.
SUPPER
Merida is sixteen years old, thank you, and she can undress herself. She needs to, desperately, after days of plucking and primping and carefully wielded makeup wands blotting out every blemish that makes her recognizable and true. Her skin itches with the weight of cosmetics and lotions. Just once, she wants the satisfaction of scrubbing it all off with her own two hands, and so she ignores her prep team's fluttering protests and tells them firmly good-night as the elevator doors close behind her.
Alone at last. Her bedroom door hisses shut, and Merida takes a deep breath and throws her arms wide, as if she could embrace the silence that fills the room. The underarm seams of her tight silk dress give out with a glorious, satisfying rip. Merida grins, and reaches back to unzip the ruined gown.
Smooth fabric brushes her fingers. She frowns and reaches further, groping for a fastener that doesn't seem to exist. Realization dawns; the stylist she'd assumed was buttoning up endless tiny buttons was actually sewing her into her dress. Damn it. What are the odds of scissors in a tribute's apartment?
It takes ten minutes of furious swearing and ripping to free herself from the dress. At last, Merida steps out of the ragged puddle of blue silk, kicks it under the bed with a curse, and goes to work on her hair, wrestling out hairpin after hairpin. It's tempting to start counting them after a point. They make a little pile at first, but after the forty-oddth pin, she gives in to temptation and starts throwing them across the room.
By the time she's finished undressing, Merida is seething. She stalks into the shower and smacks her hand down on the controls, in the general direction of the hot-water button. Jets of lemon-smelling foam spurt out of the wall nozzles, slathering her from scalp to toes.
Her shriek of frustration is probably audible on the twelfth floor.
When she finally emerges, Merida's skin is pink with scrubbing and smells of half a dozen perfumes, but the dark smears of makeup under her eyes still linger stubbornly. Shivering, she wraps herself in a robe and listlessly drips a trail of water behind her to the common room.
Her district partner finds her there an hour later, sitting at the table with her face buried in her arms and a mug of forgotten tea at her elbow. He grimaces, then pulls out a chair and sits.
At the sound of the chair legs dragging on the floor, Merida sits up, pushing her tangled damp curls out of her face. Tears have streaked the traces of makeup in lines to her chin. Duncan winces visibly.
"What?" she demands.
He coughs. "Ye look a right mess, is what."
"I don't remember askin' for yer opinion, Duncan Macintosh," Merida grumbles. She dips a fingertip in her tea, and scowls. It's gone cold, and curdly as well.
Something slides across the table with a scrape. Merida looks up, startled. It's a bowl of steaming soup, with a spoon in it; there's an identical one in front of Duncan. He's already eating steadily.
"Thank ye," she says, uncertainly. Her stomach rumbles, reminding her that she hasn't eaten since breakfast; she doesn't need any further convincing. After a few bites, though, she pauses and sets down her spoon. "Ye've not had a lot to say to me since the Reapin', have ye? Why start now?"
"Easier not to." His long face is solemn, and his bushy brows are drawn together in a frown. He clears his throat, awkwardly. "Ye've been a right brave lass, DunBroch," he says, mostly into his soup bowl. "I'll steer clear of ye in the Arena, if ye'll do the same."
It's not quite an alliance, but it warms something inside Merida all the same, as surely as the hot soup. Somehow she feels clean again at last.
"Aye," she says, and smiles at him. "That sounds fair enough."