a character flaw, not an actual plot point. These men are regularly painted as satanic creatures with one soft spot: their woman they abuse. This broadcasts a dangerous message: if a man protects you, he is allowed to hurt you.

Cole does just this, regularly hurting and seducing Mara. The climax of the novel is a sexually explicit scene where Mara, during intercourse, reveals to Cole that she was sexually abused as a child. Cole uses this experience to re-train Mara, even as she says “No, wait!” Her abuse becomes sexual fodder for Cole to manipulate. Though, it works, as afterwards, she “sob[s] again, this time from pleasure and relief”. Thus, Mara and Cole come to a close.

There Are No Saints is, at its core, an unconventional love story. It’s certainly not the best thing ever written, but it sure is entertaining. Mara summarizes the reading experience best, “I’d rather be dead than bored. And heaven sounds pretty fucking boring”. ■

★★☆☆☆

[takerfoxx]

She-Ra and the Princesses of Power, Season 5, Episode 1, “Horde Prime,” First Impressions!

Unsurprisingly, this season starts with a set-up episode, so as to touch base with where everyone is so as to set up for the rest of the arc. As such, this season will (probably) be more serialized right off the bat than ones past, and it also means I don’t have a lot of plot stuff to comment on, but I do have a lot of character observations and speculation.

So let’s start with Adora. As one might expect, she is trying to deal with not being She-Ra anymore. Or, to be specific, not knowing how to become She-Ra, since it’s already been pointed out that She-Ra predated the sword, which had been created by the First Ones as a way to control She-Ra, so she just needs to figure out how her earliest predecessors were able to transform, which is what her dream symbolized. Calling it now: when she catches up to the She-Ra in her dream is when she’ll be able to transform again. Though I wonder: was that She-Ra Mara, the first She-Ra, or just the embodiment of She-Ra as a concept?

In the meantime, she is overcompensating by trying to prove to herself that she can still go even without her powers. Which, hey, she can, because she is still a highly trained warrior. Unfortunately, her recklessness is becoming a…problem. I did snicker a bit when she complained to Bow about feeling like she was useless without her powers. Like, dude, you’re talking to BOW, the one guy in your gang with no powers, and he’s been holding his own and keeping up with everyone since day one! I mean, I know that’s because he’s never had any powers and worked really hard to make up for it in other ways for a long time, and it’s different for someone who never needed to train like that, but even so.

Still, Bow did have the best advice for her. Even if she can’t take point and solo entire Horde battalions anymore, she is a valued member of the team. She just needs to learn to rely on others for support like they’ve all been doing for so long. And we got to see a side of Adora that hasn’t really come up much: Adora the military commander! After all, she was originally trained to be a Horde Force Captain, someone who’s job is to command groups of troops and coordinate their efforts! And fortunately, she’s really good at it too.

Speaking of the princesses, it’s great that Scorpia has been unconditionally accepted into their ranks. I guess after Adora they’re now cool with high ranking Horde warriors defecting. Also, she is still juiced up on the Black Garnet, which is awesome! Though it does raise a point: have they actually moved the thing yet, or is it still in the Fright Zone? That doesn’t seem like the sort of thing you should leave sitting around.

Also, lol at her stinging Adora. Her apologizing for doing it but making it clear that she would totally do it again is so on point.

And you know what? I’ve given Swift Wind a lot of shit, mainly because his grandstanding gets in the way and causes problems for everyone else, but I like him with Scorpia. They have good energy together. Plus, he’s actually doing things instead of showing off, which makes him more tolerable.

Though speaking of defecting Horde soldiers, I agree with Perfuma. What exactly is Shadow Weaver’s current status? Isn’t she supposed to be a prisoner? Why is she sitting in on war councils? You’d think after the Double Trouble incident they’d be more careful who they reveal vital information to.

Anyway, though I get why they did the leap ahead, it did mean missing quite a few cool scenes. I would have loved to see how the Princess Squad would have reacted to learning that Micah is alive. I guess that wound he got on Beast Island wasn’t that bad? I thought for sure it would come up later.

And Entrapta! Really would have loved to see her and Scorpia’s reunion. Also, um, look, I guess that they felt bad about leaving her behind, but shouldn’t they have had a thing or two to say about her working for the Horde and creating the machines that gave them so much trouble? I really hope that gets addressed soon.

Right, okay, now that we’ve covered the girls on the ground, let’s talk about the real star of this episode, for whom it was name. Horde. Fucking. Prime.

Holy shit.

Look, Hordak was a very effective villain. Even when he got a lot of development and sympathetic qualities, he’s always been intimidating. But Horde Prime is fucking terrifying! I mean, give it up for Keston. He uses more-or-less the same voice that he does for Hordak, but the change in cadence makes all the difference. This is someone who’s absolutely used to being in control and winning, and for good reason. That dinner scene was spine-chilling, as he used something so simple as playing the polite host to establish exactly how dangerous he is. The part where he casually mentions where the food came from sent a very clear message: he is someone who will not hesitate to eliminate a whole planet on a whim and not lose one minute of sleep over it. Glimmer is walking on a razor’s edge, and she is justifiably scared shitless! Within seconds he got the information he wanted from her and made it look easy. There was no question whatsoever of if he would succeed. She had information he wanted, so he applied a little leverage and got it. Because of course he did.

Hell, look how easily he put Catra in her place! Say what you will about her, but Catra is someone who’s managed to claw her way to the top time and time again, to the point where she was able to bully Hordak! But that isn’t going to work here. This isn’t an imperfect clone, this is the original model. And Horde Prime is taking none of her bullshit. He took away her trump card right in front of her and she didn’t even notice, and he will not hesitate to eliminate her should he tire of her. She is not a valuable asset anymore. She’s a pawn, to be used and disposed of as he sees fit, and they both know it.

And as it turns out, her only use has nothing to do with the Heart of Etheria, but instead Adora herself. As the current She-Ra, Adora is the only person whom Horde Prime considers to be any kind of threat. And she’s also someone Catra cares about. So in order to survive, Catra is going to have to do something that she hates.

Oh, this is gonna hurt.

[satan-chillin]

Parent-Teacher Meeting (PTM)

Summary: You’re the homeroom teacher of nine students, four of which happened to share the same family name of Winchester. You dubbed them as the Winchester Four, two pairs of siblings and paternal cousins. You were pretty interested to find out the kind of parents they have.  

Pairings: Established Destiel & SamWena/SamWitch

Characters: Reader (female), Dean Winchester, Sam Winchester, Castiel, Rowena MacLeod (mentioned)

Note: Non-pairing reader, children drawings inside ;) 

Also available in Ao3

You straightened your skirt for what seemed like the tenth time within five minutes. 

 Not that you could be blamed for your nerves. It was the PTM, of course, and your first since becoming a kindergarten teacher. With the children, you were exactly in your element with their energeticness and rambunctiousness. The parents, however, were the uncharted territories. 

 Your first parent for the day was a nice young woman who happened to be a single parent of two boys, Connor and Marcus. You thanked her for her time and gave your appreciation after knowing she was also juggling three part-time jobs. Her kids were often the ones to be picked up a little past the dismissal, and after finding out her situation, you offered to keep watch for them until she could pick them up. She was delighted and was grateful while you didn’t mind the suggestion one bit since you tend to extend your stay after classes. Besides, it was also a chance for you to focus on improving her sons’ reading comprehension since it was your main concern.  

 You met both the parents of Alita, the quiet girl you have in class. You often found her sitting and coloring books in one corner and would encourage her to join the others during playtime. You would smile whenever she decided to join the rest on occasion and also understood that she was someone who frequently wanted time for herself. As a compromise, you often have her sit beside you while she was doing her coloring and the others playing. Her parents were alright, you supposed. A little snobbish, maybe, and clearly wanted Alita to be a more physically active child, but you did say you were doing your best and assured them Alita was outstanding the way she was.

 Your next parents were the lovely father and mother of the twin girls Lara and Mara. They were the oldest in your class and nigh inseparable which was a given, you thought. With their age, they were the maturest thinkers of the bunch and would help out with keeping the others in line. They were treated as the eldest sisters of most of the kids, and they both get along well with everyone. You told their parents that their daughters showed promising leadership qualities at their young age and pointed out their strongest points and the ones that needed improvements: Lara still struggled with the arithmetic while Mara was having problems with symbolic concepts. Both, however, were impressive with their grasp of the English language for their age. 

 You only have nine students in your class and after counting, you realized you already met the parents of five of them so far. The parents of the other four were yet to arrive and when you reviewed your list, you confirmed the students left. 

 The Winchester Four. 

 It was unexpected, but you recognized the eagerness in wanting to meet their parents. They were two pairs of siblings and both were paternal cousins, and, frankly, the oddest of the bunch. 

 Now, it wasn’t that they were weird, per se, though they did display peculiar qualities that could have been picked up from home. Nothing alarming, mind, and if anything, it made you curious as to what kind of people were raising the children—you were already leaning on the hipster-ish type of parents and given that it was already the 21st century, you weren’t certain if that should be impressive. 

 You have different backstories in your head like maybe they were kids of uber smart parents because heck, they have rudimentary knowledge in Latin, for god’s sake, while you struggled hard with that dead language during your college years; or maybe they were the nomad kind who would uproot the whole family to move on to the next location, which could explain the expansive knowledge on the geography the kids seemed to naturally have; or maybe they were absentee parents who just let their kids do their thing, making them—

 You blinked behind the window, your musing interrupted when you spotted a black ‘67 Impala in front of the school. You might have whistled there under your breath at what appeared to be a well-kept vehicle, though what made your eyebrow rise was the three men who exited it. 

 Were they… Were they law enforcement?

 You followed the three men with your eyes, thinking they were to walk to the building next to the school when they entered the school grounds instead. You quickly arranged your table and repositioned the chairs by the desk, and by the time you were done, there was a knock on the classroom door. 

 Oh, god, they were taller up close. 

 “Hi, how can I help you, officers?” you asked, trying not to sound nervous which you (and you thought most people as well) usually were around authorities. 

 The blond man smiled charmingly. “Sorry about the confusion, ma’am. We’re not here for work, we’re actually here for the PTM.” 

 “Oh. Oh! The PTM. Right,” you muttered, fumbling. “So, uh, for which students?” 

 “Winchesters,” the three of them simultaneously said. 

 All of them together. Wow. “Ookay. Have a seat here, sirs.” 

 There were only two chairs in front, and when you moved in to push another one, the man with the trenchcoat offered to do it instead and sat on it. 

 He was also the first one to ask, “Are Jimmy and John doing alright in school?”

 Straight to the point, this guy, you thought wryly as you adjusted your glasses. “Uh, yeah. Yeah. They’re great, actually. So you’re the parent of James and John then, Mr… Sorry, I think there will be a confusion here if I call you three Mr. Winchesters.”

 “Call me Cas,” said the man in the trenchcoat. 

 “Dean here,” said the blond one with a grin. “Cas and I are for the BJ brothers.”

 “I’m Sam,” said the tallest of the three as if the other two weren’t towering enough on their own. “I’m here for my kids Marybeth and Anthony.”

 “Well, I’m Y/N, their homeroom teacher,” you formally said once you wrapped your mind that, yes, these were the parents of the Winchester Four, and, yep, they were from law enforcement or something along that line of job. “The four kids are fast learners, by the way, and they’re friendly with the other children so we don’t really have an issue there, though there are some concerns that I personally want to bring up to you.”

 You reached for a drawer and pulled out a bunch of papers with drawings during the art time. You placed them face down on the desk and had the sudden urge to laugh at their seemingly curious and nervous reaction at the papers. 

 “Oh, no, don’t tell me they started drawing something disturbing. Like the serial killers did when they were young,” Dean said worriedly, frowning and the grin gone from his face. 

 “Did they draw a dead body, Ms. Y/N?” Cas asked grimly. 

 You sighed. “Nobody drew a dead body, sirs.” You pushed the drawings away for a moment. “Actually, before that, I have to ask something first. Jimmy told me once that he and John live in a cave with their older brother and their two dads. I don’t want to make assumptions here, Mr. Dean and Cas, but is it a metaphor for your living arrangements?”

 Dean looked rather affronted to have their home be called a cave. He opened his mouth to make a protest though Cas had beaten him to it. 

 “It is a cave in a child’s perspective,” Cas said. “It is not a cave. It is a bunker,” he said, addressing you. 

 “A large bunker with soft beds and a wide kitchen. If it’s going to be a cave, it better be the friggin’ Batcave!”

 You have no idea why Dean was defensive about his bunker, but you attributed it to the typical territorialism of men, something which you would probably never understand with your flaming lesbian flag. 

 “I’m sorry about him,” Sam interrupted with a sigh. “But, yeah, I think what my nephews called the cave is the bunker where they live in. It’s been with the family for generations and we inherited it from our grandfather. My wife and I moved out of the place so it’s just my brother there, Cas, and Jack during his sem breaks.”

 “I see,” you replied, unsure what to say to that further. You pushed the glasses up your nose once more. You cleared your throat. “I’m not asking to pry on where you decide to raise them. I guess I just want to resolve the mystery of this cave or something,” you admitted, assuring them with a slight smile. “There is also another question that I want to raise out of curiosity: where did they learn Latin?”

 “I think they might have got it from Cas and, often, from my wife.” Sam appeared to be positively glowing at the question.

 You knew it. Smart parents. “Oh. Cool. I mean, I guess it’s nice to encourage them at a young age. Might be handy in the future.” There were other non-dead languages the kids could learn, but to each their own, you supposed. 

 You pulled the eight drawings across the table. “As you know, we spend most of our day in art class. It’s to encourage kids to bring out their creativity and I gotta say, Bobby John and Benny James are… creative. So are Marybeth and Anthony,” you began positively. 

 There were plenty of drawings from the kids. First month in, your students already filled up the shelves. To remedy the lack of storage, you either post some of them or send them with the student once graded so they could showcase them at home. They were usually the drawings of sceneries, home life, their favorite holidays, and of family. Some showed promise in the pen and paper artistry, and the drawings helped you in figuring out their present state at home. 

 The drawings from the Winchester Four, barring the typical imagination exclusive of children, as usual, left you baffled. 

 You laid out the first paper from Marybeth Winchester. 

“I believe this is Mrs. Winchester, yes?” you asked, eyeing Sam. “What is she doing exactly?” 

 “Cooking,” Sam said simply as if that explained it. 

 Cas leaned close to study the drawing. “I think that is Rowena levitating the pans.” You stared at him. “She said she finds it tedious to cook and make the table without magic.”

 “Magic tricks!” Sam suddenly exclaimed. “Yeah, she often, uh, shows the kids what she learns from Youtube. I helped her set up this one with invisible strings. The kids like it.” 

 Dean rolled his eyes faintly at that as if saying ‘Really?’.

 “Right,” you deadpanned when you thought that was the best you could get. You believed that if you mentioned that Anthony and Marybeth told you that their Mom was a former queen—you thought there might be an instance before that they said she was a queen of Hell before she had them—you would get a completely unbelievable answer. “Magic. Cool.”

 The next drawing was from Marybeth’s brother, Anthony, and you have to admit, this one made you double-take. “This is from Anthony, and—is that a gun?” 

You pretended not to notice Sam paling a bit. Dean looked like he was stifling a laugh behind a cough. For some reason, he found it pretty funny. 

 You heard Sam sigh defeatedly. “Okay, that one’s my fault,” he said regretfully that you almost felt bad that you were interrogating him, but, hey, your student’s welfare first and foremost. If it has to do with Anthony witnessing his Dad at fieldwork, then it was something to be discussed. “I let him spend a night watching me play.”

 “Sorry?”

 “There’s this shooting game on PS4. I modeled my character after me—on-the-job me, I mean, with uniform and all. I kinda got addicted to it briefly and… you know.” 

 “And I thought I’m the irresponsible one,” Dean commented unhelpfully.

 “So it’s not Anthony watching you at work? I mean, you guys work at the side of the law, right? I understand your job isn't easy, but you know how it can also impact the children,” you said, expressing your concern. 

 For sure, they knew how it would be before they entered the family life, and they seemed to have taken your reminder quite well judging by the solemn nods you received in return. 

 To lighten the mood a bit, you showed Sam a joint drawing by Marybeth and Anthony. This one you intended for him to take home. It seemed that something he would like pinned up on the refrigerator. 

“Anthony and Marybeth shared in the class that their Papa is strong enough to lift them both at the same time,” you told Sam. “Marybeth insisted that they include their Mom since she said that Mrs. Winchester was actually behind the camera for this picture. Anthony eventually won the argument when he pointed out that they wouldn’t be any space for the message at the bottom,” you added fondly. “They said that they would just make their Mom a different drawing.”

 Sam seemed to have melted at the image, reverently staring at the drawing when you handed it to him. Dean and Cas simply smiled at Sam’s tender expression.  

 “Actually, there’s also a drawing here made by the four of them together,” you said, searching through the papers. “Bobby John and Benny James told me it’s their older brother Jack, which Anthony and Marybeth claimed their favorite cousin.”

 Dean huffed out a laugh. “Very minimal choices there.” 

You blinked. You remembered this one when you graded it. “Mr. Jack has… quite the set of eyes when angry,” you commented. 

 You just hoped that Jack wasn’t actually high with those red, blood-shot eyes. 

 “They captured Jack’s impressive set of eyes here,” Cas said with a small smile. “Jack got his expressive eyes from Kelly, his mother.”

 You didn’t mean to, but that Harry Potter meme about Snape telling Harry he had his mother’s eyes when the movie hardly bothered with the contact lenses entered your mind, unbidden. You suppressed a grin that nobody noticed. 

 “Jack’s a good kid,” Sam said. “He doesn’t get angry with the kids no matter how stubborn they are. He spoils them whenever he can.” He pointed at the ‘Angry Jack’. “That’s actually Jack being protective of them.”

 Well, nice to know the kids were looking up to a young adult as a good role model. 

 “You can keep it. Mr. Jack might want to take it as a gift,” you told them. Cas folded the paper and kept it. 

 Only four more drawings were left, and for the next one, you picked the one that made you curious about the way it was drawn. 

 “This was from Bobby John,” you told them, showing the drawing the boy told you what happened on his last birthday. 

“Bobby John told me this was you,” you said to Cas. “Um, what happened here? If you don’t mind me asking.”

 Cas’s eyes softened imperceptibly at the memory. “This was when we visited Japan to banish an old curse and put the vengeful spirit at peace.”

 You blinked once… twice… thrice. 

 ... Did you hear that right? 

 “He’s talking about that Japanese horror movie that we watched in Tokyo,” Dean explained hastily, much to Sam’s amusement and Cas’s confusion. “It’s uh—It’s about that cursed well where some girl was dumped in and she became a ghost wanting revenge.” 

 “Oh,” you said dumbly. “And she could walk through the walls?”

 “It’s a television,” Cas answered. For a moment, Dean looked nervous when he spoke. “Her death was caught on tape. The tape was a cursed object that anyone who watched it would die after the seventh day.” 

 “Wow.” You were a horror movie nut yourself, more so of Asian horror films. You haven’t heard of this movie until now. “Was this released last year?”

 “Last year,” Sam confirmed. “It was an entry for the annual Japanese Horror Festival so it was exclusively shown that day.” 

 “That’s too bad. I would have watched it,” you muttered. You hoped they would release it on DVD with enough funding. “Okay. So if this longhaired girl here was the ghost in that movie, what was Mr. Cas doing here then?”

 “Vanquishing the vengeful ghost,” Cas said grimly. Dean nudged him subtly. “Bobby John and Benny James were scared after watching the film, which was a mistake in our part. I had to assure them that Sadako wouldn’t get them, not when I’m alive.”

 Your impression of Cas so far was that he was a man who took things too seriously and literally. You guessed they were just part of his character as the loving Papa. You found it adorable. 

 “Ah, kids,” you chuckled affectionately, moving on to the next drawing from Benny James. 

“I think I get it now why Benny James called you an angel in this one,” you said. “Complete with a set of wings and all.” 

 “That’s a pretty accurate image of my angel wings,” Cas said cryptically, clearly liking the drawing. 

 Dean squinted. “Is that me being carried by Cas?” 

 “Your son said so, yes.” 

 “I mean, he ain’t wrong,” Dean allowed. “Cas is our ride often,” he murmured. 

 You didn’t catch it, but his brother Sam did, prompting a “Yeah, I bet he’s always your ride” under his breath. 

 Dean kicked him at the back of his leg and claimed that Sam’s wife was infecting his innocence bit by bit.  

 You cleared your throat when you thought a childish brawl would break out between them. Cas merely glanced at you apologetically at their behavior. “They’re not always like that,” Cas told you. 

 You waved off the apology with a wry smile. You suddenly missed your younger brother back at your home. 

 “Oh, yeah.” You picked out the other drawing by Bobby John. “There’s another from Bobby John. I think this might be about a movie too.” You tilted your head. “It’s… interesting,” you said, for the lack of a better word. 

You heard Sam’s snort before catching the way Dean’s face fell. 

 “I think this is Rowena burning Dean that one time he called her fa—”

 “Okay, don’t listen to Cas,” Dean interrupted, covering Cas’s mouth with his palm. “That’s—That’s from a show. Okay, so that’s me and Rowena. I was watching the show with the kids, I irritated her for whatever reason, and she threatened to burn me the same way that guy in the show was burned,” he explained. He gave an uncertain chuckle at your reaction. “You know, typical in-laws stuff.”

 Yeesh. You were sure darn lucky you didn’t have any in-laws. Not yet, anyway. 

 “Pretty sure you were watching Tom and Jerry that time, Dean,” Sam cut in. 

 “And Tom got burned there,” Dean protested. “He was still alive, of course. Unlike me if Rowena went through with her threat,” he retorted, petulantly crossing his arms. At Sam’s bitch face, Dean sighed. “Look, man, I’m not demonizing Rowena. Just saying she has quite a temper. For me. Never the kids. I’m saying you could have done worse, Sam, and either way, I’d take her as my sister-in-law anytime.” 

 Sam looked like he wasn’t expecting the honest statement. He was warned by his brother not to tell her, and while Sam didn’t look like he was going to keep it a secret from his wife with that knowing grin, he nodded nonetheless. 

 There was a single drawing left, and when you saw what it was, you knew that like his brother, Dean would love the one intended for him. 

“Bobby John and Benny James both drew it,” you said, smiling at how Dean went silent in awe. “They told me that their Number One Papa is Cas and you're the Number One Dad.” 

 “Can I keep this?” 

 After the previous depictions of Dean being carried on air and being burned, you thought he deserved the drawing. “Feel free to.”

 Dean was beaming with pride. “Cas, we should frame this.”

 Sam shook his head amusedly. You weren’t fooled; you knew he would also do the same with his. 

***

The rest of the meeting was quick. The kids’ grades were impressive for their age, and it helped that they have good foundations from home as well. The three of them—yes, even Dean— commended Mrs. Winchester’s patience reserved for teaching them how to read and write and getting them to be interested in books the same way Sam also was.    

 “Hopefully, she’ll come with us next PTM,” Sam said. “I’m sure she’d like to know you.” 

 Mrs. Winchester seemed like a force to reckon with, but, frankly, you were also excited to meet her in person. 

 “Thank you, Ms. Y/N,” Cas said. You shook his hand. “You’ve given us helpful insights on how they’re doing at school. You’re a good teacher to them.”  

 “Yep. Nice to know they’ll be fine in school.” Dean mock-saluted you. “Until next PTM, ma’am.” 

 You weren’t expecting your first PTM to go smoothly as this, and you certainly didn’t expect that the parents that initially made you anxious (and interested) the most would be the most entertaining. 

 “Until next time then,” you said with a smile. 

 You gave a slight wave after you saw them out of the classroom when they stopped on their way and seemingly remembered something.  

 “You know what, before we go, we might as well give you this.” Dean reached for his jacket pocket and handed you a business card. 

It didn’t look like a precinct calling card, and at your apparent confusion, it was Sam who answered you. 

 “It’s our other job,” he said. “A family business.”

 “Hit us up, ma’am, if ever you need help.” 

 “With what exactly?” you asked. 

 “If you noticed anything strange,” Cas said. 

 “Like cold spots,” Sam added

 “Or weird smells,” Dean said. “Anything that you noticed… unnatural.” 

 “Oh.” Was that the position ‘Hunter’ was for? And what did ‘MoL’ mean? “Thanks?” 

 You remained holding the card even as they drove off in their Impala. Curiously, you pulled out your phone and searched the net for the names Sam and Dean Winchester. 

 Interestingly, the first search result that showed up in Google was a decade-old website named Ghostfacers. Once introduced to the content of the site, however, your reaction was a simple: 

 “Holy shit.”

[atamascolily]

Appointment in Sawarra, 1/?

First scene of a new Inheritance fic set just after the Thrawn trilogy, featuring Luke Skywalker, philosophical musings about the Jedi, and botany. You know, my usual jam.

I had a good experience serializing Desert Places on this site, so perhaps posting things here as I write them will encourage me to keep going instead of stalling out, since the chapters are long, and my need to finish something is strong.

Luke Skywalker leaned against the wrought stone balcony on the rooftop of the Imperial palace, taking in the red-streaked alpenglow of the snow-covered Maranai Mountains fifty klicks to the south. Skyscrapers lapped at the feet of the two peaks, but the mountains themselves were relatively pristine, one of the few vestiges of natural life on the entire planet, and the contrast was striking.

This wasn't to say there wasn't any development--this <i>was</i> Coruscant, after all--but none of the exclusive restaurants or vacation homes were visible at this distance without macrobinoculars. Even as artificial lights winked on and off like flickering stars as the sunlight faded, the mountains themselves plunged into shadow, cool and dark and silent in the approaching night.

Whenever his heart itched for adventure, and he was too busy to get away from Coruscant, Luke would rent a speeder and fly out to the Manarai. He'd zip over the peaks themselves, flying as low as he dared, heady on the adrenaline rush that came from life-or-death decisions and reckless instinct. Sated, he'd ditch the speeder after a few hours, and wander the winding trails through the remnant forests on the lower slopes of the mountains on foot before flying back to the Imperial Palace for yet another round of politics, bureaucracy, or an equally frustrating combination of the two.

The chaos of the last few years hadn't left much time for exploring, but the mountains remained a refuge in his own mind, if nothing else. He'd toyed with the idea of building a private retreat out there someday, but life kept pushing him in other directions, and he'd never gotten around to it.

Luke liked people, but as his rapport with the Force deepened, he found himself craving silence and stillness to fully recharge--both in short supply on the never-sleeping capital world. The Force was present in all the hustle and bustle of the billions of life-forms all going about their business, no less so than anywhere else in the galaxy. Yet sometimes he needed a break from the traffic and the crowds in order to hear <i>himself</i> think, let alone the quiet whisper of the Force's guidance--which was far more elusive than not despite his training.

A retreat in the Manarai would also put him closer to the newly constructed Orowood distric and the apartment Leia and Han had purchased there. It was part of Leia's ambitious vision to create a hub for the Alderaanian diaspora. In addition to the massive Orowood Tower, she'd supervised the planting of thousands of its namesake trees, complete with the famous iridescent lichen on their bark. Luke wasn't sure Leia would ever move out of the Imperial Palace for good, but he was glad for her to have a project to distract her when the Council was too mired in petty arguments and infighting to get anything done.

As far as Luke could tell, the success of the Orowood scheme hinged entirely on his sister's ability to persuade the skittish remaining Alderaanians that Corcuscant was no longer the Empire's target--a hard sell after Grand Admiral Thrawn's recent siege. The peace settlement with Admiral Pellaeon in the aftermath of Thrawn's assassination at the Battle of Bilbringi might yet convince them--if it held. Only time would tell.

To be honest, Luke wouldn't blame the Alderaanians for taking their chances elsewhere skepticism. Three years ago, when the Alliance had first re-taken the planet, he'd argued against setting up the new government here--or at the very least, not in the Imperial Palace. In his mind, the symbolism was all the more reason to start afresh somewhere else.

Since then, however, he'd come to appreciate the virtues of this bustling city-planet and the Palace itself--in large part thanks to the woman he sensed approaching from twenty meters away.

"Hello, Skywalker," Mara Jade said crisply, leaning against the balcony beside him. "I have to sweet-talk yet another government official into listening to the Smuggler's Alliance latest shipping proposal in...." She glanced at the chronometer on her wrist. "Thirty minutes. So make this quick."

Luke managed to hide a grin, but it was difficult. Since he'd persuaded her to accept the position of official liaison between Talon Karrde's new organization and the New Republic three months ago, there had been no shortage of meetings. To be fair, Luke had gone to plenty of those himself, despite having no official position in the New Republic's military or government since he'd resigned his commission after the Mindor campaign. There had been no shortage of press conferences, planning sessions, and mopping-up actions, and everyone wanted the Last Jedi involved, even if his role was more ceremonial than practical.

At least Mara was accomplishing something <i>useful</i> in her meetings. Even in such a short span of time, she'd managed to make quite a name for herself among the New Republic bureaucrats. They might curse her as a hard bargainer, but they respected her as much as they feared her. Both attitudes went a long way towards smoothing out the previously rocky relationship between legitimate and illegitimate--just as Luke had hoped when he nudged Mara into accepting the job.  

Yet somehow the two of them had managed to carve time out to train together at regular intervals--even if she groused about her workload every time they met.  

"Thanks for coming on such short notice," he said, gesturing to the fading sun. "I used to watch the sunset all the time when I was a kid, wishing I was somewhere--anywhere--else. Now here I am decades later, right where I always wanted to be, and I don't know what comes next."

Mara snorted and shifted her weight. The lightsaber clipped to her belt--that had once belonged to Anakin Skywalker--shifted against the balcony as she moved. She had taken to wearing the weapon openly these days, which could only make the bureaucrats even more nervous than they already were. Seeing it visible made Luke's heart beat faster, even if he couldn't articulate why.

Gifting it to her hadn't been Luke's most subtle gesture. But it had been a way for him to honor and thank her for saving his life several times over--as well as an invitation to continue her Jedi training in the future.

Mara Jade's relationship with the Jedi Order--and Luke himself--was... complex, to say the least. She had grown up in the Imperial Palace, trained since childhood to be the Emperor's Hand, the silent, subtle executioner of his will against enemies and traitors alike. Palpatine had channeled her fledgling abilities to mold her into a perfect servant, one who could hear his voice anywhere in the galaxy and respond accordingly. The Emperor's dying wish had been for her to murder the man he'd claimed was responsible for his death--Luke Skywalker, last of the old Jedi and first of the new.

Suffice to say things had not gone according to plan.

"Spare me your existential angst," she said, turning back to the sunset. "As far as I can tell, there's nothing to complain about. C'baoth and Thrawn are gone, and the war is over. The peace treaty with the Empire might actually last. What's left to figure out?"

Luke extracted a black velvet bag hanging from his belt and held it out to her. "Have you ever seen anything like this before?"

She accepted the offering gingerly. "What is it?"

"You tell me."

She opened the bag and squinted inside before spilling its contents onto her palm. A knobbly brown lump emerged, along with half a dozen smaller black orbs jammed neatly into its indentations.

"It's organic, whatever it is," she said at last, shoving it back into the bag and handing it back to Luke. "Looks a cone off of some sort of tree, but not a species I recognize. And seeds, perhaps?"

"You're right, it <i>is</i> from a tree," Luke said. He carefully re-attached the bag to special pouch across from his own lightsaber. "Are you sure you haven't seen it before?"

"Positive. Why?"

"The Jedi Order planted these trees at all of their temples," Luke said. "As far as I know, they were wiped out along with the Jedi as part of the Emperor's purge. There was at least one here on Coruscant and I thought maybe you--"

Mara shook her head. "Must have been before my time. I never saw or heard anything about them. But Palpatine and Vader must not have been as thorough as they thought if you have seeds. Where did you get them, anyway? "

"There's a tree on Dagobah that Yoda took me to see before he died," Luke said softly. "I went back to visit it again before facing Vader. This time, there were seeds, so I took some. And I promised... I promised to plant these seeds, to bring them back along with the Jedi Order."

His voice trailed off, lost in the memory of that encounter, of all the possible futures he'd witnessed in the moment he'd accepted the seeds.

Mara's voice cut abruptly into his meditation, drawing him back to the present. "I fail to see what the problem is, Skywalker."

Luke gathered himself together. "I grew up on a desert world; I don't know anything about plants. If I screw this up, it might be a long time before I can get seeds again--there can be decades, centuries even, between harvests. I--I was hoping that you might know something that would help me."

A long pause. He took a deep breath and plunged ahead. "I don't know who else to ask," he said at last.

Silence stretched out between them as they pondered this admission and its implications. Finally, Mara stirred. "What about Karrde?"

"I thought he dealt more in people than plants."

"He doesn't know everything, but's worth a shot," Mara said. "Information <i>is</i> his business, after all. He has access to all kinds of sources that you don't get if you follow legal channels. And he's full of surprises."

Luke raised an eyebrow. "Yes, I suppose he might know something about botany--he built his base on Myrkr around a giant tree, after all. But can I afford his services?"

"You get what you pay for with Karrde," she said. "Besides, I think he owes you a favor after you rescued him from Imperial interrogation."

"I had help."

"So let's say you bring the trees back," Mara said, turning away from him. Her role in Karrde's rescue was still a touchy subject, given that she'd been coerced into betraying her boss to the Empire in the first place. "What then? Do the Jedi just start popping out of the woodwork?"

"I don't know," Luke admitted. "The two go together in ways I don't fully understand yet. There's an old saying that when the student is ready, the master appears. But I'm not even close to being a master yet. I don't even know if I'm <i>ready</i> to take on students yet."

She shot him a puzzled look. "You're not such a bad teacher."

From Mara, this was high praise and he took a moment to savor it before plunging ahead. "But you already know so much. In some ways, you have more formal training than I do. It's more like I'm just... reminding you of what you already know than teaching anything new."

Mara winced, and Luke didn't need the Force to know what she was thinking. The four years between Palpatine's death at Endor and joining Karrde's organization had been brutal for her, not in the least because her Force abilities had gone haywire in the trauma. It was only in the last year--the last few months, really, after their victory at Wayland--that she'd been able to find any kind of peace.  

"I think you're getting ahead of yourself," she said at last. "We can keep working until you build your confidence back up--and since I don't see a queue of eager students lining up, you might as well work on this tree business. Take my advice and talk to Karrde. See what he says about it."

"How do I sign up for an appointment? I hear he's pretty busy these days."

"Aren't we all." Mara rolled her eyes. "Don't worry, I'll get you in."

"Thank you," Luke said, and meant it.

"And if you're worried about money, I don't think he'll set too high a price," she added as she turned away, off to the next meeting. "He doesn't even want credits from you, anyway.  More likely he'll ask you for a favor he can call on later the next time he's in a jam, assuming he asks for anything at all."

He winced. Karrde's favors tended to be... interesting. "I was afraid of that."

"Oh, come <i>on</i>. You tried to bargain with him for your freedom back when you had <i>nothing</i> but the clothes on your back and he was contemplating whether to sell you to the Empire. How could this be any more awkward than <i>that</i>?"

Luke had to admit she had a point.