capitol.

Remake was a special kind of ordeal, and one Johanna had not been at all been prepared for.

In Seven, the best thing they could hope for was a hot bath, a bit of hair product, clothes that hadn't been worn to work and, perhaps, a shave - and then, only usually for the boys who were convinced that it would grow back thicker if they did. The last time Johanna was at the mercy of someone else when it came to her own appearance, it was with her mother the morning of the Reaping. Washboard rough hands ripping the brush through her hair with enough force to sting. Insistent muttering about etiquette and decorum and other stupid words Johanna had no need for when she was out delimbing hundred foot firs in the ice cold of winter.

Only, if her mother was bad, the Captiolists who make up her prep team were downright awful.

There are three of them, plus her Stylist herself. Two men and a woman, more of a girl, who somehow looks twelve years younger than Johanna did. The urge to look on in abject horror is too strong for her to bypass - the girl is grotesque.

Her name is Eglantine, and to Johanna, she looks like a little Capitol doll; eyes that have been altered somehow to look twice as big, almost luminously orange. Tiny little body, with a pale, soft face and curly hair coloured a deep, dark red.

The other two, men of various disfigurements and clearly the senior staff, take the lead.

Johanna quickly learns that the term Treatment is a straight up lie, and Butchering would be a term more apt to fit its description. As they remove every glaring imperfection that they can find, Johanna hisses and squirms, biting back curses as her skin is chemically "repaired" to remove her scars. Her hands are the worst. Bad enough that they have to bandage the soft new skin. It stings at first, but then the sensation turns into a persistent burning itch that makes Johanna want to drag her palms down the roughest surface she can find. The endless series of creams and salves and gritty pastes are no help.

She is thankful for only one thing. Eglantine, who is either mute or simply prefers silence, is the one to remove the mark left behind from Adamus' dirty little joke from the night before. The blemish disappears, fades with a lingering stinging sensation, and it appears that only them were ever aware of its existence. Although, Johanna does not look at her to confirm, embarrassed despite herself.

In the end, all she can do is try to recall the original experience, now that she has no aftermath to remember it by. It leaves her feeling funny in the middle.

She did not want to think of him, of them, especially not home. Not here. It felt wrong.

Instead, Johanna redirects her attention toward Percival and Roman, who prefer to talk about themselves and their experiences instead of even remotely paying Johanna any worthwhile attention, other than to tell her to stop twitching or to move a limb. Percival is particularly rapturous. He met a man who was so totally into him now that he's a stylist in the Hunger Games, you see. Roman wonders aloud if there are any Hunger Game couple-based activities for romantic getaways.

It's easy to lose herself in their chatter. Between that, and the clenching of her jaw, the pain is just about bearable.

For everything else, there is her mentor. Johanna does not like Blight much, if at all, but she is thankful for his continued presence nonetheless.

His own prep team had done something to him while she was away. Hair shorter on the back and sides, the ends sharper and cleaner. His beard was shorter, too. He arrived in a suit that, again, looked too small to be comfortable with a lingering scowl on his face and a proverbial - or maybe not - axe to grind.

"I told you," Blight directed his ire at Roman, the ringleader of the multicoloured crazy brigade. "No surgical alterations. You clean her up and that's that."

"It wouldn't take much," Roman whines as if it's an actual concern of his, the fact that Johanna has more muscles than she has curves. Johanna realises with a severe amount of disdain that it's likely true. "A small alteration would do wonders-"

"And it might go implicate my tribute in the Arena." Blight snaps back. "Do what you need to do and nothing more. There's no point. Save your resources for making an impression post-remake if we get that sodding far."

That last bit hurt, even though Johanna suspected that it was part of the so-called plan. Percival hissed and skirted back in loathing, running his green jewelled fingertips across Johanna's arm in what would be a soothing manner if not for the fact that said hand was attached to someone who would no doubt be celebrating her death in a few days.

Blight notices, but doesn't say anything, or otherwise allude to the fact. Instead, he has orders for them; no alterations and no hair extensions. Base zero and not a millimetre over the threshold.

According to her stylists, this was a complete and utter tragedy.

"It's almost as if he doesn't want his tributes to flourish!" Percival looks close to tears, but either the situation isn't as upsetting as he first imagined or he is worried about his makeup running because any traces of moisture are gone by the time Johanna can do a double take. Roman gives him a consoling pat on the shoulder.

"Now," he says as he works on standing Johanna up, pink, naked and prickling like a raw plucked chicken. "Now, we wouldn't want to say that," he gives Johanna a thin smile. "We all know how much effort the mentors put into their tributes. I can't imagine trying to pull off a display after last year!"

Last year, Johanna thought back as she tried to balance on her feet, hunting soles and all. That girl, they must mean - the District 4 one who swam. Annie Something. Annie was very pretty, she remembered. Her stylists must have loved Pretty Annie.

Percival nods and nods and nods. "Such beauty, it's a sha-"

The statement is cut short by the abrupt entrance of a tall, thin woman who Johanna immediately recognises as her primary stylist. Celesto has been District 7's female stylist going on ten years, which directly coincides with their last victory, Johanna discerns with a lingering mix of dread and discomfort.

"Leave, leave," the woman is all waving arms and metal bangles, wearing a dark green sash that would be appealing if not for the fact that it was more revealing than Johann was strictly comfortable with. "Leave us! I'll see you on the show floor!"

Kisses are exchanged between the four of them as the three junior stylists all file out with waves and good lucks. Before Johanna can even mutter a reply, she's alone with Celesto and her shimmering silver bands.

Johnna is made to turn, to raise her arms, spread them out on either side while Celesto circles her and makes comments about weight, bulk and posture. In a few short minutes, she's determined that Johanna looks like a boy - if she stopped slouching she'd look far more effeminate, with a wonderful profile but oh, do stop frowning. A smile goes a long way! And the breadth of her shoulders will make the costume come out one-sided, last-minute preparations will have to be made.

"I have to admit I'm horribly jealous of Casbus," she sighs after awhile, moving between sketchbooks with wide angled swashes of green and not much else. "That Linden is such a handsome boy, with the right body- oh you I can deal with, I suppose. At least you've got some weight on your bones - all wrong composition, but with a little work I can make your curves come out deliciously."

It takes a lot of effort not to flinch at the comment, and to avoid getting caught, Johanna looks to the floor instead.

"What to do what to do? I'm thinking leaves this year, our last attempt was lukewarm, but you two are good looking young people, yes? Yes. Leaves, wonderful leaves - pretty pretty, much like you... are," the woman lets out a small laugh at the end of the statement, more one of genuine humour then scorn.

But leaves? Johanna can't help but wince. It's been years, and if it's not trees than it's foliage, or in the case of that one year when they had two boys and two girls, lumberjacks. Ever since they've had Celesto they've had trees. Or parts of trees.

She remembers the kids from last year for the 70th, who wore jumpsuits with tiny wooden plates attached to the fabric. They came out looking like trees themselves, and Johanna would have found the thing appealing if the two kids hadn't come from the poorest areas of Seven and, as a result, looked like twigs as opposed to trunks.

As Celesto advanced on her with bushels of suspicious looking foliage, Johanna wondered if this was how they felt.

In the end, she had a right to be suspicious.

The costumes they are put into are nothing but strategically placed loops of plant life. Johanna enters into the basement feeling exposed, but at the same time, her blood rushes through her limbs, pushes it into her heart with a high, unrelenting pressure that makes her throat beat hard and her head swim.

It's nothing like she imagined it would be, somehow both better and worse.

The other Tributes stay close together, even the Careers. From her position stood with Linden, who looks even more on display since the foliage covers only his waist and one shoulder, she can see a few of the others. The duo from Four are dressed in shimmering scales and long sashes of dark blue fabric. At one point, the boy from District 10 starts shouting, and Johanna turns just in time to see him lunge for one of his stylists.

"Lunatic, that one," Linden mutters under his breath, making some sort of weird leg movements. His costume was probably as uncomfortable as hers was. "Kyeler or something, right? Wouldn't stop screaming. I think he had to have a Peacekeeper guard on him in remake."

"Oh," Johanna mutters, and he gives her a funny look, like he was expecting an alternative response. He shifts again.

"What, you didn't hear? Lucky. Gave me a headache after ten minutes." He smiles, but it looks uncomfortable, and he looks back toward the other tributes before returning his attention back to her, a little too intensely for her liking. "You look- uh, nice, though. All your scars are gone! You look pretty without them, almost like the other girls. They took away a scar on my knee and it- well it was fine, it didn't hurt nothin', ah. In fact, nothing hurt at all-"

Johanna catches her district partner making an odd arm gesture, and before she can stop herself, her eyes track the movement to its source. She blanches when she realises what it is he was doing.

"What are you doing?!" She hisses, eyes wide. "Not here!"

"My skin is burning up!" He gasps as he pushes one of his hands down under his loops of greenery, on his hip. Johanna has the sinking suspicion that is not what he is trying to itch, however. "What did she use for this?"

"Stop touchi-"

"I think it's poisonous," Linden shifts uncomfortably, but blessedly removes his arms and keeps them stiffly at his sides, though he keeps up the weird, dancing foot movements, almost as if he was trying to avoid rubbing his thighs together.

Sure enough, none of their stylists or the mentors are in sight, either. Johanna inhales sharply.

Her District partner clenches his teeth. "Is it poisonous?"

"How wo-"

"You're from the Eastern end, right?" Linden looks her straight in the eyes, and he'd almost look nonchalant if not for the wild look of panic reflecting in his irises. "You know trees and shit, you work in the logging camps."

That is true enough, and while Johanna didn't like his tone, she also hated the fact that he's the only tribute shifting around while everyone else is standing still and ready, even the nervous ones.

She sets her teeth and looks at the greenery near his hip. It's not hard to identify; ever since she was old and big enough to climb trees, run off into the woods alone, she has known. Her father had sat her down with a book when she was perhaps three or so, said look at these, these will make your skin hurt. One of her earliest memories is him taking her out for lessons like these.

Bringing up that memory and applying it to her current situation gives her mixed feelings at best, and Johanna determines the nature of the red stems and leaf shape with begrudging efficiency.

"Sumac," she snaps, and is just about to inform the idiot that he'll have to wait and not to scratch when someone whistles from across the threshold.

It's the boy from District 1, dressed in shimmering fabrics studded with finery. It makes him look like royalty. "Little Seven gettin' an eyeful there!" He shouts, "You should come over here! The view is larger!"

His point was punctuated with a suggestive hip gesture. Johanna almost immediately turns away from it, her scowl digging into the floor. The front end of the procession erupts into laughter.

Linden laughs along with them, but it's edged with something desirous she doesn't like.

It sets the tone for the whole parade, at any rate. The rest of it is a blur, spent in a confusing state of uncertainty, fury and discomfort. Mostly the fury, the deep insidious feeling that made the whole thing feel ludicrous, drowned out only by the surrounding noise. The crowd was deafening. Johanna doesn't look up to clarify, but she feels the lens on her for a small, creeping period, as if a mere courtesy. Linden waves beside her, looking stiff but otherwise cheery, putting on a good show.

It's when the President starts talking that Johanna finally looks up - there are rules, after all, and while she's angry she's not stupid. And then there is that niggling element of sheer curiosity. To see the man that has ruled the country longer than she's been alive, in the flesh.

She's not sure what she expected; the man himself a blur, an unsure silver and grey shape surrounded by ornamental stone arches, banners and the slight snippet of equally unsure blank faces in Panem official greys and reds. The President talks, in his standard Capitol drawl, as he always does, about honour and sacrifice and the Good of the Games. The crowd screams in response.

Johanna finds herself at the Tribute Centre's doors before she knows it, a Happy Hunger Games ringing in her ears, a chorus of May the Odds pounding inside her skull and the vague blurry shape of the President itching behind her eyes.

"Sumac!" Dara snarls when they are both freed from their chariots, grabbing Linden's arm and firmly removing it away from his private area, which he had been shielding the whole way back, as if to make a move to scratch but fully committing. A good thing, because Johanna might have slapped him off of the chariot if he had so much as moved an inch to do so, weakling plan be damned. "I thought they knew-"

Blight seemingly materialises out of nowhere, looking strained as Linden starts to dispense of his outfit, practically in the nude before he could even get into the elevator. Blight stood between them, as if to protect Johanna's mental state along with the modesty of her district partner, who had nothing but Dara's jacket to keep him covered.

The doors have barely opened when Dara drags Linden back to his room, peppering a series of orders for the shower with proficiency, seething. Blight, once they have been surpassed by the two other rushing men and are alone save for the Avoxes, turns to Johanna.

"No itching?" She shakes her head at his question, and he sighs. "Good. Get it off. Should have some clothing in there your size. Take a shower and I'll come and have a talk with you before dinner."

Her rooms, at least, are far more luxurious than the ones she was issued on the train. Wood panelled walls with deep, dark rugs, shiny floors that must have come from Seven, given the consistency - Hickory, colour washed and treated with some sort of finish, but still real, not the faux plastic stuff that was mass produced and used at home. Johanna spends most of her time scrubbing off dark highlights and freeing her hair of whatever abomination Roman treated it with. The plant-costume goes sailing off into the sink, along with all her accessories, left to fester.

At first, the stress on her skin is impossible to ignore; she could discern no red stemmed leaves, but the treatments left over from remake had taken their toll. Her skin was healing, yes, but it felt abraded, like she'd skinned her knees again when she was a kid, but everywhere, and without the blood. Johanna spends a few minutes investigating the shower, and figures out she can not only change the pressure of the water but that there is a herbal healing balm option that comes in a variety of smells.

She comes out of it... better. Not her 100%, but better. Making a mental note to remember the name of that particular concoction for later, Johanna goes to get dressed, wrapping herself up in towels and avoiding the suspicious looking mat with yellow feet marks.

The closet is programmable and much to her surprise, contains clothing that is functional and appealing, unlike the ghoulish fashions she had seen over the past day. One shirt out of the thousands available for her choice takes her fancy, some weird flappy number that came in orange, white or black. Johanna picked the latter and with it, a set of cropped soft trousers of a similar shade. Her hair, she left wet. It would dry quickly enough.

With nothing else to do, Johanna crossed the room to investigate the window.

Beyond the horizon, the moon shone against the glittering cityscape. In the far distance, millions of lights caused the dense mass of skyscrapers glitter and Johanna took it in with quiet interest. Despite what she thought of the place, she had also never seen anything like it. Seven's major urban zone was five dozen or so buildings surrounding two lumber factories and the town square. The Tribute Center was one of the tallest buildings in the Capitol and stood separate amongst official parks and ceremonial roads. People were needle points and cars were blood cells flowing through the veins of city blocks. Despite the time, the hustle and bustle never came to a halt. She couldn't hear, but she imaged that they were celebrating.

Celebrating her impending death, she reminded herself with a snarl and turns away.

Blight gives an odd look when he arrives, to which she merely raises an eyebrow. "What?" She grumbled, annoyed at Blight and the lunatics beyond her bedroom window. "You asked me to get comfortable."

"I did." Came his neutral reply, shrug and all. He crosses the room and picks up one of her pillows, a peerless white and overly stuffed thing. "Here," he says, adjusting it so it was facing her. "Hit it."

"What?" Johanna was struck blank.

"I said hit it, girl."

She does, annoyed and confused, and he gives her a look of disbelief.

"You call that hitting something?" Blight demands, and so she hits it harder, properly. Imagines that it's Saffrin Niklas back home in Seven, when she thought it would be funny to hook her brother Ben, who was afraid of heights, upon a branch a good ten feet off of the floor. Wasn't so funny for her afterwards. Johanna was twelve, she thinks. Only this time around there is no Saffrin, no pretty little nose, but the surprisingly solid impact of cotton and memory foam.

Johanna immediately understands what it was for.

By the time she has stopped punching, the pillow is thoroughly misshapen and she is breathing hard. Blight dumps it back onto the mattress unceremoniously.

"Here, both hands behind your head- there, now deep breaths, concentrate on getting oxygen. Good girl." He nods as Johanna breathes, skin feeling hot but not otherwise sweaty, not yet. "Good, in here, only in here, and only when I'm around to manage it. We'll be going over your strategy aft-.. after dinner, but I wanted to let you know that you've been doing a decent job so far. Stylists said you were quiet, and- mn, what I've- seen from the commentary suggests much of the same."

It wasn't hard, Johanna thinks. Between her attempts to not broadcast her disdain for every single second of this perverse display, what little modesty she had left her wanting to curl up and sink into the floor. Or, better yet, launch herself at the passing smiling faces until they stopped.

She can't imagine the look on her mother's face, her reaction to Johanna's outfit... Part of Johanna took immeasurable glee in it, but it's a short-lived feeling. She's assuming that her mother had found the strength to watch at all; she might have been curled up in bed, worry-stricken, for all she knew. It almost made Johanna feel guilty. She knew her father would watch, he'd sit in the main room with his glass of ration ticket issued barley alcohol at his seat at the table, maybe even in the dark, and watch. Her brothers, maybe. Elden might if he could convince their father, Ben certainly not, not if their mother had any say, he was far too young.

Then she imagines Adamus watching that whole performance and the guilt is replaced with contempt. Johanna wonders what would happen if she flung herself from the balcony roof.

"Hey," Blight snaps and Johanna throws her head up to meet his gaze in shock. "Remember; get that out, you need to be on your game."

He waits for a few seconds, waits for Johanna to shove everything back, every memory and lingering feeling until it was them, the room with its big long window and the cold air coming from the ceiling, and the thoroughly abused pillow. When she finally scowls back at him, he deflates.

"All finished?" Blight asks, mock-sweet.

"For now," Johanna huffs. She brought her arms down heavily, hands slapping at her sides.

Her mentor shuts his eyes and nods again. "Wait until the Games. Wait until it's time. As for... the rest, the whole thinking thing? Not now. I'll let you know when you've got time to mourn."

Johanna was just about to demand what in the name of Panem that was supposed to mean when Tacitus calls them for dinner.

With some mounting frustration, following her mentor all obedient-like out the door into the main threshold, she suspects that she wouldn't have got a worthwhile explanation anyway.