Chapter 2

Caesar Flickerman

"So… Now that you've seen them," Caesar asked, Seneca Crane sitting nonchalantly to his left, "what do you think about this year's crop of recruits?" He made sure to use the word recruit carefully, almost implying that the tributes were all volunteers, instead of just a few. "Are there any surprises that we can expect this year?" He asked, genuinely interested.

"It's really hard to tell, just from a reaping," Crane replied, he spoke with a natural confidence built up from being the Head Gamemaker for three years running. "But, this is a very interesting mix, I mean, whenever you have a volunteer from an outline District, that's something you can't ignore…"

Crane was clearly avoiding the subject of the new additions. Caesar understood why but decided to bring the subject up anyway. "And especially with the… Special additions this year. What do you think about our foreign friends?" Caesar felt a buzz as he said that, it was no small honour to be perhaps the only man in the Capitol, nay, in Panem, to be able to call Panem's enemies 'friends' on live television. Crane, however, did not waver in his response. "Well," he said, "Ever since the reports of our victories in the north came in, I had actually been expecting this." Caesar nodded, he too could have seen this coming a mile off. "But, without meaning to sound like I've been caught off guard, I had expected the inclusion of our guests to be something for next year's Quarter Quell."

That was a fair assumption, the Gamemakers certainly would have to pull out all the stocks for the next year's Quarter Quell, especially since this prisoner of war scheme had been sprung on everyone by President Snow. The preparations, for what they were, had actually turned out quite well, considering the short notice. "But what do we know about the actual tributes from the captured armies?" Caesar, still interested personally, asked.

"Well…" Seneca seemed to hesitate. "We've identified a few key characteristics which I think will be interesting, especially in the Games themselves. But… As we've yet to see them publicly, we'll simply have to wait for the most part."

Alex Kimberly

Alex lay on that table as the junior stylists plucked her eyebrows and waxed her legs and hosed her down what seemed like every five minutes. Her hair was snipped at, and then trimmed, and finally cut back two inches entirely. The process was degrading and the medical efficiency of it all made it even worse, it made Alex feel like a corpse on a trainee surgeon's table, being dissected just to see what lay beneath the skin. And boy did these stylists know how to get under hers. The process took hours, by the time it was over, Alex had lost count of the number of times she had been showered with water both hot and cold. Still, it felt good to be clean again after a month of captivity in the prison pens of the Capitol.

When the whole affair was finally over, Alex was left in sullen silence. She supposed that victory in these 'Hunger Games' might mean her release. Perhaps, she thought, winning the games might lead to her seeing her homeland again. It was worth a try, anyway. Wasn't it? In all the confusion, Alex had lost track of time, in the prisoner pens, it was easy to keep track of the date by scratching lines or asking fellow captives who had. Many officers still had their watches too, which just happened to tell both the date and time. However, she hadn't the time to check the day prior, before being led off on the Parade of Disgrace and she was quite confused. Alex lay in silent contemplation for what seemed like hours until a man entered the room.

The first thing Alex noticed about Cinna was the gold eyeliner, it was what she had come to expect of the decadent denizens of the Capitol, but it contrasted so deeply with the practical simplicity of the rest of his body. He was dark-skinned, the people of Panem supposedly forgetting the ardent racism of their American predecessors. And though his eyes were still accented by that golden eyeliner, the rest of his outfit was simplistic, normal, even. A sleek black shirt and trousers, both seemingly made from the same leather as his knee-length boots, sufficed to him. This was, of course, in stark contrast to many of the Capitol's citizens who were dressed simply outrageously. Cinna introduced himself politely and Alex did the same. He smiled at her and she swung her body around, sitting up on the metal bed.

"I'm so sorry." Was the first thing he said when the awkward silence hit them.

"Excuse me?" Alex asked, confused.

"I'm sorry that you were selected for this." He explained. "If I can help you in any way, please tell me how."

"You could send me home," Alex replied, with a cheeky smile, "I think that'd be best for everyone, actually."

"Sadly, that's not quite in my job description," Cinna replied with a smile of his own.

The pair shared a chuckle, the kind of laugh that was only for the moment, a laugh shared between two people who were so, so very different. Of course, the biggest difference was that Alex was probably going to die in two week's time, whereas Cinna would go on living as a loyal Capitol citizen.

"You know what I'm here for?" Cinna asked, an eyebrow raised.

"Well… If you're not here to set me loose," Alex mused, "and you're not here to kill me… You must be here to make me look good."

"Wrong." Cinna cut in instantly, "I'm here to make you popular, to make sure that you make an impression on those people out there." He began to explain, "Today will be the tribute parade, they're going to show you all off to the people of the Capitol." Alex nodded, Cinna continued. "Most of the time, people are dressed in the clothes of their District. The tributes from Twelve are coal miners, Six are train drivers, Nine are farmers, you get the picture…"

"But I'm not from a District…" Alex replied.

"Exactly. Now, as I understand it, the other stylists are just dressing their foreign tributes like the ones from the Districts. The Belgian tributes are coming out dressed in the power plant uniforms of District Five. But… I'm thinking you guys could do with something a bit more unique…"

Richard Nicholson

"No, sorry, absolutely not." Richard had said, he knew that this was coming by the time he had been hosed down for the third time.

"What do you mean, no?" Cinna asked, baffled by the tribute's adamant refusal of all of his designs.

"It goes against King's Regulations…" Nicholson declared, a phrase which was quickly becoming tiresome. "We must have new uniforms, there is no alternative."

"But you need sponsors, you need to make the people out there like you." Cinna insisted.

"But surely they will, if all the other European tributes, and the Canadians, are dressed like woodcutters and cotton pickers, surely having us in uniform sets up apart."

Cinna admitted that he did, indeed, have a point, but all the same, they had no British Army uniforms. "Besides," he had said, "Where is the flair, where is the spectacle to an army uniform?"

"Listen to me…" Richard had said, quite sternly, and quite out of character for a King's Officer. " The Capitol don't know soldiers, they know a glorified police force in white uniforms and toy bloody helmets, they will be impressed by our uniforms. But only if you can make them properly."

It went against everything that his time as a Capitol stylist had taught him but Cinna knew that the tribute was right, even if he didn't want to admit it. "Fine," he conceded with a grin, "but I'll need descriptions…"

Author'sNote:

I apologise for the odd paragraphing so far, unfortunately, this is down to my copy and pasting these chapters. This will continue for the foreseeable future but please tell me if it becomes unbearable.

Also, for this fic, I have decided to mainly use the film appearances of characters. Further, for much of the dialogue, I will be relying on the film and have, in fact, been copying some lines directly from the film. This is both down to my own laziness and the fact that I would like to stay faithful to the source material while providing this (I hope) vaguely interesting scenario.