Odi Et Amo | CORIOLANUS SNOW

01 | dr gaul's game

WORD COUNT: 2564

×××

THERE IS NOTHING more noticeable than blood on snow. The starkness of deep crimson against pure white. The indent left by warm blood melting ice. The only thing thick enough to stick against a solid blanket of snow. There is something so beautiful about the meeting of blood and snow. The staining of purity. But while blood stains, revealing impurity, it is not blood that creates it. Blood does not kill. Suffocating avalanches, freezing winters, beautiful snow does that. Blood simply reveals, and there is nothing more obvious.

Coriolanus Snow had killed 4, maybe 5, a little over a year ago. He had scrubbed the blood completely off of his hands. And yet, he still felt how it stained his name whenever she looked at him.

The first time he felt it, the sickening twist in his gut, was at the Plinth Residence, when she had stared right through him like she knew. Of course, it wasn't possible, but for a split second Coriolanus thought he had been caught.

Every glance since, he could feel the hangman's rope around his neck, getting tighter with each glare. As if she could read him. As if she was always a second away from announcing him as a sinner. As if the fire in her eyes, eyes as cold as his, were lit by Lucy Gray's revenge herself.

Kyra Tanwen looked nothing like Lucy Gray Baird. Yet that songbird was the only person Coriolanus could see when he looked at Kyra. If he was the destructive snow, then she was the betraying blood. And he loathed her for it.

"SNOW?"

"Hm?" Coriolanus glanced away from the snow outside, the trigger for his all-consuming thoughts, back to Festus Creed, who was looking at him expectantly.

"He asked if you had any idea what Dr Gaul's assignment for us will be." Antonius Lucanus repeated, a dark haired-boy and a year younger than them, accepted into Coriolanus's small circle of friends due to his significant family and reserved nature. It was a nice contrast to their other friend, Festus being as imposing as his burly figure and as fiery as his red curls. And sometimes, a little stupid.

A lot stupid actually, Coriolanus thought.

"No, she hasn't informed me." He answered, returning his pale blue eyes back to the snow outside, arms folded as he leant against the university window.

"What's the point of you being her apprentice if you don't even get the insider knowledge?" Festus huffed as he scratched the back of his neck, continuing, "I mean, if I had to put up with her creepy ass all the time, I'd at least want to be getting some help on her assignments. She's always so strict..."

"That's why it's a small course. She only allows the best students to take it, and even now she's trying to carve us down into the top performers." Antonius sighed, jolting as Festus swung an arm around his shoulders and praised,

"And I have you to thank for helping me get in."

Coriolanus resisted the urge to roll his eyes. If he can't even make it into the course on his own, there's no way he's going to last. 'Toys to Gamemaking' (or, more colloquially known as just 'Gamemaking') was a selective, year-long course on offer at the University led by Dr Volumnia Gaul. The class only contained 30 students, a mix of any year group to make up for its small size, and 10 students were dropped every term until the class was left with the top 3 highest performers. Whilst Coriolanus's main study was on advanced military strategy, Dr Gaul had insisted on him taking this course during his second year at university if he wished to continue as an apprentice Gamemaker. Despite the competitive nature of the course, he was not worried in the slightest at making the top 3, something he couldn't say for Festus and Antonius.