Chapter Text
Coffee was the only constant thing he had been drinking for years, and it wasn't because he particularly liked it. In fact, Coriolanus had a weakness for sweet flavors. The fluffy pear pastries his grandmother used to make for Tigris and him were his favorites, along with the apple pie his wife had baked for their wedding in Twelve. Still, he was forced to consume the bitter drink because it was the only one that did not cause a burning sensation in his mouth. It also had the useful quality of masking the smell of blood beneath its strong, earthy aroma. Of course, when that was not enough, Coriolanus applied the rose perfume that had been made for him. He did not like it much either, but it was better than the ones available in the Capitol.
It had become part of a ritual. Every afternoon, after finishing his work in his office, he would go to the terrace in the north wing of the mansion and drink the brew. The only detail he disliked, aside from the coffee itself, was the trilling of the mockingbirds in Lucy Gray’s greenhouse, which could be heard even from where he stood. Coriolanus had not refused to bring them. In fact, he had proposed the idea himself in an attempt to appeal to his wife’s fondness for birds and her desire to bring the Meadow into their home in the Capitol. However, he couldn't stand them. They reminded him too much of their offspring, those unpleasant creatures that had emerged from Dr. Gaul’s carelessness in the districts, and of screams that, no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't erase from his mind:
«Run! Run, Lil! Ru—!»
«Ma! Ma! Ma!»
Coriolanus poured a bit of cream into the cup. Now that he was in charge, he could finally exterminate them. Those abominations shouldn't exist. The only ones he would spare, for the sake of his wife’s sanity, were her mockingbirds. At least those were not mutts that couldn't be controlled, and they blended perfectly with Lucy Gray’s beautiful voice when she sang to their children. And to him, especially.
The Head Gamemaker, Tiberius Creed, had arrived punctually to meet him, which was the least Coriolanus expected from anyone entering his office. He was a man in his twenties, with bright green eyes belonging to someone who had too much passion for a job he considered brilliant and who had been waiting for the right moment to show it off. He was the eldest son of Festus and Persephone, and he had his mother’s oval face and his father’s temperament, though softened. He was deliciously credulous, but with good ideas. Coriolanus would've preferred another candidate, but the boy had earned his place and could learn, as long as he measured his own credulity. He couldn't have another Festus weeping after his first killed, though the boy seemed insensitive to that so far. He supposed growing up watching the Games had helped.
The arena for the 34th Hunger Games he had proposed was... curious, to put it mildly. Tiberius had referred to it as an allegory of the districts’ bestiality, for its wild and filthy nature.
A swamp. Vast, with dense vegetation and humid air that the tributes would feel in their lungs from the very first second. The Cornucopia would be placed on an islet of solid ground surrounded by water on all sides, presenting an initial dilemma: dive into the water for supplies or retreat to dry land empty-handed. Either way, it would make for a good spectacle. Tiberius had designed that choice knowing it was a trap in both directions, and that showed he understood something fundamental about the Games: the arena should not kill the Tributes, but force them to kill each other or make decisions that pushed them toward their own end.
Beneath the pool surrounding the Cornucopia, the scientists working with Tiberius had designed a network of aquatic mutts that Coriolanus had examined with particular attention in the plans: long-bodied creatures with translucent skin, eyeless, responding to movement and body heat. A Tribute who fell into the water would hear nothing before it was too late, which was a design detail Coriolanus approved of, though he hoped they would activate toward the end of the Games.
The “dry” terrain was not truly dry. It would be filled with large patches of mud and sand of varying density, ranging from firm ground to depths sufficient to swallow someone whole. The trees, twisted and with exposed roots, would reduce visibility without completely obscuring it, forcing the tributes to keep moving since there would be no way to hide for long. Then, as they noticed the instability of the ground, perhaps by the third day, they would turn their attention to the Cornucopia, forcing another bloodbath.
Indeed, “curious” was the correct word to describe it. It was not an arena meant to resolve quickly, but to wear them down until persistence itself worked against them.
Coriolanus had approved the plans with two minor modifications and ended the meeting in forty minutes. Tiberius Creed had left visibly satisfied, which also benefited his relationship with his father’s household. Even if the boy had produced nonsense, Coriolanus would've done no more than pat him on the shoulder and urge him to try again. He would not jeopardize negotiations with Festus over a reprimand to his firstborn. He hadn't done so with the poor fool Sejanus, and he wouldn't do so now. After all, in Lucy Gray’s words: «You catch more flies with honey than with vinegar.» Though sometimes, a few spoonfuls of vinegar were not a bad idea.
He stirred the cream into the coffee, watching the white swirl dissolve into the dark brown without fully integrating. The coffee tasted inexplicably more bitter when he swallowed.
That saying had not worked with his own wife. The scar at the back of his neck proved it. He still remembered the impact of ceramic against his skin.
It had been a vase. A fine porcelain vase that had belonged to his grandma'am, which Coriolanus had replaced the next day, as he couldn't afford for anyone to know what had happened to its predecessor. Though it had left an open wound, what had struck him most was hearing Lucy Gray’s voice filled with a fury she had never directed at him before. It had always been aimed at the Capitol, at the system, at the Peacekeepers, never at Coriolanus. Never at her husband. The man who had saved her from certain death in the Games, and then from another in the districts.
He remembered shouting at her, calling her ungrateful and inconsiderate toward someone who had always done everything for her. Someone who loved her more than those famished musicians she cared for so much, despite no longer receiving letters from them. Someone who had given her two children, a home, and more comfort than she could have dared to dream of.
Then there had been more shouting. They had shouted a lot that night.
He didn't shout by habit. It was a discipline he had cultivated since youth, the conviction that raising one’s voice meant losing ground, showing a lack of control. Showing vulnerability. But Lucy Gray had a way of provoking unusual reactions in him, of igniting his flames in every sense, making him lose control in a way that, in retrospect, he considered in poor taste.
It had all started when he told her that the 34th Hunger Games would proceed as planned, without the pause he had promised when Rosa was born. He had explained that he could not cancel the Games so soon into his presidency, that it would weaken his power. He had told her to wait, that he would do it in time. But Lucy Gray hadn't listened.
«Did I act like your perfect wife all these years just to receive more lies, Coriolanus? How long do you plan to keep betraying me?» she had said in a tone that made his skin crawl. There was no melody in it, and her voice always had one. «I trusted you.»
He had tried to approach her, but Lucy Gray had left the room without giving him a chance to respond.
Then she had torn off the pearls. A necklace he had given her in their second year of marriage, once he had saved enough money to buy it. From that moment on, she had worn it daily, just like her mother’s shawl. She had even started a fashion among Capitol women: “Snow’s pearls,” they called them. «Look like Mrs. Snow!»
When the thread snapped and the pearls rolled down the stairs, something had broken in Coriolanus’s chest. Something irritating that lived there only for Lucy Gray. Something similar to when he had seen her speaking with Billy Taupe that time. His palms tingled.
He had grabbed her wrists tightly, pulling her against his chest. He only wanted to make her see reason. To make her understand that everything he did was for her good, for the good of their family. Lucy Gray had shrunk away and cried in a way he had never seen before: a quiet, exhausted sob of someone whose heart had been broken.
As if she did not have the power to do the same to him.
Suddenly, footsteps interrupted his thoughts. He immediately recognized the familiar rhythm: unhurried, with that slight echo of heels characteristic of the stilettos Clemensia Dovecote always wore, regardless of the hour or occasion.
He stopped stirring and waited.
Clemensia appeared at the threshold of the terrace, looking like someone who had slept exactly the hours she needed and had devoted sufficient time to her appearance before leaving, which, for her, was always the case. She wore a dark plum suit, tailored, with slightly structured shoulders, and her hair, now shorter than in the Academy, was arranged with clinical precision. Her feline features, which the years and Capitol procedures had sharpened rather than softened, held an expression somewhere between amusement and contempt that Coriolanus knew well.
She had been his classmate at the Academy, then his ally in his early years as Head Gamemaker, and now his Head of Communications. Working with her was like a good poison: predictable in its effects if one knew what one was using, and dangerous in exact proportion to the attention one failed to pay. Coriolanus never stopped paying attention. That was why they were still working together after all these years.
“Congratulations are in order, Coryo,” she said. She was the only one, besides Lucy Gray, who still used that nickname. Coriolanus believed it was less out of affection and more to remind both him and others how well she knew him. “I hear your wife lost her memory.”
The corner of Coriolanus’s mouth twitched. He raised the cup to hide his reaction.
Of course Clemensia knew. The real surprise would have been anything that escaped her.
“I suppose I cannot kill a snake I raised in my own house.” He set the cup down. “I asked you to stop watching me, Clemmie.”
“You know I only take care of you.” She crossed her legs. “Who knows why. We already had the tongue of the idiot housekeeper who gave me the information cut out.”
Coriolanus nodded. It was the kind of decision that did not require discussion between them, part of the tacit language they had built over twenty years of working in the same territory.
“What are you going to do with that?” she asked.
There was no irony in her question, or not only irony. Clemensia had the ability to be genuinely curious about his decisions without that curiosity becoming a challenge. He liked that about her.
“What we both enjoy: a good show,” he said.
Clemensia raised an eyebrow. Then she picked up the cup of coffee he had ordered for her. Hers had a hint of vanilla.
“You want to break your own narrative?”
“Oh no, my dear. I intend to use it.”
“Of course you do,” she said, a dry laugh shaking her shoulders. “Enlighten me.”
“My wife does not remember her Games,” he began. Clemensia’s eyebrows rose high. “She doesn't remember our children. She doesn't remember me.” He paused. “What she does remember is that she can sing. And put on a good show.”
Clemensia stared at him for a long moment, taking a slow sip from her cup.
“You’ve spent two decades wanting her to sing for them again,” she said incredulously. “Do you think that just because she doesn’t remember, all that hatred she has for us will magically disappear?”
Coriolanus nodded. Lucy Gray had arrived in the Capitol determined that the Games had been her last performance for them, that her voice was hers and would not serve a city that used her people as entertainment. Coriolanus had tried to persuade her in many ways over the years, and she had yielded in many things, but not in that. It was one of the few boundaries she had maintained with a consistency he had to admit was admirable, even if inconvenient.
Now that boundary did not exist. And the story he had told her reinforced the idea that she had willingly come and married him for love. There was no clause, the one he had once promised her when convincing her to run away with him:
«When I'm President, I will end the Games, Lucy Gray,» he had said, holding her hands. «But I need you by my side for that to happen.»
“She won’t hate us if she believes love is stronger than hate,” he replied.
Another laugh escaped Clemensia’s lips. “What have you told her, Coryo?”
“Only the truth. That she is my wife, that we love each other, that we live in the Capitol…”
“And you conveniently omitted how all of that happened. Where. Of course you did,” she interrupted. “There are records. People remember her among those snakes…”
“People remember a sixteen-year-old girl who sang in an arena two decades ago. They don't remember she is their First Lady.” He held her gaze. “The only ones who know are thirty people. Ten are dead. Eighteen know it is best to stay silent. And two of us prefer to use our heads.”
Over the past twenty-four years, the narrative of Lucy Gray as a victor had been systematically diluted: through public appearances where she was Mrs. Snow rather than a Victor, through the absence of her name in commemorative records, and through the way her voice survived in Capitol archives without the context that would make it recognizable. He had made sure her voice lived on. Of course he had. His wife was from the districts and sang beautifully. But she had not been a Victor. And he had not been her Mentor.
“The First Lady and I remain deeply in love, from the moment I first saw her perform in Twelve when I was a Peacekeeper. Now more than ever, we are united so Panem may flourish. It's our love story.” Coriolanus licked his lips, the taste of coffee mixing unpleasantly with blood. “And who doesn’t love a good love story, Clemmie?”
Clemensia studied him for a long moment. Then she set her cup down slowly.
“Lucky Flickerman can have her next week,” she said, her tone returning to its professional neutrality. “We can arrange a brief interview so the public sees that their Mrs. Snow is safe and well. Then I can speak to Lucky so he encourages her to sing.”
“Good,” he replied, picking up a knife to cut a piece of cake. “Have her wear the white dress.”
Clemensia nodded. Then, without changing her tone, she said:
“The children.”
“What about them?”
“They are the best thing you have, and you are not using them yet.” Her smile reminded him of a time she had been pleased because he had done the work for both of them. What followed had been unfortunate. Oh, well... “You have the Mother of Panem, Coryo. That is worth more than any performance you could arrange. We have spent twenty-four years seeing her as your wife. Now we need to see her as a mother.
“A wife can be dispensable if circumstances change. A mother isn't. A mother implies home, future, permanence. If people begin to see her as the Mother of Panem, they stop seeing your government as an exercise of power and start seeing it as a family that cares for the country. Those who don't identify with you can identify with her, and that identification transfers without them noticing.” She paused. “Besides, you give them something they feel they possess. She is no longer just your wife, but their mother.”
The idea stirred something in Coriolanus’s chest. Not quite annoyance, but close. “The Mother of Panem” was a good idea. A very good one. He could see its potential clearly: Lucy Gray holding their children, winning over every woman in the Capitol, becoming the face of grief when a child died in the Games; Lucy Gray in the districts, soothing unrest. He could almost picture it. She would wear a dress with embroidered flowers and say, “We must not fight. Think of our children.”
But what soured the thought was offering Lucy Gray to them. She had always belonged to the stage, yes, and for a time, she had been theirs. But for years she had been his, at his side, his Lucy Gray. The mere idea of sharing her again, especially with the districts, irritated him.
That cold anger that had risen in him when he saw her sing for Billy Taupe on television resurfaced. Still, he forced himself to swallow a piece of chocolate cake and maintain composure.
“I will take the children shopping in a few days. Make sure you are there.”
“Mmm.” She picked up her bag. “Ah, and a warning, since we are being honest this morning.”
Coriolanus raised an eyebrow, waiting. Clemensia rarely warned him of anything.
“Lucy Gray with her children in the middle is a variable you cannot control the same way as Lucy Gray alone. Whatever she does for you, whatever she accepts or yields, when it comes to them, she does not negotiate. She never has.”
Coriolanus knew what she was referring to: Aurelius. The day of the incident, when their son had been shot, there had been too much blood for a three-year-old child, and he had had to hold Lucy Gray by the waist before she reached the man the Peacekeepers restrained. She hadn't hesitated. Not for a second. She had seen her child cry and had become that Lucy Gray from the arena again.
He had made sure the man suffered afterward, of course. He would continue to do so for the rest of his miserable life. However, to his surprise, the punishment had been Lucy Gray’s idea. She hadn't hesitated to propose it.
Nor had she hesitated when she threw the vase. Nor when she jumped from that bridge, apparently.
“I will keep it in mind, Clemmie,” he said.
“Good.” She moved toward the doorway, then paused, giving him one last look, softer than usual. “Take care, Coryo. And make sure you know what you are doing. Nightingales peck. Or worse, they flee.”
She left without waiting for a reply, her heels echoing down the corridor until the sound disappeared.
Coriolanus did not move for a moment.
Nightingales flee.
He knew. He had known from the beginning. It was part of what made Lucy Gray who she was. And, if he were honest, part of what made letting her go something he was not willing to consider.
He picked up the cup. The coffee was cold.
He drank it anyway.