Chapter Text
Blood was most certainly not a taste foreign to Coriolanus’s mouth. The rush of warm iron spewing from his lips tainted the pristine ivory of his image, splattering his white beard and handkerchief in an angry, scarlet mess. In the past, the sight of this red ensemble had unconsciously been correlated with victory; a triumphant declaration that he had won yet another challenge, the clatter of another pawn being knocked off the game board. On him, however, the color brought forth a completely different revelation.
It was a reminder of his mortality, the ever quickening arrival of death. Years he had spent pouring funds into improving capitol medicine, indulging in healthier dieting habits, even researching endurance practices of the ancient world. He had given everything to flee from the clutches of death over and over, and for some time, he had been successful.
But snow was a beautiful, yet unforgiving force of nature. Coating the world in white left no room for impurities, no blemish left forgotten or untouched. And so, as he sat silently in his greenhouse, Coriolanus relaxed his shoulders, and with it, relaxed his grip on the last bits of life he had viciously attempted to tuck away for himself.
It was over. He had lost the game. In one day's time, he would be bound before the people, both district and capitol. Those unable to attend in person would surely watch through a live broadcast as the Mockingjay would perform her civil duty of ending his tyrannical reign. He sneered at the idea of her arrow piercing his heart, the unbearable explosion of fire in his chest, the crowd cheering like mongrels thirsting for a fresh kill. That being said, Coriolanus knew that he should be the last to make such a hypocritical analogy. Besides, it seemed appropriate that the burden of executioner would fall to none other than Katniss Everdeen.
“ Oh, my dear Miss Everdeen. I thought we had agreed never to lie to each other.”
Even in his state of defeat, he had internally relished in the look she had given him then. There was something within that expression that he would so often seek. Perhaps it was the dilation of pupils, or the twist in the mouth. One thing was for certain, however. Terror in the face of an enemy brought him nothing but utmost satisfaction. Whether it was him who had directly caused it was now irrelevant. It only mattered that it was there, and it was pronounced. It meant that somehow it had gotten to her, somewhere, in the midst of chaos that composed her mind something had broken. And he liked to believe, that no matter how much time may elapse from now, that she would never be able to shake this conversation. That he would always, in some way, still be in control.
But this celebration was petty and short lived. His mild lick of strength quickly dissolved as she had paced out those doors, triggering him into another grotesque coughing fit.
“How repugnant.” He loathed to himself in a moment of stillness. No matter what condition he admitted to be in, weakness was still an idea he vigorously detested. On his quest to perfection he had failed to conquer one of the simplest of obstacles. What good was a snake unable to tolerate its own venom?
“Snake.”
Coriolanus was well aware of the nickname that circulated throughout the people much before Finnick Odair’s distasteful attempt of publicly televising his sinister habits. Of course they would never understand. They would much rather deem him a villain than acknowledge their own twisted fallacies. Everything he had done in his dictation had been for the sake of this country’s survival. Without him, Panem would have certainly fallen to shambles; war, hunger, and disease spreading until their world was nothing but a barren shadow of greatness.
No one understood the discord that had taken place before him, and surely no one would anticipate the inevitable chaos bound to return after his death. Especially with that Coin. Though he himself wore the characteristics of a serpent with prominence, recognizing a predator in disguise was no difficult task. And there was certainly no mistaking it. That woman was a viper ready to sink her fangs into the heart of Panem.
But alas, it was out of his hands now. Snake charming was never his specialty anyways.
Blood gurgled in his throat once again and Coriolanus gripped the stone ledge next to him as his other free hand clawed at his chest. The burning in his lungs was quickly becoming unbearable and his eyes darted across the countless rows of flowers around him. Stumbling towards the back of his greenhouse, he made his best attempt keeping his stride elegant and refined. It was stupid, he knew, but even on the brink of death he refused to be seen as uncivilized to anyone possibly watching. He would leave this world with every ounce of grace and dignity he had left.
But the fire in his body only grew stronger and with a final gasp he collapsed onto the cold tile, resorting to dragging himself towards his objective.
His objective? What was he even searching for again? There was nowhere to go beyond these four walls of his floral imprisonment.
The fire had spread to his head now, jumbling his thoughts into one cohesive fog. The mix of colors from the roses towering over him blended into a swirl of radiant streaks, and for a fleeting second, he had sworn he’d caught a rainbow of ruffles skirting across his line of sight, but took it up to simply being a cruel episode of hallucination. He wondered for a brief moment if this is how he would die, not slain in front of the masses, but splayed out on his garden floor, alone and pathetic.
Then the scent hit his nostrils. It wasn’t the nauseatingly perfumed fragrance of roses he was smelling any more, but rather, something much lighter. It was crisp and powdery, very faintly trailing towards a corner hidden away by layers of dark green shrubbery.
He remembered then, just why he had fought his way here. The secret of secrets that he had kept hidden away here, masked under a garden of roses.
Mustering his last bits of stamina, he propped himself onto his elbows and pushed the bushes aside to reveal a cluster of small white flowers growing contently in the shade of the plants above. Without hesitation he snatched a handful of blossoms and shoved them into his mouth, the waxy petals crunching between his molars.
The aroma engulfed him entirely now as Coriolanus rolled onto his back, his breathing slowing as he stared blankly at the sunlight trickling through the leaves overhead.
So clean and sweet.
No matter how much he had tried to forget, one sniff of the flower bed he laid in sent him tumbling back into the past, right back into her.
“Peaches and powder.” He mumbled as his vision grew dark. “You were always peaches and powder, Lucy Gray.”