HEART OF GOLD | CORIOLANUS SNOW

𝘾𝙃𝘼𝙋𝙏𝙀𝙍 69

District 2 was like any other district in that it was ugly and monotonous. On this, Lilith finally seemed to agree with him.

Although the Holo had been replaced for landing, Coriolanus could control the oversized television from his seat. Seeing as Lilith was moving around so much trying to look around her window she was at risk of loosening her seatbelt, he cued up the live feed from the camera mounted to the belly of the hovercraft, granting them an aerial perspective of the landscape below. For someone who liked pretty things and colourful clothes, she watched it for a fair amount of time before seemingly accepting that she wouldn't be afforded anything more than a binary scene of stone mounds and homogenous concrete blocks either bathed in light or else cast in harsh shadows. Her expression became the one she had back in the hangar.

They flew over the Justice Building, which was distinguishable from the expansive uniformity by virtue of its situation around a large, flat square that seemed to have been cut out of the repeating template with a precision stencil, and Lilith straightened up slightly. Coriolanus wondered if she made the connection between the miniscule equilateral quadrangle that was the town's barren marketplace and the setting of the annual reaping. More likely, she was taken by the other variation in the otherwise unchanging scene: the nearby, gigantic mountain around which the masonry municipal had been developed.

Regardless, she didn't say anything. As one could expect of anyone with manners, let alone a well-bred member of the Capitol's elite, Lilith had the decency not to speak with something in her mouth. She chewed her gum quietly until they touched down, then made something of a show of balling up the gnarled sweet into the tissue paper Rogers had provided earlier, as if to demonstrate that she hadn't ingested the indigestible synthetic. That was when he saw it.

Coriolanus had been avoiding looking too closely at the inside of Lilith's right arm. Not only was it rude to stare, but it felt like an invasion of privacy. Above all, it would remind him of mistakes that couldn't be erased by a few dabs of powder or wiping out tapes. At the Citadel, some form of long sleeve could always be counted on to conceal her skin, whether it was a psychedelic sweater, an overly furry cardigan, or a frilly blouse, so it had been months since he'd seen the scar. It would stand to reason that it had faded, but his mind seemed stuck on memories dating back to the previous year, his brain rationalizing the blemished area with images from New Year's Eve and her birthday that were no longer true.

"Is that—?" Amazed, Coriolanus glanced over at his apprentice.

He'd seen her playful when bantering with him, maybe even cheeky, but the grin Lilith broke into as she nodded was downright mischievous. She brought her wrist closer to him, as proud to flaunt it as the photo she'd taken on his cordless. The red and raw incision he remembered was gone, neatly disguised under the honeysuckle's stalk. Black ink likewise outlined the rest of the flower—petals and leaves sufficiently detailed to draw attention away from the inevitable unevenness of a naturally-healed surgical wound despite not being filled with colour. Coriolanus was tempted to touch it, to graze his thumb over the intricate illustration, but something told him that even physical contact wouldn't make its existence easier to believe.

Lilith Gold had a tattoo?

That sounded like a joke no matter how you sliced it.

"I got it last week," she said, whispering, as if sharing a secret. He gazed at her, shy but so patently delighted.

Last week. When they had been apart. Hopefully, it was the only radical thing she'd done.

"You, Miss Gold, really are one of a kind."

With a bashful chuckle, Lilith turned away, but not before Coriolanus witnessed, for the third time that day, the darkening of her eyes. Recalling the remark about her mother once employing the phrase, he understood all at once.