Effie's delicate fingers brushed softly along each petal of the bouquet of flowers in her lap. She sighed, eyelids closing. Her face was free of makeup and she wore the plainest dress she owned, usually hidden beneath the fake bottom of her personal carpet bag. It took so much time and effort to cover herself in a show of sparkles and colors, to attach a different extravagant wig to her tired scalp, to pitch her voice octaves higher, to slur her tongue with the expected accent. Never once had she ever slipped from her facade; never would she ever slip from it. It was the price she had to pay to earn President Snow's respect - and to keep her life.
Only one night a year did she ever allow herself to just become the old Effie, unbound from the woman in the mirror that she couldn't bring herself to look at directly, a woman she feared she would never be able to know. It was on this night that Effie was always left alone to be with her thoughts and the memories that haunted her like the demons below the earth.
Effie's fingers twitched as she remembered placing her hand into the large glass bowl before all of District Twelve. Her heart stopped now as it did then, and a gut-wrenching wave of grief and remorse washed through her again. She was sending another child into the Games - no, it was already done. The slow rocking of the train reminded her that they were already on their way to the Capital. A young girl and a young boy were lying awake in their rooms, contemplating their death and the deaths they would eventually cause.
Effie shuddered. What kind of existence was this, she wondered, her fingers clenching into shaky fists, crumpling the fragile flowers. A thorn broke through the skin, creating a small pool of blood in her palm, but she didn't feel it. Her breathing became ragged as she threw the bouquet onto the floor. "One day," she murmured, and clung that phrase - that hope - with all that was left of this old Effie - of this real Effie.