Where The Wild Roses Grow - Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds

2024 Snowbaird AU Fest

Day Seven: Out Of Panem

Prince Coriolanus and his wife, Lady Lucy Gray, must play the game of power and win.

Last prompt for the event! I am so excited to post it and so happy for the opportunity to write this story 🥰🥰🥰💖💖💖

Snowbaird Valentine event

Thanks as usual @snowbaird-events and @burntblueberrywaffles 💖💖💖🥰🥰🥰 love you and the discord snowbaird server so much! 🥰💖

7. Stars

Lucy Gray is plucking the strings of her guitar and humming to herself.

It is a beautiful, still warm mid-September day, she is in the roof garden, and the orangey light of the sunset forces her to keep her eyes closed as the music flows through her.

Images, words in poetry, sensations invade her and she has to let them out.

She does not feel him coming but, as always, she senses him. Lucy Gray smiles and turns her torso slightly and opens her eyes.

Coryo is there, watching her with a huge, love-filled smile on his lips. He has two heavy dark circles under his eyes - the result of his job as president, which robs him of too many hours of sleep - but his face is always beautiful and every time he looks at it Lucy Gray feels the butterflies in her stomach stir.

She has been very, very lucky. The stars have chosen well for her.

Today is a special day; there is a reason Lucy Gray went up to the roof, waiting for him. Today they are celebrating two months since their wedding, and Lucy Gray intends to ask a favor… No, a blessing.

Roses surround them, the only glimpse of nature she can find in Capitol City, the only one she can claim as her own. It is not the Coveys' lake - but the power of Mother Earth is quite the same, for in the roses their bond is cemented.

And the sunset, the sun dying in the sky.

Making way for the stars.

The hour of magic.

Lucy Gray has spent most of her life confined to District Twelve first and Capitol City later, but in her mind are held endless traditions; grandmothers' secrets passed down through music and poetry. Rhymes to unravel the very threads of fate.

A direct contact with the universe.

She stops playing and places the guitar beside her. She does not get up from where she is sitting - in the middle of an empty flowerbed, virgin soil under her skin , the moment her clothes disappear.

She stretches out her arms.

Without a word, Coryo cancels the distance between them. He kneels before her, heedless of the elegant dress he is soiling. She encircles his neck and smiles on his mouth, after a small, lip-smacking kiss.

"Best wishes, gorgeous."

"Two months" he replies "I bought some chocolate and wine to celebrate" he continues "I expected to find you in the house".

"And instead".

"And instead" Coryo kisses her again, this time holding her by the waist with one arm, and with his free hand grabs her face. He sinks his tongue into her mouth and Lucy Gray welcomes him, as always "Why are we here, my love?"

Lucy Gray smiles, cunningly.

“Because then the stars will witness us,” she replies, mysterious as ever. She kisses him again and pulls him to her as she lies back down and in no time his hands are under her dress, their desire already ignited, their spirits seeking each other as well as their bodies, impatient.

In the magical space between the Before and the After, in the advancing twilight, Lucy Gray spreads her legs with her bare back pressed against the virgin earth and asks the stars for their blessing.

***

It is early June, on one of the first evenings when it really feels like summer, and the cool breeze is silent. It is hot, very hot.

Even hotter because Lucy Gray feels huge and heavy. Her back rests on Coryo's chest, they both sit in an empty flowerbed in the middle of the rooftop garden, while he gently massages her baby bump and tries to catch every tiny movement under her taut skin.

The sun is dying in the sky and Lucy Gray hums with closed lips, enjoying the last distant rays on her face, waiting for the moment when she can open her eyes and observe the sky again.

"That was a kick!" exclaims Coryo, excited, as their unborn child has well and truly decided to wake up and make its presence known.

Lucy Gray smiles and interrupts her song to giggle. The sun sets behind the walls of Capitol City and she opens her eyes again, looking for the stars in the sky.

The same stars that blessed everything: from their love, intertwining their lives, to the fruit of their passion, that day Lucy Gray completed her ritual.

Mother Earth and Father Sky.

Who poured life into her womb exactly when she asked for it.

She can't wait to give birth. She knows she should be scared - Coryo is definitely hysterical, alternating between sheer joy and terror like a spinning top gone mad, mindful of his own mother and the baby sister he lost but still happy with the fruit of their love; impatient to see how their bodies mingled to give birth to their own flesh-and-blood child - but the reality is she is just tired.

Tired, and huge, and short of breath, and unable even to bathe herself, having reached this point.

Lucy Gray sighs and resumes humming to herself, watching the stars become more and more defined against the gradually darkening sky.

She asks for one last grace, one last blessing.

That all is well.

Coryo leaves a light kiss in her hair and smiles, continuing to massage her belly and seek contact with their child.

The stars shine high in the sky.

And she knows that they have also answered this prayer.

💖💖💖

Link on ao3:

Snowbaird Week 2024 Prompts

March 14 - Academia March 15 - Myths / Folklore March 16 - Canon Divergence March 17 - Free Day March 18 - Ballads / Musicals March 19 - Fortune / Fate March 20 - Non-Canon Modern AU

Another post with further details about the daily prompts will be posted later.

Which day are you most excited for?

Snowbaird smut week day five! 🔥

I know there is a second turn now and the right day would be tomorrow, but I am still late from the first turn, so... 😂

Enjoy breeding kink meeting the plot 😂💖

Mockingjay's screams

Link:

@snowbaird-events 😘

Day 1: Domesticity

Happy snowbaird valentine 🌹

@snowbaird-events

@snowbairdandbread

Hello snowbaird fans!! Summer is coming up; which means it’s time for a second edition of our Snowbaird smut week!

Second day second prompt: rose

Snowbaird Valentine Event!

I want to thank @kpchrs for the first idea, then @burntblueberrywaffles who has create the event and then I tag the @snowbaird-events as usual u.ù

Rose

He has never understood the tradition of staying away for a full three weeks before the wedding.

The lack of Lucy Gray burns in a spiral of emotions that borders on paranoia, even though he knows she is perfectly safe and happy - with Tigris and Persephone in District One, pampered and pampered and immersed in what the girls call an 'intensive beauty treatment'.

Of course, his job as President allows him enough distraction... And, in his spare moments, he works on the secret project he only shared with Clemmy, to get her to help him out.

It all came about by chance. One day, while working in the rose garden with Grandma’am, he remembered their first meeting and wanted to taste a rose petal.

Puah!

The memory still makes him sick. So much for bedtime! Roses smell good but taste horrible .

So he decided to create a truly edible variety that would do justice to their aroma. Clemmy, who is also his personal secretary at work, got involved in the project in her spare time - and theirs turned out to be yet another winning partnership.

After all, she was the first to process his precious poisons with him.

Days slip by between them as the date approaches and, in the end, he has just enough time to make a shrub of red, edible roses bloom before the big day.

He instructs the pastry chefs and instructs the florist.

Everything is perfect for the surprise.

***

Lucy Gray strides through the garden bewitching everyone. Her wedding dress is a riot of light and color; he does not know what fabric Tigris sewed it with, but it is marvelous. The bodice is iridescent and is decorated with several colorful hand-stitched roses. It ends with a long white skirt that shimmers in the sun, soft as a cascade of fresh snow.

She wears a veil. He finds it a curious choice but, after all, Lucy Gray and Tigris know what they are doing. The comb of the veil is hooked under the elegant bun with which her hair has been gathered, and swirls of white tulle descend to the floor, mingling with the train of her dress.

Moreover, Lucy Gray is barefoot.

He immediately understands the reference: Lucy Gray, the little girl who was lost in the snow, has found her home in the snow.

Soon they will be a family. Coriolanus's heart beats fast in his chest as Tam Amber - doing the voices of her father - leads her before him and intertwines their hands.

They both stand under an arch of white roses and there become husband and wife.

When the ceremony ends, when they have exchanged rings and the first kiss and had the toasting, Lucy Gray looks for Tigris in the front rows and she nods to her. As Festus hands Coriolanus one of the special red roses, she brings a hand to her head and unhooks the comb of her veil, causing it to fall back to the floor, and turns to precede him down the aisle.

Coriolanus holds his breath, abrupt and surprised.

On Lucy Gray's back, naked, is tattooed a beautiful rose bush, studded with many different roses of all the colors of the rainbow.

So she. So them.

Roses, one of the meeting points of their love.

Lucy Gray turns to him and smiles, then grabs his hand, dragging him behind her.

They reach the end of the row of chairs, trampling the petals scattered on the lawn, and before the crowd can catch up with them, Coriolanus turns her towards him and hands her the red rose.

"Welcome to the family, Lucy Gray Baird Snow."

She giggles, her eyes bright, and as he had planned she plucks a petal from the rose, bringing it to her tongue. And when she swallows she bursts out laughing again, delighted.

"We almost had the same idea!" she exclaims, before the guests join them in congratulations.

Coriolanis squeezes Lucy Gray's waist and thanks and smiles and is happy, really happy, so happy that he thinks his heart will explode. He does not know if it is made to contain so much happiness all at once.

***

They toast and then the cake is brought under the gazebo lit by many small hanging lights - a copy of the stars in the sky above them. Coriolanus has ordered and obtained that all of Capitol City be in darkness that night, to allow him and Lucy Gray to seal their pact of love under the stars.

The cake is large and colorful, multi-storeyed. Every decorative rosebud is edible.

In a final exchange of promises Lucy Gray grabs two of the little flowers and hands him one. No need to speak because her cunning expression says it all. They feed each other that little taste of rose and then both burst out laughing as the guests applaud their love. 

***

It is not the last rose he tastes that night.

Coriolanus immerses himself in the perverse pleasure it causes him to lick every single rose drawn on Lucy Gray's back while she, quiet and relaxed after making love, simply lies on her stomach in the unmade bed, her head abandoned on her crossed arms.

They may not taste as delicate as the roses he produced in the lab - but they taste of Lucy Gray and her skin, and that's enough to make him want to taste them all.

💖💖💖

Link to the story on ao3:

2024 Snowbaird AU Fest

Day Three: Arena

Coriolanus had a plan: Finish school. Get a job at the mayor's office. Marry Lucy Gray Baird.

And then both their names got called.

Now he needs a plan where they both survive this.

Second run of the Snowbaird smut week will take place in less than two weeks!

Reminder of the prompts:

Day 1 - August 4 : virginity

Day 2 - August 5: hickeys/marking

Day 3 - August 6: bondage

Day 4 - August 7: exhibitionism

Day 5 - August 8: breeding

Day 6 - August 9: mirrors

Day 7 - August 10: outdoors sex

The 1 year anniversary of the tbosas movie is coming up… and so is the second run of our Snowbaird AU fest event!!

See the ao3 collection here!