pairing: Kinna (Katniss/Cinna)
rating: various
word length: 500-1000 word length drabbles
order: random
summary: a series of prompts chronicling the complex relationship between cinna, the stylist and his tribute: katniss, the girl on fire. takes place primarily during thg. reviewers are encouraged to suggest prompt ideas for my consideration.
title: muse
"Hello Katniss, my name is Cinna and I'm your stylist," he should've been more reserved. His palms should've been sweating and he should've been completely unprepared for this. The raven-haired girl from District 12 was his very first Tribute. But Cinna was none of those things, instead he was undoubtedly ready to complete his task.
"Hello," her voice wavered, not at all like the audible plea of desperation ringing throughout the Square. The girl who stood before him now dwarfed the young woman he'd seen a few days ago. What day had it been? A Tuesday?
"Just give me one moment okay?" A tiny barely visible nod was the young stylist's only indication that his Tribute had heard him.
Cinna's job was to reveal her to Panem and leave his fellow citizens with an imprint of her face in their minds. His job was to make them remember her and as he circled her lithely body he intended to do just that. Octavia, Flavius and Venia had already stripped the young quiet girl of all of her body hair; she was completely bare and exposed for him. The cool air made her skin erupt into gooseflesh, what little fine vellus hairs she had left over were raised. The cool air must've made her skin sting.
"I'm sorry that this happened to you," Cinna couldn't think, watching the demure girl flinch under his perceptive gaze. He admired the handiwork of tightly wound plaits, the intricacy, the delicacy and practiced hands that had no doubt made beautiful art out of her hair. There was familial tenderness in the elaborate hairstyle the girl wore.
"Your hair ... who styled it for you?"
"My mother."
Hurt laced her voice. The girl-no Katniss was of the coal mines, her hair as black as the coal dust that defined her district, her eyes a cool stormy shade of gray. In her wildness and her youth she was beautiful, in her rawness-the bitten nails that couldn't be filed down any further-the moles marring her skin, the fading discoloration of scars-there was beauty in all of that. There was beauty in all of that Cinna noted.
"It's very beautiful, it's wonderful really," and he had meant it and the his voice cracked because he'd felt something that he was sure she was feeling. He could empathize with her in some way. He would make her rise from those ashes and soar.
"So ... you're going to make me pretty ..."
"No," Cinna looked squarely in those distrustful gray eyes flecked with green, brightened by apprehension and said, "... it's my job to make you have a lasting impression."
He vowed to do just that and the tiniest hint of a smile rose to the girl's chapped lips.