Briar could not stop staring at the impossible creature that was currently lathering some kind of lotion all over his naked body. It was human but that was just it, it was somehow not human at the same time. The… the male creature, he presumed, in front of him had a lengthy, lean and wiry build. There was a chest, regular arms and human legs, but the face was truly feline, pointed with almond shaped eyes, whiskers, and furry black ears at the top of his head. If Briar craned his neck far enough to the left a bushy black tailed would be curled out the creature's back end.

Muttations… Briar thought. Except its not two animals, it's a human and an animal combined.

At that moments a slender hand came up to start combing through his hair, and the female had a rounder face, her eyelashes coated in what looked like fake butterflies, white make-up painted her face with big-set, round blue eyes. A pair of rounded ears sat on the top of her head. She was not a cat like the male, but part… Briar wracked his brain as the comb slid through his short blonde hair. A monkey? He wondered. He thought one of his textbooks in a re-discovered science subject called Biology had a picture of one in class back home.

The new Panem was discovering things all the time these days. Books locked away by the Capitol's highest officials for years. Books that had survived the war and had been printed when Panem had been a different country altogether.

Briar snapped out of his train of thought when the mutations that had been preening him left, leaving him alone, completely bare and vulnerable on the cold metal table. Was Crescent going through this right now? He clenched his fists at the thought.

A few minutes straggled by until the door opened again, with a tall, slightly muscular muttation came through. Briar cocked his head trying to get a better look at him through the cold, hard lighting of the room. It had dark skin and hair (fur?) with a lean build. It definitely had the skinny rounded tail of a mountain lion and the rounded, soft ears to match. But its eyes… no, his eyes, were a deep, dark color that betrayed a hidden emotion. Briar could sense that this mutation was somehow more human than the others. His pointed face resembled the mountain lion but bright gold tattoos surrounded his expressive eyes.

"I bet you despise us," the male said, his voice smooth and almost comforting over Briar's ears.

"Not so much you," Briar replied, his voice hoarse from not speaking the several hours he had been prepped. "Your just another tool like me. I'm smart enough to see that,"

"We work for the woman who captured you,"

"Voluntarily?"

There was a pause. The male muttation quirked his narrow mouth as if he wanted to smile.

"No."

"I didn't think so."

There was another pause between them. The dark mutation sauntered up to Briar and fixed his blonde hair a bit before whispering,

"You look a lot like Peeta, but I can tell your all your mother,"

Briar jerked back his head and pierced the man with an icy gray glare that fit the son of a woman from the Seam.

"How would you know?"

"Because," the man said, completely unpeturbed by Briar's reaction. "I was her stylist. Well, Cinna was. I am Cinna, yet I'm not Cinna."

Briar just stared at him, his mouth agape.

"It's complicated."

Kai's muttation stylist bumbled around him in order to put the last minute touches on his outfit for the parade. The muttation man was part seagull and kept poking him with his enormous beak. Every time it did it muttered a small shriek but Kai could not tell if it was because it was in pain or if it was trying to apologize.

Either way, Kai had wanted to punch it and make a run for it. Try and get as for away as possible once he had found out what he was in for. He would much rather die via any guards bullets than fight to the death with children in the arena. Yet his plan had changed when he heard Crescent's voice.

Even now he could not tell what had come over him, this swelling feeling that made his chest feel tight when he had heard her terrified voice. He was scared for her because when she had wept through the other side of the wall all he could think about was his mother losing her mind when she had witnessed her district partner beheaded. Who would have known years later his father would meet the same fate?

He would go in the arena. He did not want to murder innocent children but if they fought him and if it came down to only saving one person from the fate his mother had met with…

He would save Crescent no matter the cost.

Whether saving her would involve keeping her alive or giving her a merciful end he was not sure of yet.

"They took Cinna's body… and made you?"

"Yes,"

"Why?"

"To make it more painful for you and your family, I guess… Lift your arms…"

Briar obeyed, letting Cinna pull the watery cloth over his head. It fell across him like a wave, cool to the touch, almost like real water.

"Why didn't they give you to my sister? She looks exactly like mom,"

"I think they thought she would be your mother's carbon copy, they'd be afraid I'd remember everything and help her,"

"But you do remember everything,"

"They underestimated some of us. They let us keep the stylists brains and some have stronger wills than others. They wanted us to look like them, act like them, but that's all,"

"Aren't you afraid there are cameras around?"

"Oh there are, but not in this room. Snow has a lot of sponsors but not nearly enough as when her grandfather was in power."

Cinna finished adjusting Briar's outfit then stepped back and examined it.

"Your father and you could pull almost anything off."

Briar examined him in the mirror at the end of the room. He looked like the hunter he was yet at the same time too… innocent. His shirt was a stark white tucked into equally bright pants. The only hint of darkness he wore was his belt, boots, and vest. Cinna had given him a golden bow and a golden quiver for white and gold arrows.

"I thought we were supposed to represent our district?"

"You're no longer those districts. Besides, Snow wants you to represent yourselves, and the victims you come from. All the more painful for your parents,"

"Why the hell am I all in white? I look, like…"

"Your father."

It was true. Briar grimaced. He loved his father but this was not the look Briar was accustomed to. As a hunter he needed earthy colors, not this fairytale garb. The only way he could kill an animal while wearing this is if a doe walked up to him thinking he was some kind of benevolent god.

He really was like his mother. Rough around the edges and no animal liked her unless they were forced into her company for a very long time.

"Why?"

"You like him. Your sister is the spitting image of Katniss. What do you think the crowd is going to think?"

Briar thought about this for a moment.

"That we're exactly like them."

Cinna smiled, his ears twitching.

"As long as they don't look too deeply into your eyes, you'll both have an advantage."

It was at that moment that the door opened and Crescent walked in, followed by another dark, female mutation with the fluffy tails and pointed ears and face of a fox. Crescent wore a dress that faintly resembled that of an apron. It was entirely black with one strap coming around her neck and the other around her waist. Her olive toned back was completely bare. Her eyelids were stylishly smeared with white powder, Briar thought faintly to resemble flour. Her hair was made up in a complicated, twisting set of coils that wound in a bun at the back of her head.

She was representing her true self while also portraying what people thought she would be. The baker's daughter who was just as awkward, beautiful, and fierce as their mother. As long as no one gazed too long into her pure blue eyes they would be safe for now.

"Ready?" she asked, sounding unsure of herself.

Briar walked over to stand in front of his sister, leaned down and kissed her lightly on her forehead.

"No. But I'll do my best to pretend."

A/N: Please read and review. :) I'll try and answer some review questions next time.