TEAM 13: TRIBUTE 11

Neville : Antwan

The Beauty Team

The less said about goodbyes the better.

Neville's grandfather and grandmothers had all sent the entire time bawling. His mother and father had each taken turns slapping him for daring to volunteer, and his aunt had refused to show up at all. His siblings and cousins were even worse than his grandparents.

By the end of it Neville was almost eager to get away, get away from the guilt and the sadness and the grief.

The train provided little solace.

Their arrival at the Capitol, however, was at least distracting enough that Neville was finally able to get his mind off things.

As the train pulled into the station—a giant silver and white monstrosity of art-cum-function that loomed larger than any building he'd ever seen in either life—Capitol denizens screamed and shrieked, clawing at the train's windows as if they could by magic break the glass and touch their favored tributes.

The actual platform that they stepped off onto was blocked off from fans, thankfully, but that didn't stop the eleven and twelve year-olds from crowding behind Harrow, the eighteen year-old who had taken lead of the group from the beginning.

They eyed the citizens warily as they were herded by camera after camera, phone after phone, grasping hand after grasping hand.

Behind them they heard District 12's train—the final one, it looked like—pull in and drag some of the crowd away from them, and all Neville could think was that all of these people had likely already been there for hours (something told him that District 1 had not been shuffled in quite so quickly.)

"Do you—" Anise, his fourteen year-old district-mate asked, "do you think we'd be the same as them if we grew up here?"

Neville didn't respond.

Eventually (thankfully) they were led out of sight of the mob and instead into the waiting arms of their "prep team": ten overly eager Capitol citizens who seemed absolutely gleeful at a chance to be a part of the Games in any way.

They were washed, plucked, shaved, trimmed, tanned, bleached, dyed, and (disturbingly) slapped into their 'ideal look' according to the hovering team, and then (before Neville even had time to catch his breath) were thrust unceremoniously into their outfits.

Jelani was, Neville thought, supposed to be dressed up as an unusually sparkly banana. Braylon was a mass of grapes, Kola an apple slice, Tyrese a carrot...

By the time they got around to dressing up Neville (they'd decided to do him before Anise when she'd begun having a panic attack over them forcing her into what was probably a Pineapple-based outfit) he was resigned to what was coming.

"Oh, don't you just look darling!" One of the beauty team members shrieked. She turned to another member, gushing "And don't you remember what he looked like when they came in? We can do magic, I tell you! Pure magic!"

Neville stared down at himself.

"Um... what am I?" He asked.

"Dragonfruit!" One of the team said, shifting around to gel his green-dyed hair up a bit further. "Polka based every one of your outfits on the most popular fruits and vegetables in the Capitol right now! Why, just last week I had this dragonfruit mimosa—or was it lime? It was a bit hard to tell, you know, what with all the sugar and alcohol. Well, anyway, I just loved it! And..."

He was in a sparkly reddish pink leotard which had literally glowing triangular green flaps coming out from all sides.

Just to repeat: he was in a sparkly reddish pink leotard which had literally glowing triangular green flaps coming out from all sides.

Neville knew that muggleborns had always found wizard fashion to be just as inexplicable as he'd found muggle clothing, but at least neither of them had ever thought this was appropriate wear.

He was going to kill Harry.

"Oh, god." Shanice said. She was standing nearest to the door, and so had the clearest view of where they would be expected to wait to mount the chariots.

"What?" Neville asked.

"It's District Five." She said. "They've dressed them up as—as—there's a windmill, and a nuclear cooling tower, and... I think that's supposed to be a watermill? And—"

"OH MY GOD!" A beautician shrieked. "Loki did what? Wow, he is amazing! I mean, not that Polka isn't, but it's just... what a brilliant idea! I've always thought that something like that should be done, you know, but my sketches never come out right—of course it's Loki who figures out how to execute it!"

Neville... Neville was suddenly much more thankful than he had been yesterday that he hadn't been born in the Capitol.