A/N: Thanks to bookwormium13, sassyk100, and Maxniss Everide for the tributes! Thanks to all you subscribers, favoriters, and readers! And thanks for sticking with me even though I have some serious mental problems when it comes to updating! Here's the story!


Ch 4: Meeting Portia


Gale POV

We finally made it to the Capitol! Yay! That was major sarcasm by the way. Apparently, we were scheduled to meet with our stylists straight away. Our dear mentor told Dahlia and I "don't resist the stylists, no matter what". Who knows what the hell that means? And yeah, we actually managed to get some valuable advice out of him!

(Flashback)

"Haymitch, you're supposed to help us, right?" We were at breakfast this morning and I was surprised when Dahlia spoke so directly.

"Mmmhmm," the drunk replied. "Well then, since you're supposed to help us, I'll make this simple for your drunken mind to comprehend. If you don't make all the right moves, give us all the right advice, there will be consequences. One tiny slip up, and my parents will have your drunken little ass in some deep shit and your privileges to buy that crap you always drink, it'll be gone faster than you can say 'hangover'. Do we understand each other, Haymitch?" Dahlia looked dead serious and I'd be lying if I said I wasn't scared a bit. However, Haymitch just stayed the same.

Bad idea. This made Dahlia pi-issed. She jumped, frickin' jumped, out of her chair and slapped Haymitch across the face, and he fell out of his chair! Unfortunately, he took his glass bottle with him, so now there were glass shards everywhere. But the fall got him woken up. He looked up and punched Dahlia so that she landed against the wall. The punch was so surreal; it was hard to believe he was just drunk a few moments ago. But the fact that he wouldn't pay attention to us got me riled up as well. As Haymitch got off the floor, I picked up one of the shards and threw towards him like one of my hunting knices, making sure my aim made my make-shift knife hit right above his head.

That got him startled even more. He narrowed his eyes at us and told us to stand side by side, a bit away from the table. He started circling us like a hawk and started to speak.

"You, girly, you gotta fix that attitude of yours if you wanna survive even the first day in the Arena. Fix it up. At home, you may be a spoiled, rotten, stuck-up princess, but here, you're just another tribute. Fresh meat for the Capitol to swoon over. Seam boy, how'd you come to look so fit, and throw something like that? You don't look like you lived in Seam conditions, but I know a Seam child when I see one. Wait, don't answer that.

"Now listen here. You two seem fit enough that you might be able to handle the fight, might. And for your appearances, well, I'm sure your stylists will make you look acceptable. Now, let's make a deal. I'll try to help you as much as I can, give you the right advice, but you don't object, no exceptions. You listen to everything I say and do anything I ask of either of you, and I mean everything, and I'll stay sober enough to help you two out. Understand?" Dahlia and I nodded.

"Good. That order starts now. No interfering with my drinking. Got that?" We nod again. "Now go and wait for the train to stop at the Capitol, we'll be pulling into the station in a few minutes. Once there, you'll meet with the stylists for the opening ceremony. You're not gonna like what they do to you, but don't resist your stylists, no matter what it is. You'll need their help." Dahlia opens her mouth to protest on something but Haymitch interrupts her. "No protests. Remember the deal. Don't resist them. Now leave already." He shooed us out of the dining car and Dahlia and I separated.

(End Flashback)

Now I'm at the Capitol, riding up the elevator in the Training Center, where I'll be living until the Games start. I'm meeting with my stylist and my team now. Apparently, it's a woman named Portia, and a team of three.

I step out of the elevator and am met by three obviously Capitol, obviously altered females. My fashion team.

"OH! Glanna, isn't he adorable?" The girl, and I say girl because she didn't look any older 20! – that was the closest to my right looked at the one that was the closest to my left.

"Why Vasi, he's gooooooorgeous!" My leftie woman answered to the rightie girl in this super high trilling goddamn annoying voice, worse than Effie's, which is saying something.

Apparently Glanna was the woman on my left and Vasi was the girl on my right. I have yet to find out who the center female is.

But damn, they were all so . . . Capitol. And when I say Capitol, I mean altered to an extent where you couldn't even tell how they naturally looked. But then again, wasn't it the same for all Capitol people?

Anyways, Glanna's whole body seemed to be based on the sea. She had blue skin, with hair that looked like real seaweed; it was even dripping water everywhere! She was wearing this weird dress with gill looking things on the sides of it, blue shoes with fish swimming around, some weird bracelets on her wrist, and a necklace with some beads.

Vasi was all orange and sunset-y. She had pink and orange tie-dye skin with an orange striped dress and black shoes. Her hair was all curly and bouncy, and her cheerfulness reminded me of Prim. She seemed to be the most preppy one of the group.

The last woman of my team, the one whose name I didn't know, looked like she'd been dripped in a bucket of black oil. Her skin was black-like really night colored black, her hair was black, her draping dress was black, her shoes were black, her bracelet was black, those things hanging from her ears were black, her necklace was black…I think you get it. But despite her appearances, I kinda liked her most right now, since she didn't seem to talk a lot. She also looks a lot like Glanna, the sea woman. At least, their faces look alike.

So, while I was assessing them, Glanna the sea woman and Vasi the sunset girl were still chatting away about who knows what. Something about this person's party and that person's outfit at this other person's party and the food at another person's party…. Snow! What's with Capitol freaks and parties?

Anyways, they were now leading me into the Remake Center, where there was all this stuff to apparently, make me look "presentable" for Portia. The place was big, filled with a lot of unrecognizable stuff. I might've been nervous, but nothing really passed through my mind except for one thought.

This would take a while…


Three hours later

R-i-i-p!

The feel of the fabric peeling away from my skin, and bringing lots of hair with it, was painful, to say the least. Vasi cringed when she saw my gritted teeth. "Sorry, Gale! You're just sooooo hairy! Good news, though! This is the last one!" And with that, the last of the hair on my leg was ripped off.

I've been in the Remake Center for hours and I still haven't met Portia. According to my fashion team, she doesn't want to see me until these three have "addressed some obvious problems". So, they had me take a bath with some sort of concoction that they scrubbed all over my body, getting rid of whatever dirt was on me, as well as three layers of skin. After I was all dry, they draped me with a robe and made me squat down in a chair, where they started doing some sort of cutting crap with my fingernails. And now I'm here. They've been removing any body hair that grew on me for quite awhile now, and according to Vasi, I was now done with hair removal.

They stripped me of my robe and started slathering a lot of gunky gooey Capitol stuff on my skin, which burned like hell at first, but then it felt a bit refreshing… just a bit. After they finished covering me in that stuff, they made me stand in the middle of the room, circling me with little plier thingies, looking for any remaining hair.

Once their satisfied, Jia says they should call Portia. So, they start jumping up and down in excitement, swarming all about the room, saying stuff of how I'm going to look sooooo gorgeous and how I'm going to looooooooove my costume. Finally, they leave the room, to fetch Portia I suppose.

I want so badly to reach over and grab the robe to cover my body but I refrain myself. I know that Portia will only make me take it off again. I wait for a few minutes and then I hear the door to the room opening. I turn around and see a young woman walk in. Portia.

I'm struck by how oddly normal she looks, for someone from the Capitol that is. Her skin is clear of the Capitol's embellishments and the color of her dark hair seems to be natural. The only thing Capitol that I see on her are the streaks of golden amber on her eyelids, bringing out her eye color more. Even her clothes don't seem Capitol. She's wearing a simple brown shirt with black swirls, black pants, and tan boots, along with a necklace that looks like the skin of a snake. She doesn't look Capitol that much, which in my books, is very good.

"Hello Gale. I'm Portia, your stylist." Her voice isn't as altered as the rest of the Capitol people I've met, like Effie or Glanna or Vasi, or even Jia.

"Hello." I say cautiously, I figure that's careful enough to say.

"Just give me a moment, please." Portia's voice is gentle and soft, and she walks around me, examining every part of my body. She inspects me so thoroughly, I have to resist my impulse to put my hands in between my legs very very hard.

As she continues to look at me, I consider her and her lack of displaying Capitolness. I had expected someone more flamboyant as my stylist, someone older trying desperately to look young, looking at me like a piece of meat on a platter. So far, Portia has not met any of these expectations. Then I notice something. I have not seen Portia on screen before.

"You're new here, aren't you?" I blurt. "I don't think I've seen you around before." Most of the stylists are familiar and recognizable, constant in the ever-changing pool of tributes. Some have even been around my whole life.

"Yes, this is my first year in the Games." Portia says.

"So they gave you District 12." I say nonchalantly. The new stylists are almost always given to us; District 12, the least desirable of the Districts.

"I asked for District 12." The way Portia says this tells me that's all the information I'm going to get. "Now, why don't you put on our robe and we'll have a little chat?"

I gratefully pull on the robe to cover my body and follow her out the door into a lounge room. Two red couches face each other with a glass table in the middle. Three of the walls are blank and boring but the fourth is made entirely of glass, which overlooks the Capitol. If I didn't harbor such a great hatred to this city, I might've enjoyed the view.

Portia leads me to the red couches and pressed a button. I watch in wonder as the top of the table splits open and a meal comes out. Lunch.

How nice it must be, to have food appear at the press of a button, I thought, while surveying the spread in front of me. There was chicken in some cream with oranges, on top of some pearly white grains, tiny green peas and onions, flower-shaped rolls, and honey-colored pudding for dessert.

I think of how I would make this meal at home. Chickens are too expensive, so I'd have to settle for a turkey. A second turkey would have to be shot to trade for the orange and I'd have to substitute goat's milk for cream. We could grow peas in the garden, but I'd have to gather wild onions from the woods. The grain is unrecognizable to me, the tesserae from District 12 just turns into an unappealing mushy brown pile. I'd have to trade two or three squirrels to the baker for the fancy rolls. And the pudding, well, what's even in there? Days of hunting, gathering, and trading just for this one meal, and even then, it'd be a poor substitution of the Capitol's.

Again, I wonder how life would be if I didn't have to do anything but press a button for my meals. What would I do during the hours that I currently use to comb the woods for sustenance, when it came by so easily? What do the people in the Capitol do all day, besides decorating their bodies with hideous designs and waiting for a new shipment of tributes to roll in and die for these peoples' entertainment?

I look away from the meal and find Portia's eyes on me. "How despicable we must seem to you." She says.

I'm surprised. Has it shown on my face, or did she somehow read my mind? It doesn't matter though, because she's right. They are despicable, the whole rotten lot of them.

"Anyhow," continues Portia, "I think it's time we talk about your costume for the opening ceremonies, Gale. My partner, Cinna, is the stylist for your female counterpart, Dahlia. Cinna and I thought that we should dress you two in complementary costumes," says Portia. "As you know, it's customary to reflect the flavor of the district."

For the opening ceremonies, tributes are supposed to wear something that represents their District's principle industry. So, coming from District 12, Dahlia and I will be in some kind of coal miner's getup. Unfortunately, our costumes are never appealing to the eye, so every year, our tributes do not win the favor of the crowd. I brace myself for the worst.

"So I'll be in a coal miner suit?" I ask, hoping that it won't look too bad on me.

"Not exactly. Cinna and I both agree that the Capitol has seen enough of those outfits on District 12. We also agree that they aren't very memorable, and we want to make you two as memorable as possible. So, we decided to focus more on the coal this year." As soon as those words leave her mouth, I instantly think of that one year where our tributes were stark naked and covered in coal dust. Please not that, I pray, anything but that.

"And what do we with coal, once it's mined of course. We burn it." What? I think.

"Gale, you're not afraid of fire are you?" Portia asks.

Oh, shit.


A/N: Super long chap, just because I fail as an author who updates. I'm sooooooo sorry about that. I really hope you guys can forgive me. So, the next chapter will be up, hopefully, by next weekend the latest. Hope you guys liked it, and thanks for sticking by me!

PS- You can find the outfits for the fashion team on my profile. And please don't forget to vote on my poll for the outcome of this story as well! Thanks again for reading!