Chapter 3: Faith and Provenance

Through the back entrance—straight through the kitchen to the doorway on the right…

Coriolanus repeated the directions as he trekked through the muddy patchwork of crabgrass and dandelions from the splintered perimeter gates back to the dilapidated house at the center of that remote little plot of land.

For all that was derided of the impoverished District 12, the entire place by far had exceeded what he had prepared himself to weather. And out here in the Seam, in this strip at the very edge of civilization (if this whole portion of Panem could even be called that), it had surprised him how barely arable this land even appeared to be, for straddling the extremities as it had. Only a furlong away in nearly any direction, the robust walls of the woodland tree lines swallowed any discernible open space whole in its greenery.

This world embodied something primeval no Capitol-born patrician could ever envisage. To think any would presume to claim sovereignty over such a wild realm from the pampered and far-flung seat of Panem's heart. Coriolanus' ruminations straddled that vision. The Capitol's might was absolute, and the conquest of even the most uncultivated wastes was inevitable. Time and patience allowed for any improbabilities. Aspiration made them so. And yet, he would be hard not to admit the sinking foreboding felt in that elusive place deep within him. Its visceral undertow weighed down his steps and thickened his blood. If not for the clear signs that other human souls were still present, he was sure he'd go mad under its thrall.

It unsettled him how he could be made to become a mere child again standing amongst these ancient woods.

The muted hum of idle murmuring and faint laughter in the distance calmed his nerves, drawing him back into himself and the earth beneath his feet. He turned back to look, as though to be sure they weren't just a wicked trick of the trees. Only a short distance away, he could spot Sejanus cradling their half-melted bag of ice, lingering in the company of the hardened few who called this place their home. He could almost laugh at himself then. What stayed his breath had been how deeply in his bones the remoteness of this pastoral cradle's embrace had pervaded.

Instead, he swallowed that breath down and turned back to the dampened path in front of him to the battered wooden house at its end. And just as easily as it'd gone, that singular yearning that lead him all the way out to this nowhere at all ushered him forward once again. What time, patience, and aspiration had brought him to.

Passing the threshold of that open backdoor afforded some reprieve from the sweltering summer air. To his dismay, however, none of the walls or windows could ward off the insufferable humidity that saturated any and all habitable spaces here. He proceeded on anyway into the kitchen, according to little Maude Ivory's directions.

The first groans of the creaking floorboards halted his steps as he peered down dubiously ahead of him. The state of the planks gave him qualms about trusting them to support his weight. Some were disproportional, others uneven in places, with obvious traces of multiple repairs done to them over the years. He took a moment to examine the kitchen as a whole, his regard straddling something between melancholic curiosity and morbid wonder for the Covey's humble existence in this corner of the known world.

Each appliance his eyes glimpsed appeared to be antiquated and entirely mismatched against every other thing to be seen. Worn-off numbers on dials. No surface left untouched by dents or scratches. Even broken parts pitifully hanging on by whatever scrap of tape or twine had on hand. And yet, there'd been effort put into the upkeep. Everything looked clean against the dull polish, and the space was clear of clutter. Even in such squalor, they tried their best to dignify their home with some sense of order. Though there had been nothing to be done against the ever present, fine layer of dusted coal that found its way into the spaces of every merest crack and opening conceivable throughout this district.

Coriolanus reached the doorway on the right, passing through into the adjoining room. Beyond the large old dining table framed by its motley set of chairs, he spotted the staircase and proceeded.

…Up the steps. Last door on the left.

'No boys allowed'—a shoddy little piece of tinted paper tacked to the door read, scrawled in bright chalk with a border of hastily scribbled flowers and rainbows in the crooked hand of a child.

Just as Maude Ivory said.

Coriolanus smiled. The uninviting charm of the signage teased his long-drawn temperance, already coming to its head now since the excitement at the Hob earlier that week. The thought drew his fingertips toward his split lip left from the scuffle. Even the bag of ice Ma Plinth's allowance bought them did little to help its swelling along their trek through this abysmal heat. As if his sweat-dampened shirt and shabby state hadn't already been dreadful enough. Part of him worried for how unseemly he must have looked now, compared to when they had been in the Capitol. When he still held some semblance of his bygone affluence.

But he remembered where he was standing right now. Who it'd been who awaited him just beyond that door. It helped for him to recall, too, the inane words of encouragement Sejanus prepped him with all the way here. Idiot. How grateful he'd been for it all now, he mused fondly to himself.

He let his balled fist hover against the weathered wooden door long enough, finally giving it three arrhythmic raps before holding his breath. Rustling. A hectic pattering of steps. Then a pause. The creak of the hinges had been just as unassuming as the sliver that parted its way from the frame. The single, timid eye peering through had been barely visible, yet utterly unforgettable all the same. He'd known that gaze like his own in the mirror now. It stared out in search of his own, and once the comprehension struck, he could discern the soundless parting of the small lips through the crack. He beamed at the sight of her. Well, barely the sight of her.

Abruptly, the door shut closed again right in his face. Taken aback by this, he could only blink haplessly where he stood, downtrodden and confused.

Perhaps…it had been a mistake to come out here.

What if he had been right to think that she wanted nothing to do with the Capitol or him any longer after all her troubles? And here he invited himself, a wholly unwelcome reminder of it all, barreling back into her life on but a simple whim of his.

"Sorry. I just…" her stilted voice sounded from behind the door. "…I look a mess right now. I wish you'd picked a better time to come."

Her sweet-natured apology was enough to rekindle that already withering light back in him. What a silly thought. How silly of him.

After such indulgence playing her most intimate audience to the performance she'd given in the Capitol, it was almost bizarre to see just how reticent she was seemingly capable of being. He couldn't help his amusement at the neverending novelty of this darling girl. His girl.

"Well I…barely have any hair left right now," he coaxed with a gentle laugh. He and Sejanus both shared enough in their lament of having to lose their locks. At least now, they could find some humor in it. "I think…I think unless that bothers you, I'm sure we're fine."

He lingered, uncertain if his assurances reached her when the moment continued to pass in silence. The knob began its slow jiggle to life at last, loosening the rickety old door on its tarnished hinges as it crept open to reveal the girl hiding behind it.

Coriolanus' expectant smile paled. Their glances only caught for a moment before he'd become utterly dismayed by the sight of just what she had been trying to conceal.

"Lucy Gray, what happened to you—?"

Unable to help his instincts, he immediately reached toward her face, seeing the horrible discoloring mottled across her nose, stretching beneath one eye, nearly covering her cheek. It looked even worse than the contusions she'd been left with after the chaos of the arena bombing. All she'd been guilty of then was saving his life from the burning wreckage. No good deed went unpunished, it would seem. What could she have possibly done to warrant this one?

Lucy Gray swayed from the solicitous graze of his hands, blinking as she turned her eyes away. Like the shame of being seen battered and scarred had been worse than actually bearing it all.

But Coriolanus understood. It'd been easier to pretend, after all. To convince the world of your own unbroken dignity. To make it think there wasn't a damned thing you lost or lacked. That made you less than what it saw of you.

It'd made it easier to convince himself of it.

"It's…it's fine, Coryo. Just, um…got cracked in the face by a rifle is all," she laughed, shrugging it away like some absentminded accident.

His undue concern had been exactly what she wanted to avoid. The rest of the house had fussed enough already over her the day she got back. Then of all people, she'd spotted him across the room that evening at the Hob, realizing this Capitol boy had managed to follow her all the way out to the last place she'd imagined to ever find him. She'd resolved, then, to make their first meeting again proper. No games, no cameras, no bars. Nothing and nobody else. Just a girl and her sweetheart boy. Everything in the world they could do together.

The bare smile she could offer him was one that promised her well-being. This was of no consequence when they ought to be delighting over so many other, better things.

"At least it wasn't the business end," she quipped, trying with such innocence to make light of a matter that truly didn't matter.

Coriolanus, however, did not share in her amusement in the least, seeing through what he thought was her ill attempt at deflecting.

Why would you hide from me like this?

It baffled him. As far as he could recall, all of those who had been involved or injured in the brawl had been noted. He'd seen her and the rest of the crowds clear away before anything more happened. Perhaps…she'd been mistakenly struck by some overzealous Peacekeeper while trying to leave? Was it her well-meaning heart trying to protect some barely human refuse hardly even worthy of its grace?

"Who did this to you?"

He would find out. He would right this—

"It was after the Games ended."

…The Games?

"It's been a few weeks, but…it's just taking a little longer to heal up. Really. It's fine, Coriolanus."

"But that night…I watched you on stage." His brows furrowed as he absorbed all she was saying. "You looked…"

Yes? Her face. It looked—? Fine? Unmarred? Immaculate? Sublime?

Beautiful.

That was the word that filled his thoughts when he looked to her. Plain and simple and without a care. Lucy Gray Baird, just as she was.

The girl laughed to herself, shaking her head. "Make-up does wonders, you know. Been covering it up. It's not exactly a welcoming look on stage—girl walks out with a bruised up face expecting everyone to holler and cheer?"

Coriolanus extended his hand again for her, delicately this time. When she didn't appear to shy away, he let his fingertips brush against her skin. He meant for the gesture to soothe whatever ache she still carried, even all that she refused to show him.

Her eyes gently closed to the tenderness of his touch. Just as she'd feared, it was all it'd taken to smolder that mask she'd donned to cinders. It felt like standing with him before the arena again. But she resolved not to weep this time. There'd been no reason for her tears now. What was there to fear with her boy here with her? Nothing in the world to tear them from each other this time.

"They found your mama's compact on me. The one you lent. I didn't want them to take it," she quietly told him. "I tried. I'm sorry, Coriolanus. For a second, they thought I'd stolen it off someone before the Games. Told them it was a fair gift from a friend. That I needed to get it back to him. And then…" She swallowed all of her guilt with her next breath, lashes already wetting before she could help it. "They found the…the powder…in it. But I told them—I said it was all me. Coriolanus Snow had nothing to do with it."

The boy sighed. "Lucy Gray, it's okay," he assured her, brushing away the tears at her eyes with the pad of his thumb. He knew how she hated them. He did, too. Beautiful as they were, bearing the weight of all the sentiments and devotion within a mass so wondrously small, he'd decided that day of the Games that the sight of her despair was not a fair return for them.

The thought only struck her then. What was a well-bred, now distinguished Capitol boy doing out here in the coal-dusted wasteland of District 12? "I didn't get you in trouble, did I?" she asked, eyes broadening at the realization.

He paused. No, now was not the time to explain this whole mess. One of his making. No good deed went unpunished, after all. She had been the muse that inspired his decisions, and she'd suffered enough along with him for them all. Accepting the brunt of this burden onto himself, he had no heart to pile more onto hers, already ailing as it was. The boy simply shook his head. "You did everything right. Don't worry, Lucy Gray."

Undeserved as it'd felt, she took his grace as forgiveness for her unfulfilled promise. "Maybe…you know, one day…I'll find a way to replace it."

There'd been no way he could conceive of how she might even accomplish this. That a provincial district girl could even begin to fathom the worth of that silver rose-engraved compact? And still, Lucy Gray swore by her words. How could he find it in his heart then, to tell her there was nothing to be forgiven? That she'd safeguarded the treasured thing exactly as she had always intended, seen to its safe return back into his hands. That they hadn't made a liar out of her.

It was he who had lost it. The day of his retribution upon Highbottom would come for all his indignities suffered.

Don't forget, old snake—Snow lands on top.

But he let the full truth of his misfortune linger with his held breath, so close to relinquishing it. To free her from the debt she believed was owed. But the sincerity of her promise stayed the words. He pressed his lips thin. Smiled.

"I know you will."

His faith in her was all that was needed to rekindle her waning spirit. It'd been the thing that kept her alive in the arena. Something tangible, something within reach to cling to, when the distance of her home and family and safety had been too great a breadth for even her dreams to conjure. Within the darkest tunnels and deepest crevices of that forsaken place, Coriolanus Snow had become the provenance of all hope, nestled and protected within her being. However fleeting and uncertain her allotted time was, it'd been enough.

And here this boy stood once again, brought to her by what else but faith and love. Written in the stars, just as she'd always known it in her very soul to be. She dried all trace of moisture from her eyes and laughed to herself. Surely, nothing more could bother her heart now, all inconsequential next to him.

"Will you stay? Have some lunch with us?"

"I wouldn't want to impose…" he uttered hesitantly. He was rather famished from the long trek there, but he'd meant this. He had come with Sejanus bearing gifts for the visit, expecting nothing more in return than the simple chance to see his girl again.

"Dummy. You've got a lot to learn about Covey hospitality," she teased, nearly scolding him for his reluctance. "You're a guest in this house. We might not have much, but we take care of our guests." There was a droll irony to be seen in their roles then, somewhat reminiscent to her of a previous, familiar exchange. She raised her chin as though to mime the courtly self-assurance she also recalled of this boy then.

"'I do my best to take care of you.'"

A whimsical echo of his own words. This time welcoming him to the opposite end of Panem.

The flourishing smile across Coriolanus' lips prompted her own. It'd perhaps been the first time he'd seen one like it. Meant for him, at least. In the corner of her grin, he spotted a little crooked tooth, one he realized she'd always taken care to hide even in her most generous displays. How carefully she'd crafted the curl of her lips each time. Despite her conscientious efforts, he found himself so charmed by this private, imperfect little smile. What he would give to only see her bear them more, just for him.

"That's a 'sure, why not' kind of look, I think," she mused at the sight of his endearment. The sound of her laughter followed as she rose to her toes to kiss the corner of his lips. Only a tease of a proper greeting. But it'd been enough to leave him warm beneath the skin of his cheeks. "Come on," she whispered, weaving his fingers into her own, "I was just about to go out to see Shamus."

With lead in his feet and a stitch in his brows, his entire disposition sank. "…Shamus?"

Who was this person to her? Another acquaintance? A boy?

How candid the sudden aberration in his focus had been. Just asking for a needling by the fiend of a girl he deemed his sweetheart. Poor thing was going to have to acclimate to her capricious delight sooner or later. Reserving her amusement behind a tight-lipped smile, Lucy Gray eagerly led him along, practically lugging the begrudging boy well behind in her steps.

"Don't be dragging your feet now, Coryo—we'll need a bucket and my guitar."

.

.

.

Only when his vacant eyes blink again does Coriolanus realize he hasn't moved the pen in his hand for some minutes now. At the end of its tip is a dark pool of ink, bled almost completely from its reservoir in the absence of his wandering mind.

"Shit—" he mumbles under his breath, snatching the leaking pen from the document he'd been at work on, tossing it in annoyance back into its well at the corner of his desk. Flustered, he flips through the small stack of papers to assess the damage.

Three fully penned pages, completely bled through.

He sighs his ire, all reserved for his own careless lapse in attention, as he throws the ruined batch into the waste bin. He rubs his throbbing eyes with the heels of his palms and exhales before his freshly blurred vision refocuses on the glowing numbers of the clock in front of him. It's still only the afternoon. The young president is unable to recall another week in his life that has left him so depleted in body and mind.

The 10th Games, perhaps.

The Reaping. The zoo enclosure. The arena bombing. Sejanus and his damnedideals. Those cursed snakes.

And Lucy Gray Baird, at the center of it all.

Lucy Gray. He had left her to her own devices for the most of this past week. Reports came and went without much to say. Full amenities and meals were afforded to her regularly. She hardly left her room. Spoke to no one. Asked for little to nothing. All there had been to make of it was that she is perhaps the most undemanding, effortless guest the Presidential Manor has ever known.

Coriolanus peers at his clock again. It's three twenty-three, and he needs a break.

There isn't a specific notion in mind when he first rises from his chair. When his feet take him out of his office, there is no direction that leads them. He simply walks. Down the corridor. Around some corners. A left somewhere where there are windows to his right. A passing glance through them shows that it is a beautiful, clear spring day outside. The estate gardens are teeming with color.

In place of the worn, creaking floorboards still fresh in his memory, the layer of damask carpeting beneath his steps are spotless and full in their patterned wefts. There is not a single speck of rust or tarnish to be seen upon any surface that shines. And on the immaculately carved surface of the door he has found himself coming to, there is no clever little hand-drawn sign posted to greet his visit this time.

It'd been nearly one week ago when he'd last stood before this very door, yet his memory lingers in that time more than five years prior, guiding his steps as if by impulse back to her once again.

Coriolanus hesitates just as he did then when he raises his curled fingers to the wood. Three arrhythmic knocks. The answer comes swiftly this time, however. Soundless footsteps approach before the door swings open just as silently. Lucy Gray stands before him with a plain gaze.

"…Courteous enough to knock this time, at least. I appreciate that. President or not, manners make a man. I'd think a Capitol boy ought to remember that."

About as welcoming as Maude Ivory's little door sign, but at least she's in a civil mood. Part of him is surprised she is the first to speak this time. What gives him pause, however, is the state of her dress. Or underdress, rather. He recalls well his earliest impressions had of her—that bizarre tribute girl from District 12 on the television screen. All the precise peculiarities she's always intended the eyes watching to see. His own among the rest were made to know that she'd possessed an exceptional intuition of her own presence. And here Lucy Gray Baird stood, looking rather…unkempt by her own conventions.

With a closet full of day dresses provided among her amenities, she answers the door at three twenty-nine in the afternoon in but a mostly plain batiste nightgown and a gauzy linen shawl hanging from her shoulders. (He is certain white bores her, but it's the ruffled lace work of the hems that must have caught her eye, if he were to guess.)

Her hair at least looks neatly groomed. Though to his curiosity, she hasn't even bothered with the cosmetics she so delights in (all manners of which have also been stocked in the compartments of this suite's dressing table.) It nearly astonishes him to see her so unadorned of any color. Though he remembers swiftly that she's likely gone the entire five years with only what the wilds offer her. He avoids lingering too long on that thought, letting his attention roam elsewhere to direct his focus. What good to dwell when she is no longer bereft of any needs here, essential or excess?

Her keen eyes catch his own flickering past her head into the room behind her. She casts her eyes tenuously along where his follow, thinning her lips. And what exactly does he expect to see? She's been given no notice to straighten her little prison out at least a bit. Especially for the esteemed president's visit, of all people.

"I don't imagine you came to sit over lunch with me. A bit late in the day for it, too, isn't it?" she quips, seeing him staring at the unfinished meal she's left on the table.

"I came to see how things are doing here," he answers with a plain intent.

Lucy Gray graces this with a wry curl of the lips. "What? Making sure that feral district runaway hasn't wrecked your painted walls and polished furniture?" Quietly amusing herself at the thought, she moves away from the doorway.

Coriolanus takes this as permission for him to enter. Not that he requires it. But yes, the President of Panem remembers that manners do make a man. And as such manners inform, he gently shuts the door behind him after stepping inside. And yes—it appears his walls and furniture remain quite intact when he takes a quick glance at the shape of the room. Good.

"You seriously did not just look to make sure just now."

He turns at the sound of her flippant remark. Nothing seems to escape her notice here. But this also tells him that she's got her eyes on him. He watches too, seeing the incredulous smirk she wears as she glides past the table, fetching the pitcher of water sitting on it. Her bare feet pad soundlessly over the carpet toward the row of tall windows along the length of the far wall.

As she crosses the room, his gaze follows the heel of her steps in search of any impediments in her gait as he'd recalled from his last visit. Her strides appear calmer this time. He can't discern anything other than that she is more composed and deliberate in her movements. Much like her demeanor, he is sure it only belies something else she keeps unseen. He doesn't forget that she is a consummate artist at this. And it isn't as though she hasn't got a better reason than ever to hide from him this time.

Once she comes to a stop at one of the sills, Coriolanus leaves her to mind whatever it is she's got there. He turns to the small square table, noting the full dishes still sprawled all over it—some of her breakfast and most of her lunch, hardly touched. His brows furrow at the sight. All abundant plates prepared with the freshest prime ingredients procured directly from the three agricultural districts. Even the regular citizens of the Capitol don't dine so plentifully. (He remembers bitterly, too, that prior to the Plinths' patronage, neither had he.)

"Was something wrong with the meals?" he asks, unable to help the mounting sense of concern beneath his scrutiny.

Lucy Gray only answers with a noncommittal hum, hardly paying attention with her water pitcher in hand, focusing on the thing in front of her. "Hm?" she spares a glance as she turns to address him, "Oh. I can't eat that stuff." Her response says nothing, dismissing the thought as though it were the simple pattern of the drapery that she found to be unappealing.

Once she's angled herself away from the window just so, he sees then what it is she has been tending to—a small drinking glass (clearly one kept from her meals that hadn't been returned), placed in the window's light. Standing in its half-full water is the cut rose he'd left for her in his last visit. It has been nearly a week, and the bloom is already beginning to wilt over the rim, curling brown along the petal edges.

Past the prominence of its beauty, and yet she still troubles herself to refill its makeshift vessel back up with the fresh drinking water. The diligence she has devoted to this bloom. She even takes care to pluck a few ice cubes out of the pitcher just for the already dying thing. His eyes spot, as well, a decorative ribbon tied around the glass in a neat little bow. Her ornamental touch of color for it, surely. Something he suspects her sentimental Covey heart will never outgrow. The cord could only have been taken from some trimming off one of the many garments provided to her, or quite possibly even a tieback stolen right from his curtains. (All but one of them are drawn among the line of windows, he notices.)

So much for not wrecking my things…

She returns to the square table, seeing that her visitor has already invited himself to its guest seat. She sets the pitcher down beside the pile of cold dishes and takes the one opposite of him.

"…You have been eating well, though?" he inquires, turning his dubious attention from his plundered drapes to the stacked tableware between them. He does need her to elaborate a bit here.

In a gesture so unwitting that Coriolanus can't even be certain that she isn't just spiting him in that moment, she dips her fingers into the chilled pitcher water to fish out a small, half-melted frozen pebble and places it in her mouth. "Well enough," she answers simply before crunching down on it between her molars.

The woman manages to elicit the same muted wonder out of him as that day she'd hopped down from that cargo train in her rumpled rainbow dress onto the platform where her mentor awaited. If the petal she'd placed on her tongue that day tasted like bedtime, what, then, had the taste of that pellet of ice been to her?

He remembers what she asked him that day when he presented his gift to her. And he remembers his response to that. The same one he swore by in that very spot not one week prior.

No, this was unacceptable.

Can he claim to be doing what he promised if she has been eating ice cubes in place of proper meals? Part of him doesn't put it past her either, seeing how thin she still looks even after a week on a proper Capitol diet. But the thought then occurs to him that perhaps there is a reason why she won't eat. Certainly, there is no question of quality or nutrition. More diligence will be required from the kitchen staff regarding her care after today.

Perhaps she is wary of what she is being given. Could he blame her any misgivings? What other show of faith can he offer here? It is then that he notices her eying him expectantly from across the table. Her lips are crooked in their amusement over a thought that seems to have passed over his head somewhere along the way.

"You're staring, funny face…"

He blinks away almost by impulse at the sound of her lyrical humming.

"…Or is it something funny on my face?"

That sounded suspiciously like a tease. He collects his scattered composure. Straightens back up in his chair. He observes after that cursory glance back across the table that the levity in her tones doesn't quite seem to reach her lips. Its tenuous presence in her gaze incongruous to the whole of her still expression. Something about her feels like a cracked mirror, split down the middle. Two offset angles just not quite meeting at the fractures.

The lingering silence unsettles the air once again, like an echo of their previous meeting in this room. He grasps at the first thing that blindly comes to mind, looking elsewhere at her in search of something to say.

"Your clothes…" the words flounder from this next barely conceived line of thought.

As though to compliment the reticence of his musing, she blithely casts her eyes down herself, unsure of what he means to bring to attention here. "The ones you gave me, yes?"

"Is…the selection of clothing to your liking, Lucy Gray?" Yes, he eventually remembers that he did mean to inquire about this as well.

"They're fine."

This bare response is too curt to feel honest coming from her, but he can't reason why someone with such distinct tastes would lie about something so frivolous. "You haven't changed out of your sleeping clothes," he points out. She's been strutting around in that nightgown with so little concern, he'd even wondered if she had simply forgotten.

"Oh," she nonchalantly laughs. "Don't really see the need to. Not like I'm feeling inclined to be leaving this room anytime." The lightness in her lips wanes when she spots the absence of any shared amusement in his temperament. Part of her laments for the loss of that gentle humor the boy she remembers once had. Even if he didn't mean it sometimes. The effort mattered. She redirects her gaze as casually as she can to avoid seeing what's there now.

"Besides, this number's comfy enough. Only wished it wasn't so depressingly lacking of some color," she laments. "I like the ruffly lace trimmings though." Her fingertips delicately trace the embroidery along the frills of her décolletage as she admires the handwork.

She doesn't notice the gentlest stirring in his own lips and the recognition in his knowing regard, watching her marvel over the simple loveliness of the garment, in spite of its plainness.

'Still. He should have known better,' the coincidental pondering idles, shared between their own solitary musings. Yet despite their unspoken synchrony, they manage to miss each other once she lets her attention drift off listlessly to the rest of the matching monochrome between the walls.

Lucy Gray's gaze trails the gilded moldings that frame the edges where the ceiling begins. She follows the relief of vines and florets climbing up the high roof and across all their convergence points. The floating hundred lights each illuminate a hundred more infinitely-faceted crystals of the chandeliers that hang from there. The mechanical lights remain unlit, but the rays through the pristinely clear windows are enough to dust nearly each surface of the alabaster room with the spectral refractions of every one of the suspended prisms. Borrowing from their brilliance, there is another faint glimmer that speckles across the walls—what she doesn't know are the flecks of inlaid quartz in the flocked motifs—so fine that only the pure sunlight seems enough to reveal their faint silhouettes. Accenting it all are the upholstery and bed linens that she has felt enough times against her skin now to know they are cut from the most exquisite textiles to come out of District 8's mills. That they probably are worth more by the yard than every rag she has ever owned in her entire life.

Her roaming eyes only come to a stop when they pass over the dimly reflected mirror doors within the space of the adjoining bathroom. Though the natural light fails to penetrate past the parted entrance, the depth of its space and the outlines of all its luxury can be glimpsed even from where she sits.

"The dresses are all very pretty," she says. Beyond those mirror doors is an entire walk-in closet full of them. A distant fondness softens her expression then. "You remembered that—me and pretty things."

Of course he remembers. He associates her with all pretty things.

Her eyes return to fall against her folded hands in front of her. Rough and chapped and calloused as they've long been, formed by harsh necessity over the years. They never looked so unseemly even when they once held and plucked her guitar strings. How she misses them. Even fears she's almost forgotten how they feel against her fingertips after so long.

In only the brief time she's had here, she has never been made to feel as invisible as she does now. At least beyond the fence, she'd made the wilderness her own. It'd taken her in turn, woven her in like another color among its perpetual threadwork. She moved as it moved. It sang as she sang.

Sitting in that white, sterile, spotless room, she is only reminded that she is an interloper in this world. No invitation or order by the President himself changes this.

Seeing that the delicate warmth she wears has grown pallid by the time she meets his gaze again dampens what he has painstakingly begun to salvage in himself. What small remains of it that lingers is made heavy by its weight. Across from him, Coriolanus sees but a frail smile, like all the ones she's ever spared since coming here. The kind that never quite reaches her eyes. Nothing at all close to the private ones the girl from his memories gave so freely.

"…You don't like any of it."

The despondence in his tone is enough to extinguish what's left of that smile completely. She is not entirely unappreciative of these amenities, but there is something about the luxury that gives her pause. All the opulence, lavished all so suddenly. And they come from magnitudes of entire worlds from all she's ever known. They remind her of where she wishes she could be again. Why she cannot go back to that place.

"I can arrange for a stylist to come and help you choose things more suited to your tastes." This is all he can think to offer. How the boy that still remembers tries.

She considers for longer than it really takes to decide. "Can't I just go shop for that stuff myself?" It's a bold ask, but she does anyway. What harm was there in it?

Predictably, he hesitates at this, gaze turning to pensive stone as he weighs the risk. There is none really, if he is to be perfectly honest. What could a woman who'd been a ghost, as far as Panem knew, possibly do all on her own here in the Capitol? He concludes that it's not about that, but a different matter entirely. "Traveling privileges are going to have to be earned, Lucy Gray," he answers.

Enough harm, according to the President.

He listens to her gentle exhale with the gradual turn of her crestfallen gaze. He can discern the resentment she holds for his decision, no matter how she tries to temper herself to it. He's felt it from the first moment their eyes met again.

"What am I supposed to even do here, Coryo?" He can hear it in her withering voice as well. "A 'guest' with no privileges?"

How can you even say that when I've brought you into everything I've gained?

"What was it you were doing out in your little cabin in the woods?" he asks in return.

Your hovel in the middle of the wilderness.

Her answer comes only after some thought. "Whatever I wanted."

Barely even surviving?

He hardly believes that. "Here, you're free to live, Lucy Gray."

"Hard to do when I'm not even allowed anywhere."

He is about to speak his assertions when she cuts across his words before he even gets a chance.

"On my own. Without needing to ask." This is the distinction she means for him to realize. "Everywhere I go, you've got chaperones on me like some delinquent. Might as well just stay in my cozy cage. At least I've got some space to myself here."

Of course there is reason in what she tells him. A rationale for the bitter undercurrent of her tones. And yet there lies a part of him that is roused by the carelessness of her words. That she hardly comprehends the extent of the consideration he has paid to her. Not just here. Not only in this moment.

How he has contemplated over nothing other than the life she has been owed when he'd once thought her too far gone beyond his reach.

…And she compares these comforts to an animal's enclosure.

"Of all the residences in this manor, you've been given the most luxuriant," he makes a point for her to be aware of this. "You've been in one. Show me where you see any bars in this cage, Lucy Gray."

She is keen to the shift in his composure, however controlled and slight. His voice remains calm, but his gaze has taken on something akin to his namesake. It is not a familiar expression she recalls of him, but she has seen it. Recognizes it. It's enough to sink deep into her flesh and turn her blood cold.

The last time she remembers feeling this was five years prior on that day by the lake.

"I know you claim you were never all that great with rhetoric. But not all cages have ugly steel bars like that old zoo, Coryo."

"You have everything provided for you here." A petty reminder. As if she wasn't already aware of the obvious. "This is far better off than anywhere else in Panem."

"I know you have more imagination in that brilliant mind of yours than that."

"Don't be difficult."

The stifling silence becomes heavy on their lungs again.

It's Lucy Gray who breathes first. "Fine. So you say."

There, too, is something reminiscent he finds in this exchange. How many conversations have been had between them before, where one provokes and the other objects? He can remember feeling the heat coursing in his veins like it does now, even if he doesn't remember what it was that had been said between them. He remembers the ambivalence clouding his reasoning and intuition. Perhaps most vividly, he remembers how he'd lost sight completely of her because of it. Lucy Gray. His girl.

But here she is, sitting right there in front of him. There is no hiding this time. He sees it plain with his own eyes—the lament that colors her expression. Her voice. Her eyes. All the things he became blind to then. And all the words he failed to say all those times wither again in his barren throat even now.

Nothing really has changed after all.

And as always, it would be her words to come forth, bearing with them all of what he witnesses now. "I'll leave the burden on you, then, Coriolanus. Convince me otherwise."

Take some responsibility for your words for once in your life.

You'll do your best to take care of her?

Your girl?

He hears the whisperings from the shadows beckon and berate. Nondescript, but plenteous, and all in consensus. He has never been above breaking promises. Especially when it served to benefit him. What good did that overrated integrity do for a man who placed his trust in the wrong one, staring down his own noose for it?

He dies a fool.

And yet, the thought that he would be made a liar by his own broken promises to Lucy Gray leaves everything that makes his being in wounds and fractures. It's more than a slight to his pride. Or a threat to his existence.

'Convince me otherwise.'

It feels wrong.

Filthy.

Profane.

A desecration.

The echo of her words have yet to leave him by the time he finds himself lying in his own bed. She says them so callously. Without trust. Without faith. As though she knows in her soul that it is an extraordinary task he is designed to fail. Only she could manage to propose to him an endeavor so common and simple, yet so insurmountable.

He is but a man, and she is the mountain asking to be moved. The sky daring to be touched. The endless sea that beckons to be crossed. And here, he still lingers at the foot of her shore, staring at the distance of that pale blue horizon. In front of him is the darkness of the depths, revealing nothing beyond but the shadows that obscure them.

There is nothing but uncertainty in the sea. Only a fool would imagine crossing it. Only one who held faith in the provenance of all his hope.

Coriolanus remembers that he had been a fool, once.

Notes: Sorry this took longer to get out than expected. I hope it was worth the wait! I struggled a bit with what to put in this chapter, and there were actually two more scenes I originally intended to have in this. When it started getting to be as long as it was, I ended up stopping it here to make the second half be the next chapter, lol. I think it ended up working out better in the end! Work is starting to pick up again soon, so I might be even slower with the next update. I hope you guys don't mind the delay and will enjoy the next parts! (This is looking like it's gonna be such a slow burn, omfg…lol. .-.)

As always—thanks, everyone, for taking the time to read! And thanks Rachele, for your time and support and brain cells, haha!

6/26/23