Chapter Text
Those of the capital were not the religious type.
Lucy had means and a form to change that.
She begun at the top.
She began with Coriolanus.
"Where is she?" He roared, his features livid and his anger frightening. It was directed at the staff of the capital, the staff that were individuals apiece to his property and his control but not individuals. "She has broken ribs, a damaged pelvis, and a serious head injury! She cannot have left!"
Coriolanus panicked further for her Clydesdale horses, and the donkey, were still in the garden of the presidential mansion. One could not get as far on foot as they could on a horse; nothing would be more conspicuous in the Capitol than a small woman with distinct injuries on a horse with hooves the size of dinner plates.
As far as he knew, she had not been able to eat.
Coriolanus knew she could be delirious. She only had to have one collapse, hit her head again, suffer a seizure, and she would die.
It was nearly Midnight, with his left hand trembling despite the four glasses of alcohol he had consumed, when he remembered the lake in the middle of the wastelands; the dead trees, struck by lightening, Lucy had been apart of.
He had a vehicle brought to the door, with rope on the rear seats; two peacekeepers accompanied him. He did not need them for Lucy, but he needed their authority, and the fear they induced, for his own needs.
Coriolanus was numbed with worry and aggression, shaken to pieces by the dirt tracks of the steppe landscape, when he discovered he was correct.
"Find somewhere to go; I will find you when I get her." Coriolanus told the driver, the peacekeepers. The vehicle was parked in the open; no one looked to them, for they looked to Lucy. Coriolanus stepped out of the vehicle; he removed most of his clothes, but retained his shoes, trousers, shirt, and belt. He reached for the rope, and nodded stiffly at the driver.
Coriolanus walked towards the nomads, the stockmen, the travellers, the farmers, with his jaw gritted. The darkness was intense around him; it was not home, but neither was the alternative that he walked towards. There were lanterns with candles inside; oil drums burning and open fires. There was a bonfire so large it could have been a hazard; it was at least twice the size of the vehicle Coriolanus had journeyed in. He did not know how they could afford to use so much wood for one night, with winter approaching.
Last time to get songbird in the water before it freezes, the back of Coriolanus's mind murmured.
He twisted and gripped the rope in his hands.
Lucy was up to her waist in the water, and there were at least a hundred people in the water with her, or on the shore. There were no children, no elderly. The people wore bright clothes, masks, animal horns; they wore paint on their bodies, pieces of glass and metal jewelry in their hair, pierced through their ears, nose, lips, or eyebrows.
Lucy in the water sung softly but audibly; it was as fast as she might hold a conversation, her words pulsing across the water.
Everything had been so slow as of recently.
Nothing ever came to fruition; there was never any release.
"Lumière d'étoile, étoile brillante
Première étoile que je vois ce soir
J'aimerais bien, j'aimerais bien
J'ai le souhait que je souhaite ce soir..." Lucy sung, swirling and twisting her body gracefully in the water, moving her arms around her body, above her head; touching her face and her hair. Coriolanus wondered if she had filled her stomach with the pain-relief tablets to be able to do that; the catheter was removed from her arm, but Coriolanus realized it had been gone for longer than he had realized. When she had washed her hair and massaged her scalp with the hot milk from her donkey, she could not have done so with the catheter in her elbow.
"Lumière d'étoile, étoile brillante
Première étoile que je vois ce soir
J'aimerais bien, j'aimerais bien
J'ai le souhait que je souhaite ce soir..."
A robe dress of yellow cloth she wore clung to her figure as a second skin from the way the water had drenched her. She most as well have been naked. Coriolanus could see the shape of her nipples, her belly button, her hipbones, the density of her wet pubic hair through the cloth.
Coriolanus drew the edge of the lake, ready to walk in, when Lucy saw him.
"Sweetheart!" She exclaimed. She radiated happiness. Coriolanus could see she was high; some drug induced state that her her sunbathing close to Saturn. "Everyone, my man is here!" The hundred people made the noise of a thousand. They screamed, shouted, roared, bellowed and howled in so many languages, volumes, and pitches that Coriolanus saw black spots appear over the line of his vision briefly. "My darlin' is here! Come here! Kiss me, kiss me!"
Lucy's dress fell away from her body and to the lake bed to be trampled and forgotten as she awkwardly moved through the water, trying to run but interrupted by the rocks and stocks on the lake bed, the density of the water, the closeness of people.
Lucy threw herself into Coriolanus's arms, and called over his head, "Hit it, boys!"
Her band, almost lost to Coriolanus amongst the other heathens, began to play the jaunty, cheerful opening to some sort of folk song he had never heard before. He only saw they had more instruments, and different instruments, to what they had last time.
"If my fella could sing, this is what he would be singing!" She declared, one arm around Coriolanus's neck, and her legs around his waist. Somebody threw her a portable microphone; Coriolanus was so wet, and she had made him so wet, he was amazed the two of them were not electrocuted.
"She showed me what love is
I'm actin' like I know myself
Oh, in case you didn't notice
Oh, oh, I would go blind just to see you
I'd go too far just to have you near
In my soul, I've got this feeling, I
Didn't know until I seen ya!"
Lucy went to leap out of Coriolanus's arms, but he held onto her stead-fastedly, growling at her, begging her beneath his breath to stop.
As she sung, the crowd joined in.
Coriolanus's head spun with the alien quality of the situation.
He had experienced much worse in life, so much worse.
This felt worse because he knew he was being extorted, bewitched.
"My, my, my, oh, my, my, my
You mind my mind, you mind my mind
Oh, my, my, my, you mind my mind
Oh, my, my, my -!"
"Blondey baby is insatiable is what he is!" Lucy sung, pointing at Coriolanus's head with the microphone, before letting out a great laugh; a cackling laugh.
Coriolanus wondered if he could get away with tearing the microphone from her hand, and partially drowning her in the lake to shut her up, to take her away.
"His body's like a modern art..." Lucy sung, smiling down at him.
Take it out in front of me..." She kissed his closed eyes, and rested her cheek against his. She felt that his skin was hot; he felt that her skin was hot.
"I've gotta stop messin' it up because I'm
Feelin' like I'm messin' it up
Because I'm callin' out your name and God help me
'Cause, oh, I'm never gonna love again, hey
I'm never gonna love again, hey, oh..."
"Ooo..." The crowd sung, and began to sway gently, the tone of the song and the tone of the music changing. Its jauntiness vanished; it's cheerfulness remained and was enhanced by the masterfully enacted atmospheric quality that came from the hands of the band and the people.
"Isn't my Church lovely?" Lucy said to him, caressing his face. "My Church, not my arena. No blood, no children getting killed. No agony of birth and death of woman wasted in vain, because all her children and loved and are happy in my Church. You want to be apart of my Church, too. You want me Church to be part of you but you won't let the congregation come. You said you didn't need me. You said loyalty is just part of you. You lied to me. You lied to yourself. You want to be God; all Gods want a Goddess, or want a choir to sing for them. You want a bit of both...you know I'm a bit of both. You know I'm more. You want more. You always want more. Me...I just want to create. I always want to create more. You want to create what I possess. You would lie for me, say you did it yourself so I could be alright. You have. Already have."
"What have you taken?" Coriolanus whispered.
"What have you taken." Lucy stated, gazing deep into his eyes.
Drops of water ran and streamed down her skin; over her arms, her legs. Her hair was pasted back against her scalp. She held onto Coriolanus so she would not loose her grip on him because of the water.
She had no idea if she suffocated him; if his passion had suffocated him, yet.