Chapter Text
The wind sang gleefully above in the branches, which harmoniously rustled as mockingjays hopped from tree to tree, their cobalt feathers shining brightly among the emerald coat of the forest. Lucy Gray lazily followed them with her eyes as they hailed each other with vivacious shrill cries, flying wildly between the trees. One landed on a branch and Lucy Gray stared at its small, bright colorful body while the branch swung slowly under its weight. The bird stared back with two little polished black dots set in its expressionless face, its tiny talons digging firmly into the wood.
“Does she escape? The Lucy Gray in your song?”
Lucy Gray blinked, and the bird opened its thin, curved beak in a piercing cry of alarm. It spread its gleaming, short blue wings and took off, still shrieking, over the lake. Others followed it, and Lucy Gray looked sadly at their distant shadows rippling on the mirror-like surface of the lake.
“Hmm?”
She turned toward Coriolanus and his curious, icy-blue eyes.
“Does she escape?” he repeated, as though she had just woken up from a dream.
Lucy Gray looked back at the sky, faintly smiling.
“I don’t know… It’s a mystery, I guess. Like me.”
It was Coriolanus’s turn to smile as she settled against him. The wind was weaving the clouds into fluffy white patterns, which broke and dissolved into thin milky streaks as soon as they formed. Lucy Gray watched the white patches spread across the evenly blue of the sky and closed her eyes, listening to the gentle song of the lake, the tiny waves breaking on the sandy banks, the distant chatter of her cousins stubbornly digging through the muddy ground, their fingers pulling raw, dirty roots of katniss . To her the whole world was singing a constant, sometimes quiet melody, and moments like these, when she could finally rest to hear it, were her favorites.
“I’ve brought you something,” Coriolanus said, once again pulling her from her thoughts.
She opened her eyes and turned to look at the old, worn orange scarf he held in his hands.
“It was my mother’s. I’d like you to have it.”
Lucy Gray delicately took the frayed piece of cloth in her hands. The fabric was soft against her fingers and bore a very faint whiff of a sweet, forgotten rose perfume.
“It still smells like roses. Thank you. I’ll take good care of it, I promise,” she said, looking up at him.
He smiled back as she wrapped it around her hand, close to her chest, and silence fell again. Lucy Gray tried to listen to the song, but to no avail.
“You must miss your family so much out here,” she finally said, unable to contain her thoughts.
“I do. I worry about them all the time,” Coriolanus answered, shifting slighlty against her.
“Would you really go back, though? If you could? To the Capitol?”
She waited, anxiety and guilt slowly rising inside her as she wrapped the scarf around her finger, again and again. Part of her hoped Coriolanus would be able to see his family again; she knew how heart-wrenching of a thought that could be, never to see your loved ones ever again. Lucy Gray had thought about it more than once in the arena, but another part of her selfishly wished he would just stay here, in District 12.
“I have to. It’s where I belong.”
Lucy Gray merely nodded, still focused on the worn, frayed threads of the scarf, anxiety melting into disappointment at the absolute certainty in his voice./Disappointment settled like a stone in her chest, and Lucy Gray nodded, still focused on the frayed threads of the scarf. The smell of the faded rose perfume had become almost sickening.
“But I hope you’ll come back with me,” Coriolanus said, shifting again so he could directly face her.
Lucy Gray looked up. His blue, icy eyes were bright, like two shards of ice under the sun, shining with hope as he waited for her answer. For a second, she thought she could catch a glimpse of what he saw as a glorious future waiting for them, but as he saw power and glory, Lucy Gray saw only coldness and cruelty. She looked toward the lake and the natural simplicity of the world she had so dearly missed, imprisoned like an animal behind the bars.
“Capitol’s not for me,” she answered at last, sensing that the peace of the moment was about to be broken in a new, passive-aggressive argument she had become so familiar with Coriolanus.
“It could be,” Coriolanus insisted, and the tone of his voice told her that he was more than willing to break this peace. “I could make a place for us. We could live our whole life there. It’s civilized.”
Lucy Gray’s lips pulled back in what she hoped looked like a smile, her fingers pulling the dirty threads of the scarf.
“I don’t think so,” she said, as calmly as she could.
“You don’t think I could make a place for you?” Coriolanus scoffed, sitting up. Lucy Gray felt a wave of anger rise into her, one which she quickly shut down. To Coriolanus, everything was a battle. There was always a trophy at the end.
“Yes, of course you could,” Lucy Gray retorted, her voice gradually losing the composure she had managed to preserve until now. “But no one would want me there, and I don’t want to go anyway. It’s not a “civilized” place, like you said. What about this life here?”
She pointed to the lake, the harmonious green hills rolling along the banks, the endless silent pines stretching on the other side, their ancient branches waving to them over the crystal-clear water. Coriolanus’s eyes travelled over them as if they were merely a background of some sort before quickly coming back to her.
“What do you mean, no one would want you? Look at how you stole the show back there! I saw them, Lucy Gray. I saw how everyone cheered for you when you sang.”
“Yes, as I was fighting for my life,” Lucy Gray said very softly, an indication of the oncoming anger slowly but surely threatening to spill out of her lips at any moment now.
Her original feeling of disappointment had turned somehow sourer. A thread broke between her fingers as she sat up, facing Coriolanus. This was a side of him she knew was always there, but hoped would fade, maybe over time, and to see it resurface each time she talked to him was like a small defeat.
“Why do you always want more?” she asked, her fingers clutching the scarf, trying to restrain herself for both of their sakes.
“To make your life better!” Coriolanus sharply answered. His full composure was gone and his eyes were now gleaming, all the warmth they had held having dissipated amongst what he thought was righteous outrage.
A tense silence fell between them, and they only stared at each other for a few minutes, completely still. It was Coriolanus that caved in first, dipping his head in a gesture of appeasement, but where Lucy Gray expected at least an apology, it was only a stubborn plea for her to understand that followed.
“Look, I’m sorry for what I said, about you singing. But I still think this could be a good option.”
“And I don’t.”
Lucy Gray stood up, definitely putting an end to the conversation. She felt Coriolanus’s gaze on her back but she didn’t turn toward him, didn’t offer him a timid smile. She only heard him stand up, his boots crushing the grass beneath him as he followed suit. Around them the mockingjays kept singing blissfully.
The forest was as soothing and comforting as Lucy Gray had expected it to be. The mockingjays were playfully following them, hopping from branch to branch while a brook sang nearby, carving its way in the soft, mushy earth. The wind howled gently among the great pine trees, who stood like watchful guardians over this untouched piece of nature. Small patches of light broke through the thick canopy of intertwined branches. The sounds of their footsteps were swallowed by the pine needles-strewn floor. Lucy Gray walked in front of Coriolanus. Both of them were quiet. She could feel the tension in his stiff shoulders, in his quick and furtive glances at the dark thickets. She felt another prickle of irritation at his obvious distaste of nature, of everything she held dear in general. While she would take care to step carefully over roots, he would take great strides, and sometimes almost comical leaps over them, just so he wouldn’t have to get dirty. None of them had spoken since they had left the District. Once again, Lucy Gray pushed her irritation, prickling like relentless thorns on her skin, at the back of her mind and kept walking, looking straight ahead of her, when she heard Coriolanus abruptly stop behind her.
“Wait.”
Lucy Gray slowly turned, this time feeling a hint of wariness mingling with her irritation.
“What? What’s wrong?”
Once again, Coriolanus swept the forest with his eyes, the corner of his mouth curled into what Lucy Gray recognized as the faintest traces of a disdainful rictus struggling to escape from his expression. His eyes scanned the mossy trunks, the unfurling ferns, the twisting roots, the gleeful mockingjays. Then they settled on her, and Lucy Gray stared back at him, her face locked in a careful neutral mask.
“So? What is it?”
The longer they stayed rooted in their spot, closer to the District and further away from the life she had dreamt of, the more nervous she felt.
“Is this what we really want?”
Coriolanus’s words pierced through her as sharply as if a spear had been plunged into her chest, but Lucy Gray remained still. She had expected this conflict, had dreaded it, but had hoped neither of them would have the courage nor the will to speak up, to stir back the wounds of the past days.
“What do you mean?”
Coriolanus narrowed his eyes, obviously annoyed.
“I mean, is this what we really want? Both of us? To run into the forest like cowards, disappearing from everyone’s lives, living like savages?”
Lucy Gray bristled, her features unwillingly hardening.
“We’re not cowards. We’re not running away. This is the right choice, for both of us.”
“Is it, though?”
In a few strides Coriolanus was in front of her, and his icy eyes were burning again, with a passion and a conviction that made Lucy Gray recoil slightly.
“Is it really? Think about it, Lucy Gray. Don’t we both deserve better? Don’t you deserve better, especially after what you endured?”
Lucy Gray frowned. She didn’t like the way he was taking hold of her pain, of her suffering, as if he had been in the arena with her.
“This is what we deserve,” she insisted, clutching her scarf around her neck. “A life of peace, away from this madness. Somewhere we can finally be happy.” She paused briefly, wanting to see if her words had managed to pierce their way through the fog of his monstruous convictions, but Lucy Gray saw nothing change in those blue eyes. “I don’t understand you, Coriolanus.”
Coriolanus shook his head vehemently, his words flowing out of his mouth as if a dam had finally been broken inside of him, his eyes locked on her.
“No. This is certainly not what we deserve, what we should get, after all we went through. Living in the woods...”
His gaze swept around the forest, his features hardening just like hers had. His hand suddenly grabbed her own, his fingers tightening around her palm, and Lucy Gray startled as he leaned in.
“You deserve better. I should be back in the Capitol, with my family. And you should be with me, by my side. You deserve a place as great as the Capitol. You’ve earned it.”
His blue eyes were blazing now, alight with a passion that was rooted perhaps even deeper in his mind than the trees’ own roots were in the soil of this forest.
“We’re meant for far greater things, you and I. Can’t you see this?”
He finished his sentence softly, the annoyance and irritation in his words gradually fading away before being replaced by something very close to despair. He genuinely didn’t, couldn’t understand what could possibly pull the girl he loved into the dampness of those dark, endless woods.
Lucy Gray only stared back, forcing her features to smooth themselves out, to remain locked in that mask of neutrality she had learned to adopt around him.
“No, this is what you want, Coriolanus, to be destined for great things. I don’t care for it, and neither should you. We’ve both been happy. I’m not going back to a place where I had to kill people just so that I could live,” she said, hoping her stern expression and the determination in her voice would bring finality to the argument.
At the rigidness of her tone, Coriolanus’s entire face hardened, and the small rictus of disdain he had been struggling to refrain curled into a full snarl of fury.
“And then what?!” he snapped, his voice rising slightly, and Lucy Gray tried not to flinch. “We run away, disappear into the woods, and what? The Games will continue. Nothing will change. You’ll have fought in the arena for absolutely nothing.”
At those words Lucy Gray felt her own lips pull back on her teeth in a rictus of rage, mimicking his own.
“Don’t you dare say that. You had no idea what it was like in the arena!”
“I did, actually!” Coriolanus shot back. “I watched you every step of the way, and I helped you go through it! I even pulled Sejanus out of it! I know how awful it was!”
Lucy Gray was about to retort some acid reply, but he cut her off as soon as he saw her open her mouth. His hands had kept tightening around hers, but neither had noticed.
“I only want what’s best for you!” he exclaimed fiercely, and the quiver in his voice told her he was ready to shout the words in her face. His hands were trembling around hers.
Then suddenly Coriolanus’s face changed. His features fell, the anger fading away from his face. His blue eyes widened slightly. His rictus disappeared. He loosened his grip on her hands. He forced himself to lean back, away from her face. Lucy Gray watched him, a bit dismayed and thrown off by this abrupt change of behavior. Coriolanus stared down at her hands for a few seconds, his icy eyes shining with a new light Lucy Gray had yet never seen on him. Then he spoke very softly, in a tender whisper:
“Come with me to the Capitol. Come with me, please. Together, we can change things. I’ve seen your influence, your power over the Capitol. You’ve completely enchanted them, over there. You have nothing to be afraid of.”
“Afraid?” Lucy Gray scoffed, disbelief washing over her. “That’s what you think I am? Just some scared little girl?”
“Yes,” Coriolanus countered, his voice hardening slightly. “I think you’re too scared to go beyond what you know and actually make a change,” he hissed, his words, uninterrupted, leaving her no choice but to listen. “Have you thought that maybe together, we could take down the Hunger Games, forever? Have you ever thought about that?”
Any retort that she was about to snarl died on her tongue, melting immediately under the seriousness of his gaze. Lucy Gray was uncharacteristically silent, considering Coriolanus’s words and the way they had undeniably shaken her previous confidence. It was true, she had never even considered it, but such an idea was simply impossible, even with the alleged influence Coriolanus proclaimed she held over the indifferent citizens of the Capitol.
“Right,” she scoffed, though she felt her tone faltering with uncertainty. “As if we could ever accomplish that.”
“And why not?” Coriolanus pressed, his eyes burning aflame, reignited by that same conviction she had seen earlier. “One day I’ll be president. With the power I already have, plus your charisma, we could very well be able to change things. Look at what happened this year. None of this would have been possible without us working together.”
He smiled at her, an encouraging, confident smile, one that held full trust in the future he had imagined for them, yet Lucy Gray remained silent. She was teetering between complete, utter dismay at what she believed to be nothing but a mere delusion, a plan born out of sheer desperation, and the very, incredibly fragile, tiny hope that maybe, maybe there could be some truth to his words. She looked at him, all rage having drained from her face and instead replaced by the careful neutrality she usually had when talking to him. In front of her muteness, however, Coriolanus’s warm smile fell into a faint scowl, thinking her silence a result of her lack of faith in him and his capabilities.
“Or,” he said slowly, his words turning cold and lifeless, “we could run away, as you wanted. We could run away and let the Games continue, and who knows, maybe next year, with a bit of luck, it’ll be Maude Ivory in the arena. Or another one of the Coveys. Or”-
“Stop it!” Lucy Gray snapped harshly.
His words kept spiraling around her, forcing their way into her head, and they terrified her more than she wanted to admit. She had never envisioned any of those possibilities, ever. Maybe she had endured too many horrors, enough to block them out but Coriolanus had put in front of a reality she couldn’t deny. This year, she had been chosen only because of Mayfair’s jealousy, but Lucy Gray knew enough not to rely on luck, ever. Coriolanus's words had sparked vivid images into her head, and now her mind couldn’t stop depicting an all-too familiar scene, her young cousin Maude Ivory standing in the place, the hand of the mayor reaching into the transparent jar, his fingers curling around an insignificant piece of paper, her cousin’s name written on it, the Peacekeepers closing in on her-
Lucy Gray took a deep breath and briefly closed her eyes. Now it was Maude Ivory’s face, now it was Barb Azure’s, now it was Clerk Carmine’s... They all flashed and spun before her eyes, and she felt a deep wave of panic rising inside her. She took another breath. She thought back about the sponsors, the training, the way people’s faces had lighted up with delight when she had grabbed her guitar onto that stage and sang in front of the many glassy eyes of the cameras. Hope, that traitorous, frivolous snake, made its way slowly but surely into her heart, clouding her thoughts. She allowed the tiny spark she had felt inside her to grow as she envisioned a future without the threat of the Games looming above each District, each family, every year. She even felt the weight of that threat lifting off her shoulders, as if she had already set one foot into that distant, shimmering but possible future. She opened her eyes, locking her gaze onto Coriolanus. He was looking at her expectantly, his scowl having disappeared in favor of a small but hopeful smile.
“What do you have in mind, exactly?” Lucy Gray asked softly.
Coriolanus’s smile widened.
“We go back to the Capitol, together. We use what we learned, what we achieved during the Games. You have your personality, your songs, and I have my influence and some connections that could work in our favor. You’re a hero in the whole of Panem, the Capitol won’t try to harm you. I can’t guarantee that it’ll work right away, and maybe we won’t be able to stop the Games entirely at first, but we could make changes for people in the Districts.”
He spoke in a soothing, gentle voice, the one she had come to love when he allowed his softer side to come out.
Lucy Gray nodded slowly. The more he talked, the more pieces seemed to fall into place, and the more she was convinced they actually had a chance. A small one, but a chance nonetheless. She thought back on the dust swirling in the arena, the sand mixed with blood, the sound of metal tearing the flesh. She had sacrificed a lot, and would probably sacrifice even more in the future, but maybe she could use this to her advantage. If there was a way to create something, to spread the hope she was feeling, she had to do it, even if it meant destroying forever the peaceful future, the life spent in nature among the cheerful songs of the mockingjays.
“If I come with you, you must swear to do everything, and I mean everything,” she insisted, looking pointedly at him, “to help me stop the Games. Okay?”
Coriolanus nodded without a second thought, his smile morphing into a full-blown grin.
“I swear.”
Lucy Gray nodded.
“Come on. Let’s go back.”
She walked past him, her shoes crunching the pine needles scattering the ground. The branches of the trees brushed mournfully past her. The mockingjays sang in dismay, flying wildy above the top of the trees, their puzzled thrills echoing between the silent trunks. She heard Coriolanus’s own loud, confident footsteps, and she breathed softly, hoping from her heart that she had made the right choice.