Chapter Text
Once upon a time, deep in the North, where nothing grows anymore, there lived a girl who slipped down into the tunnels to escape her past. She had run a long, long way, over streams and under hills, creeping through cavernous mines and broken towns, all to escape the broken-hearted boy she left behind.
And at the end, she found the city underground.
District Thirteen.
Once upon a time, in the heart of The Capitol, there lived a boy who grew too hungry for his own good. When at last came the day that he left the Academy, walking into the world with his swirling red coat an ominous blur against the gray of his city, he knew finally what he had to do.
And so the boy headed North.
There is no happy ending to this story.
On the day of his graduation, Coriolanus Snow woke to a song in his head, and half a dream still lingering on the red of his lips, stained with the smell of blood and roses.
He coughed. Then sighed.
Six of his classmates lay dead and under, their breath perfumed by the same poison in his veins. But that was a price that he was willing to pay; the need to be untouchable, ruthless and safe, meant that sacrifices must be made sometimes. The wealth of his benefactor was a comfortable shield against most accusations that came in the aftermath of the academy’s most prestigious students dropping one by one. They had died like flies drawn to bait, and he knew that what he did was justified—it meant that he would be free.
But at last came the moment too, where he knew that there was one singular thing left; one more to kill.
The question that haunted him, will forever haunt him—the choice that he had failed to make in those woods, all those years ago: Could he bear to go through with it?
The journey up North was not an easy one. Not when winter struck with all the wet dreariness of frost and cold. Stuck with the tedious route of following the train tracks up into the ruins of a desolate land, he had all the time in the world to drown in his thoughts.
The terrain felt too familiar, too wild. Uncivilized. A world meant for a boy he thought he had left behind.
He felt the wind carding through his hair, kept short at the sides and sleek up top, and he thought of how a gentle touch against the short-shorn hair of his scalp was once enough to send him into bliss. He smelled the pine-fresh scent of a forest darkened with winter dew, and heard the eerie cry of mockingjays through the trees. The rifle in his hands grew heavy, weighed down with the burden of knowing that once, he had fired blindly into a forest just like this. Once, he had made a decision that to this day, he did not know if he regretted. Once, he had killed a boy, only to be reborn in the ashes.
Grief and rage, kindred feelings of unease, twined within him, climbing into the crevice of his chest, gripping his heart. He knew this path, had walked it once with eyes clouded with love.
But he was not that boy anymore. The rasp of his breath, still laborious in spite of the medicine in his pocket, marked this fact all too well.
And yet—
And yet.
The thing about land is that it holds memories the same way the body holds a wound. It may scar over, but the traces of that first cut will remain evermore. And as he walked, he could’ve sworn that someone else walked next to him; a flash of a gold scarf, the sensation of a skirt against stone, the soft chime of earrings thrown back by a carefree toss of a head.
And so he too, slipped back into the past.
In the end, he found his girl.
Deep underground, where the sun could not reach, he crept through tunnels filled with rot, guided by a map and a flickering lantern.
When at last he reached the city beneath, he knew only that to find the girl he so desperately wanted to catch, he need only follow the song.
Within the depths of District Thirteen stood a dreary little bar, lit up with bars of neon red. Its doors were shut tight, yet from the windows up above escaped some light. Its glass panes were smudged by years of ash and dust, and while it proved hard to see into, Coriolanus Snow heard the melody within.
For a long moment he stood there, staring up with eyes filled with ice, tracing the silhouette of a girl who stood behind the glass, swinging lazily as a song swelled from her throat. He watched the dip of her waist, the sway of her long hair, watching as she twirled and danced and laughed.
Fury filled his veins.
A life.
A life without him.
And a voice unfettered.
His blood boiled with anger. With hunger. Instinct urged him forward, demanding that he storm in there, rifle raised, so to catch her. He would wrap his fist around her hair, drag her out screaming, weeping, so that he could wrap her in chains—
No. That was what the boy of ten and eight would’ve done.
He was no longer that boy.
He was Coriolanus Snow, the best of the Academy’s students, successor to the head of Panem. And he would not let her win.
Deep down, underground, currency comes in the form of whispers. Power. And he, keeper of both coins and keys, knew every little secret that could be wrung from such a place.
So he strolled to the door, as if with nary a care, and knocked. Once. Twice.
On the third, the door opened. The song stopped, the last of its notes hung in the air like an omen.
He walked in, the red of his coat now traded for a black so dark, it rivaled the abyss that threatened to swallow the bar, then set his rifle down against the bar, tucking his hands in his pockets with hum. With the greatest amount of disdain he could muster, he looked around, calculating and cunning in the way he navigated the small space by sight alone.
There were men gathered at the side; they held weapons in their hands, clubs and shovels. They were clearly miners; rough, weary men who laboured under the rule of District Thirteen’s manufacturers. He ignored them.
The women were gathered by staircase, leaning against the upper-balcony, their worn dresses in disarray as they stared down with interest. They too were working class— whores, plying their trade in hopes of gaining some meager coin. He ignored them too.
When at last his gaze met the soft hazel green eyes of the girl standing at the very top of the stairs, he smiled.
The girl froze; rabbit-still, like a prey animal caught in the gaze of a hawk. Here she was. His canary down in the mines. His songbird trapped in a cage of her own making.
Lucy Gray Baird.
One step forward. Then two. The thud of his boots against the sagging wooden floors echoed loudly.
“I have come for the girl in the window,” he said, simply, as if stating a fact. “I have come for Lucy Gray Baird.”