WINGS - Coriolanus Snow

TWENTY-SEVEN

CORIOLANUS SNOW had found love in the strangest place, and he was determined to get it back. From the day he had met Aria, he felt drawn to her. He felt protective over her, wanting nothing more than to keep her with him forever, not allowing a single man to lay his sights on her. She was quite beautiful, and though there had always been bigger things going on, Coriolanus was acutely aware of how men looked at Aria. Some innocently taking in her beauty, some hungrily staring her down in a more primal fashion. Both of these irked Coriolanus, as he was a very possessive man, and he wouldn't let anyone touch, or even simply look at what was rightfully his.  If only, though, he could see the way Raphael looked at Aria in Coriolanus's absence.

"Aria, your hair is out of place, we can't have that in front of the cameras, can we?" Raphael leaned over to her, tucking a strand behind her ear, and he was so close that he probably could've felt her warm breath on his outstretched arm.

"Thank you," Aria smiled, her naïveté causing her to believe that Raphael was actually just trying to sort out her hair. Everyone else could recognise his efforts to charm Aria, with Coriolanus's close friends often interfering in what had become a daily routine for Raphael. Flirt, get reprimanded, take a break, then flirt some more.

"Aria, your hair looked fine before," Bug said bluntly, pushing his way past Raphael. "Coriolanus always liked it this way," he stated before untucking the piece of hair from behind Aria's ear, shooting Raphael a warning look.

"Oh, don't mention Coriolanus, please. If I think about him too much, I'll end up crying, and we don't want that, do we?" she smiled sadly. "Everything all feels so empty without him."

"If you're thinking of him, he's probably thinking of you, too," Sejanus said warmly. "He may be making efforts to search for you as we speak."

"I just don't understand why we can't go back for him," Aria sighed.

"Trust me, we all want to-" Bug said before he was cut off.

"Not all of us," Raphael scoffed.

"What is your problem?" Bug moved towards Raphael, grabbing the shirt of his collar. "Coryo would've been a much better attribute to our cause than you ever have been," Bug said. Although Bug often hid behind his sarcastic exterior, he deeply cared for Coriolanus, and the rest of his friends, especially caring for a certain songbird.

"Enough of that, Bug!" Lucy Gray exclaimed, tugging on his arm. His expression softened, and he relinquished his grasp on Raphael.

"Coriolanus would have any of you killed in an instant to save his own back," Raphael said, laughing a little. Bug opened his mouth to say something again, but Aria beat him to it. She strode towards Raphael, though she didn't look very intimidating to him with her short stature, 5'2 in comparison to his almost abnormal 6 and a half feet, but her words pierced through him.

"Coriolanus Snow is the bravest man I've ever known. He loves me, I know that more than I know anything else in this world. I won't hear a bad word about him from now on, is that understood?"

Raphael rolled his eyes, nodding, attempting to hide his contempt from the mention of Coriolanus's love for Aria. He couldn't compete with everything the two had been through together, and he knew that. The realisation didn't stop him from longing after Aria, though. Perhaps if Coriolanus could just stay out of the picture for long enough, he may have a chance with the girl.

"Oh, before we record any new footage, it's about time we release our first recording," Sejanus stated. Aria had no clue about any of the technical things, but there was a wide team of people, who she didn't even know the names of, that seemed to be in charge of the whole thing. "In just about 2 minutes, this footage will be distributed all throughout Panem."