The Unexpected Tribute
Chapter Five
by Technomad
Katniss Everdeen
The morning after we arrived at the Capitol, we were notified that our prep teams would be in after we were done with breakfast to "make us presentable" for the upcoming Tributes' Parade. Effie and I shared glances. "Pity it couldn't be you instead of me, at least for the parade," I told her. "They'd have a lot less of a job of work to do on you than they do on me. I'm surprised that the Citizens didn't throw rotten vegetables at me, last time I rode in one of these."
Effie snorted a very unladylike snort. "Nonsense, Katniss! Your skin is clean and clear, which is a wonderful canvas for the makeup artist to work on, and your bone structure…oh, there are many women in the Capitol who'd give anything for it! Your figure is excellent, and needs no artificial enhancements. All in all, I'd say that your prep team has one of the easiest jobs of any of them!"
We both cut our eyes over to Haymitch. He was oblivious, watching as one of the Avox servants refilled his coffee cup. Effie and I looked at each other again. Without a word being said, we both knew what the other was thinking: My prep team may have a fairly easy job ahead of them, but Haymitch's team have an uphill battle to fight! Actually, for someone who'd taken such poor care of himself for so long, Haymitch was surprisingly well-conditioned. Even for a Victor, life in District Twelve was strenuous. No less than the humblest resident, he had to go up and down hills on foot, and that had helped keep him in some sort of shape. And we'd been working out, trying to train as though we were Career Tributes, before our Reaping. Haymitch giving up drinking, albeit not entirely of his own free will, had to have helped, too.
Sure enough, after our breakfast things were cleared away, the door buzzer sounded, and an Avox let our prep teams in. Flavius, Octavia and Venia were all clearly glad to see me, and sorry to see me at the same time. They had a wheelchair, and I got into it to let them wheel me off to where they would be working their weird arts. Down deep, I still didn't think they could make such an ugly duckling as me into a glorious swan, but I had learned to let them do their work. They were the experts and I was not.
Once we were in the studio, they got to work. I knew to let them work, since they had a much better idea of what needed doing (at least by Capitol standards) than I did, and every little bit helped when it came to getting sponsors. And we would need sponsors desperately, once we were in the Arena. I had come to know them, though, in their short visit to my District back before the change to the rules for the Quarter Quell had been announced, and I could clearly see that they were very unhappy. I dared to hope that discontent at this blatant change of the rules was widespread in the Capitol. Even such as President Snow could not, at seventh and last, rule against the wishes of those he ruled.
After a few minutes, Flavius muttered: "I never thought I'd have to do this twice for the same client!" I looked at him, and I could see tears at the corners of his eyes. "I want you to know that we were just as shocked as you must have been by the news!"
I was very touched. If I had chosen to report those words, he'd have been an Avox before the Games could begin, and we both knew it. However, I'd sooner have cut my own tongue out than do any such thing. I thought the whole system of making people Avoxes was one of the most horrible things about our society. And that included even the Hunger Games! In the Arena, I at least stood a chance, as I had proven the year previous. A voiceless slave had no chance at all.
"I wasn't happy about this. None of us in District Twelve were. Did you all see the videos of my Reaping this year, or weren't they shown here?"
Venia paused in trimming my hair to nod. "Oh, we saw them. We were so frightened for poor Peeta, with his artificial foot! Of course, compared to some of the other returning Tributes, he's in fine shape, but still…!"
"We'd never expected for Mr. Abernathy to step forward! You could have knocked us down with feathers!" Octavia caught the look in my eye, and giggled slightly. She knew I was remembering her visit to my District, when the three of them had been chattering about what a mistake it was to wear a feathered costume to some party or other.
"The bookmakers had incredible odds on that happening! I know several people who bet on it, who made incredible sums!" Venia rolled her eyes. I had always known that people in the Capitol gambled on the Games, but I hadn't known that they also bet on the Reapings.
When they were done, I was standing in my bare feet, wrapped in a big fluffy towel that I'd have loved to take back home to District Twelve with me, staring at myself in a mirror. I looked…attractive! I wasn't used to seeing myself as attractive, because at home, I had too much on my mind to worry about pulling boys, the way people like Madge Undersee could. And since becoming a Victor, I'd been all-but-acknowledged as engaged to Peeta Mellark, so I hadn't worried about it. I knew that to Peeta, I would always be beautiful. While it had never been a priority of mine, I'm still female enough to want to look good.
Cinna came in, looking me over approvingly. Even though he's male and quite attractive (I had visions of him at home, being swarmed by my sillier girl classmates) I felt completely un-self-conscious about him looking at me. I tended to classify him, mentally, as "off limits." And while he'd seen me naked and in all states of undress, he had never so much as twitched an eyelid to indicate that he saw me as a possible partner, or as a sexual being at all. For a second, I wondered if he was like some of the men I'd heard about in the Capitol…the ones who were attracted to other men?
"You did your usual excellent job," Cinna told my prep team, making them smile. He always remembered that they were people, too, and made sure to let them know that he appreciated their efforts. They took pride in their skills; making it onto a Hunger Games prep team, even one for a district as down-at-heels as my own Twelve, was a matter of fierce competition, I had been told. Haymitch had described the contests that were held to select those who would be on the prep teams, and save that they weren't lethal, they sounded just about as intense as the Games.
Under the Capitol's placid surface bitter rivalries seethed, I had learned. Often they were over matters that we in the Districts would have dismissed as impossibly trivial, but to the Capitol residents, they were, if not quite matters of life and death, matters that they took very seriously, indeed. I thought that a lot of that was just due to not having anything important and real to do, so they found trivialities to occupy their minds. If they'd had to earn their livings in the real world, the way we in the Districts did, that would have almost certainly scotched a lot of those stupid feuds.
"Here's your costume for the parade, Katniss," Cinna said, holding it out to me. It looked very like the "Girl on Fire" getup he'd had me in the year before, and I shucked off my towel to climb into it. When I was dressed, he walked around me, making sure that everything was right. "Here's the control. It controls the flames on both of your costumes. I figured it was better to have it in your hands, since I don't know how Mr. Abernathy feels about fire, and a lot of the effect of this is lost if the flames aren't there."
I nodded, taking the control and putting it into my pocket where I could get at it. We walked out together, and met Haymitch, who was just coming out from his own session with the prep team. He was in a costume just about like mine, and at first, I nearly didn't recognize him. When I did, my eyes went wide involuntarily.
I had known him all my life, but I had never, no, not once, seen him as well-groomed as he was at that moment. He was cleanly shaven, and they'd done something or other to minimize the telltale puffiness of his face. His hair was freshly washed and styled, and I could see that he'd once been a real looker. For that matter, if he'd looked like that around District Twelve, between his looks and his Victor's wealth and privileges, there'd have been a line of silly women outside his door, clamoring for his attention.
Haymitch saw my expression. Not much gets past him. He quirked a grin. "Dare I hope that I don't look too unbearably hideous?" Then he looked me up and down, nearly as impersonally as Cinna, but not quite. I got the feeling that he could see me as an attractive young woman, and to my surprise, I found myself liking that idea. "At least with the Girl on Fire beside me, nobody will be paying attention to me!"
Cinna cleared his throat. "I wouldn't be too sure of that, Haymitch." I was a little startled at how familiarly Cinna addressed him, but then I remembered that they would have got to know each other the previous year. "People were startled when you volunteered in Peeta's place, but when they got used to the idea, they found they liked it. You've become a rather unlikely hero to a lot of people here."
Haymitch visibly chewed that idea over. "Well…I've been called a lot of things, but 'hero' is a new one. Shall we go to get ready for the Tributes' Parade?" We walked toward the underground area where our chariots and horses awaited us. Once we got to the entrance, Cinna peeled off, heading for the bleachers where he and the most privileged of the Capitol's citizens would watch the Tributes' Parade live. The rest of them would be viewing it on television, with Caesar Flickerman providing his usual commentary. I wondered what Caesar would be saying, and made a mental note to watch it later in my quarters.
Haymitch and I were looking over our chariot. At least our horses were no trouble; they had some sort of electronic controls in their brains to keep them doing what they were supposed to be doing, rather than running amok or balking. I'd had a few chances to talk with some people from District 10, and they had told me a lot about what spooked or balky horses could be like. Trust President Snow to make sure that couldn't happen at the Tributes' Parade!
I heard a throat being cleared behind me, and turned to find myself staring at one of the most gorgeous men I'd ever seen in my life. The fact that he was wearing a few brief wisps of nothing-much over a skimpy pair of briefs and skimpy sandals didn't hurt any. "Hello. You'd be Katniss Everdeen, the 'Girl on Fire?'" I gulped and nodded wordlessly. "I'm Finnick Odare. Would you like a sugar cube?" He held out a small white cube to me. "They're supposed to be for the horses, but they have years to eat sugar. We…well, we have to take what sweet things we can while we can."
I shook my head. I'd never had much of a taste for sweets as such, even if we could have afforded them more frequently. Finnick leaned closer. "I'm sorry about this whole Quarter Quell thing. You could have made out like a bandit here in the Capitol. Money, jewels, clothes…" He grinned at me, and although I wasn't attracted to him, I could see why other women (and men? Did they really do that, here in the Capitol? They certainly didn't in District Twelve!) found him so attractive.
I got the distinct feeling that his whole "sex on a stick" thing was an act. That might have been part of why I wasn't more than theoretically interested in him. I wondered what he really wanted. Hoping to discourage his interest in me, I said "Well, I have more money than I can use, and I'm not interested in jewels, or fancy clothes. What do you do with your vast wealth, anyway?"
"Oh, I haven't dealt in anything so commonplace as money in years!" He leaned closer, lowering his voice. "I deal in secrets. So tell me, Girl on Fire. What are your secrets?"
"I'm an open book, Finnick," I said lightly. "Everybody else seems to know all my secrets before I do myself."
Haymitch came up behind Finnick and put his hand on Finnick's shoulder. "Corrupting my District partner…and mentee?" he asked. While his tone was light, I could tell that there were undertones there, undertones that I couldn't figure out. I reminded myself that Haymitch and Finnick had known each other for years.
Finnick's eyes went as wide as mine must have when I first saw him, when he saw how Haymitch was looking. "Haymitch Abernathy, you lady-killer, you!" he said, his voice edged with amusement. "Are you muscling in on my act? You never looked so good in all your life! Maybe I should be wondering about you corrupting the sweet, innocent Girl on Fire?" He shook his head in wonder. "I'd never thought to see you looking like this! You look twenty years younger than I've ever seen you!"
Haymitch shook his head. "Not me. She's spoken for. All of Panem knows about that, I think." A shadow passed across his face for a second. "In any case, that sort of thing is in the past for me."
"Oh, yes! How could I have let that slip my mind?" I could see in Finnick's eyes that he hadn't forgotten Peeta's existence for one second, and I wondered what he was really up to. "I am sorry that we'll all miss your wedding, Katniss," he said, as a loudspeaker announced that it was time for us to board our chariots for the Tributes' Parade.
As we climbed aboard, Haymitch muttered: "This time, stare straight ahead. Ignore the crowds. Act as though they are totally beneath your notice. You do have the control for that special effect on you?"
I nodded. "That, I can do. Easily." While I was fond of my prep team, and had come to know Effie well enough to see the human being behind the Capitol façade, I still thought that most Capitol citizens were brainless parasites. Snubbing them would be a lot easier than pretending that I liked them. I patted the small pocket where the control was riding, to reassure myself that it was there.
To the sound of the first notes of The Horn of Plenty, the Panem national anthem, we began to move forward, in order of our Districts, out from the shady shelter where we had boarded our chariots, into the bright, hot sunlight of a Capitol summer day. At the sight of the first chariots, the crowd set up a roar that nearly drowned out the music.
Whether it was due to training or electronic enhancements, our horses moved forward in a sedate trot, pulling our chariot along over the smooth surface. We passed kettledrummers, beating their instruments in perfect time, as the music soared and swelled. For a second, I wished bitterly that Panem could be a normal country, so I could join in on the anthem myself instead of feeling like it didn't include me. For all that I hated everything the Panem government stood for, I had to admit that they had a very stirring song.
At the sight of our chariot, the crowd went crazy, or crazier. They roared and screamed, chanting my name. Mindful of Haymitch's instructions, I ignored them completely, staring straight ahead as though Haymitch and I were a hundred miles from anybody else. Haymitch muttered, just loud enough for me to hear: "Time for the fire!" I unobtrusively hit the toggle on the control, and suddenly we were enveloped in heatless flames. I'd expected Haymitch to be startled by it, but he looked straight ahead with no more expression than I had. He was really a very cool customer, and for a second, I wondered what he'd been like before his Reaping. Had there been a girl interested in him then? I made a mental note to ask the older people if I got back to District Twelve alive. There were people still there who had known him before he went off to the Capitol.
Just like last year, we trotted down the length of the arena so that everybody could get a good look at us, and (or so I had been told) so the bookmakers could start making odds on which of us would be the one to survive the Games. At the end, there was a pylon in a roundabout, and we trotted around it, under the eye of none other than President Snow. I glanced up as we went past, and I was gratified to note that he looked nonplussed. He had to have been targeting Peeta at least as much as me, if not more, and having to deal with Haymitch instead would have thrown off his calculations. Serve him right!
However, President Snow was an old hand at this sort of thing, and had probably had to deal with the unexpected before. To hear him, nothing at all was wrong. He made a variation of his usual speech, welcoming us Tributes and "saluting" us for our "gallant sacrifice." I supposed that in the case of the Career Tributes, it was a voluntary thing, so the word "sacrifice" wasn't inappropriate, but this year, even they had been coerced into coming, and were probably just as indignant as I'd heard the Capitol citizens were.
Finally, they released us, and I was glad to see the cool, shady shelter beckoning ahead of us. While my costume wasn't as uncomfortable or prone to overheating as some I saw on other Districts' Tributes, I would still be glad to get out of it and into a cool bath. Not far away, I saw a couple of poor wretches dressed as trees, of all outlandish things, and they looked dreadfully overheated. I just hoped that they wouldn't faint, or would not faint in public.
END Chapter 05