CHAPTER TWO — With Silent Support ..
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She could hear their questions loud and clear though not a soul had yey brought voice to that singular thought that made Daphne Ravinstill into the perfect subject of attention in the morning, when somewhere in the Capitol, her father was reciting the Treaty of Treason in front of cameras, but she stood instead amongst Academy students.
The question almost asked itself, especially with her brother on the screen of the broadcast they were staring up at. Look at him, Daphne thought. Smug looking bastard. Albert Ravinstill looked powerful and it was showing all over him that he knew just how powerful he was being painted by standing there, two steps behind, to his father's right, with the entire Panem watching him. Albert was all her father ever needed and each televised event did wonderfully in reminding her of that.
Though everyone was casting fugitive glances at her — or rather, because of it — Daphne smiled.
All of a sudden, Coriolanus wished he hadn't seated them in the front row. They were far too exposed there for him to even phantom shifting in closer to her, far less to reach his hand out and take hers as a gesture of solidarity; if anything, doing so might have made things even worse in terms of rumors and gossip surrounding the relationship between Daphne and her father, which was one difficult can of worms.
Nonetheless, Coriolanus knew that look in her eyes when he saw it from the corner of his sight. Her stellar, relaxed smile might have fooled a commoner, but never him, for he wasn't in the slightest just 'some guy' in her life. He couldn't exactly claim to know the faintest thing about what she was going through, save for the brief explanations Daphne spared sporadically and sometimes not even when prompted to do so, but truth was, though he didn't know first hand how it felt to be insignificant in the eyes of a parent, he sure was no stranger to the sensation he experienced each time he witness the significance of the Snow family depleting in the public eye. Those two surely were similar instances, he believed.
Much like all the assembled faculty of the Academy, Daphne heard the swayed steps of Dean Highbottom as he walked down the runaway splitting the auditorium in half. Indifference defined all students' reaction to the dean's appearance — after all, the president was yet to finish reading the treaty —, but it was Daphne's indifference that would have to be short lived as the tangled steps came to an abrupt stop besides her marginal front row seat.
The dean leant over with a whisper on his lips. "Do you think he even realized you're not there with him?"
Whatever the dean had just told Daphne — the whisper had been too quiet for Coriolanus to hear over the sound of the broadcast, even if he was seated right next to her —, for a brief moment, he experienced the strange feeling existing between fearing for his life and absolutely boiling with rage over the matter. Daphne's smile had vanished as if it had never been on her lips to begin with. That look on her face when she turned to stare at the Academy's head teacher was something of true horror, something that would get anyone of lower rank than her own a one way ticket to Dr. Gaul's laboratories.
Unsurprisingly, Highbottom seemed pleased to be met with such a hateful pair of eyes. Without a shred of remorse, he played a disgustingly false game of innocence. "Sorry, my dear," he placed a hand over his chest, "is that the faulty ear I just spoke into?"
This time around, since he had spoken just a little louder, Coriolanus made out the horrible words. He was unable to contain his first reaction, that of slightly widening his eyes. No one sane would have dared speak to Daphne that way. Then again, with that much morphling in him, Casca Highbottom was anything but sane.
Few who knew about Daphne's little hearing problem knew more than just that, but once again, memory served to remind Coriolanus that he wasn't just anyone. During the war, a rebel-sent explosive went off in her vicinity before she, her mother and her brother could reach the bunkers during evacuation. The blast that killed her mother gave Daphne a strange case of a hearing disorder that came and went in periodical fades from normalcy to unbearable ringing. She had confessed onto him that there had been no silence for her since that day in the war, so just about how normal her hearing could get anymore was a factor of uncertainty to him.
Knowing this much allowed Coriolanus to draw a swift resolution that the dean was wrong to assume her left ear had the problems — it was her right with occasional fault, and that one was turned towards him, not the dean —, and most likely on purpose, in order to hit Daphne where it couted most for her twice.
"Should I repeat my—"
"I heard you perfectly, sir," Daphne interrupted, leaning her head slightly back with a sharp inhale, and then looking away once her smile had returned to her lips. "I do hope the board does see your efforts with the mentor program as worthy of not taking your declining health up to the board. I, quite like you, am convinced the morphling is helping your edge. Especially in such high dosages."
Bravo! Coriolanus' own pride swelled in joyous victory at the elegance with which she handled the insults from the dean. It was the sort of elegance borderlined by insolence, the sort that only someone powerful enough could ever get away with and not to admire her for mastering it would be absolutely foolish of him.
Her and Dean Highbottom have never gotten along and had it not been for her father, there was no way in Hell he would have ever even allowed her a place in his Academy; her, the girl who had criticized yearly his idea of the Games with unfiltered remarks and commentary that should by all means be voiced only by people who wish to be imprisoned for their traitorous beliefs.
Daphne was a radical, Coriolanus knew, but not the sort whose beliefs ran against the Capitol. She wasn't a traitor. In fact, she was more of a patriot than anyone in that room, if he really had to draw comparison.
Coriolanus' pride was a much welcomed companion to take into battle against Highbottom's take of the stage to announce, as best as his slurred speech could articulate, which of the mentors amongst the cohort have been paired with what tributes. It had to be a matter of agility and precision, because the Reaping from the Districts was about to be broadcasted in less than two minutes according to the timer.
At least twenty seconds have been wasted only on Casca locating his glasses on top of his own nose and it looked like he wouldn't have the time to announce all the allocations. But Coriolanus didn't worry. Not at first. The past nine games have build quite a pattern that winners would most likely rise only from either 1, 2, 4 or 11. With his pride freshened up by simply sitting next to Daphne Ravinstill, he was confident he would be receiving a tribute from District 1 or District 2.
But then opportunity passed him by — the boy from District 1 went to Livia Cardew, whose mother owned the biggest bank of the Capitol.
One by one, each good district opportunity was given to someone else too. The more names got called, the lower his heart sunk and the greater his desire to just dig himself a hole in the floor grew — has the Snow family lost so much of its influence that he would be forgotten? He couldn't even phantom looking at Daphne, sharing his outrage with the one friend by his side.
Daphne watched with a narrowed gaze how Highbottom dragged his final blow over the timer's last seconds, announcing that Coriolanus Snow was allocated the female tribute from District 12.
District 12. Daphne didn't have to look at Coryo to know he must have felt like the world had slipped from underneath his feet and he was free falling towards a defeat. This sort of injustice left her feeling iron on her tongue and redness in her cheeks, and she wasn't even the target of the attack this time around. As if words alone haven't been sufficient to prove her suspicions, Highbottom locked eyes with Daphne's pointed glare and gave her a courtesy nod — had she been a mentor, she would have probably received someone just as bad with the odds as Coriolanus did, she had no doubt of it.
With the timer spent and everyone in the room buzzing with the need to rant about their assigned tributes, there was a delay in the time it took the students to stand up from their seats for the symbol of Panem that had appeared on the screen, prelude to the anthem's songline playing through.
Right as they got up, Coriolanus felt a cold hand tightly grip around his left wrist, distracting him, the only steady voice who did not stumble across the words of that darn song he heard every morning. He knew Daphne had learnt the song inside out as well, out of duty, and that she was a much better singer than he ever hoped to be with his low voice, but she wasn't exactly intending to sing, given her ironed, bracelet-like grip on him.
"If anyone can make District 12 win, that's going to be you," Daphne encouraged him, giving his wrist a short shake, then letting go. Not even for a fraction of a second did she allow her sight to focus on anything other than the Panem symbol ahead, so as not to draw upon their interaction any unwanted attention.
He didn't believe that. Not anymore.
Coriolanus had been so proud of being part of this program, he'd been so certain the win was going to be one of his easier assignments ever completed for the Academy, but in one simple sentence, Dean Highbottom undermined everything he thought was a fact. District 12. There was no worse place than that to get a tribute from — a dirty little hole of a district, from where the tributes crawl out dirty to the teeth and scrawny like there is only skin and bone on them all. And a girl for that matter too. Girls could win the games, surely, but their odds were not nearly as good as those of the bigger boys being reaped.
His jaw tightened and if there was ever a time that his lack of melodic inclination could get worse, that was it. He spoke the lyrics of the anthem mechanically, until it was time for them all to take their seats again.
Over the creaks of chairs, Coriolanus muttered to Daphne, "I don't think I can." Saying it out loud cemented into his chest dread unlike no other, because finally, it felt like he had reached the end of the line. Without a win, he could kiss goodbye the idea of University and perhaps even that of a home with a roof above his head. He wasn't a pessimistic guy, but realism was inclining his whole being over into that state. By the time the broadcast from District 12 started, he could have sworn he was drowning in loss.
But then, Daphne witnessed along with every single sould in that auditorium, there was hope yet for the young Snow. His little tribute was a cunning fighter.
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AUTHOR'S NOTE :
Keeping chapters a little shorter at the beginning, until the story's pace becomes constant. Plus, the moment with the Reaping would have come next and where I can help it, I want to avoid just rephrasing stuff that happens identically to the book.