Chapter 4
The Capitol is way bigger than I ever imagined. The buildings are so tall, and everything is so luxurious. All of the people dress way crazier than what I expected, and dare I say they make Alaster look tame. They have long crazy eyelashes, big and brightly coloured hair, and animal printing on their skin. Even their pets are all different colours, and a lot of them are coloured to match their owner's wardrobe.
When I initially come out of the train, I take Mulvain's advice and smile and wave at all of the people. It turns out he was right, as they all just ate it up and cheered even louder. The car ride to the Tribute's Center was not that long, as before I know it Farley and I are being ushered out of the car and into the giant building.
The Tribute's Center is quite possibly the biggest building I have ever seen. The inside is very modern, and I can't even see the ceiling standing on the ground floor. We're escorted to the elevator by two girls in bright red outfits, and we are then sent to the makeup floor. I had never ridden an elevator before, but this elevator was so smoothe that I didn't feel a thing.
The makeup floor is just a floor with a bunch of beds, curtains, and tray tables set up for our prep teams to groom us. Each bed is seperated by a curtain so each tribute has privacy. Our escorts takes us to our prep teams as soon as we get off of the elevator. My prep team consists of four people, one guy and three girls. The guy steps up to meet me as soon as I arrive.
"Hello, Katerina. My name is Demitrius, and I will be in charge of your hair" he says as he holds his hand out for me to shake. As I shake his hand, I notice that he sports the same deep red hair as Alaster, and is wearing a silver vest complemented by a black undershirt and striped black and silver slacks.
"This is Grenadine, who will be in charge of eye makeup, Konstantine on lips and foundation, and Pristina, who will be in charge of nails" he says as he gestures to the three women behind him. Grenadine has big white hair and a lot of sea green makeup all over her face, while Konstantine sports a deep blue updo with very dark eye makeup and lipstick. Pristina has very long light brown hair that goes all the way down to her feet, and her body is covered in cheetah print. They are all wearing silver to match Demitrius.
After we get acquainted, Demitrius instructs me to take all of my clothes off. I obviously raise my eyebrows at his directions. He reassures me by saying he sees people naked all the time, and that it is part of his job. Even though my insecurity is begging for me to refuse, I do what he says.
As I hesitantly strip naked, I am handed a blue paper gown to put on as soon as all of my clothes are off. He then has me lay on my front ontop of the bed, and goes to whisper instructions to Grenadine, Konstantine, and Pristina. I then feel water being sprayed onto my legs, and I look back at them in alarm.
"Relax, honey. All we're doing is hosing you down" Konstantine tells me as she softly lowers my head back down.
After wetting my legs for a little while longer, I feel them stick something on my left calf. Before I have a chance to ask what they are doing, they rip it off, and I instantly cry out in pain.
"Sorry, I guess we should have warned you before we did anything. We're waxing the hair off of your legs" Konstantine informs me. Why do they have to take the hair off of my legs?
This waxing goes on for a painful hour until my legs are completely void of hair. After that it's a blur of endless hair trimming, brushing, eyebrow plucking, and touch-ups. They even waxed the hair off of my armpits, which was somehow even more painful than when they did my legs.
After they're done poking and prodding at me, they send me to a room behind the prep stations marked with the number 9. They tell me to have a seat on the tabletop in the right corner of the room, and that my stylist will be with me shortly before they leave me to my thoughts. I don't really think about anything else besides how much my legs, face, and armpits hurt.
My stylist comes after about 10 minutes of waiting. She's a tall woman with pink curly hair that progressively gets darker towards the ends. She wears a big poofy pink dress and leggings to match her hair, along with a tall pair of pink high heels on her feet. Her face is very pale, mostly due to the amount of makeup she has on, with notes of pink around her eyes and lips. I could only guess what her favourite colour is.
"Hello, Miss Katerina. My name is Eviana. It is a pleasure to meet you" she says with a smile, and extends her hand for a handshake. If I had a dollar for every time I've shaken someone's hand since I got here, I would never have to hunt again. I take her hand anyway, and I think she can sense how tired I am after all of the prep I've just gone through.
"I'm sure you're experiencing a bit of culture shock at the moment. I'm so sorry for all of that, it's just part of the whole procedure" she tells me. She seems nice enough.
"I can't imagine how overwhelmed you must be feeling to have so much happen over the course of one day. Taken away from your home and family, basically whisked away to a whole different world, and having these super weird people rip all of the hair from your body" she says with a note of humour. As tired as I might be, she earned a laugh out of me with that one.
"I'm here to make sure that you have a fighting chance of finding some sponsors out there. You may not see it now, but what you wear can play a big part in getting sponsors to notice you" she tells me.
"So…..you're here to dress me up like a doll?" I ask, clearly uninterested. I don't want to look pretty, I want to go home.
"I'm here to make sure people remember you. I'm here to help you dazzle the audience and make them talk about you. The more traction a tribute gets, the more fans they earn" she corrects me as she moves my hair behind my shoulders.
The wall behind us then shoots out a table with food on it unexpectedly, causing me to jump in surprise. "It's ok, honey. It's just the dinner they provide for you guys before the parade" Eviana tells me, and hands me one of the plates from the table. It contains what looks like roast beef, potatoes drizzled in gravy, asparagus seasoned with cheese, and some sort of brown goop on the side.
"What is this?" I ask Eviana while pointing to the mystery goop.
"That's chocolate pudding. Don't worry, it tastes sweet" she tells me.
As we eat, Eviana breaks the ice between us once again. "You must feel so out of place." At this point, out of place is an understatement. "The fact that we have everything we need on demand is probably appalling to you" she adds. She's not wrong. Back home, a meal like this basically costs an arm and a leg.
"I feel very small. I feel like this is all a dream, a very realistic dream. I keep thinking I'm going to wake up at some point and that I'll be back home, putting on my boots and going about my day. But it's not. If we're being honest here, I wish it was a dream. I've been trying to act all big and tough, like I'm able to handle whatever is going to come my way in the next few weeks. I have to be if I even stand a chance of going home. But really I've just been hiding all of the doubt slowly growing in the back of my mind.
"Seeing the other tributes, putting on a face for television so that people I don't even know can feel like they know me, even if it's only a little bit. I never thought I would be the homesick type, but after being seperated from home for the very first time, and knowing that I might not come back alive, I have felt something I've never felt before. I want this to all be over. I want to go home." I wasn't aware of how emotionally exhausted I was until I started confessing in Eviana.
Even though I try and stop it, tears quickly spring up in my eyes, and before I know it they're falling down my cheeks at record pace. Eviana quickly comes to my side and wraps an arm around me. "I can't express how sorry I am. To be ripped away from home at such a young age, and under such awful circumstances must be unexplainably hard. You know, the reason I took this job was to meet strong and inspiring young people like you" she tells me.
"I'll let you in on a secret. I hate this game. The fact that these people pit young children against each other in a fight to the death for public entertainment is sickening. All I can say is, try to focus on you, and not so much on all of the craziness that is surrounding you. I know it's hard with all of this sudden change, but if you let your mind wander too much you're going to go insane. Keep your eye only on what you can do, ok?" I nod with a greatful smile, and whisper a "thank you" as she wipes the remaining tears off my face.
Eviana then gets up off the tabletop, and looks me up and down a bit before speaking again. "By the looks of things, me and your prep team don't have much work to do."
"What does that mean?" I ask, not knowing if that's meant to be offensive or not.
"Well, you don't need much artificial beauty. You've already got so much natural beauty, so I feel that too much makeup would take away from that. Sure a little touch-up here and there wouldn't hurt, but I want you looking as natural as possible." I was actually kind of relieved to hear that, as the one thing I was dreading about this part of the Games was all of the makeup and glamour they have you wear. It's just not really my style.
"No one besides my dad has ever called me beautiful before" I say.
"Well get ready to hear it a lot more often, as your beauty knows no bounds, my dear" she responds.
She then gestures me to stand up, and takes me to get ready for the parade…
