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I can see how easy it was for Finnick Odair to make the people from the Capitol spill their dirtiest secrets. My prep team was the average capitolian, so incredible weird in appearance that I couldn't help, but stare, they are overly excited for the Games and thinking I am a barbarian without a minimum notion about hygiene. And they talk about everything as if I was merely a doll that needs fixing, but can't interact.

So, I keep quiet and listen to the gossips they tell, after all, knowledge is never too much, when they rip my skin and hair of and wash me in products that make me want to scream. I thought naively that the process would be just like a normal hair removal from before, I was wrong. But I couldn't deny the results. My body became smooth, my skin cleaner than ever and my hair have never been better, but again appearance is not that much important in the district, and who I am going to impress either way? I am twelve, my chest is completely flat and I don't even have the hormones for this type of thing.

Not soon enough they finish and rush me to a room to wait for my stylist. All the time gambling who is going to win the games, apparently the favorites are the boy from 1, Aurelius and the girl from 2, Augusta. Not even once my name or my district is mention.

Oh, I wish I could bet. It would have been fun, maybe this is not the most adequate hobby, but God, the poor side in me wonders how much money would I be able to make if I could do it. I could buy paint supplies for Chloe, and a nice present for my James that I am sure is going to get engage soon with our neighbor daughter, there is only a certain number of times you can go ask them if they need help with the cows and he certainly exceeded it. Of course, in this universe my certain gambles are only related to the Hunger Games and the revolution what is both horrible and certain way to be executed. Wish I had been reborn twenty years early in my last world. So much knowledge wasted.

"You! You just ruin my whole outfit." A voice sound from my left where a door that I didn't notice had open. My stylist is a woman in her late twenties, all dressed in black with random chains of metal hanging on her body, she also has a bald head so that her tattoos are clear for anyone to see and black contact that cover not only her iris, but the whole white part of the eye too. She was like a goth, but more extreme. And very angry. "My name is Nix. And I was expecting a more fierce, bold, older tribute. Instead, I got you. And you are not going to be able to use that look as it was supposed to be. So, I had to spend the entire night doing something from nothing. All my friends were partying!"

She talks like it was my fault being reaped and that I am not her ideal muse for the outfit. Rage boiled inside me. People from the Capitol are infuriating, they act like the world turns around them and blame the districts if something did not occur as they want. And after four hours listen to the three hyenas that are my prep team, I can no longer keep the image, not now in front of her. But is too soon and there is too much to lose. So, I bit the inside of my mouth until I can feel it becoming numb from pain, anything to take away the focus. I was already not expecting much to be honest, the clothes for 10 never are good, always the same aesthetics. Livestock, cowboy/cowgirl. How original. The only reason we are not the joke every year is because of 12, they somehow always manage to do something worst than the previous one.

We spent the rest of the time in silence when she finishes my make-up, both too angry to speak. And then she shows me the costume I was meant to wear, and if I was going for any other strategy, I would been pissed. The design was obviously made to not shine, to look the most unthreatening as possible. I am going to the parade as a milking girl. Too innocent with a crown made of yellow flowers on top of my head.

I hold the smirk that is trying to make it way up to my lips. This is perfect for me. Something that may attract attention for being cute, but not enough for the other tributes to notice me.

And as I walk up to the chariots with the other tributes, I notice that my idea was correct, the ones from the outside districts look at me with pity while the carriers laugh at me as if I was just proving to be an easy bait. Regardless of which one, they already had forgotten about me as soon as they turn to examinate the other teenagers.

I would do this in the training. See the abilities each tribute has and how high they are at the threatening scale. Now they are mostly terrified or over confident. A lot of this is going to change once we are inside the arena, there that would not be a place to fake bravado.

Lark is not here, maybe you need more things done the older you are, Nix abandons me as quick as possible and is now chatting with another stylist. It doesn't matter that I am alone. It can't matter. Soon I would be alone in a much scaring place and I need to be the last one standing.

I walk up to my carriage, is the same as the others, but almost on the back of the line. Two beautiful black horses are set to push it. I know without looking that they belong to the Trinad family. They are the ones that breed and train the horses for the capitol, and are rich because of that. If someone from District 10 won the games they can keep the ones that pulled them. However, they are mostly useless for us, sure, they are an incredible sight, but don't know how to work on the camp and their size scare the other animals. So, they mostly stay in a bay at Victor's Village. Well, they are supposed to stay there, but only one of Noah's horses are still alive, the others victors' all died long time ago. I don't think the other districts can keep them, but it would be funny to see a horse in the middle of 6, that makes transportation and 12 would probably kill it for the meat.

"Are you ready?" Lark asks to me. He just arrives and as usual of the tributes from our district he is wearing a mix of cowboy costume and cow costume, both ideas are awful. With cow leather pants, shirtless, a cowboy hat and a golden bell around his neck. This is made to work for someone bigger and with more sex appeal. Lark is to skinny and clumsy to pull it out. Our district is not going to shine in this parade. And for the face of my partner, he agrees.

I just smile to him. Ready or not, the Capitol doesn't care and wouldn't give me more time if I needed.

We do not receive a big ovation, at least not bigger than any outside district, but we try our best. Lark tries to make a strong face and act sexy and I open my eyes as wide as I can and wave brightly to the crowd as if being there was a childhood dream. But the cameras keep focusing on the careers.

I guess that for the capitolians the parade must be something amazing to see. Twenty-four people dressed in the best costumes the best stylists of the country have to offer. We must look shine and, in some cases, even stunning when you are looking from up the bleachers. But in my perspective, it was never more painfully obvious that we are kids and teenagers that haven't even grown up all the way through.

The world from before was not kind. Rapes were not unheard of, racism was intricate in society, woman did not have the same rights than man and so many other things that used to make millions go to the streets to protest. Now, I miss it. Miss when I only had the typical worries of a middle-class person.