OUR FOREST OF THORNS | tbosas ✔️

027 || Acts of Service

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN —        Acts of Service ..

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          He would never be able to love again. To love Daphne Ravinstill was an eternal sort of vow to wrap around his mind and his soul, and even though chances were that by the time he would be able to see her again she had moved on with her life and forgotten his name, Coriolanus Snow was aware he could never love again, not even as a joke, not even to answer the needs of his body — without her, that emotion laid in slumber, buried under the shameful ashes of his family legacy, that he himself had burned in an attempt to elevate it higher.

For a while, he had hoped for the luck of getting away with it. He should have known better — hoping for luck was a fool's bargain, a privilege for jesters, not for someone of his status.

The very moment he dropped that handkerchief in the snake tank, he regretted his action, but there was no changing it, not without digging his hole even deeper than he already has. It was a moment in which he had sunk so low below the standard he wanted to believe he had upheld himself to his whole life that when he was caught red handed after the winner announcement and he was told he was to leave the Capitol and enroll in the army, Coriolanus felt like he had finally become so unworthy of Daphne that staying there or seeking her for a final goodbye would be an insult brought to her. 

He had missed Daphne so deeply during their days of separation that he had even went as far as asking his beloved Grandma'am for any piece of jewelry they still had that bore their family crest — he had hoped they still owned a ring of sorts. Now, he stared down at that rose engraved necklace his grandfather had gifted Grandma'am and was considering returning it to whom it rightfully belonged to.

"I could give it to her," Tigris had offered, noticing him sulking on the edge of his bed, staring at that thing. "To Daphne, I mean," she explained, having guessed he wouldn't be asking for Grandma'am's jewelry for any other reason but that of having something of value to gift to someone he cared about. "Miss Ravinstill. Or are you planning on making a stop before going to the Citadel yourself?"

"No," Coriolanus almost spoke over her. "I don't want her to see me like this," he couldn't believe himself that he had the strength necessary to say that out loud, to admit to his pathetic state.

"See you how?" Tigris stopped from packing for him some symbolic items which were allowed to be taken by him on his training. 

"Like this, Tigris," he gestured towards himself, then dropped the necklace besides him so it would stop poking within his closed fist. "Is it so bad that I wish her to remember me as a strong man, not some loser? If she will remember me at all..."

"Oh, Coryo," she dropped was she was doing that instant and walked over to him, sitting on the bed besides him. Without hesitation and with a gentleness that her work had forced her rough fingers to not do justice by, Tigris took his hands into her own, bringing them in her lap. She stared at him for what felt like an eternity before sighing, "You love her, don't you."

"And she loved me too," he wished to boast, but the words made it out bitter, like how he imagined death tasted on the tongue of people about to die, outside of their control. 

"Loved? Did she tell you she didn't love you anymore?"

"I wouldn't love me like this either, Tigris." After a short break, drowning out the urge within him to cry, Coriolanus straightened his posture, "I don't."