Effie stood in her spacious bathroom, smearing a soaking wet white flannel over her face - though her colour of the day had been midnight blue, so it wasn't that white any more - and removing the last traces of the inch-thick makeup she had laboriously applied earlier that morning. She looked hard at herself in the large, lit up mirror as she attempted to pull off one enormous blue glittery false lash but do minor if any damage to her eyelid. Though she wasn't enormously keen on the way she looked with the layers of makeup and enormous pastel wigs, she felt naked without them and hated how she looked even more.
Her face had been worse before the enormous amounts of cosmetic surgery she had had when she was in her early twenties, but even without her natural beak-like nose and thin, pallid lips, she still looked pretty appalling minus wig, lipstick and enormous earrings.
Her naturally black hair was cut into a short yet stylish feminine pixie coif with a long side fringe that cascaded into her eyes when she didn't do anything with it; her eyes when she wasn't wearing her usual coloured contacts were a dark grey, rather like a wolf's. Her surgically modified nose was about the only good thing about her face, but then she remembered the faint scars around the edges from her first disastrous attempt at getting something done about it. A lot of Botox and various other substances injected into her face had made her lips poutier than they were naturally and pulled the slightly loose skin on her face taut, and this was a second painful reminder of how she was supposed to have looked. She gave up her battle against the false lash and simply pulled it off, hissing when the adhesive took about six of her own eyelashes with it, then stared at her reflection, thinking back to those times when she was about eleven, and her older brother, Prosper, had liked nothing better than to point out her sharp, high-boned, irregular features at every possible moment and taunt her by calling her a Muttation. She ran a hand through her hair, sighed and began waging war on her other feathered lash.
"You know," Effie literally jumped, accidentally tearing off her other lash extension when she saw the figure of Caesar Flickerman leaning against her doorframe, his blue hair loose and just grazing his shoulders, his mouth slightly open, flashing her that unnaturally white smile. "I think you look brilliant just as you are without all the usual rubbish you spend hours putting on that beautiful face of yours."
"Oh, Caesar, stop it. We both know that I look like hell. How on earth did you get in here?"
"Well, I live across the hall and its me that has to look after all your damned houseplants when you go out to the districts, so I've got your key. I was just wanting to find out if you're coming to Snow's pre-Games cocktail party tomorrow night."
"Wouldn't miss it," Effie drawled flatly. "Still, I had a feeling that I might have some kind of accident tomorrow morning, so I haven't put too much thought into it."
"Effie, you can't keep using that as an excuse. What was it last time? You slipped and broke your arm or something?"
"That actually happened!" Effie barked indignantly, gently running her other hand along her slim wrist as if it still hurt and wishing that Caesar would just go away. "You don't know how embarrassing it was having to go out to the Reaping with my arm in a sling and then have Haymitch tormenting me about it every possible moment. Not to mention how much it actually hurt. Look, I don't want to come because quite frankly I look dreadful. I literally have nothing to wear and absolutely no amount of makeup could make this look any better," she gestured in anguish at her pale face. Caesar walked in fully, put one hand on either side of Effie's head and gently traced the sharp lines of her cheekbones with his thumbs. "Effie, you're worrying that you're not going to look as mental as everyone else. Look, you're coming tomorrow and you'll be an absolute show-stopper, and do you want to know why? You're going to wear as little makeup as you can get away with, no wig, no stupid false nails and the most minimalistic dress you own, which knowing you is some kind of neon pink brocade, but still fine. You are totally gorgeous in your own skin, do you hear me?"
Effie nodded slightly, stunned by Caesar's full-on approach. "Good girl," he muttered softly, lightly kissing her forehead after brushing her black fringe from her face with his hand. "I'll see you there."
Effie had no idea what had just happened, but as she walked into her bedroom and shrugged her dressing gown from around her shoulders, revealing a lime green sleeveless chiffon nightdress, she contemplated what Caesar had said. Perching on her pearlescent silt duvet and running her hand through her short, black hair, she finally decided that she was going to take his advice. Standing up and sliding her feet into white high-heeled slippers, she walked over to her overflowing wall-to-wall closet and slid it open. A bit if searching, and she found what she needed in amongst her rainbow array of wigs, criminal amount of lipstick and two hundred and something pairs of shoes. She hasn't worn the thing in years, but she thought that now was as good a time as any.
As she slid under her bed sheets that night, she was for once in her life excited about one of the Capitol's prestigious social events which she so despised.
It took Effie longer than it ever had to apply her makeup the next night, though she couldn't remember wearing less of the stuff in her life. After going to painstaking effort to put virtually nothing on, thinking it was too...Effie, cleaning it all off and repeating the whole cycle again about five times, she was finally ready. Darkened eyelashes and brows, hair slicked back just enough so she could see, scars on her nose concealed and just a touch of cheek and lip tint. Dressed, made up and ready for action, the new Effie left her penthouse apartment, locking the door behind her.
Caesar stood between Seneca Crane, Plutarch Heavensbee, President Snow and Effie's older brother, Prosper Anarchy Trinket, staring into his glass of sweet blue liquor and sighing. He had long since lost thread of their conversation, and was watching guests arriving and leaving - the District One escort, Vesper, had already had to take a completely blotto Haymitch back home - when something caught his eye. A woman with short, black hair, tiny amount of makeup and eerily pale skin. She was wearing a simple, peacock blue floor length ball gown with sleeves that ended just below her elbows. The cut of the dress hugged her waist and bosom softly, showing just enough breast to be attractive, but not slutty. President Snow seemed to spot her at the same time, and he said; "I know that that's Athena and Cressida with her, but who on earth is that?"
Caesar suppressed a smile as he answered, on his toes and just about to ask her for a dance. "That's Effie Trinket."