Lucy Gray Baird, District 12
"She appears composed, so she is, I suppose
Who can really tell?
She shows no emotion at all."
Elliot Smith, Waltz #2 (XO)
Coriolanus Snow was on top. Finally.
He wasn't surprised. Sure, that whole business with Barker and Hawthorne and the rebels from Four and Seven and Ten was a little snag, but Barker was safely in jail, Hawthorne was dead, and all the families of those pesky rebel mentors were dead. The only problem was Javier, but a gun to the head of his boyfriend's sister should solve that nicely.
Of course, it was only in these moments of triumph that the memories of what it took to get there came back.
Memories of the Games. Memories of Twelve.
Memories of Lucy Gray.
What exactly was it about beautiful girls that made people fall in love? Surely it couldn't just be the face. There were plenty of girls in the Capitol that could be called beautiful, but no one made him feel how he felt around Lucy Gray. It couldn't just be her personality, either. He knew lots of smart girls, Clemensia Dovecote, for one. She was pretty, too, so the combination of the two couldn't be it.
No, it must be the District, he decided.
They say that the hardest to get are the finest catches. No one proved it more than Lucy Gray. Even in Twelve, with the Covey, he just couldn't seem to woo her.
She almost reminded Snow of himself. She was smart, and knew exactly what to do with her smarts. She wasn't afraid to take what she wanted, and she did whatever it took to get it.
Snow shook himself for a second. No more thoughts of Lucy Gray. He had a country to run.
"Snow lands on top," he whispered to himself, and smiled. It was true. Snow had landed on top.
We made it! There's the first decade done. Lucy Gray was a hard victor to write, mostly because she wasn't mine. I had another idea for this chapter, but I decided that it would better fit another victor, so I went with a little Snow POV post-40th Hunger Games. Snow may be a tyrant, but even he has a conscience. Now we get to move into the next decade, and I get to start introducing the elements of the Games that make up the huge, televised spectacle that the original trilogy had. First up is a canon victor, and one who got far too little screen time, in my opinion.