Snow Dove

Beneath the veneer of a man who has everything and knows all, lies depths of memories and regret unspoken. It is a simple thing for him to lock it all away and forget, until one link in the chain breaks. What resurfaces breathes life and light back to the other remnants of him once thought lost and beyond reach. How will the chains reform and reconnect all the pieces of the man who shapes and bends Panem's very destiny with his own naked hands? Will they liberate him, or will they only become his anchor pulling him back under to drown within those depths?

-A continuation of the lives and story of Coriolanus Snow and Lucy Gray Baird following The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes.

Chapter 1: House of Glass

It is a Friday evening like any other in his private greenhouse. He comes in, paces down the clear rows between the sea of scents and sights, always coming to Grandma'am's treasured white roses by the end of his visit. He comes by often, and though the roses don't necessarily remind him of her, it is difficult not to wonder if it's because he doesn't pay the same visits to her grave. But what Coriolanus knows is that he prefers the silence of these plants over the wafting whispers of the ghosts that fill the cemetery air. It is why he comes here in these evenings, like clockwork. Until this one becomes no longer typical like any of those others, the invariability of the ticking hands disrupted upon the arrival of an aide—the one who knows exactly where to find the president in these private evenings. Who knows there is a reason why he leaves his devices shut off when he is here. Who knows he is strictly not to be disturbed within this sanctum under any circumstances.

But this Friday evening becomes the sole exception.

The aide is breathless in his haste, and he pauses to catch it once he finds the man at the end of the mosaic tiled path.

Coriolanus continues to mind the buds before him, unbothered as he glimpses in the corner of his vision that the hapless clerk appears too daunted to even address him.

'Still a few days shy of blooming just yet,' he thinks to himself, fingertips brushing over the tightly closed petals to test their feel after he's finished pruning back some unseemly ends of the foliage.

"I assume this must be urgent news, if it couldn't wait," his calm voice resounds with crystal clarity against the pristine geometry of this structure's transparent panels.

Settling on one particularly early bloom amongst the juvenile buds, he reaches with his clipping shears for the harvest.

The aide pulls a kerchief from his pocket and daubs it at the receding line high on his brow, dampened not just from his labored pace. "Sir...uh," he clears his dry throat, "she's been found."

Just as he severs the stem, Coriolanus' hands still with the rest of his bones. The words come like stones into the glass house. He parts his lips as though he, too, has become parched like his messenger, turning his head over his shoulder first before his arctic gaze follows.

With a collective breath, the aide swallows all his nerves underneath the scrutiny of the president's untelling countenance. "Just two hours ago. She is already en route, under escort—just as you instructed in the case that she were—"

"—Alive."

Hardly an utter, if not for the perfectly undisturbed, undiluted air here. Coriolanus can even hear the word carried on his breath himself. It'd come in a foreign voice of an 'other'—not him, but of his conscience that knew to remain silent here of all spaces within his claim. And as if the word itself drew upon the rest of that dormant shadow like an incantation, it'd begun to rise whole within him then. Beating on his heart, pounding in his skull, coiling down his spine, and trickling out through every nerve beyond it.

Coriolanus felt every digit in his hands tighten, as though reaching to grasp beyond himself in search of calmness. Of control.

No. Control came from within. Shadows be damned.

"And when will she arrive?"

"Tomorrow, sir. The transport is currently passing through District 8, so likely before end of day." Awaiting further instructions, the aide notes the look of contemplation in the president's distant focus. He hazards what might be lingering on his mind. "Shall I cancel the state dinner with—"

"—It's fine," he answers quickly. "There's no need." Coriolanus breathes again, as if the grip of that 'other' within has suddenly relented, and he regains himself. "It's already been five years. What's one more day?" he nearly sneers to himself with a wry laugh.

There is nothing else to confer to the aide, yet the man still lingers. At times, the intuitive pandering of his staff is a welcome convenience for the efficiency his machine demands. But he is quick here with his indication that even the messenger is but a mere interloper within these glass walls.

"Thank you for your discretion," Coriolanus offers in a languid tone. "And my apologies for your coming all the way out here to deliver this news."

The aide nods anxiously, wracked by both discomfort and reprieve for the tacit dismissal. "Right, then." He wads the kerchief away back into his pocket once the air seems clear of any ire he'd feared drawing from the young president by his disturbance. "I'll proceed with preparations for tomorrow."

Coriolanus doesn't even take heed of the receding footfalls fading down the length of the mosaic tiled walkway, unconcerned by some dinner party with yet another of the Capitol's many faceless tycoons in queue for his favor. It has been an endless parade since his inauguration nearly two months prior.

No. What occupies his entirety now is what the shadows have dredged up from his very bowels. A project undertaken even long before his ascension. A search for answers—those that refused to leave his memories in their resting place, where they'd found some semblance of seeming peace. That is, until those same shadows claimed and stole it all away. In return, he had been delivered nothing but restless nights, unquiet silence, and vestiges of all he'd sought to wash away, branded upon his being like the burning touch of an apparition.

The thought brings his hands to a tremble. It is only then that the piercing sensation registers with his senses at last. He looks down at the bloom he'd cut from the row of buds, now crumpled in his hand. A reaping, now made inconsequential. Uncurling his clenched fingers, several of the crushed petals fall away, revealing upon his palm the lacerations and spotting of blood, left by the stem of thorns that tore deep through his skin.

No, he thinks as he reaches to pick up one of the stray petals now stained in red. These roses do not bear with them the memory of his grandmother. Nor his long departed parents. Not any single soul among the dead laid to rest within his memory.

There is only one that lingers in this private space of his.

And she is alive.

Lucy Gray Baird was alive.

A/N: I picked up the book only shortly before the trailers dropped, and have been so completely engrossed in these two characters ever since. I've been eyeballs deep in discussions with friends about them until enough thoughts and musings piled into mountain loads, lol. I'd like to think this story idea was the result of the hugely bittersweet feelings I was left with by the end of the book. There was just something I wished to see a little more of for Lucy Gray and Coriolanus, maybe to see the small seeds and threads of what they could have been be given a chance at flourishing a bit more? Seeing what they both could have been for themselves and for each other, had time and circumstances been just a bit kinder to them?

I don't know. It was really hard for me to peg, but I felt compelled to explore some version of this what-if. I don't know that it would have ended any more kindly for either of them even if given more time, but it's sad to see them deprived of at least some more of it being shared between them. And I think it's interesting to see what a President Snow who hadn't chosen to completely forego love would have looked like. Still deeply flawed, without a doubt, but maybe a little different. His unforgettable line 'it's the things we love most that destroy us' sits really deep in mind while thinking about all of this. Only he would believe a statement like that, and perhaps this version of him suffers immensely for not taking heed, being who he is. Anyhow, it's a bunch I really can't wait to explore more of in this story!

Massive and eternal thanks to Rachele and Laura for being my listeners and idea punching bags, lol. I love you guys so much, and I'd never get to a point to post anything without your guidance and encouragement. Thank you to anyone taking the time to read this, and I hope you all enjoy it. Can't wait for the movie to drop!

5-24-23