Éponine Thénardier has never felt so exposed. She has grown up with freedom in the loosest sense, traversing the dirtied streets of District 11 unhindered by the parents whom she never knew. The Hunger Games has only been a lingering sort of threat, pressing in on her like distant storm clouds, heavy with menace but surely never to strike her. Her sole drive has always been her younger brother—making sure that he has enough to eat and a place to sleep out of the summer rains; it's all she knows. Putting him before her, and living for the next day, the next session in the orchards and the next chance at a scrap of food that she can keep for herself, rather than offering to Gavroche or giving up to the Capitol for which they harvested. Her life has made it difficult enough to keep afloat and in line—the thought of a cordoned-off arena, reserved for the torturous but speedy slaughter of herself and a number of others, has always seemed, as a distant concept, practically blissful.
And yet she is here now. She is here, and so is Gavroche, and the emotion spiking through her is pure, raw terror.
Her first instinct is to protect him. She knows they can't both make it out, but her prime thought is that she can help to keep him alive, remain his ally through the end of the Games and then find some way to off herself, before the Gamemakers dare to try and bring him down. He'll be able to manage, back in their district—would probably be able to even without the victors' provisions, but they'll be a reassuring surplus, in any case. And that will be that. Easy. She probably knows more about survival than near every other tribute in the arena, and coupled with him, the path to the disgusting mockery of a victory will be straightforward.
Nonetheless, she can't breathe for her fear.
She's expecting a forest, or a jungle—somehow has fixed that in her mind as the sole obstacle ahead of them, threw it over the whole of her perception the instant her name was called. And yet her surroundings now are the stark opposite: unnatural shades of already neon colors burn against her eyes, and the noise surrounding her is perhaps some imitation of music, though the thought that it could be considered such is really quite revolting. Everything about the city that now sprawls around her in expansive glittering glory is gag-worthy, and she does feel a physical nausea in her stomach, increased by the absence of Gavroche, whom they took away the second they reached the tall building where the tributes will be staying for the three days of training that precede the Games themselves. Being inside the towering complex is far from a break, since the sounds and lights and here are just as vivid, the shapes just as bizarre—of the objects, the rooms, even the people who swarm and dart about like poisonous insects.
Currently, three of these people are buzzing around her, one with eyes that cast a tangerine glow over the unnaturally sharp planes of his face, one with transparent eyebrows curved to a disconcertingly wide arch, and one whose skin is drenched in some sort of ink that gives it the appearance of green and red stripes, from the root of her golden hair to the confines of her skimpy blouse and nearly nonexistent skirt.
"Now, now, darling, we're only going to take a look at you, make sure your body's in its proper state for your stylist!" the orange-eyed man trills, as his fingernails, so long that a slight curl tilts their ends, reach for the collar of the dirty corset and skirt she wore to the reaping.
"Don't touch me!" she snarls back, her hands balled into fists as she steps away. She's sure there are cameras on her, but also can't bring herself to care. It's only a matter of time until her death, now, and the agony contained in her last few days can't count for much. Logic, in any case, is hushed by the fury that rages behind her eyes and under her tongue, a metallic burning sensation ignited by the pressing insistence of this plastic trio. They're all she can see, terrifying in their bright colors and unnatural contortions, and genuine fear sets her heart hammering like a rabbit's.
She doesn't belong here. It's too bright, and it smells wrong, and she needs her brother back—they're blurring before her, until she no longer sees people at all, only monsters, feathery and vivid with acid color. A muted scream tears itself from her lips, and she lashes out, striking furtively at them, shaking with the completeness of her primitive panic.
Her blow, imbalanced as it is by the blurring of her eyesight, falls short of its target, and the alarmed expression twisting the painted features of the light-browed man, the one she had aimed for, only casts his face into a yet more unnatural appearance. Stifling a sob, she stumbles a bit further back—her head is humming, now, and she can barely hear her own breath, is aware only of the fact that she is violently overheated and can't stop trembling—"Don't touch me," she repeats, half a cry and half a shriek, but they are relentless. They're going to hurt her, they're going to destroy her, by the time they're done with her she won't be able to lift a finger to save Gavroche when he's thrown into the mess of the Games—
She barely registers the click of the door sliding open behind her, and thus is frightened nearly into a raging oblivion when she feels cool hands on her shoulder and under her elbow, holding her in place with an exquisite gentleness that couldn't be further from the prods that her prep team is exhibiting.
"Now, now, now," a velvet murmur ghosts against her ear, "what seems to be the problem?"
She immediately recognizes the voice of her mentor, and stiffens in alarm, struggling furtively to pull away from him. She can't glance up, can't look him in the eye—bleak horror is beginning to fall away all at once to reveal a vat of shameful embarrassment underneath, and she takes a deep breath, struggling to calm her heart as it insistently pumps dosage after dosage of hot blood through her already stinging veins.
"Your tribute is intolerable!" the stripe-skinned woman exclaims, looking highly affronted. The two men encourage her with their own cries of repulsion. "She's mad! I would expect better from your district, Montparnasse!"
"Perhaps a bit anxious," he agrees in a light, amiable way that still echoes with some resonance of sleek darkness. "But that's only to be expected. She was just reaped, and alongside her brother, as well… a little fright is perfectly natural." He loosens his grip on her, and she stumbles away, a heated breath catching in her throat as she half-falls into the corner of the room and glares up at him from underneath a frenzied tangle of brown hair.
Montparnasse is a proud young man, impeccable even after the surprise that doubtless came with Éponine's backwards assault. His skin is pale in contrast to the inky curls that spill over his clear forehead, and his features are thin but strong, eyes wide and a green so vivid that she half-believes it to be Capitol-conjured. Rather than decking himself out in any variant of the central city's alarming styles, however, he keeps himself to a fine but visually modest suit, its cut delicately emphasizing a narrow but leanly muscled frame and a posture that makes him look like the most thoughtful of gentlemen.
"This isn't a little fright!" the woman objects, her lips curling into a positively mask-like scowl. "She won't let us touch her!"
"Then perhaps you aren't being gentle enough." As if cuing himself with those very words, Montparnasse moves swiftly closer to Éponine, his boots soundless on the light carpet. Her own feet are bare, her battered shoes being the only item of clothing that the prep team managed to properly remove before the panic set in, and she curls her toes into the softness, unsureness rearing inside of her as he approaches.
"You have to understand," he murmurs, locking eyes with her even as he continues to speak to the confused-looking Capitol trio, "that she is not like you. She isn't used to any of this, are you, Éponine?"
"Leave me alone," she gets out through gritted teeth. She doesn't know what gives him the right to be here, whether he's meant to be involved with any stage of the styling process, anyways. And she can't tell whether she wants him here or not. It was certainly a relief for the insistent prep team to be warded off, and yet he is a bit intrusive, himself, what with those large dark eyes and that steady loping walk that makes her feel like a doe in the shadow of a tiger.
Her words don't seem to reach his ears. Rather than reestablishing the distance previously harbored between them, he reaches out, his thin, pale fingers moving as if to caress her cheek. She snaps, her own hand flashing up to whack against his, and he catches her wrist in his grip, the reflex so quick and strong that she finds her breath frozen for a bare instant. With her pulse dashing under his fingers, she can see, for the first moment, how this man might have won his own Hunger Games—he is swift if anything, and the posh air hovering about him like a cloud of rose oil is capable of being extinguished in a bare snap.
She swallows. Somehow, this clear capableness is the opposite of scary. His strength is a reassurance, and her hand goes slack in his, no longer fighting its powerful grasp. He rewards her trust by slipping his fingers through her own, shifting from a death grip to a mellow hand-hold.
"There," he chuckles, this time speaking only to her. He blinks, and it strikes her for the first time how dark and thick the lashes around his blazing emerald eyes are. "You've allowed me to touch you, now why not give them a chance?"
Somehow, she can't find it within her to protest. And so she keeps her mouth shut and her head down as he turns, leads her back to the table that the prep team has set out for her. The three of them are watching in a way that's almost enraptured, looking for all the world as if they've experienced the taming of some wild animal, and she fights to keep her thorny words shoved deep in her throat, to let Montparnasse guide her back. She does have to control herself. She's remembering that now, even as he releases her hand and steps back, as the other three flock in with only a hint more hesitancy than before, as eager as ever to strip her down and take her apart.
Montparnasse won his Games. And she has to win hers, in turn—or nearly win them. Get close enough to kill herself, so that Gavroche can escape. That is what matters. If Montparnasse is the only one who can teach her properly, then she has to be able to show him, to prove to him that she's worthy of his most careful instruction. She must maintain the faith that he seems to have in her now, and if that means keeping her mouth shut and her stare down as these birdlike beings strip her away of all the bitter protection she's managed to retain, then so be it. It's not as if there are any other options.
He exits the room after a few more brief words with the striped woman, and then Éponine is left alone in their company, counting her breaths to make sure she doesn't break again. It's a painful process, but she manages to stay perfectly still and silent as they rip away her clothing and then set about scrubbing her body to raw cleanliness, stripping away all matter of hair and what feels like several layers of skin in the process, until she's sure that her very blood is running under only a minuscule layer of protection, ready to spurt free and stain them all at the slightest lazy touch. Her hair is cleaned and trimmed out of the knotted mess that she's grown used to, and even her eyebrows are plucked, arched into delicate curves that feel uncomfortably unlike her. It's sickening, really, the way that these people prepare her for her death like a prize turkey. Though, of course, she is nothing else—a meal, and the arena is the stove.
It takes an hour at least until they're satisfied with their work. Once that much is done, they step back, mouths awash in oohs and ahs as they survey what they consider to be beautiful work. Éponine cannot stop shivering. Their eyes probe her like needles, and she wraps her arms around her breasts, shoulders hunched and chin pressed into her collarbone so that she can see only her own skin, pretend that they're not here. It doesn't work, of course—instants later they're tittering about, rearranging her posture into something they deem more acceptable, and she has to swallow fiercely to hold down tears from the pure overwhelming pressure of it all. She wants to be back in the orchards of District 11, back in her dirtied but at least somewhat private life. Nobody there ever interfered with her. They all kept to their own business and allowed her to go about her doings like any other person. And yet now her name is being broadcast across the nation—in mere hours' time, she'll be out on the chariots as the opening ceremonies rage through the mind of every Panem resident. She has no idea what her stylist will choose to deck her out in, doesn't even know what to expect of her stylist at all, aside from the fact that they will certainly be no better than the bubbly mess of the prep team.
Stylist, prep team, trainers—they are all identical, no matter how hard they strive to set themselves apart with grotesque surgery and ugly makeup. Every one of them is false, and not a single one gives her reassurance—save, of course, the obvious. Montparnasse is different. He's not truly from the Capitol, here only for her benefit, and he's probably the only person here other than Gavroche whom she's beginning to believe she can trust.
It's nothing definite, of course. He must have killed people, at some point, and his blasé attitude does imply that he won't be incredibly concerned once she dies, either. Such is the way of the mentors, the victors. They've trained themselves into distantness—just like Gavroche will have to. The thought twists her stomach, though nowhere near so much as that of him dying. She loves him, loves him more dearly than anything else on the planet, and, for the briefest of moments, can think only that she is glad—glad that she will be dead before she has the chance to see him transformed into a monster by the sting of victory. She doesn't want to have to think about that, for surely it will only cause her to question her decision, wonder whether what she's doing in saving him at the cost of herself is really worth it, whether it wouldn't be better for she herself to die.
Luckily, any such dangerous musings are cut off by the click of the door opening once again. She turns, half-expecting Montparnasse, but is rewarded instead by the sight of a Capitol woman far more extravagant than any of the prep team. Her eyelashes are bubble-gum pink and nearly an inch long, her teeth bracingly white and permanently affixed in a wide grin, and oddly green-tinted blush stains cheeks that are otherwise a nearly orange-tan. Most remarkable of her whole appearance, however, can be nothing but her hair—it extends in massive spikes like the crude rays of a lavender sun around her heart-shaped face, so stiff that Éponine cannot help but imagine that, upon touching the tip of one of the bristly locks, she might end up cutting herself.
"Would you look at that!" the stylist screes, hands flying to her cheeks in an exaggerated expression of excitement as her wide eyes, backed by violet shadow but seemingly their natural shade of hazel, stretch even further. "What a pretty, pretty little girl—or at least she will be by the time I've had a go at her, won't she?" A minute twitch stirs the air around her lips as she hacks with high-pitched laughter, and Éponine realizes with a dull shock that the woman has cat whiskers, extending several centimeters from under her nose. The sight imbues her with a physical nausea, but she tames it, remembering again Montparnasse's calmness, clinging to thoughts of her brother and how he must be handling this. Gavroche, surely, is far less anxious about it all than she is. He's smart, and he'll be keeping to himself, biding his time and evaluating his surroundings—won't, of course, have broken down like she did.
Montparnasse, Gavroche. They, she knows, are human. They're sane and reasonable, just like she has to stay. The woman approaching her now doesn't matter, and neither does whatever absurd and humiliating outfit she's going to end up in. Nothing at all matters except for her getting through the Games. Fundamentally, this is not about fashion or gaudiness or willing disfigurement, though the prep team and the stylist seem keen on thinking otherwise.
No, this is about survival.
And if there's one thing that Éponine Thénardier has taught herself in all her years on her own, that is how to survive.