WINGS - Coriolanus Snow

FOURTEEN

"ARIA, REMIND ME AGAIN WHY YOU CAN'T STAY HERE," Coriolanus asked, arm wrapped around the girl. They were sat in Lucy Gray's house, as she didn't mind letting them stay there during the daytime. At night, though, it was only Aria who slept there.

"You know I can't. I'd love to, more than anything, but I need to be back by tonight."

"So then we just hide out in the forest. We'd have eachother, right?"

"I can't promise we'd be safe. The Capitol have their ways, Coriolanus, you know that better than anyone," Aria sighed.

"I can protect us both, you know," Coriolanus replied. Aria didn't respond to this, remaining silent.

"I need to go to my mothers house and pick up some things," Aria informed him. Since she'd arrived back at District 12, Aria hadn't dared go near her mother, but there were things in her room that she wanted to pick up.

When she arrived at the house, Aria knocked on the door which was opened by a skeletal woman sporting short, thin blonde hair. She looked completely different from Aria, who had taken after her late father instead of her sickly mother.

"Hello. I just need to grab a few things, then I'll be out of your hair for good," Aria said with a touch of nervousness present in her voice.

"Alright," the woman replied. "Congratulations, Aria," she said before disappearing into the darkness of the house.

The place had never been a home to Aria. It was always cold and shrouded in darkness, not a slither of love present anywhere. Walking up the stairs to her old bedroom, Aria felt uneasy. The last time she was here, the day of the reaping, her mother hid herself away in her own room, refusing to speak a word to Aria. No words of encouragement or good luck. Silence.

Aria entered her room, hit with a wave of nostalgia from the shabby walls. The rest of the house was always unwelcoming, but this place was where Aria and Lucy Gray would often spend their time, taking a break from the depressing nature of District 12.

Rummaging through her drawers, Aria picked out the important things to her. The pair of bow-shaped earrings her father had given her, the teddy bear she'd slept with since she was a baby, etc.

Once she'd stuffed her bag with as much as she could, she walked down the stairs and approached her mother one last time.

"Goodbye, mother," Aria said, unsmiling.

"Goodbye, daughter," she replied coldly.

Aria left the house feeling sorrowful. When she was little, her mother and father were so good to her. She'd help her mother sew clothes up, they'd draw together and play games, but once her father had passed, Aria's mother became cruel. She made every day of Aria's life miserable, not seeming to feel any sort of remorse for the girl who'd childhood she essentially ruined. Their final goodbye still felt incomplete, but there was nothing else Aria could get out of her mother, and she knew that.

While she walked back, Aria's thoughts were consumed by Coriolanus's proposition. Could the two of them really run away, just like that? Would it work? Aria didn't want to endanger Coriolanus, but neither of them had much of a life anyway. They were both living in unfamiliar places, away from each other, and once Aria went back to the Capitol, she didn't know when she'd see Coriolanus again.

She opened up the door, Coriolanus greeting her once she stepped in.

"Hey," he said, "I've got to get back to work," he got up, but Aria stopped him.

"Coryo, were you being serious when you said we could run away?"

"I thought you didn't want to," he said,
confused, "but yes, I was being serious."