OUR FOREST OF THORNS | tbosas ✔️

018 || The Biggest Scarecrow

CHAPTER EIGHTTEEN -        The Biggest Scarecrow ..

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          The world changes when you least expect it to, but Daphne Ravinstill believed the biggest changes happened only with deafening sounds. She didn't remember what day it was when the rebels killed her mother and stole away her peace, but she will remember now: the world changed permanently on a Sunday night.

The best thing about Sunday's was that there was hardly any public transport — people missing the tram once had a choice between waiting at least another forty minutes for the next one or taking their chances at walking to wherever it was that they had business to attend during a day that has once been decreed for relaxation. Coriolanus could scarcely afford to take the tram anywhere in the Capitol, which seeded in him a sort of jealousy towards all those working people able to afford the tickets and save themselves the exhaustion that so often rendered his legs useless at the end of a busy day. Sunday's leveled the playground for him, for once allowing an almost full forgetfulness that there was a whole social step between him and everyone else.

The distance between his home and the train station was not neglectful and since he would have dreaded presenting himself sweaty for this rendezvous with Daphne, he left early and arrived at the very least thirty minutes before he was supposed to be there. It was oftentimes better to be early to such things rather than be late; he had no first impression to make before Daphne, but rather an image to maintain, especially now that she knew about how he lived, keeping up the high class mannerisms was paramount to not falling even steeper into the risk of having her look at him differently. Of course, his doubts had decreased thanks to that morning's kiss from her, but ludicrous as it was to acknowledge Daphne Ravinstill slept in bed with him, Coriolanus knew better than to take a small win for granted — the war was still ahead.

Since there was only one entrance to the train station and he didn't know if they should be meeting outside or inside the building, he decided to wait in the shade of it, close to the entrance. He didn't necessarily expect his wait to be this short though.

Not even five minutes after he leant his back against the outer wall, a military van drove into view. Coriolanus wouldn't have taken notice of it had the red hair of the lady sitting on the right of the Peacekeeper behind the wheel been so familiar.

Recognizing Daphne without even much of a squint had Coriolanus straighten up just as the vehicle was parked before the pedestrian-only alleyway leading to the train station entrance. The Peacekeeper and Daphne were engaged into some sort of conversation that seemed to be highly effective in making her smile, and in making him slow his approach. Coriolanus was all of a sudden fighting against an unusual twist in his stomach, one he hadn't felt this strong since Sejanus claimed in public to know more about Daphne's whereabouts than him.

He hoped to distract himself from this sudden and unreasonable fit of jealousy that he very much disliked to even be naming as such. After all, the Peacekeeper in cause was an unpleasant looking fellow with a plethora of scars on the whole left side of his face down to the very base of his neck, all of them making of his skin a brutal allegory to a hive's home. There was a certain beastly attribute to him that made Coriolanus find it difficult to even stare too long at his mutilated aspect plastered upon a muscular build.

The only distraction he knew he could get was by focusing instead all of his attention on Daphne and seeking thus any other observations that might outweigh his envious nature — since noticing that her retouched make-up and rearranged hairstyle falling more on the right side of her face had successfully concealed her bruise didn't help him in the slightest, Coriolanus was more than happy to also find out, even from that far away, that she had decided to keep wearing the shirt from him. Whatever stain her powder had left last night was indistinguishable with the garment styled underneath an unbuttoned suit jacket. It was highly unlikely that anyone save for him would even be able to tell she wore a man's shirt to begin with, but Coriolanus had no desire of burdening himself with furthering those thoughts and canceling out the one matter of pride that he had to cling to so his walk forward would not be, by any means, anything but bold.