𝐃𝐄𝐀𝐃 𝐁𝐈𝐑𝐃𝐒 𝐒𝐓𝐈𝐋𝐋 𝐅𝐋𝐘 - Coriolanus Snow

Prologue

AMENA PLINTH awoke early that morning.

She didn't know what drew her awake, either the smell of the breakfast Cook was making or the burning pain that had coiled deep within the pits of her chest. It had lingered there all night, nesting like a snake, and no amount of tossing and turning would ease its assault. She reached over to the glass of water on her nightstand and took a gulp, hoping it could relieve the discomfort some.

Instead, it mocked her.

And the cool, smooth taste she was craving felt more like fire as it made its way down her throat. She quickly put the glass down and slipped further underneath her cashmere bedsheets like a child afraid of the boogeyman.

As she sat in her bed, watching the shadows from outside dance on her walls like a morose version of the Nutcracker, her mind had drifted to what awaited her when morning would arrive. Amena hated school, she hated things that reminded her how useless she was. School was no different. 

She wondered what devious tricks she could play in order to feign sick.

Amena rolled onto her side with a sigh, watching as a bird floated onto her windowsill, tilting its head with curiosity as it bathed in the early morning dew. A little blue thing he was. Birds like this were rare to see in the Capitol, and she hadn't recalled seeing such a creature since her youth back in District Two. It chirped once, almost gawking at her, and flew away.

Her brother would've told her that was some kind of omen.

Her brother.

The days had been cruel to her, their house that once erupted with life was left hallow. Empty of any real emotions at all. Her mother's laughter. Her father's temper. It had all subsided when Sejanus packed his bag for District 12 and hugged his Ma goodbye. Out of some form of protest, Amena ignored her brother the last week he was home. And when he went in for his hug, she shrugged him off and slammed her bedroom door shut.

He shouldn't have gone. That feeling haunted her every waking moment. Amena wasn't trying to be cruel, but she unintentionally lashed out. And now, she was paying the price.

She missed her brother more than she'd ever missed anything before. And she couldn't understand how she was to go the next year or the next twenty years without him by her side. It was a prison sentence, and she hated wearing the shackles.

She thought that maybe if she could grasp onto the last bit of her childhood, the year would pass quicker. So she pulled out pictures and toys she once knew like the back of her palm, and scattered them across her bedroom floor. She hoped that it would ease the pain of her brother's absence, but it didn't. Her childhood was over, despite what her parents thought.

It ended the day he left.

Most of the time, she retreated to the sanctuary that was her room. She found that her presence only irritated her Ma, and her father had no time left for her these days. Since Sejanus had gone to Twelve, her parents had become naive to their daughter's existence. At first, she did not mind the freedom they gave. She felt productive. Free from her family's shadow. But as the days went on, she opted for their nagging and opinions to their cold stares of indifference.

She heard a twist of her doorknob and a wail. A short, horrified wail. She worried that it was her Ma, who'd come to tell her the family dog had passed. Amena and Sejanus loved that thing, they named it Talon because in some odd way its claws resembled an eagle. Footsteps followed, and Amena pressed her eyes shut in an attempt to pretend she was sleeping. Then a hand brushed her shoulder, and she looked up towards her Ma.

Ma's face almost cracked and withered away in the night's shadows. The wrinkles around her eyes had become more set. And then Amena noticed the tears that dried against her mother's rosy cheeks. It all hit Amena like a bullet train destined for hell.