#ofdrivensnow

@ofdrivensnow sent: ❝ 𝚠𝚎'𝚟𝚎 𝚋𝚎𝚎𝚗 𝚐𝚘𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚊𝚝 𝚒𝚝 𝚏𝚘𝚛 𝚑𝚘𝚞𝚛𝚜. ❞ from 𝐂𝐨𝐫𝐢𝐨𝐥𝐚𝐧𝐮𝐬 𝐭𝐨 𝐋𝐮𝐜𝐲 𝐆𝐫𝐚𝐲.

Hours back and forth. Arguing was a nasty feeling Lucy Gray avoided on the regular, or so she told herself. Passionately disagreeing, she'd prefer to call it, but anger? Oh that sat hot in her chest, immovable, refusing to budge and fueled by nothing but anger, guilt, and emotional turmoil amplifying rather than calming. Boiled down to one teeny tiny trait of hers called stubbornness. The exact reason why she was a singer, feelings drawn from emotional recall she could tap into and convey, pure emotion driving the song’s undertone and portraying what she wanted her story to tell.

Arguing was a different kind of art. It went on the fly as she waxed poetics, hitting the same driving points over and over in multiple ways until it left her confused and out of breath. Walls were hit, words taken out of context and twisted by either party, but the root of the problem itself that Coriolanus too seemed stubborn to let land and accept was one simple truth: he’d lied to her.

Unfortunately for both… they weren’t quitters.

"Then just admit it, Coriolanus." It caused her voice to almost splinter despite feet planted firm as the tallest and mightiest tree. "You've been lying to me from the very beginning. This was based on a lie... first to make me shine for my victory, then yours. It's why you still won't tell me about the third..." Himself... a joke, a slap to the face. Not that of a proud member of the Capitol.

"I do think that mistake was all mine actually." Lucy Gray admits slowly blinking as she thinks back to it all. Every little thing he had said to her ever good dead he had done. It was all utter bullshit just ways for him to make himself look better or to push his agenda. He had never cared about her no he had only done all of it to get himself farther. She was a stepping stone on his path to greatness rather than a person to be loved and cherished. Why had she opened her heart to him? Why had she written him a damn song?

"My only regret is that I let you dig your roots so deeply into my life. Now you know every way you could ruin my life." She should have listened to Dean Highbottom she should've run the other way as soon as Coriolanus showed up in District 12. She thinks of Maude Ivory and CC who were young enough to be chosen for the games. They were rigged to choose Lucy Gray who was to say he wouldn't ask them to be rigged for either or both of the kids? That some guard would raid the home and plant something to send away Barb Azure or Tam Amber. She had put her entire family at risk for something as silly as love and she'll hate herself for it for the rest of her life.

Lucy Gray still wasn't sure how she felt about being back in the Capitol after all these years. She hadn't even come back voluntarily. No, Coriolanus had forced her to come back, using his new found power as President to command Peacekeepers to find her. It had taken them almost two years but she had been captured just beyond the boundary of District 8 and forced to return. So, here she found herself. Walking arm and arm with her captor, Peacekeepers walking close behind for his protection more than hers. He was making enemies as President since he was far from a fair ruler and she knew he liked the image it presented. He wanted to be seen as a cold and imposing figure to all of Panem and the Capitol was no exception. She looked around the street, loathing the noise of all the traffic and the lack of trees and wilderness. The missed the stillness of the Districts. The quite, the peace. The Capitol was anything but peaceful, made even worse by the fact she had been brought back here against her will. She wouldn't beg or plead to be sent home, for she knew that was going to fall on deaf ears. He expected that this would be her home now, as though being kidnapped was the best foundation for their reunion. She didn't think he cared. No, the boy she had fallen in love with, with those soft blonde curls was long gone and replaced with a man she barely recognised. She missed that boy. She was just about to ask where exactly he was going when suddenly there was a scuffle just out of the corner of her eye. She instantly moved closer to Coriolanus as the shouting started and then someone was racing toward them, yelling that "This is for my daughter, you son of a bitch." And she realised with horror that the man yelling was holding a gun. She felt everything moved in slow motion as she turned to push Corionalus back as the single shot rang out in her ear. Peacekeepers were already moving and there were other gunshots ringing out. She barely heard them as pain exploded in her shoulder and she fell backwards with a cry and hit the concrete with a crunch.

a crystal wine glass shattered against the wall of the dressing room when abilene threw it towards the styling team . a short man and a tall woman , both with hair bleached white as a cloud with brows and lashes to match , had entered the room with tools to make you presentable , they had said . frankly , who the fuck cared about being presentable ? did it matter how pretty she looked when she'd be dead ?

there was a far more pressing issue on the young woman's mind than the state of her mother's yellow dress or her unkempt hair after the train they'd separated her and colt . as soon as they were shoved from the train they were surrounded by people held back by peacekeepers , and a few more peacekeepers had grabbed the pair by their arms and half carried them to these dark , stuffy rooms .

abilene's limbs were shaking and her cheeks were damp . her eyes weren't too puffy , but the redness to her cheeks and nose made it obvious that the moment the train doors shut she'd been crying . abilene angrily wiped beneath her eyes , jaw set as she watched whatever dark and strong smelling liquid dripped down the wall from where the glass had shattered .

the styling team whispered something about an animal as they both backed out of the room leaving most of their supplies behind . abilene expected peacekeepers to follow , but when the door opened it was just one man . he didn't look much older than her but she didn't take the time to notice anything else about him . she reached down to where a longer shard of the glass had ricocheted from the wall towards her feet and held the pointed end towards him .

❛ You look like him. The boy I met. ❜

The Boy that saved her. The Boy she used to love.

His buzzcut outgrown him and thus the return of those gilded waves, soft and gentle, empathic spun to the outreached tips. She wonders, to her own, if they've outgrown each other.

The woods gave them that. The Capitol did, too.

@ofdrivensnow

"A game? You mean like the kind that your people just love to play with us District folks? The kind where I was forced away from The Covey, from my home, and locked in goddamn cage with other kids ripped away from their lives just like I was from mine? The kind of game where they throw us into an arena and the only way out is to kill one another until just one of us is left standin? Those kinda games, Coriolanus?"

Lips press into a thin line, fingers toying with the edge of her shawl but she keeps her face brave, her chin up. "I never thought there'd be a shred of kindness in the Capitol. I sure wasn't expectin any. But you were, you were kind to me, and you will never understand how much that means to me. You risked your life t'save mine and I will never ever forget that. I care about you, I do, but I don't believe love exists in a world like this anymore- how could it? Everyone I have ever loved has been ripped away from me at one point or another and I- I cannot take one more shred of heartbreak- especially not from the kind boy who broke my trust. You wanted me to win, Coriolanus, well I did, and now this is the result....this is what it's become."

don't smile at me ( billie eilish ) meme ( no longer accepting ) + @ofdrivensnow // cornilius

" don't talk about me like you might know how i feel. "

tonight had been SO VERY LONG. how she'd come home, late, at his arm ; only never in arm, were they, once they were out of the public's eye. he cared so much for what they thought, and avery, she stands amid the cavernous beauty of their hallway, still. alone. he's already rushed off ahead, annoyed and looking to shed himself of tonight's finery as he throws his words, dismissive, like salt over his shoulder. it stops her in her tracks, her arm lowing, the clutch she held within her fingers, loosely left to dangle. don't talk about me like you might know how i feel.

HOW INSULTING.

this war of theirs was one of silence. one of attrition, of never breaking from the party line. neither of them cared for this, and if he wasn't going to be quiet about the fact, why should she SWALLOW his insults? she'd been raised, far too proud and too willing to fight, to allow for that level of disrespect... but marriage, especially one like this one, were built for purpose, not for love. what more could have been expected, by either of them?

don't smile at me ( billie eilish ) meme ( no longer accepting ) + @ofdrivensnow // cornelius

nobody really talks about what happens after you get married. she knows, logistically ; she isn't a fool, her mother tries, she knows ( she knows, she knows ) what comes with being a woman in the capitol if you haven't the military might to back it. they'd never really concerned themselves with such things until the war, where everything changes. at first they hardly mattered at all, didn't they? but come the rounding of a NEW REGIME, suddenly arts, culture... people cared for it again, looking to feel something as a point of pride when in the capitol itself.

for a capitol that looked itself as having DRENCHED itself in war and famine was hardly a capitol worth revering. and without reverence, or fear... what did they have any longer? certainly not pride, that was to be sure.

and ah, there's cornelius. that fucking man and all his ambition, his insecurities that she reads out and keeps note of like any smart person would if left in such treacherous company. him, and that woman... she liked NEITHER of them. his colour was black, despite the name, and hers, oh, that woman with her lap coat and those deadened eyes looked as if she were a mix of everything, by forcefulness of her own hand. she neither appreciated nor cared for what happened about her, but rather chased the exoticism of the what if. it's as if she never thought to ask why she did the terrible things she did at all.

home is no better. cold. quiet. there's a cousin but she moves out, apparently, something happens and her husband refuses to talk about it. he refuses to talk much at all, it seems, as if afraid of what might slip without him noticing. forever on guard. her father tells her, in a dead language that he had known from before panam, that he's a HORRIBLE FUCKING PERSON, and oh, she sees it through a scanner darkly, doesn't she?

" one of us is going to lose. "