Dancing with our hands tied || Snowbaird

Chapter One

-Coriolanus-

She was scared and he had spiralled, and when the bullets showered down and her song echoed through the trees and ghostly fog, Lucy Gray's sweet face has been drowned in the depths of his mind, only resurfacing every time something reminded him of her. In other words, every second of every day after he killed her. Or at least what he thought had happened.

Every now and again he'd remember her touch and it made him ache somewhere deep in his bones. Days were cold without her embrace, and nights even colder when he longed to hear her sing one more time. Oh, how he longed to be back in District 12. To be back at the Hob. To be drunk on some cheap white liquor as his little songbird swayed gently on stage, singing her song. Singing his song. Often he'd unknowingly hum the melancholy melody of Pure as the Driven Snow, then shy away at how hopeless it seemed.

His Lucy Gray, her small frame standing in the wan spotlight, adorned with feathers in her hair. Sometimes, back when he was a Peacekeeper, he'd have dreams of her flying away into the trees. That she'd become a bird. A jabberjay -no- a mockingjay. How he hated those wretched birds. Always squawking. Always flying around. Never to be controlled. And how he wished to be able to control them. But not her, not anymore. He couldn't anyway, Lucy Gray was as free as those birds, from the one monster, who was himself. How did it even happen?

His best friend dead, the love of his life also dead. If she wasn't? She didn't love him anymore, worse, she didn't trust him. Maybe she did when they were together, swimming in the lake and singing songs and ballads in the dark when most people left the Hob. Moments like those made Coriolanus cry silent tears in the night. He hated how vulnerable it made him seem. Him crying over a girl? The future president of Panem? Lucy Gray wasn't just a girl though, no, she was a performer, the most talented and gifted person he'd ever met.

She sang in his mind during pauses in his daily routine, and haunted his dreams, running at him with a cascade of rainbow snakes draped over her equally colourful dress. There was no escape from a girl who had once loved him so, and who he loved just as much. Though often he found himself wondering, had he stopped loving her? No, of course not. Lucy Gray followed him like a shadow, not only because of the guilt that chained him to the meticulously draining work he now did for the Capitol. He genuinely missed her. Sometimes he felt like a dog waiting for his owner to come back. She grounded him, comforted him, showed him joy and happiness beyond power.

One day he hoped he could see her again, even if it was only when they were both long dead and buried six feet under, probably under the rubble of a sparkling new war in Panem. Everyone knew the districts weren't getting along well anymore, even less so with the Capitol. Coriolanus doubted that even when he did die he'd reunite with his one love. Despite everything, he hoped she was headed for heaven, no, he knew she was. He hoped that it would be all beautiful and soft and people would have delicate angel wings and walk around with gold covered harps. Lucy Gray could fly and sing all simultaneously. How she'd love that!

Perhaps he'd be sent to live with devil, in the pits of hell, but at least it couldn't be much different than what his life already was like. He, along with many of his classmates, had been forced to work under Dr Gauls order, helping her kill animals so that she could turn them in mutations. It was sick. So so sick and disgusting that Coriolanus' stomach churned each time he caught a glimpse of her new creation. Why anyone would want to do that, he had no idea, but then again he'd killed two people, maybe three, one of which was his girlfriend.

Lucy Gray, he thought as he woke up in the cold sweat he'd now grown accustomed to. Where was she? He slipped on his dressing gown and made his way to the bathroom where he splashed his face with icy water in hopes it would bring him to his senses on this overcast day. The clouds had taken over the sky and the only ray of sunshine to be seen was the small package of bread pudding that Tigris had left him last night.

Poor Tigris, poor Grandmam, they had both been evicted from the Snows mighty penthouse soon after he reached District 12. A new law order about paying taxes or something... the Snows already didn't have enough money to buy the most basic of foods, certainly not enough to pay taxes on where they lived.

Nonetheless, he opened the slightly dusty box and tried to shake the thoughts of his older cousin living in a small studio apartment with probably 3 other people , as he took a bite of the dessert. Tigris often made bread pudding during the war if they had some left over ingredients, which in reality wasn't often at all, but when all you're diet used to be made up of was cabbage soup and beans, anything seemed better than it truly was. It reminded him of home. Of his sweet mother who had died. He wished he could've gotten to know her better, and his little sister who died along with her.

Then again the food reminded him once again of the dark haired girl. The time when he took a piece of bread pudding to her when she was still locked up in that zoo cage like some sort of animal. It was the same day Arachne had been killed by that girl, what was her name... Brenda, Brady? He couldn't care less. He remembered Lucy Gray shaking in the corner as blood poured out of Arachne's neck and painted the ground crimson. Like never before her face had gone the colour of her name, a dull grey, as she turned around and heaved up the dessert he'd just shared with her.

Everything reminded him of her. He saw her face in almost anything he did, touched, heard. It was a curse that he'd never shake himself of.

-

A/N
THANK YOU FOR READING MY FIRST CHAPTER!!
i hope you enjoyed this so far- as i said it's a bit shorter than past chapters, but especially this one because it's an intro kind of
Thank you again yall, see you next time 💗