When I see your face, there's not a thing that I would change
Cause you're amazing, just the way you are
And when you smile, the whole world stops and stares for a while
Because girl you're amazing, just the way you are
-Just the Way You Are by Bruno Mars
We've been the Remake Center for a good ten minutes. I'm just waiting for my prep team to arrive. It's not like Capitol people to be late, especially ones involved in the games. I'm ready to go to sleep when the door to the room bursts open.
There's three girls, and I sigh in relief. I'm not so comfortable with a male stylist. They all have the same bright red hair and tan complextion. Their eyes are dyed to the hue of lime green. They must be indentical triplets.
"I'm Anette." The first on says cheerily.
"I'm Ninette." The second one says with equal enthusiasm
"And I'm Colette." The third one smiles brightly.
"Oh, hi, I'm Serenity Starr." I say as politeley as I can.
"We know." Ninette, I think it is, chirps. "Your stylist, Calypso, requested you this year. We always work with her, she's pure genuis!"
"I thought that your assigned a District to work with every year." I say. I was told that was how things were, since my aunt lived in the Capitol.
"Oh, no. Not Calypso. She's one of the best, we're not just saying that. Her and Apollo, that's Faith's stylist, you know, the girl from District Two, were nominated for the best Games stylist and won!" Colette says. Her enthusiasm is giving me a slight headache.
They continue to ramble on and on about how amazing this Calypso is as they completely destroy my body. One of them is pucking my eyebrows. Another is waxing my legs. The third is trimming, and I think dying, my hair.
"She has so little hair, I love it!" Anette exclaims. She takes the last wax strip and presses it to my calve. There's a RIP! and I grimace in pain. Although my legs are red and I think bleeding near my ankle they're stripped down of any hair that was there before.
"It's too bad she's underage for some silver and gold tattoos. She would have look ah-ma-zing!" Colette sighs.
"I think she's ready for Calypso!" Ninette anounces gleefully. All three of them rush out of the room and they drag back in a woman.
My prep team leaves us two alone. Calypso looks pretty young, barely passing for twenty five. She's now eyeing me. I don't like the silence, especially since she's watching me half naked. "You look pretty young to be the best stylist." I say.
She looks at me differently. Her eyes are electric blue that pierce through my skin. "I'm from the Capitol, dear. Shouldn't that say enough?" Her accent is thicker than Trixxa's. "I take it you know I'm Calypso and it's obvious you're Serenity. Talk of the Capitol, actually."
"Me?" I squeak in disbelief. "Me? Why would I of all tributes be the talk of the Capitol? Shouldn't it be like Fathom and Faith?"
Calypso chuckles and hands me a robe. "They got you making a Career alliance on tape, dear. They ate it up, I too. A twelve year old? Making a Career alliance? That is purer than District Two gold. No idiot, no offense to you or Blue, has ever done such thing. Jessa is going off the wall, so I was told, hearing you think you can join the Careers sent her in a fit of rage."
"You know how only the really crazy fantasize about who they're going to kill in the games?" I ask and she nods, a smiling forming on her lips. "Well, I'm just wondering if me wanting to kill Jessa makes me insane?"
"Not at all, dear." Calypso smiles warmly, in a mother like way. I wonder if she has kids. "Why don't we have lunch? I'll join you in a sec. I just want to get the crimper heated. Just press the button and lunch should appear."
I nod and exit to a room smaller than my Remake one. There's a table for two waiting in the middle. I take a seat and push the button connected to the side. The food takes seconds to arrive. Calypso takes the seat vertical to me and unveils what our lunch will be.
There's two steaming bowls of some kind of soup to eat first. For our entree is a slice of pizza, something I've only had once in my life. As for the desert it's some sort of cake pasrty kind of thing topped with cherries.
I eat much faster than Calypso does. I'm not used to such good food and this is Calypso's regular. We eat in sheer silence, except for the noise of our chewing. I decide to break it, "So how old are you exactly?"
She laughs, even that sound is filled with Capitol. I thought for a second she was going to say she was over a hundred. "I'm forty nine years old." My jaw dropped slightly. "I only got a fifteen year alteration." She waved her hand dismissevely.
"This is how you looked when you were thirty four?" I asked in awe.
"Yes. Now, what about you, Serenity Starr." She draws out my name. Is it seriously that hard to believe I come from District Four and I have a natural name that means peacefully amazing?
"I'm twelve. I didn't think I look younger or older than I actually am, if that's what you mean." I say.
She cackles to herself. "I meant tell me about yourself, dear. Likes, dislikes, the whole thing." She says.
I zip my lips, lock it, and throw away the key. "I think you should wait like the rest of Panem has to." I say mischeviously. Before I went to bed last night Mags and I had a little talk concerning who I was going to be in these Games.
"I made an excellent desicion this year." She mutters to herself as we finish up our dessert. It was too sweet for my opinion but I just ate it anyway.
We go back to work immediately. It's one now and ceremonies start in four hours. I can pratically hear Calypso cursing in her head for the lack of time. She lets me keep on my underwear but my bra was banned from my body.
The new article of clothing going on my top half looks exactly like a purple stringkini, something only older girls wear, but feels smooth and lacy. She hooks it on my upper half and cusses loudly for stabbing herself. My pants are made of a tight, light, shiny green fabric. It's patternized into patches which oddly look like scales.
That's only the base of my outfit. Calypso starts to sew identical white shells on the rimming of the bottom half of the stringkini top. Then she attaches a transluctant material of the same green as my pants in between my legs. She puts sereval safety and rope bracelets on my wrists. She hangs a puka shell necklace across my neck. For my last accessory is a gleaming tiara full of seashells. First Calypso teases my hair and pins part of it into a bun and crimps the rest to fall from the mound of hair. Then she carefully places the diadem on my head and deems me complete clothes wise.
Calypso starts the makeup off by giving me harmless green contacts to put in my eyes. She then continues to work on my eyes by dusting them with aqua shadow. Instead of liner she uses a special glue and traces the outside of my eye carefully. She then puts silvery white glitter over it. Next comes bronzer to make me look like I had a tan. My lips have to be the simplest with baby pink gloss to coat it.
Now, I'm done.
In the mirror I look like a mermaid princess. I didn't know but the triplets gave me navy blue streaks in my wheat blonde hair. You can still see me as twelve but if you don't look close enough you could say I'm fifteen. I now feel like a contender.
"You look fabulous, Serenity." She compliments, checking her watch. "You have fifteen minutes to spare." She sighs in relief. She gives me a small careful hug and hands me over to Mags, who's waiting for me outside.
As we go to where the Ceremony begins Mags blubbers on how fantastic I look. She drops me off next to Blue, who's wearing the same concept as me. Our horses are snowy white with their tails and manes dyed sea green and blue, to match us. Before Mags leaves she give us both a fair warning to talk to other tributes.
Wave stops by shortly after and wishes us both good luck. He also tells me I look beautiful before he leaves us, too. And he, also, told us to mingle with Career tributes and any other likely's there are.
I don't feel like going anywhere, really. I take it Blue doesn't either because instead of going he motions Fathom and Faith over to us. They exchange glances before joining us next to our dyed horses.
Their outifts are simple but yet the twins look extrodinairy in them. But Faith looks ten times better than her brother could ever look. She looks like a statue of a goddess. A long white tunic, powdered opposite of us to look extremely paper white pale, even her hair is twisted into some braid bun contraption. She looks like she really hates this more than anyone esle.
"What do you want, District Fours?" She seethes, a smirk still on her face.
"An alliance." Blue replied just as coldly. "Us, you, and D-One, the careers. I mean, it was going to happen sooner or later."
Her smirk slowly turns into a smile. "That can be easily arrangable." She says sweetly yet deadly. "I would love to. But there is also Fathom, Jessa, and Cristan to ask. Fathom?"
He shrugs, not much expression on his face. "Sure." He grunts. "As long as she wont be a problem." He points to me.
I shake my head. "No, sir." I batt my eyelashes and smile innocently. "Or should I say, 'captain'?"
He starts to crack a grin. "I like her. Consider yourself a Career." He welcomes me as the horn goes off indicating its time to board our chariots.
As we walk back I see the girl from Nine staring at us. I think her name was something like Elani or Ebony. I nudged Blue and pointed to her. "I think we have a secret admirer." I say humorously.
He looks over as we step inside. "The more the merrier!" He says cheerily.
The horses started moving. I can make out a few people from the audience. Calypso is there shouting something at us. Our cheers are so loud that I cant even hear her. She grabs Wave's hand and throws it up in the air. She's mimicking part of a Career alliance. She wants us to do it. So we hold each others hands and hold them above our heads, or at least my head.
And the cheers grow louder.