Gilded Songbird 𓅚

Prelude

I've been slowly getting through the Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes book after seeing the movie. Went off how he described Lucy Gray here hence the different woman on the cover. Will have elements from Gild or the Plated Prisoner series.
What a brilliant story this is🤍 hello new Snow lovers.

  Snow in its deceptive beauty wreaked a deadly force.
Its frostbite could sear flesh with a resonated ache down to the marrow of bone. Unforgiving as it was deadly. Under concentrated heat the prismatic puddle left from the melted snow, would evaporate just as swiftly. She was hoping for the latter as boots trudged through the slush and ice that cleaved like second skin. The pines rustled as a crisp snap of wind threaded through the trees, outlined in the silver moonlight.

  Like seeking hands, it wrenched the folds of her sheepskin jacket open. "Ah! Damn this hog-killing weather!" This had been the most unforgivable of winters endured, since the separation of the Covey. Yet she'd survived, comforted by the knowledge that they thrived on.

  That was all that mattered.

  Another mile away left them while still, a refuge for her. As she'd experienced over the last few years in the upper north, the sheer isolation had become far from desirable. But beggars can't be choosers as the saying went. Lucy was no beggar. She'd roughed it just as her Pa had once taught her the basics of survival. That had been before, before that same mouth that spoke such wisdom got him into hot water with a Peacekeeper, a bullet later put between his eyes.

  Adapting to the wilds had required adjustments as the whiplash of seasons. She memorized the call of the birds, down to what texture of tree bark was edible. The shade of berries and those of which were poison. She'd survived—barely—with air left in her lungs and a couple of fresh katnisses the frost hadn't slain. The thought alone was enough to leave her salivating over the boiled pot of potato stew soon to come.

  It would be a blessed change from rabbit, dead fish, or squirrel... the usual scrounge.

  Food was much more difficult to come by in the winters. Animals were in hibernation and the deer were too damn fast to target. Her aim was far too atrocious to make a decent killshot. Her muscles strained under the tension of a bow and her poor arm hardly struck intended marks with a dulled daggar.

  Still, she made it work.

  "Come on Lucy girl, you're almost there." She could see the decrepit, dilapidated cabin just half a yard off. A humble abode, it wasn't nearly as spacious as her home front at the Seam. Yet she'd done her best to make it livable. With couple logs of wood for a fire to keep warm and a roof she'd patched over her head to keep the weather at bay.

Once spring arrived, she could exchange out the dead flowers left in a tin by the window, for a fresh bouquet. A little slice of heaven to make it honey. Her lips curled at the thought as she scrapped the strands of hair loosed from her braid, keeping her chin tucked from being nipped too harshly by the spear of flurries.

"Just keep on moving
Keep on moving...
As the snow gently falls
I'll fight through it all
Gotta keep on... trying..."

The words croaked barely above a whisper. The slow, haunting melody over the course of the long, harsh winter she had yet to finish. Many songs had long dried up and shriveled just as the flowers in her tin.

Life alone had not been kind to Lucy Gray as age passed and harsh reality of life crystallized. There were no more potted rainbows or bright colors from a whimsical dress to dance in, nor reverently sing strong ballads to an eager crowd.

There was only this and she could not fail at this. There were worse things in this life to be subjected to. Oh yes, much much worse. Beyond the borders where they paraded in crystalline decadence as malevolent creatures far removed from the districts. Malicious elites just as sharp as a blade and a masked deceitful character, once stripped down to the bare bones.

  No, she would make it.

Slush crunched beneath her feet. The door whined on rusted hinges as she threw it closed. A match was struck within an oiled lantern, as a flame flickered to life bathing the small wooden shack in a soft glow. Furiously she rubbed her hands together, breathing between the bridged bruised fingers to drive feeling back into them. She still needed to make it to town at least once this month for supplies, lest the winter bury her frozen corpse long before spring.

  It was a miracle she had kindling for a fire yet. "If only this damned weather would clear to see a straight eye out." Finally reaching for the rucksack perched on the makeshift shelf, she'd pulled the leather string loose—

  When a sound, no more than a subtle tap, had her reflexively whipping out her daggar, just as adept as she'd been as a former tribute.

Katnisses thunderously tumbled to the floor and rolled across the scratched floorboards with a groan.

  Just as a polished boot stoppered the russet vegetables from an alcove of shadows in the far corner.

  All thoughts fled from her mind as two worlds suddenly aligned. Her heart sank cold into the soles of her feet as words fell like a ghostly apparition causing the hairs to raise on her skin and fused her veins like ice.

  All for a boy, who no longer looked like the Capital protégé she'd once known—and long buried in her mind. "Coriolanus...?"

  "Oh, Lucy Gray, how the wilds have ravaged you. As they say, never bite the hands that feeds you..."