Falling Snow

004

Livia Cardew brings her belongings to the plinth house the next Monday evening, in fact she'd spent the whole evening shaking her leg as she struggled to listen to her lecturers spout boring capital history as usual.

She stands frozen in front of the large doors, anticipating the faces of the family staring at her with a sort of selfish pride. Instead the door swings open to Coriolanus in all his blonde glory, eyeing her down like predator to prey.

"Livia." He acknowledges, "would you like me to take your bags?" He reaches out a hand to the girls luggage and she begrudgingly lets him take it.

"I'd like to have no bags at all, but we can't all get what we wish for." She storms past him after shoving the large suitcase into his hands, cursing herself for lacking composure. He follows her, steel toed shoes tapping with every step, the bile in her throat growing on each beat.

"I trust you rested well."

She sighs at his kindness, no, diplomacy. How she wished she could be right now if she was not drowning in dread, "as well as I could be knowing my impending doom." His eyes never leave her figure as she looks around the hallway and turns to him, finally locking her eyes with his own, "Where is my room?"

At this question, he stiffness and becomes suspiciously flustered, an emotion Livia thought was impossible for Coriolanus Snow. "Our room."

Her brow raises, "excuse me?" He had to be joking, this had to be some sort of poor comedic timing instead of the awful truth.
But then she was standing in front of a wide room with a dark wooden floor draped in red rugs containing eccentric yet royal patterns.
The bed itself had a matte brown bedsheet draped with a maroon blanket situating itself at the end of the bed.

It was a cozy bedroom, in fact under any other circumstance Livia would find it romantic, this was not the circumstance.

"This is unacceptable!" She throws her hands towards her head, dragging them down her face in despair, "Coriolanus sharing a room was not a part of this deal."
Her anger only rises and before she can say anything else he's shushing her and taking her hands in his own, holding them in between the pair.

"I know. I know! But what else can we do? They'll know this marriage is a fraud Livia." She ignores the burning sensation of his hands in hers and removes them swiftly, "I won't stand for this!"

"We have no choice."

So that night after a very awkward dinner filled with prayers for the Plinth's lost son, (Livia didn't like to think of people as dead, more lost somewhere, it helped her cope,) she lay in the large bed feeling the echo of Coriolanus as he moves himself into the left side.

She tries not to move from her back, if she moves and faces him their lips would be too close, if she turns it would almost be like he was hugging her, no, to lay on her back was the safest idea. Coriolanus doesn't seem to care, situating himself to lay facing her simply because it's what makes him most comfortable, he couldn't care if she was there or not.

In the dim light of her bed light Livia takes a closer look around the room. On the left there's a large window with a sheer white curtain placed behind some open red velvet ones, it appears Coriolanus liked the night sky and especially the breeze from the open window. Livia shivers at the cold.

There's a desk sat in front, messy papers situated the wooden surface and a small pot of ink resides in the corner. The blonde girl wonders what Coriolanus could be writing so intensely, was it perhaps a wedding speech? Or a presidential one?

She shrugs the thought away, it was most likely homework from Doctor Gaul, a frightening women that Livia decides not to think about during night hours. A plant pot of red roses catches her eye, the flowers beauty juxtaposing the messy papers finding home on the same table. She always knew Coriolanus was a fan of roses, she'd known since she first saw him with a little white rose in his uniform pocket. But these roses weren't white, they were the colour of freshly drawn blood.

Livia had watched enough of the hunger games to know what that looked like.

"Are you done awkwardly staring around my bedroom Livia?" He speaks in a raspy, annoyed and tired voice, sarcasm lacing his every word, she turns to him in surprise, taking in his messy, yet attractive bed hair that falls onto his forehead.

"Spot anything you might steal while I sleep?"
Livia sticks her nose up at him, "why on earth would I need to steal from you?"

"As long as it's not my organs take away," he makes a dark joke and laughs at himself, shuffling slightly to make himself comfier and closing his eyes once more, "much less the heart."

"I wouldn't dream of it."

"Stealing my heart?" He looks up at her and their eyes meet, the action causing her to swallow nervously, he pretends he doesn't notice and find butterflies in his own stomach.

She shuffles down and lays facing him, lips close to one another as she breathes out a hushed whisper,
"The heart is a powerful thing, easily controlled. I don't think I'd have much power over your heart Coriolanus."

She was right, Snow refused to fall in love again let alone crush this easily. If he had to feel any emotion to Livia Cardew he'd keep it strictly.. sensual. No love involved.

"I'm glad you know your place."
He reaches over her, causing her body to jump out of its skin in sudden fright, and he simply turns off her light, dimming the room to darkness before turning away, and going to sleep.

It wasn't the position he was most comfortable sleeping in and Coriolanus hated that he had to sacrifice his comfort to stop his heart.

***

Once the morning came the two left for breakfast separately, as if nothing had changed from their conversation the night before.

Livia had stopped at the blonde man's desk before she went downstairs, gazing her pupils over the mess of ink smudged handwriting, living out the words.

It was his presidency speech.
She should've known.

Even if their sham marriage came first Coriolanus Snow would always have his priorities in order.