Mayra Rienne, D4

Mayra would have tried to squirm away if it were for Hyland holding her down to the table. Lia and Oceana, the other two members of her prep team, were stripping her arms and legs of any and all bits of hair. She knew to expect this, as her trainers had mentioned this to everyone, but she hadn't expected it to burn at her skin.

"Are you almost done?" Asked Hyland. Mayra looked up and saw that his arms were shaking from trying to hold her down. Of course they were; she was strong. She figured they'd gotten all the hair off her now, because the two women swooped down on her, plucking away at her face with tweezers. She felt the sting of her eyebrows being removed one hair at a time. After five minutes of this torture, Lia ordered her to strip so they could work on her skin. Mayra, wanting to get this over with as soon as possible, did as she asked, eve though being naked made her uncomfortable.

The three of them lathered her in soap and some sort of oil and let her sit in the suds for a few minutes before leading her to the shower. Oceana washed her off, and then she and Hyland took two rough brushes, grinding at her skin. Lia was off at the table again, mixing at a bowl full of goo. As Hyland and Oceana finished scrubbing, they rubbed a lotion across her skin that instantly removed any pain left over from the torture she'd just endured.

Mayra laid back down on the table, and Lia started combing the goo through her hair.

"I know that Four kept their tributes-to-be healthy, but this one definitely had malnourished hair. I can fix that." Said Lia. The other two sat and waited patiently. Mayra could feel a slight burning on her scalp. What were they doing to her hair? If she got off the table and had bright blue hair like Lia did, she'd murder these three right now.

When the prep team finally washed the burning goo from her hair, they started to wash and clean it. Mayra sat through the numerous shampoos and scented soaps rubbed through her blonde hair, and when they finished, she was finally able to sit up. She wanted to see what they had done to her, but they simply sent her off.

"Call in the next girl when you get out there." Oceana ordered, helping Mayra slip into a full-length robe. She was still barefoot, but the ground here was so clean she didn't mind. Mayra left the prep room to go sit with the other tribute girls and wait for their stylist to arrive. As she stepped through the door, she heard a surprised gasp from the three girls sitting there, waiting. She looked up; they were all staring at her. What had the prep team done to her? She told Nenna to go in next, not wanting to deal with her right now. Lunara looked the most surprised of the three, and when Mayra sat down, Lunara ran her fingers through her hair.

"It's so bright," she said. Mayra looked over her shoulder at her hair. She was right. That goo that Lia had used must've made her hair even more golden than it already was. It was almost glowing, with the light bouncing off of it. Her skin felt soft and smooth to the touch without the hair roughing it up. They'd done well.

Fiona Fierry, D5

"I was excited. The picture the set us showed her having really long hair for me to play with, not this mess." Fiona really disliked Tila, the member of her prep team that was supposed to work on her hair. Sorry, but I had to feed my family, so I sold it to a wigmaker for the Capitol, she thought back at her viciously. Fiona had sat quietly and taken the pain of the three of them pulling the hair from her limbs and rubbing off layers of skin from her hands and feet. Now one of them was complaining that she couldn't 'play' with her hair. Well good, Fiona didn't want that. She wanted the group to go away, but instead, she saw Jaylene dig out a large hand-held razor. The blades started up as she flicked the switch, and Tila took it from her and brought it down on Fiona's head. My hair is already too short! She screamed in her head as she saw hair hit the floor. Her hand shot up to her head, but it was smacked down by Smalley, the third member of her prep team. She'd have to wait until they finished and sent her away to see how bald she was. Was this Tila's way of getting back at her for not giving her hair to play with? She'd cut it all off so Fiona looked like a boy?

She knew they did a good job of making tributes look good, as she'd been the second tribute to come in for torture. She'd seen Gustin go first for the guys, and when he'd come back out, his hair and messy chin scruff had been neatly cropped to make his face seem stronger. He looked almost like a completely different person.

After the whole ordeal about her hair, Smalley and Jaylene went to work on her hands and feet, carefully sculpting, polishing, and painting each individual nail. It was painless, so Fiona was finally able to enjoy this pampering. She wondered if the guys had to go through anything more than a simple haircut. Lucky.

Peter Cooper, D2

"Can you please not touch my hair?" Peter asked, sounding a tad bit rude. Efficus, one of his prep team members, put her hand back down to her side, looking a little disappointed. Peter knew how he wanted to look, and his hair was already at that point. It was perfect.

"I just need my skin looking better," he said, wanting to help them get their job done quicker. Prudence pulled out a small bin with soaps and scrubbing brushes, and the three of them got to work. It hurt more than Peter had expected. Why were they pressing down this hard? They only needed to make him look good, not take off five layers of his skin. He saw his arms redden as they moved down his body to his chest and then to his legs. He had no problem with lying here naked for them. He wished, though, that they wouldn't have scrubbed so hard. What if the redness didn't go away by tonight. The Capitol would think he was this disgusting itchy person, and not the Victor he truly was. He'd lose sponsors.

"You have something for the redness, right?" he asked Efficus. She didn't look too pleased with him, but knelt down and pulled out a large bottle. She squeezed its contents into her tiny hands and began working it into his arms and chest. The red coloring went away almost immediately, and the pain subsided. This was more like it. Before he could sit up, the small, violet tinted woman forced his head back and started tweezing at his face. She plucked from his eyebrows, his nose and his chin. Then, with little warning, she motioned for Eziquel and Prudence, and they pinned him to the table. Peter's natural reaction was to try and free himself, but they were experienced at holding a tribute down.

"Calm down, mister Cooper. I'm only slicking your hair back. It's a mess." He had told her no to touching his hair, but, with her hands lathered in oil, she continued to pull back on his head. Finally, they released him. He grabbed his robe and stormed from the room, not giving them a chance to do anything else. He sent Kai in as the next tribute. Let them play with someone else, he thought as he sat down to wait for the stylist.

Aurelie Dranson, D10

"You need to hold still, Aurelie," said Dex, weaving his slim fingers through her long hair. They'd just died it, to give it a richer chestnut color, and Dex said that her stylist, Carcuss, wanted all the girls to have what he had called a 'fish-tale'. She figured it had something to do with her hair, and it was hurting as Dex tugged. Cinnamon and Serene were rubbing scented lotion into her legs, relieving the burn of peeling the hair away. She was used to the feelings of burns, having been burned by a branding iron more than once in her time working on the farms. But this was a stinging burn, not a numbing burn. As Dex finished with her hair, she reached back to feel what he had done. It felt like a braid, just done in a weird way. And her hair felt almost unnaturally smooth. What had they put in her hair to get rid of all the frizz? As they finished, they let her put on her robe and go join the other girls out in the waiting room. Aurelie had been the third girl to go in, and when she got back she saw that all of the boys were already finished. She wished that the girls didn't have to go through so much more prepping than the boys. They didn't have a look on their face like they'd just gone through hell.

Aurelie took a seat between Valeria and Casson. All of the boys had the same hairstyle, the same way the girls all shared one. They all had their hair swept off to one side of their heads, which looked a little odd to Aurelie. It was the Capitol, she thought. She noticed that she hadn't been the only one to undergo having their hair dyed. Vincent's hair looked even more black than usual, and Casson's blonde head had a tinge of orangey-brown to it. She liked the new colors; they fit the boys better than the natural color.

Aurelie sat with her group in silence, waiting on Yvaine, who had been last to undergo prepping.

Aaron Sierra, D3

Aaron was the first male tribute from Three called in for Prepping. He didn't know what to expected. As he entered the room, he was instantly mobbed by two small women and a man. The women undressed him, against his will, while the man – he'd heard him called Cordelius – offered him a thin robe. The group ushered him onto a table and began working.

Aaron could hear muffled yelps of pain coming from another room, and figured it to be Emmia, who had been called first for the girls. Aaron gasped as one of the women, Alee, plucked hair from above his eyes with two tiny tweezers. She pulled from the bridge of his nose and from his jaw line, too. The other woman, Hariette, went to work on removing the top layer of skin from all over his body. That hurt. As Alee pulled away, Aaron rubbed at his now sore face. She came back with a small tube of cream that she and Hariette rubbed into his aching skin. The pain disappeared almost instantly.

"Thank you," he said to the prep team as they continued to work. None of them responded to him. Cordelius started working on his hair, trimming with scissors in both hands and at a very fast pace. Aaron was nervous that he wouldn't recognize himself when the team was done with him. He wondered what costumes their stylists had planned for them. He hoped they didn't have to go into the parade looking like an eight person group of idiots.

Haden Plutoran, D12

Haden felt a breeze on his neck. They'd chopped his hair too short for his liking. Before, he'd been able to tie it up behind his head, and now he'd have to deal with strands of it falling in his face. It hardly reached his nose, and they'd done it up in a swoop on his head. It made him look older than he was, and it looked good, but when all the product came out and Haden was thrown into the arena, he'd be stuck with it blowing and itching at his face.

"Will you stop rubbing? You will make the skin red again," snapped Tayler, pulling his hand off of his bare neck. She told him that they were finished and that he could return to the holding room. Haden had been the last guy to go into prepping, so everyone else was waiting for him to finish up. The only one left in the Prep room was Ula. When she was finished, they would all be brought to meet with their stylists, who would help dress them for the parade set to start in just a few hours.

"Whoa." Little Evie ran up to Haden. "Your hair is gone!" Haden still hadn't actually seen what he looked like, but apparently, it was enough to shock the six people sitting before him.

"Yeah!" exclaimed Whytt. "How much did they chop off?"

"Too much, I'm going to need to ask for a headband to keep it out of my face." Haden joked. He sat down with the rest of the tributes and waited until Ula was done so they could meet their Stylists.

Here it is. The first chapter of the Tribute's time in the Capitol. I thought this would be a good chapter length. If you feel it should be longer and shorter, reviews and critiques are, of course, always appreciated. I'll probably do one more of these Prep chapters, and then move onto the Tribute Parade, which will be seen through the eyes of not just any regular Capitol Citizens, but through the eyes of Master of Ceremonies, and possibly the Gamemakers as they watch live.