I exit the train with Monty following closely behind and Mica leading the way. Willow and Nolan followed behind us and all of the people stood there shouting our names and cheering for us. Despite how I despise these people I smiled back at them, trying my best to get them to like me. A pathway is formed for us to get into the tribute center where we will spend the next couple of days being prepped and training.
Inside of the building I am escorted into a room and told to lay down on the table in the middle of the room. My prep team enters the room shortly after and quickly introduces themselves to me. Neem Pitwood, a man with purple hair and gold eye contracts is the fisrt to introduce himself. Next is Ace Brightpath who seems mostly normal, he has black hair but with beads on the tips of his hair. Then Kai Nightroot steps forward, he has blue hair and blue eye lashes, and then finally there is Ivy Whitegrove who has aqua hair and gold tattoos above her eyebrows.
I didn't bother to tell them who I was, they already know. They quickly get to work prepping strips of fabric and them placing them on my legs. I grit my teeth as Ivy yanks a strip of fabric from my leg, tearing out the hari beneath it. "Sorry!" she pipes in her silly Capitol accent. "You're just so hairy!"
Ivy makes what's supposed to be a sympathic face. "Good news, though. This is the last one. Ready?" I get a grip on the edges of the table I'm seated on and nod. The final swathe of my leg hair uprooted in a painful jerk.
I've been in the Remake Center for more than three hours and I still haven't met my stylist. Apparently he has no interest in seeing me until Ivy and the other members of my prep team have addressed some obvious problems. This has included scrubbing down my body wut ha gritty foam that has removed not only dirt but at least three layers of skin, turning my nails into uniform shapes, and primarily, ridding my body of hair. My legs, arms, torso, underarms, and parts if my eyebrows have been stripped of the stuff, leaving me like a plucked bird, ready for roasting. I dont like it. My skin feels sore and tingling and intensely vulnerable. But I have kept my side of the bargain with Willow, and no objection has crossed my lips.
"You're doing very well," says Kai and then he turns to face the other in my prep team, "If there's one thing we can't stand, it's a whiner. Grease her down!"
Neem and Ace rub me down with a lotion that first stings but then smooths my raw skin, Then they pull me from the table, removing the thrin robe I've been allowed to wear off and on. I stand there, completly naked, as the four of them circle me, wielding tweezers to remove any last bits of hair. I know I should be embarressed, but they're so unlike people that I'm no more self-conscious than if a quartet of oddly colored brds were pecking around my feet.
The four step back and admire their work. "Excellent! You almost look like a human being now!" Says Ace, and they all laugh.
I forcc my lips into a smile to show how grateful I am. "Thank you," I say sweetly. "We don't have much cause to look nice in District Nine."
This wins them over completely. "Of course, you don't, you poor darling!" says Ivy clasping her hands together in distress for me.
"But don't worry," Says Neem. "By the time Teak is through with you, you're going to be absolutely gorgeous!"
"We promise! You know, now that we've gotten rid of all the hair and filth, you're not horrible at all!" Says Kai encouragingly. "Let's call Teak!"
They dart out of the room. It's hard to hate my prep team. They're such total idiots. And yet, in an odd way, they're sincerely trying to help me. I look at the cold white walls and floor and resist the impulse to retrieve my robe. But this Teak, my stylist, will surely make me remove it at once. Instead my hands go to my hairdo, the one area of my body my prep team had been told to leave alone. My fingers stroke the silky braids my mother so carefully arranged.
The door opens and a young man who must be Teak enters. I'm taken aback by how normal he looks. Most of the stylists they interview on television are so dyed, stenciled, and surgically altered they're grotesque. But Teak's closecropped hair appears to be its natural shade of brown. He's in a simple black shirt and pants. The only concession to seld-alteration seems to be the metallic silve tattoos on his face. It brings out the flecks of gold in his green eyes. And, despite my disgust with the Capitol and their hideous fashions, I can't help thinking how attractive he looks.
"Hello, Ember. I'm Teak, your stylist," He says in a quiet voice somewhat lacking in the Capitol's affectations.
"Hello," I venture cautiously.
"Just give me a moment, all right?" he asks. He walks around my naked body, not touching me, but taking in every inch of it with his eyes. I resist the impulse to cross my arms over my chest, "Who did your hair?"
"My mother." I say.
"It's beautiful. Classic really. And in almost perfect balance with your profile. She has very clever fingers," he says.
I had expected someone more flamboyant, someone older trying desperalty to look young, someone who viewed me as a piece of meat to be prepared for a platter. Teak has met none of the expectations.
"You're new, arent you? I don't think I've seen you before," I say. Most of the stylists are familiar, constants in the ever changing pool of tributes. Some have been around my whole life.
"Yes, this is my first Games," says Teak. "Why don't you put your robe on and we'll have a chat."
Pulling in my robe, I follow him through a door into a sitting room. Two red couches face off over a low table. Three walls are blank, the fourth is entirely glass, providing a window to the city. I can see by the light that it must be around noon, although the sunny sky has turned overcast. Teak invites me to sit on one of the couches and takes his place across from me. He presses a button on the side of the table. The top splits and from below rises a second tabletop that holds our lunch. Chicken and chunks of oranges cooked in a creamy sauce laid on a bed of pearly white grain, tiny green peas and onions, rolls shaped like flowers, and for dessert, a pudding the color of honey.
What must it be like, I wonder, to lie in a world where food appears at the press of a button? What do they do all day, these people in the Capitol, besides decorating their bodies and waiting around for a new shipment of tributes to roll in and die for their entertainment?
"So Ember, about your costume for the opening ceremonies. My partner, Piper, is the stylist for your fellow tribute, Monty. And our current thought is to dress you in complementary costumes," says Teak. "As you know, it's customary to reflect the flavor of the district."
For the opening ceremonies, you're supposed to wear somehting that suggests your district's principal industry, District 11, agriculture. District 4, fishing. District 3, factories. This means that coming from District 9, Monty and I will be in some kind of grain getup. I am scared what my outfit will be because I remember one year the tributess from District 12 were naked and cover in a black powder to repesent coal dust. And by the look in Teak's eyes I know he has a grand costume picked out, I'm sure I'll hate it.