The Stylist

AN: How do Stylists come up with a unique, individual, extraordinary costume each year, any ways? Simple answer: they don't. Warning: I had way too much fun with this.


"Where next?" I ask, lugging Xavier sleeping over my shoulder. I find the ache in my feet and joints to be less, their weariness gone; but it's been replaced by an overwhelming sense of rest. I've been stumbling since getting up from lunch, still nibbling on parched, salted wafers and nutty, ripe creams.

"The Stylist," Klerkov scoffs, expressing his scorn. His champion had already had her entrance, and needs no more. "Avitus. This is unfortunate."

"Unfortunate?" I question. In the Capitol, the Stylists are lauded and recognized for their individual efforts. In District 6, it is the Tribute, not the Team, who captures our attention. Sure, the costumes make the opening parade interesting, but almost universally make every Tribute look incredibly uncomfortable or simply stupid. What passes for fashion here finds no resonance in the poorer Districts.

Tasha Pushkina intervenes. "Avitus is old-school. A veteran, if you will. His family is close with the Presidency and have been Stylists for the Hunger Games since the original Game."

"And?"

"And loyalty means everything in the Capitol," she explains, straightening her kimono unconsciously, something she does whenever a subject becomes dangerous or uncomfortable. "He's been punted from the Career Districts because they bring in enough money to merit a better Stylist and better Sponsors, but they couldn't replace him outright."

"So he's a bad Stylist, is what you're saying," I finish for her.

"Not at all," Tasha corrects. "At his best, the man is a genius. But his best was twenty-some years ago."

"Avitus is mediocre as lukewarm govno," Klerkov sniffs. "Moya Petren'ka, I tell you truly, Victor Ivan Klerkov could design a better costume for you than this man."

"Unlikely," Tasha Pushkina frowns, "given that your idea of a woman's costume involves mainly hairspray and glitter."

"Natalayia, I am offended, truly." Klerkov clucks, wounded. "There would be oils and perfume as well."

"So what do I do?" I ask them. Both of them, I realize. Klerkov might make me his champion with Sponsors, yes; but Tasha Pushkina knows about fashion, knowledge both I and my Mentor sorely lack.

Tasha shrugs. "There's no time for anything else. Take what he gives you, and wear it. The Capitol knows it's Avitus. However horrible, they'll already expect it." Then, she grows serious. "But I have to warn you, Petra Angelovna, Stylists are-"

"Prima donnas," Klerkov spits. "Divas."

"High-strung," Tasha continues, eying me nervously. "You have to understand, their status gives them a certain prestige, an entitlement-"

Ah. "So he's a jackass." And I'm a temperamental District teenager with an aversion to Capitol politics and elitism who held a nurse hostage at needlepoint. We should get along swell.

"They all are," She admits hurriedly. "But Avitus is one of the oldest, and one of the worst."

I adjust Xavier in my arms. "You think I should just bend over and take it, then."

"I think you should keep the big picture in mind," she whispers meekly, catching my disapproval.

Klerkov thumbs his nose. "Hmph," he declares. "It is your Hunger Games, moya Petren'ka. You are a champion! Fire him."But this is not this morning's sober Klerkov, plotting riots and quite possibly revolutions. This is a drunken fool, reeling from a lunch of red meat and red wine. I saw him down enough liquor to kill a horse. Tasha Pushkina catches my frown, and smiles encouragingly. Through my food-sated haze, I remember this morning's conversation as though a life-time ago: I didn't agree to your terms. Of course you didn't! If you had, moya Petren'ka, I would have been considerably disappointed!

Perhaps this Avitus will have the outfit of a champion, perhaps not. For now, I'll wait and see. Tasha was right when she spoke during the broadcast: it's my Games, my life. I'm going to do whatever the hell I want.


The dressing room is vaulted, bright, and cluttered. Reams of fabric line the tiered walls, and reflective mirrors and aching stage lights line every corner in a kaledescope of blinding color. It should feel warm, welcoming and inviting with all this light. Instead, it feels as sterile as the Medic's chair.

It takes a full moment for it to sink in: people.

The room is full to the brim with people: Avox, apprentices, tailors and make-up artists already smocked and playing with color palettes. But even in this sea of people there is hardly a noise. No laughter, no talking, no sounds of breath or even a whisper. The entire chamber is eerily still and dead. I shudder.

"Where are they?" A reedy male voice insists, soon accompanied by its pallid owner. "Where are my Tributes!" Avitus is grossly tall, cadaverously thin, with spidery, skinny fingers twice as long as his bony hands. His irises are a cloudy white, and his flesh has been bleached until every vein can be seen, pulsating grossly beneath his translucent skin. I take an unconscious step back in revulsion, and stumble into Klerkov.

Our stylist fumbles forward under a feathered cloak, flapping his disgusting hands about and knocking over chairs, basins and several assistants along the way. Each gesture is accompanied by an insult or a curse. Still no one moves. Nobody speaks.

Xavier Malcovitch tenses in my arms, woken by the ruckus. His over-large eyes watch with growing dread.

"You!" Avitus screeches, jabbing a skeletal finger like a dagger into Klerkov's chest-plate, ignoring me completely. "Mentor! You're late!"

Klerkov belches disdainfully in reply, picking lamb bone from his beard.

"You dare keep me from my Tributes? Time is wasting! This would never be acceptable in District 1! And you!" Avitus rounds on Tasha, taking in her ripped, wrinkled kimono and the multiple food-stains along her sleeves from wiping Cry-baby's mouth. "What are you wearing, Pushkina? Orange? Silk? Dragons? Pah!" He slams a fist down into his palm. "You look like that ridiculous Framington woman! District 12! Have you no sense of shame?"

But Tasha Pushkina is gone. Her kimono, her wig, and her face paint remain, but the Chaperone I know has disappeared. She's been replaced by the vapid, smiling woman I saw on the Hunger Games for 6 years now, and like the many others gathered in this room, she neither counters nor responds. In the face of Avitus' rage, Tasha Pushkina doesn't so much as even blink.

"Unacceptable!" Avitus rampages, turning over chairs and shattering mirrors. "UNACCEPTABLE!"

Klerkov counters with a sigh, letting loose a long, brapping fart that echoes wildly in the silent room. No one moves. Tasha Puskina's lips twitch, and I find myself seized with the insane urge to giggle. "UNACC-ACK-ack!" The Stylist chokes, clutching his throat wildly and staggering backwards over his cloak. He disappears into a pile of flailing limbs and floating feathers. No one laughs.

"Your pardon," Klerkov allows tactlessly as the sickening stench of barely-digested lamb and onions threatens to overpower us all. In one of the many now-broken mirrors, I see three Avox girls turn away, shoulders hitching in silent laughter.

…then again, they could be gagging.

Avitus is helped to his feet with much cursing, staggering, and loss of dignity, not to mention blows against the Avox who attempt to right him. "Pah!" he waves them off, "The Great Avitus needs no man's help! Pah!" When he finally stands, he resembles a molting goose, awkward, gangly, and utterly ridiculous.

But Klerkov's hardly concealed contempt had a second affect as well. Cry-baby fusses fretfully, wrestling against my grip for a place to hide his nose. It's a mistake: the movement catches Avitus' attention, and all his ire is deflected to me."And you! Ugly girl!" He snaps his brittle fingers. "Ugly horse-girl with her child! What is the meaning of you?"

I look down at my feet, face paling and flushing simultaneously. His tongue is sharp, hurtful, and ridiculous. I know I'm ugly—have known for a long time—and it shouldn't it doesn't bother me. But under Avitus' sharp scrutiny I feel suddenly ashamed. Dirty. Unwanted. With all these eyes and lights on me there's no where to hide, no where to run, nothing and no one to fight. Momentarily I feel more helpless and naked than I've ever been, even sitting on that Medic's table.

"Yes, you!" He snaps, poking me in turn, forcing my jaw up with his cold, vice-like digits. "Who are you? Why did they bring you here? Where are my Tributes!"

"Your Tributes are here, you pompous mudak," Klerkov scoffs, reclining in a plump leather chair and swiping a feathered fan from the hands of an Avox girl to wick away the stench. "Now dress them."

"These?" Avitus recoils, aghast. "These are my Tributes? Pah! Ridiculous! Poppycock! Absurd! These will not last a day! These will not survive the Arena! These would never be chosen from District 1! These are not worthy to be named Tributes, not worthy of the skill of Avitus who dresses champions! Pah!" He concludes. My head is reeling.

"Avitus who dressed champions," Klerkov yawns, fanning himself while carelessly sucking the marrow from the bone fished from his beard. "That is what you will become if you refuse them. I brought you my Tributes. Now dress them, zhopa, or I will find someone else who can."


"Show me the canvas!" Avitus wails, grotesque hands raised dramatically above his head. "Show me the canvas on which I am to paint!"

His many assorted assistants hop into place, dragging Xavier and I to separate pedestals above the tailor's workstations. And suddenly nearly fifty pairs of eyes are staring at me, expectantly.

"Er, sorry, what?"

"THE CANVAS!" Avitus bellows. "SHOW ME THE CANVAS!"

"Right," I mumble. "The canvas."

"He means you," a male voice intones. One of Avitus' apprentices comes slowly forward, eyeing me appraisingly through tinted glasses. "You might as well get on with it."

He's the only normal-looking person in the room. I latch on to that desperately. "Get on with what?"

"Stripping." He continues blandly, scratching the copper-toned skin of his neck. "He needs to see what he's working with."

Oh, right: Canvas.

…Fuck.

"There's no way," I whisper furiously to Tasha Pushkina. "This isn't going to work. I've changed my mind!"

"Petra, there's no time-!" She replies anxiously, cringing under Avitus' gaze and shouting about the unfair atrocities of the universe to any one who will listen. "Stylists work all year to design and develop these costumes. You've got six hours until the chariot ride!"

"I've had enough nudity now to last a lifetime!" I rush helplessly. "I am NOT standing up here naked-!"

"There's no point being modest," the apprentice continues while Avitus berates Malcovitch's tailors for his lack of musculature and height, as if it were somehow their fault. "He'll strip you himself, if he has to," he explains with a knowing grin. "And Venia swears he touches all the girls inappropriately on purpose with those nasty, cold hands of his."

The thought of those spidery fingers sliding over my skin makes my flesh crawl. I forget every thought of modesty, grace, or poise and strip naked as fast as if I had a tracker-jacker up my tunic.

"See?" He laughs as I shuck my shirt over my head, "there's worse things in life than standing up there naked."

Finally I kick my underthings off my ankles and stand, red-faced, eyes upturned so I don't have to see the gathered crowd all taking a good long look at my tits. I try desperately not to think of Klerkov, but there's no need. My Mentor takes it upon himself to belch loudly and smack as he devours a pro-offered plate of grapes, surrounded by a horde of attentive Avox girls with plumed fans, completely shielded from sight. Thank goodness for small graces.

To my surprise, the only one of us comfortable with these newest developments is Xavier Malcovitch. On a pedestal across from mine, Cry-baby sits, absently twisting his toes, hairless, skeletal, and naked as the day he was born. No shame, no embarrassment, no attempts to cover up his exposed genitals laying limply against the tile. Except for my gaze and Tasha's, he might as well be goddamned invisible. Again.


They measure. And wash. And measure. And wax. And measure. And wax some more. By the time they're done, my skin feels as though it has been burned and peeled in centimeter strips from my armpits to my soles. My groin is red, exposed, and raw from dripping hot wax and ripping paper. Three hours ago I thought that pelvic inspection was the single most degrading, humiliating, and painful experience a girl could ever suffer through.

…clearly I was wrong.

Now I stand, shivering and sheared, goose-flesh raising on my arms and legs while my Stylist makes the final "adjustments" on "a champion's costume such as Panem has never seen (I am Avitus the Great! Avitus the Almighty who dresses champions! Avitus the Revered, Adored, Resplendant, etc., etc. etc.)". My bare feet ache on a cold, marble pedestal, flattened and painful from standing motionless.

The room is buzzing with activity, but still no one makes an audible human sound, afraid to disturb the Almighty Avitus, dresser of champions. I'm a naked human statue in a hall of silence. And, to add insult to injury, Xavier Malcovitch is now staring at me more intently than a boy lacking pubic hair has any Pushkina tries to distract him, but to no avail. Cry-baby continues to gawk, staring first at me, and then at himself, eyes widening in horror as he discovers our anatomical differences seemingly for the first time. For the next half hour, Victor Ivan Klerkov snores loudly in his sleep while Tasha Pushkina and I are forced to watch Malcovitch's increasingly desperate-and proportionately painful-attempts to correct this newfound problem.

It will be worth it, I tell myself vehemently to justify both the pain in my feet, knees and hips as well as the ridiculous spectacle before me. Tasha said he was a has-been genius. Just toe the line, Petra. Just do what needs to be done. Not meters away, Xavier Malcovitch collapses in resignation, covering himself with the embroidered sleeve of Tasha's kimono, silently accepting his fate as a horrific mutant.


And finally, the grand reveal. Avitus hauls us both up on a small, assembled stage, our costumes concealed in velvet curtains behind us, then proceeds to monologue on his career as a Stylist for the better part of fifteen minutes. His entourage looks on in silent stupefaction, but our Stylist pays them no heed. On he drones about the Interviews of the 54th Hunger Games, oblivious that the only person in the assembled crowd paying him the slightest attention is a retarded mute boy, giggling at his every grandiose gesture.

"District 6 is strength and industry, camps of labor working the cold northern soil!" The Almighty Avitus declares as though addressing the whole of Panem. "Mining for resources! Ekking out an existence by sheer force of will! District 6 will arise, alight with glory and resplendent to take her place amongst champions, for SHE HAS BEEN DRESSED BY THE GREAT AVITUS!"

A fanfare of forced applause. The dusky velvet curtain is lifted, and the gathered throng cry out in adoration.

…or abject terror. It's a vomitus of silver, spangled taffeta trailing in endless meters of ruffles, ribbons and flounce. Above is a shimmering, see-through chain-mail diamond-studded bustiere for breasts ten times too large and a set of shoulders at least five times too small. Xavier Malcovitch could crawl into each of those cups and still have need for padding."District 6 is the lifeblood of Panem!" Avitus roars triumphantly, misreading our collective looks of disgust for awe. "The mother whose milk nurses us all!"

Beside me, Tasha Pushkina lets out a whimper. The apprentice looks thoughtful.

I stare in shock, utterly horrified. "No," I whisper. "There's no way."

"THE TRIBUTE WILL BE SILENT!" Avitus screeches, as though heinous blasphemy has been spoken against his Almighty self. A vein pulsates in his left eye."THE TRIBUTE WILL DON HER GOWN!"

"No, fuck you." I state hotly. "I'm not wearing that…thing!"

"Unacceptable." Klerkov says coldly, standing to his feet mid-snore. "You are fired." I wheel. He winks.

Victor Ivan Klerkov, you subtle bastard. My Mentor has been awake this entire time, just waiting for me to give the word. After this morning I should have known better than to ever doubt him.

"PAH! YOU HAVE NO AUTHORITY TO FIRE THE GREAT AVITUS, AVITUS WHO DRESSES CHAMPIONS-"

"One does not hire a jeweler to do a blacksmith's job!" Klerkov roars, snapping his fingers in scorn. "My Petra isn't petty diamond or sapphire that you should adorn her so! She is Stone-heart! Strong! She needs stone and iron, horn and hide! Bring me a man capable of that material, and I will show you the man who dresses a champion!"

"I DO NOT OBEY YOU, MENTOR!" Avitus spits, shouting as if he were Claudius Templesmith himself. "I ANSWER ONLY TO THOSE CHOSEN, THOSE WORTHY, THOSE-"

"Tributes." Tasha Pushkina interjects, speaking aloud for the first time in hours. "You answer to the Tributes."

"I-" The Great, Almighty, Adored, Revered and Resplendant Stylist of champions halts abruptly. All eyes turn to me. Klerkov winks again.

"And this Tribute fires you," I say evenly. "Now." A ripple of shock rushes over the crowd. Avitus' assistant is completely inscrutable.

"YOU FOOLISH GIRL!" his face turns puce, "NO ONE FIRES THE GREAT AVITU-"

"Fine then," I cross my arms over my naked chest. "Have it your way. I have a new name for you: Avitus the Unhired."


That the Great Avitus takes his newfound loss of vocation without any shred of dignity would be an understatement. He screeches inhumanly, his nasally voice cracking shrilly as he curses my Mentor, my Escort, myself, my mother and my District. He curses by the Games, by his honored Excellency President Snow, he curses by the Gods-

"You can curse by my hairy left testicle for all I care," my Mentor bristles. "My champion fired you. Go find another to dress."

"I STILL HAVE THE BOY!" Avitus gloats, grasping Malcovitch greedily. "THE IDIOT-CHILD WHO DOES NOT TALK! HE CANNOT FIRE ME! PAH! I AM ALVITUS THE ALMIGHTEeeeeeyeargh-!"

At that moment, Xavier Malcovitch's eyes flick from my chest to Tasha's, to Klerkov's and finally his own in dawning comprehension. Then one pale, scrawny arm reaches into that flapping cape of feathers and fury to clutch the Almighty Avitus by his aforementioned Almightiness, just to be sure.

Cry-baby's dark eyes shine with the pride of a proven theorem, having existentially and quite literally grasped the difference between the sexes. My sides ache with laughter until I feel I'll be sick as our would-be Stylist drops to his knees, howling in pain. All around us, the once silent hall bursts into life.


AN: Had to try my hand at a Capitol crazy. In the meantime, I have a challenge: how many canon characters were mentioned in this chapter?