OUR FOREST OF THORNS | tbosas ✔️

029 || The Mockingjay Lies Still

"He knows you are nothing like your brother."

"Which is why I am also using what little cover I can get from the weapon manufacturing firm," she responded, clearly defending with all she had a plan that she wasn't even fully certain about. But again, it was all she got.

"I do not mean to rain on your parade, Daffy," he sighed through his words slowly, "but have you considered—?"

"The possibility that there will be insufficient Uranium in the mine?" She spoke over him, the look on her face telling him that since she had presented the idea of the trip to him the other day, she's already worried enough about everything that could go wrong. "Or that there will be none? Yes. Trust me," Daphne turned her attention to the dusty window, "I have considered the odds on this gamble. But what is the alternative?" Her hand tightened on her pen so hard that had it been alive, that instrument would have been left breathless instantly by her. "To disassemble my life's work? To give up on the New World? Or should I lick my uncle's boots and sacrifice my dignity for...?" Her voice died down and with it, her gaze dropped down to the table, to her whitened knuckles over which Coriolanus hand came to rest.

"We will make this work," he vowed, not to claim in any way that he could in fact ensure they would find in District 12 what she needed, but rather that even if they don't he won't let her give up, nor answer to her filthy uncle's advances. As soon as her uncle started sending her flowers in District 2, not even a week after her arrival there, Daphne had to confess onto Coriolanus everything that happened before she got there, what picture her uncle had on her and how he had used it to take Thaddeus away from her side. It shocked him at the time that he could spot what her uncle was really planning while she could not, but it made it no easier for him to know there were cruel and powerful men out there who would love to take advantage of her.

He'd sooner accept to risk his life and go kill that disgusting man on her behalf than let her get wrapped up in his nets.

District 12 was everything Coriolanus knew it would be. Though the actual mine Major Cress was sent ahead to set up was further up north, until they knew for certain there was something worth their time there, their envoy stopped in the central province of the District, where the down-to-earth constructions were scarce and dirty, half sunk into the ground and mostly on the brink of collapse. Unlike in 2, the streets of 12 weren't animated by a people eager to make a living, he had noticed. Everyone sulked about, from one coal-dusted task to the other, glaring without scruples at the intrusion posed to them by the passing vehicle they used to get from the bare train station covered in heavy smoke from the refinery nearby to their very of Justice Hall, a deplorable little building on the steps of which Lucy Gray waited, joined by two Peacekeepers, the mayor and an enthusiastic reporter holding a camera as big as his head over his chest.

That's the mayor who slapped her during the Reaping, Coriolanus assessed while their car came to a stop before those steps.

Daphne didn't think it possible until then that she could actually loathe this quickly put together plan even more, but there she was, noticing how attentive Coriolanus was looking at Lucy Gray and realizing just how much she still hated that girl. It was a downright infuriating realization to have, because Daphne was a ware she no longer had a proper reason to be jealous of that District girl. Coriolanus was hers, now and until the end of time, he said so himself when he placed that ring on her finger and they vowed themselves to each other time and time again, both aching to one day sign their fates by contract and be able to take from each other that feeling of family they've never had the chance to enjoy for long before.