Chapter 4
I'm immediately rushed to the Remake Center. My prep team, a woman with medium- length, straight, silver hair, eyebrows, eyelashes, and eyes, Rhoda, a man with green, orange, gold, purple and blue tattoos all over his bald head, Jupiter, and a woman with long, rainbow colored hair, long, rainbow finger-nails, and a stretched out face, Merimee, remove any stray hairs that might have grown over the time of my last waxing. Now I'm waiting for my stylist to arrive. Her name is Tigris. I'm pretty sure she was a stylist in earlier games, but grandad ended up firing her. I play with strands of my hair as I wait, remembering everything that happened in the past two years. Replaying things in my head. Tigris enters. I know why grandad fired her. It's not that she's a bad person, she probably is a nice person. Her skin is tighten and tatooed with tiger stripes. She has a falt nose and whiskers. This is the kind of people I like to avoid while walking through the Capitol streets.
"Hello, Esmerelda," she sighs. "Let me spitball our idea for you and your partner. The first thought I had when I heard your name, was emeralds, And when I think of Mercury I think of a red planet. And since we don't have limitations to districts this year, I was thinking, jewels. Yours, the emerald and Mercury's the garnet. Green and red united, by a pearl glove. Oh, it's going to be so grand!"
She claps her hands at her idea. I shrug, "Okay."
She brings the prep team in, and they all start dressing me in a green, strapless dress. The neckline is made up of two squares with their corners pointing up. Its skirt is puffed out and has jewels on it. They fit me with a large belt around my waist made entirely out of (artificial) emeralds. They put an emerald necklace around my neck. For the last touch they put green gloves on my hands that go up to my elbow, but on my right the hand for the glove is pearly white. Jupiter pins one side of my bags to the side of my head with an emerald clip. Rhoda and Merimee do my makeup, green eye shadow, a little bit of eye liner, three green eyelash extensions on the edge of each eye, and greenish-blue lipstick.
"There," Tigris says as she steps back and admires me. "Beautiful."
The prep team nods in agreement.
"Well," Tigris clasps her hands, "let's go get ready."
I'm taken to the bottom of the Remake Center, where all the tributes are preparing for the opening ceremony. There, I finally get to meet Mercury. He's wearing a red jacket with clear, gleaming, jewel-shaped accents. Underneath, he's wearing a dark red shirt and red pants. His hair is temporarily streaked with red. On his left hand, is a pearly white glove.
He shakes my hand. "Hi, I'm sorry we never really got meet before this."
"It's okay," I reply. "So, uh, I don't really recognize you. Who's your parent?"
"My dad was the Head Peacekeeper of District Eleven."
"Oh, was the journey long?" I ask, "From District Eleven, I mean. I've never been outside the capitol."
"Well, it is, but I live in the Capitol with my mother. And you're President Snow's granddaughter?"
"Yep," I reply, keeping this part of the conversation short.
We load into the chariot.
"Should we hold hands?" he jokes.
I glare at him.
"What?" He says, "I'm not allowed to joke?"
The opening music begins. The doors slide open. On the streets are probably thousands of people waited for us to come. The first pair goes out into the street, then the next and the next and the next. I recognize Telly in the fifth chariot. She's wearing a deep blue gown that flows out of their chariot. Her partner's tuxedo matches. Soon, we are on our way through the streets. I place my right hand on the chariot, balancing myself, and with the other hand I wave at the crowd and smile with all the energy and joy I can muster. I only hope my smile isn't grotesque. Suddenly, I feel a touch on my right hand. I look. Mercury is really trying to hold my hand. I can't reject him in front of the audience. So, I smile, wave, and pretend his hand isn't clasping around mine.
At the end of this ride, we get to meet our mentor, an old tribute that has volunteered to help with these games. The ride seems to last longer than I'd hoped for. When we arrive at the Training Center, I can't believe who's waiting for us.