Hayley

The air in Rousseau's was thick with the smell of gumbo and stale beer, a strange comfort for Mara. She traced the rim of her glass, the hum of conversations around her a dull thrum against the frantic beat of her own heart. This wasn't home. This wasn't even her body. But here she was, Hayley Marshall, sitting in a New Orleans bar, plotting to save a fictional family.

Her notepad, filled with frantic scrawls of 'save Kol,' 'reject Elijah,' and 'don't marry Jackson,' lay open beside her steaming bowl of gumbo. Marcel Gerard, the self-proclaimed King of the Quarter, had just left, his arrogance a stark reminder of the chaos she was now immersed in. He'd bought her hook, line, and sinker, agreeing to her outlandish demands with a curious smirk.

She took a deep breath, the scent of spices and supernatural power filling her lungs. This was it. The starting line of her forced new life. No turning back now. She had to make this work. For herself, for the baby she carried, and perhaps, for the messed-up Mikaelson family she was now inexplicably bound to.