prologue
snow lands on top
Madden Lovell cannot see beyond blood.
Even now, knelt at his marble altar, humiliated and crushed with false hope and mercy does she realise this. Madden is no killer, she cannot bring herself to do it. To tie the noose around his head, to grab the knife from the dining table, to draw the gun from beneath the chair. She is afraid of him, not angry, the man she used to chase through the gardens, the same man sentencing her to fools errands and punishing her with false smiles and sparkling jewels. He has taken her soul, he keeps it locked in a music box, but the song never ends.
He keeps her dancing, toes bleeding, muscles aching, cheeks sore. He pulls at her strings, a puppet-master lulling her around the stage like his own personal doll. Madden knows they all feel like that, every sick and miserable fucker that resides in the Capitol. They are vultures, but they are all too-strung up on the high-life to consider even a whisper of change. The Avoxes remind them of their voice and the Peacekeepers keep them in check, Madden does not want to live without a tongue, but she does not want to live as a porcelain doll that is being pushed closer to the edge of the dusty shelf. The tile below threatening, the fall begging to destroy her. She needs him, just like he needs her.
Because girls like Madden don't get what they want.
He is horrific, teeth-baring, saliva spitting, a monster unchained. A creature, vile and full of poison. If anything, he is a snake, patiently waiting for his victims to succumb to the venom, watching as their breath is stolen and they choke to death. They are nothing alike. That's what she tries to tell herself as she sits in the wooden chair, clock ticking away, air stale. She is a dog, a wolf, snapping with sharp teeth, biting and snarling at anyone who walks by. She is too angry to think properly, she is full of too much love and too much emotion to satisfy him.
The ridges of his palm sting with her disobedience.
Coriolanus stares into her eyes, they have the same eyes, there is fire behind them, there is death in the edges of the pupil, bleeding through waves of light green and blue and freezing their veins solid. He is bristling with rage, she can see it in the way his jaw stiffens and his eyes tighten. Madden is overwhelmed with shortcomings, she doesn't hate him and she supposes that really, that is the worst part. She doesn't hate him because some sick part of her sympathises, some sick part of her still recognises him as her kin, some sick part of her understands, some sick fucking part of her agrees with him.
Sometimes, she wants to strangle her soul until she is a broken-necked apparition, limping and possessing any vessel just to feel afraid.
The curtains have been drawn, the crowd has said goodnight, the rose petals on the stage and the flowers have long since died. Madden sits there, in his office, white walls staring back at her, daring her to un-fuck the mess she has made, but daringly she sits, like the good little girl she was raised to be and she withers like a dying flower. He doesn't react, he doesn't blink, he barely acknowledges her stature. She know Coriolanus does not take kindly to begging, so she doesn't even try, not that she was that pathetic anyway.
Sometimes Madden thinks he will kill her when the strings are finally worn, other days she realises he is the one sharpening the scissors that are all too eager to slice through tense ribbon.
"Tea?" He asked, raising a brow.
Madden tightened her mouth. "No thank you."
"Rose is your favourite, we have that in common." The clink of delicate china is placed in front of her, the Avox moving just as silently as he ought too.
Coriolanus takes a sip, Madden follows suit. The blood on her hands stains the porcelain a dark crimson, highlighting her errors for all to see. It brings shame to her face, a heat to her cheeks. She is dusted over with a tinge of regret and a blossoming burning rage, ready to strike her own heart down. He is mad, a silent type of mad, a mad she never wishes to inherit. Though, Madden knows, she is more of him than she is of any of her family, poor cousin Lorelai included.
Oh how she wished she saw things the way she did, tinted pink and lush with the most decadent of things a girl could ever ask for. The youngest grand-daughter lived in a different reality most days, combing her hair with pearlescent combs and crafting nimble daisy-chain-crowns for the older cousins. Cecelia thought her younger sister a nuisance, Madden cherished her charming grace. And it wasn't that Lorelai was particularly naive, the fourteen year old was more than intelligent, but she rose each morning like the twinkle of the sun. Lorelai was pure, she wasn't stained, she wasn't the heir to the fucking throne.
That was all Madden.
Even with a different last name she struggled to out-run her fate. As the oldest, by only a few months Cecelia liked to remind her, she was burdened with both reputation and intricate whispers. It did not matter to Coriolanus that she refused the Snow name, she was a Snow by blood, by birthright. It wasn't a secret her mother and uncle had been killed, just like it wasn't a secret that it had been their own father delivering the orders. Even with family, his gratitude and empathy extended only so far. So it came as a surprise when the most he had done was slap her cheek and offered her tea, she supposed being the favourite had its perks. That and being his oldest living descendant. Madden wondered if this was the calm before the storm.
"I put the honey you love so much in the mixture, it'll sooth your throat. I suppose it's hoarse from all that screaming yes?" He said, twirling the tea with a spoon, it clinks against itself every once in a while, reminding her of his temper.
Truthfully, she hadn't fucked up that badly. From Madden's point of view, they had all bloody deserved. Especially him. Ash fucking Delamar, aka the bane of her unwelcome existence. She didn't really like to think of it all that much, though, copious amounts of champagne had all but drowned her senses and left her floating through the crowds of people celebrating her eighteenth birthday she had not been looking forward too. The gold-leaf crown atop her head tilted, it wasn't heavy, but the weight of it threatened to reduce her to dust.
Maybe she should thank him, the traitor, the bastard son of a Gamemaker. He certainly liked to play tricks, he was all but ready to twist and turn her like the spinning ballerina she was, just for show. Madden wasn't usually a fool, but when it game to boys with dirty mouths and and charming eyes, Madden supposed she slipped into Lorelai's reality with ease. He had blinded her, he had stolen the pink blush from her cheeks and left the blood-vessels broken and seething crimson. She was no longer subtle in her aggression, she was barren of warmth and a girl gone mad, wild, feral.
Part of her knew she couldn't blame it all on him, she was stronger now. The cure to a broken heart? Madden wasn't sure, but the cure to a stinging betrayal? Murder, naturally.
Blood dripped from her nose, a Snow dipping her nose in snow, how fucking ironic. Madden wasn't one for self-control, nor was she blessed with the numbing freeze of her own body. The blood on her hands was hesitant to stick, her teeth ground together, her heart beat a mile a minute, so much so she thought it would leap from its glass shackles and dancing away into the night. Her hands sting with sin, but her heart sings a song of more tender murder. Ash had stolen something from her, Madden didn't know what, but all she knew was that she wished it was his blood she was slick with instead of another's.
"I hear you caused quite a commotion in the elevator." Coriolanus said, eerily calm.
"Depends on what you call a commotion," Madden replied, dabbing her nose with a white cloth napkin. "I thought it a rather simple matter."
"Simple, yes, of course, I suppose it was rather simple." His words felt like needles and the tea she sipped felt more like thorns than petals as it slid down slowly, burning her throat.
Madden nodded. "I'm glad we agree."
"We do." He replied. "I guess if we're both in agreement we should call it a night then, unless of course you're planning on committing treason twice in the span of a few hours."
"I'd hardly call it treason." Madden scoffed, her shoulders relaxing.
Her grandfather copied her stature. "What would you call it then Madden? Retribution, atonement, revenge?" He spat the words but he did so with a smile. He was dangerous like this, calm.
"Justice." She even felt silly as she said it, but it was the truth, she had lied enough for one night and her anger was dwindling by the minute. Who knew extreme violence made you tired?
He laughed at that. It was a horrid sound really, hoarse yet shrill, it echoed through the starkly decorated room and left even the tea-cups trembling.
"Justice? Dear, you do make me laugh." Coriolanus said, his voice lulling her with false ease. "Justice has nothing to do with anything, it is a made up fallacy meant to sooth a heroes guilt. There is no such thing as justice Madden, only power. Is that what you wanted? Power?"
"Not exactly." Madden lied. He could tell.
It wasn't the pitiful crossing of her arms that gave her away, or even the fact that she struggled to hide her emotions, her bottom lip quivering with unshakable wrath. He knew because he had said the same thing once, so many years ago it hurt to remember, but he could feel it, in his bones, the familiarity of her voice. They were all so similar yet worlds apart. Maybe he had himself to blame.
Sometimes, Coriolanus didn't know what to make of her.
Even as a child she had been less enthusiastic about knives and more interested in dolls. Sure, she learnt the ways of a blade, as all children of the Capitol did. But even then, the Capitol children, whilst blood-thirsty, merely relied on the status of their up-bringing and the walls of their personal palaces. The Games? That was for people who couldn't afford anything else, sure the reaping came just like every district but it was less a horror than it was simply a mere vague annoyance. The only thing he felt he could really do was let her take the reins, let her fall, let her be the bright-red-hand to her own demise. Maybe then she'd learn. Or maybe she wouldn't and Coriolanus would have created something far worse than he intended. Though, it's not like his intentions were ever anything less.
"You should be careful what you wish for." He said. "Wishes are-"
"For fools, I know." She interrupted him, bold and all but fed-up with his incessant vague rambling. Madden was lucky though, he favoured her and she clung to it.
Coriolanus sighed with an almost bored blasé shrug. "What would you like me to do with him then? Shall I cut out his tongue? Torture his family? Subject him to the games?"
"No." Madden was quick to shut him down. She wasn't sure why, she blamed the sting of tears that threatened to gather along her thick dark lashes. It was anger she felt, totally not something as silly as love. "Leave him be."
"Still protecting him, has your brain wandered down to between your legs is that it? What do I have to do to keep them shut you reckless little girl. Sometimes you forget yourself." He bellowed, his words were sour and coated the air in a slick bitterness.
Madden's spine squeezed shut. The velvet of the curtains begs to showcase a performance, but she swallows it all down. "I would rather him suffer in silence, you said it best yourself. The greatest punishment isn't a quick death, but a slow and unsteady one."
Those are the words she leaves him with.
His face isn't stunned or even impressed. Coriolanus sits there, long after the echo of her blood-caked heels leaves his hearing, long after the tea turns cold. Sometimes, he marvels in his creations, sometimes, he too is even horrified. Madden has no room for it though, no room for any extra emotion to take up space. She chooses to remain steady with her temper, her lungs soaking in adrenaline as the hallways of their residence scream at her with words Madden cares little to decipher.
It is only when she presses the button of the elevator when she allows oxygen to enter her blood. The silk of her dress is no-longer white, it is matted brown and the fabric is crusted, the blood has dried and left her more a gruesome mess than some kind of divinity-struck goddess she was supposed to imitate. She bites down on her bee-stung lips, she bites down until blood draws from the surface puncture of a sharp tooth. She bites down until she feels something, until she tastes the metallic tang and lets it coat her mouth. She is all too good at that, biting. Biting until blood, biting to the bone. Madden knows she needs to be useful, she would rather her tongue a weapon than her hands but sometimes she didn't have a choice.
She didn't have a choice.
That's what she tells herself to keep her head half-way sane. Madden struggles with the zip of her bag as she rifles through for that little blue bottle. She is sure she looks a mess when the elevator door dings and a man clears his throat. Madden doesn't look up, she walks into the confined metal space and hardly thought much of it when the doors shut and she looked up with a huff, no little blue bottle. She is not an addict, she just likes it, sometimes she just craves it. Eighteen years old with an electric collar as a token of familial love, Madden just needed something to take the edge off, if for merely a moment. Something to make her feel afraid. Something to make her remember her morals. Something to make her feel less a puppet or a doll.
Something to make her feel human.
The man laughs, it is full, hardy, like the sound of the sun swallowing the wide world whole.
"Oh, poor little rich girl can't find her vice. Don't worry Mad, don't you know? Snow always lands on top, you'll find it in there eventually." His tone was teasing, like he wasn't afraid of her.
And really? She didn't blame him. Finnick O'dair was hardly swayed by the glare she shot him, nor was he deterred or even threatened by the air of her status. They had known each other long enough to know when her bite was just a warning. He had hated her at first, back when she was still a mere ten year old with far too much kindness to be faithful to her cursed lineage. A year later the fifteen year old had relented, her mother had died, he had felt sorry for her and ever since, the cat and mouse game they danced around, was merely a form of amusement then it was an actual threat.
"Don't suppose you have some spare then? Or are you all high on secrets instead?" Madden quirked her brow, a teasing smile decorating her face. And beneath all the blood Finnick had to admit she still looked beautiful.
Finnick smiled back. "I'm always high on secrets princess, speaking of, I have a birthday present for you."
Madden rolled her eyes. "Whatever it is, I don't want it."
"Oh i'm sure you do, don't worry, I left it in your room." He spoke with an air of regality, like he wasn't just a pawn. Madden admired him for that. "You can thank me later."
"Hmm, not in the way you'd like I imagine." She teased.
"You wound me." Finnick murmured whilst letting his eyes trail her body with concern. He had heard of the incident through loud blabber-mouths of debutantes, both young and old. And whilst it made for splendid party gossip, the whole act of it, the macabre beastly scene they spoke of made him worry, if only a little, for the one person he could truly call a friend.
"A girl walks into an elevator-"
"Don't joke Finn." Madden interrupts, eyes downcast as she circles her hands around herself. The low hum of the elevator drowning out what little horrors rose to the surface of her mind.
Finnick brushed it off. "Oh, but I do love to laugh."
Madden, it seemed, did not appreciate the statement.
"Seriously, I heard what happened. Inevitable really, made for marvellous party gossip however" Finnick said, his words a low drawl, he wasn't teasing, he was just admitting to her the truths of their fucked-up world.
"Living up to the family name yet?" Madden asked rhetorically. The silk of her dress stuck to her skin as she moved to lean agains the opposite elevator wall. The jewels that covered her body in a criss cross motion resembled the shirt he wore. Though, she could barely call it a fucking shirt, it was more sparkly pieces of string than it was actual material. But his chest was glimmering with red lipstick, hers was glimmering with red blood.
Finnick smirked "You never do, sometimes it's a little disappointing you aren't as wicked."
"Don't persuade me into something unrecognisable." Madden said.
"I could recognise you anywhere little snow." Finnick reminded her.
Madden sighed, he was always like this, coating the world in honey. Sometimes she thought he was a dreamer, like Lorelai, other times she knew the twenty-three year old was more of a battle-torn soldier than either one of them cared to admit.
He continued on without much grace. "Be careful taking pages from his book, they come with more horrors than your pretty little head can bare."
"You think my head is pretty?" Madden asked, eyes playful.
"It would be prettier on a platter." Finnick admitted. "But sure, whatever helps you sleep at night Madden Snow."
The air laced itself with snowflakes made of arsenic, they dance on the tip of her nose and stung the top of her ears. Madden's skin prickled with anger.
"Don't call me that." She snapped. He was hardly deterred.
"Don't call you by your name? What would you like me to refer to you by then princess." Finnick asked, the mesh of his top smooth as he leant against the side of the elevator. His blonde head of hair, dusted with silver flakes, was messy and made him look more a District 4 boy than whatever the Capitol had made him to be. He was rare like this, honest, un-guarded.
"How about nothing, ever, don't even so much as look or talk to me ever again." Madden pouted, she had a way of doing so that made her look both like a petulant child and a delicately carved statue at the same time. With her chin lifted higher and her eyes glazing over with frostbite, it wasn't hard to see the familial resemblance.
"See, Mad, that's a little hard when i've seen the things that I have and run my tongue against your ear." Finnick all but whispered. The elevator was so quiet, it didn't matter, his words sent shivers down her spine, they were loud because only she could hear them.
Madden rolled her eyes, glancing over at him once before her jaw tightened. "Finn."
"Yes princess?"
"One day, my pretty little head will be wearing a much thicker crown and you will remain as you are, a puppet on strings." She didn't posses a tongue, only a sharper muscle, something akin to a warriors blade more than any sort of soft organ.
"Whatever you say your royal highness." He said, bowing in a mocking gesture.
"Oh fuck you." Madden relented, her tongue was sharp but also quick, and when it came to him she supposed the edges seemed to be dull and blunt.
That made him laugh again. "Not all that interested little snow, though I do suppose it would relieve some of your tension. Did he really wind you up that much?"
"Don't talk about him. I will command you if I have too." Madden said, it was hardly the truth but still she clung to any resemblance of power and authority, like a child did their favourite toy.
"Oh go on then, command me and all your problems away. At least i'm not a girl with an imaginary crown, you're not as strong as you think you are you know?" Finnick sighed, running a hand through his hair. "And let me tell you, that's a compliment, not an insult."
As usual, the bottle-blonde barely acknowledged his wisdom and instead went for the cheap shot. "Well, at least i'm not a whore you jackass."
"Everyones a whore Madden, selling different parts of ourselves for different prices." Finnick laughed, his relentless faux-positivity never seemed to take rest. "Take it from a victor, don't seep into the perpetual darkness without knives between your fingers, and sure as hell don't leave empty-handed."
She licked her lips, tasting fresh blood mixed with dried. She could only stare ahead, letting his words wreak havoc in the very corners of her mind. Madden turned to the doors, watching as the floor levels blinked by. It allowed her time to think, it allowed her time to settle in the facts that wether she liked it or not. Madden was a killer.
Maybe not at heart, but by act alone.
And it was her foolish heart that slipped words from her mouth, she tried to stop them, she tried to stop the vulnerability, she really did. Madden wasn't a girl for warm hugs or even soft salty tunes, but with him it was always a little different.
"Do you believe in love or power?" She asked, it was quiet but he heard it loud and clear.
Finnick crossed his arms over his chest, his golden skin looking pale in the harsh luminescent light. "Are they not the same thing?"
"I guess." Madden whispered, more to herself than anything. Sometimes she felt she was falling into a big open black hole, sometimes she needed reassurance in the most horrific of ways. But he couldn't provide her with any. Finnick was just as confused as she, they were both show ponies running on toxic fumes and decadent food that didn't satiate any hunger. Both their bellies were rumbling with forbidden ideals.
They were both hungry for more.
He wouldn't lie to her either, that's one thing she always appreciated, even when she had begged him as a crying eleven year old to shut up, he told her the truth about her mother. Sure, she hadn't appreciated the sentiment at the time, but as she grew older she understood him more and more. Madden supposed she owed him, in some sort of way. She owed him but she would never live up to the oath. How could she? She always fell too short of the bush and he was always there, with rubbing alcohol and fresh bandages, sometimes a needle threatening to sew her back up.
The ding of the floor level sent her thoughts into a broken mosaic, scrambling words scattered to a halt.
"That's my stop." Finnick said, walking out into the hallway. He stopped short though, looking back with that look on his face, the one he wore when he truly meant what he said. "Power or love, little snow, you can't have it both ways."
Then he was gone, leaving Madden to sit in the wreckage of what she had done. There were no bones left too chew and no blood left to spill. When she was a girl, Madden thought that blood ran without bounds in the Capitol. She thought it was limitless, eternal. She knows now, on the night of her eighteenth birthday that really, blood does not renew itself. You get what you get, no do-overs. And truthfully, she had known her fate was less than desirable. You are born with the blood you are owed, you will die with the same blood churning through your heart. Madden is born with cursed blood, the same blood she now owes.
And just like snow, blood, cursed and all, lands not only on top but it covers every inch of her, until she is consumed utterly raw by the same hands that birthed her, until she is a cold body crusted in death.
As fate would have it, Madden Lovell will die with a fallen crown and bleeding feet, surrounded by snow.
authors note;
finnick being madden's big brother challenge! they are in fact besties!!
very long prologue, yikes, just a little teaser of my plot lol. i wrote this at like 3am acc rip me. don't know how i feel about it honestly. set a few months before the first hunger games book, next chapter is the start of that. i truly do love most of the characters i've created for this fic! hope you enjoy <333