Chapter Three: The Capitol and the Victory Tour
A/N: Chapter Three! Thanks so much to everyone who reviewed. I really love reading what people think of the story. It's been really fun to write so far, and has given me an excuse to re-read the series! :)
The knock on my door is so subtle that I almost don't hear it. I am tempted to ignore the sound; maybe if I pretend that I'm sleeping, whoever's there will get bored and walk away. It always works with Dash.
To my annoyance, the knocking only becomes louder. Whoever's standing outside the door is a hell of a lot more persistent than my older brother.
I drag myself out of bed, combing my hair with my fingers as I slouch to the compartment door.
"Who is it?" I ask, hand on the doorknob.
"Widget, dear? It's Aeliana. You've been in there for quite a while, and dinner's just been served! We're all waiting on your company!"
The thought of eating anything right now makes me want to throw up, but I know I'm going to have to face everyone sooner or later. Besides, something tells me that holing up in my compartment all evening would make a bad impression. I haven't even introduced myself to everyone.
The voice of my mother inside my head is already scolding me for my bad behavior. 'Widget Irving!' she exclaims, 'Where are your manners? Is that how you show respect?'
"Sorry, Mom," I mutter under my breath. Then louder I reply, "I'll be out in a second!"
I hear the unmistakable clack of high heels retreating down the hall and exhale. Now that I've calmed down slightly, I give myself a moment to take in my surroundings. The compartment is easily twice the size of my and Dash's room back in Three. The bed is bigger than anything I've ever seen; my whole family could easily fit and still have wiggle room. A TV much like the one in the main compartment is mounted on the wall opposite the bed, its remote control placed delicately on the nightstand.
When I turn to the left I see a giant wardrobe, its wooden doors carved with floral patterns. I assume the clothes Aeliana mentioned are in there, but I don't reach for them just yet. Apart from Dash's necklace, my Reaping dress is the only thing I have from home. Taking it off right now would feel like saying yet another goodbye, and I'm not prepared to bid anything else farewell right now.
There's another door next to the wardrobe, and when opened a spacious adjoining bathroom is revealed to me. The shower has about a million different buttons and nozzles that I can't wrap my head around at the moment, so I instead choose to inspect my face in the mirror above the sink.
I don't look very good. My eyes are puffy from crying, and the hair I so carefully brushed this morning is now a knotted mess. Not much you can do about it now, I reason, opting to simply splash some cold water on my face and finger-brush my unruly locks to the best of my abilities. All I can hope for is that the people waiting at the table don't read too much into my appearance.
I take one last deep breath and leave my compartment behind, making my way determinedly to the dining table. Four pairs of eyes look up as I approach, following me as I take the only remaining seat in between Beetee and Aeliana.
Wiress, the other District Three mentor, sits directly across from me. I see her exchange a quick glance with Beetee before turning to me and smiling.
"Widget, right? We've been waiting for you."
Not knowing how to reply, I just smile back. Hopefully it doesn't appear too strained.
"Can we eat now? I'm hungry," whines the other tribute boy. Clink, that's what his name was. Unlike me, he's changed out of his Reaping clothes. The shirt he wears now is collared and bright green, obviously the work of the Capitol.
"Yes, now that we are all here, I do say we begin," chimes the escort.
All at once the people around me begin reaching for things. Despite my earlier queasiness, my stomach lets out a grumble and I involuntarily scan the items hungrily. There are so many things I don't recognize that I'm not sure where to begin.
I feel a tap on my shoulder and my eyes snap to Beetee, who gestures to the array of dishes before us.
"It's all edible. Don't worry," he assures me in a quiet voice. "I had the same reaction when I first saw this stuff."
In the end I opt for a few pieces of some very red meat, coated in a sauce that smells like cinnamon. I also grab a few bread rolls and pieces of fruit cut into little star-shaped slices.
Yes. This is clearly Capitol food.
We all eat in relative silence for the most part. Eventually Wiress decides to turn on the TV, and our eyes all turn to the screen. The scene looks familiar; it takes me longer than it should to realize they're replaying footage of the Reapings.
"Oh, they're already on District Eight," Aeliana groans. She impatiently picks up the remote and presses a button, causing the footage onscreen to rewind. "I want to see the crop from One. Celestina couldn't stop flaunting her promotion the other day. You should have seen her! 'Finally a District that isn't starving to death,' she said. Can you believe the nerve of some people?"
The TV now shows a much more glamorous stage. A woman with pink hair piled monstrously high on top of her head waltzes on, flashing the cameras a dazzling smile before introducing herself.
"There she is! What a witch," Aeliana spits venemously. I can't help but think that this Celestina woman must have done something other than brag. Our escort eyes the screen with more hatred than I thought she was capable of.
The tributes from One are both volunteers, and both manage to make an impression. Not only is the girl breathtakingly beautiful, but she knows it. She walks up onstage like she's royalty. Her Reaping dress is emerald green and exudes elegance; once centerstage, she flips her strawberry blonde hair and gazes at the crowd with a satisfied look on her face.
The boy's name is Flash, and he looks just like every other boy from the district of luxury: tall, handsome, and powerful. After jumping onstage and hugging the escort, he points directly at the camera and winks. He winks. This is definitely someone who's been wanting a victory in the Games for his entire life.
District Two's tributes don't put up as much of a show. Once again, both are volunteers: the girl is tall and made of solid muscle. She is eager to speak into the mic after taking her place onstage.
"My name is Zandria Hall!" She declares proudly. The boy is just as bulky. He smirks knowingly at his District partner as they shake hands and then face the crowd to give a loud cheer.
"They sure know how to excite a crowd, One and Two," Beetee says casually.
When the familiar central stage of District Three appears onscreen, I avert my eyes. I don't need to see this part. I was there; I can remember everything with perfect clarity.
When I finally look up again the camera is already cutting away to a different scene, but I catch a glimpse of my face before I vanish. I look terrified.
Only one of District Four's tributes this year is a volunteer: a wiry boy with olive skin and eyes that sparkle with mirth. The girl, on the other hand, is small, so petite that I thought for sure she had to be twelve. I'm surprised when she tells the escort that she is, in fact, fifteen years old.
I sigh. Yet another fifteen year old to add to the data set.
"Four must be going through a lapse," Wiress remarks quietly. Beetee nods, while Clink just stares at them, confused.
"A lapse? What do you mean?" The boy inquires.
Beetee looks at him and begins to explain. "Four's training academy isn't as extensive as One's or Two's. It's smaller, and they don't always have enough kids to fill it. What probably happened this year is that none of the girls in training were ready for the Games, so they didn't have a volunteer to send out."
This explanation surprises me. I had always considered One, Two, and Four to be equally dangerous. It makes sense, though; I can recall far more victors from One and Two than I can from Four.
"That's good, right?" There's a flicker of hope in my District partner's eyes. I can tell that he is desperate for some sort of good news after all that's happened today. I empathize with him; I crave the same thing.
"It's one less trained tribute to worry about, yes," my mentor replies carefully. I assume he doesn't want to give the boy false hope, and I admire him for that. Meaningless words of encouragement would only make me feel worse right now.
"It means they'll have better tributes next year," Wiress finishes.
The rest of the tributes aren't very noteworthy. Districts Five through Eight all contribute kids who, more than anything, look afraid. The girl from Seven has muscles, but the nervous way she takes the stage cancels out any intimidation factor she might have had.
There is one other tribute, however, who surprises everyone.
District Nine is usually one of the least noteworthy when it comes to Reapings: year after year their tributes are frail and petrified. Most don't make it past the Bloodbath. The girl reaped there is seventeen, skinny and looks like she's about to pass out. It's a pitiful sight, but an expected one.
The boy reaped looks younger and is equally scared out of his wits. After the draw the escort, as per usual protocol, asks for volunteers. In District Nine volunteers are almost always nonexistent, as is the case with pretty much every district that doesn't train their tributes.
However, this year a voice rings out clearly from somewhere in the crowd.
"I volunteer!"
The cameras capture the astonished looks of the people watching the ceremony, the heads turning, everyone searching for the one foolhardy enough to speak the words that most would consider unspeakable.
Finally a boy steps forward. The cameras zoom in on his face, allowing the audience to see the devious smile he wears. His hair is jet black, his eyes a piercing blue. His gaze is cold and calculating. He doesn't look like your classic volunteer from One or Two; he's by no means bulky, and while he isn't ugly, there isn't anything that sets him apart as being strikingly handsome.
What makes him scary is the bloodthirstiness behind those eyes. This is a boy who will not hesitate to end someone's life.
The boy who's name was actually called out collapses onstage, crying out words of thanks. The Peacekeepers have to haul him to his feet, and the cameras show a crying little girl in the crowd running up and throwing her arms around him.
For a moment I am relieved. This boy has been spared for another year. He wouldn't have lasted very long in the arena.
Then I catch myself. Weaklings in the arena are good. That boy wouldn't have posed a significant threat, but his replacement sure will.
"Wasn't he something? Delta finally has something different this year."
It takes a lot of self restraint to keep myself from punching Aeliana in that made up little face of hers.
Beetee and Wiress are stunned. "That was... interesting," my mentor finally says, his voice somewhat awestruck.
I push my plate away and stand up. "I think I'll go to bed now. I'm not hungry anymore."
The shower here is unlike anything I've ever experienced. The water comes in heavy jets, and I can't help but wonder if it would be possible to drown.
Would drowning be less painful than a knife to the belly? To being mauled by muttations? To being beaten to death with a club, as one of District Three's tributes was a few years back?
Probably.
I turn the water off. I've had enough of showering.
I throw the wardrobe doors open and fish out some sort of lacy nightgown. When I put the garment on it feels soft against my skin. So do the fluffy blankets when I climb into bed.
The exhaustion from the day's events finally catches up to me, and I fall into a blissfully dreamless sleep.
—
I wake up to someone shaking my shoulder, and for a second I am back home in Three. "Get up!" My mother demands. She hates it when I oversleep. I'm only home from PATT on the weekends, and she sees sleeping as a waste of our time together.
But that voice... It does not belong to my mother. And the blankets encompassing me are far too soft to be my own.
When I open my eyes I am staring into the impatient face of my escort, who stops shaking me once she sees that I am awake.
"We're pulling into the Remake Center. Be dressed and ready in five minutes." With that Aeliana leaves the room, and as she does I note that her shoes aren't as pointy today.
It doesn't take me long to get dressed, but still I find everyone else already waiting in the main compartment when I arrive.
"We're in the Capitol already?" I ask Beetee, who is staring out the window vacantly. "These trains are fast," he murmurs, without looking at me. "250 miles an hour. Although we did have to refuel once."
When I finally look outside, I am astonished by what I see. There are people everywhere. They are dressed in all sorts of bright colors and styles. A large portion wave desperately at us as we pass by, screaming things I can't hear from behind the glass.
Then everything goes dark, and I realize we've pulled into our destination.
"What happens now?" Clink asks nervously.
"Now," Beetee answers, "You are transformed into better versions of your usual selves."
Beetee is odd in the way he speaks. It's as if he is constantly worried about something; he's nervous and twitchy, always looking over his shoulder. Unless the subject has anything to do with electricity. I've seen him interviewed in past days; when asked about his victory the man's nervous persona vanishes completely. Beetee won his Games by creating an electric trap which killed off his competition. It was the first win for our district, and the first time a strategy involving complex technology was ever really used successfully.
"Oh, you two will look so wonderful after they're through with you!" Aeliana looks very enthusiastic about the whole thing. She's been our District's escort for eight years, and must have seen many tributes go through the same process. How she can act this excited when she knows exactly what's coming beats me.
Before long Clink and I exit the train and are led through a series of similar looking hallways. He is deposited in his room first, while I am taken a bit further before being dropped off.
The next three hours are grueling. A team of bizarrely tattooed Capitolians strip me, analyze me and then proceed to remove just about every hair on my body that isn't on my head or face.
At one point one of them prods my eyebrows with distaste. "There's nothing there!" She complains, "We're going to have to ink them."
Her colleague nods, and then a long, vibrating needle hovers above my face. "Wh-what? What's-" I panic.
The stylist cuts me off. "Your eyebrows are a bit too sparse. Hold still!"
There is a faint stinging sensation, but it's bearable. The Capitol must have very high standards. Never in my life have I heard anyone say anything about unattractive eyebrows, of all things.
By the time they are finished with me I am already hungry again. The apple I ate hurriedly on the train this morning seems like so long ago, and I wonder what delicacies I'll be given for lunch.
"Now stay right there. Your stylist will be here shortly."
The prep team leaves, and I shuffle a bit in my seat. I am naked, but strangely do not feel self-conscious. These people clean tributes up for a living; they have probably seen far worse than me.
A woman with glittery bronze hair enters. So this is my stylist, I think. She doesn't look any different from the other glitzy Capitol women. The only thing that sets her apart is the air of authority she possesses.
"Stand up," she commands brusquely. When I do she taps her foot impatiently, eyeing me up and down. "At least you're not emaciated this year. The one they gave me last year was so skinny that everything we dressed her in kept slipping off."
Her comments are cruel, and I have to remind myself that I am not a person in her eyes. All tributes are just projects to these people, no more than characters in an annual TV drama. The girl she's talking about -the one from last year- was a scrawny factory dud who had four little sisters her parents had to feed. She died in the bloodbath, killed by the District Four boy who would go on to get third place. At least her parents didn't have to look her killer in the eyes on the Victory Tour.
I hope mine don't.
The thought of my family standing onstage, forced to listen to the victor give an impersonal speech written about me by some Capitol official, brings tears to my eyes. My mother will probably cry. My father will try to comfort her, but he too will be fighting back tears. Dash will glare at the victor, probably wishing he could punch him or her in the nose. And Coyle...
He'll be four by then. He won't understand how a stranger standing onstage knows my name, talks about me like we knew each other.
I wonder how long until he forgets me. Nobody remembers things from when they were three, and in time he likely won't remember my face. He'll know he had a sister, of course, but she'll be nothing to him other than a tragic story.
That idea is the saddest of all.
The stylist leaves me to go sort something out with her colleague, and I put the thin robe given to me by my prep team back on. Shortly after, a man in red comes in with a tray of food. He places it on a small table in front of me, then leaves with a bow.
The food is good, but what food here isn't? It's a rich stew that smells heavenly. I bite down on some sort of meat and sigh happily.
After I finish eating, my prep team returns. I am told it is time to get dressed for the Victory Tour.
"But that's not for hours!" I exclaim.
One of the women rolls her eyes. "Fashion takes time. Not that you'd understand. Come now, your stylist is waiting across the hall with your dress."
I spend the next few hours being manhandled once again. Everything is fitted with careful precision. I'm not in view of a mirror and getting a good look at the dress is impossible with how fast everyone is fluttering about, so I don't really know how it looks. I'm not really optimistic about it, though.
Over the years District Three's stylists have consistently stuck with a factory theme. Although relevant to our district's industry, the outfits don't usually endear us to sponsors. Two years ago both tributes were dressed in gray boxes with all sorts of buttons and knobs stuck to the sides. The symbolism was clear- technology and all that- but the getup looked ridiculous.
I'm not sure how long I stand there with my prep team, but eventually one of them glances at her wrist and grumbles something about not having enough time. Hearing this, my stylist stands up and gives me a once-over. "Not too bad. Someone curl her hair, then send her off."
Minutes later my prep team is finished with me. "Can I see it now?" I ask my stylist, who nods and points to a mirror at the other end of the room.
It takes all of my willpower to not rip the whole thing off when I see it.
This is the fashion I was told takes so much time?
The dress is gray, which I knew already because I had glimpsed parts of it as the team was dressing me. That in itself isn't so bad, but these people just had to go and add things. There are coils and bolts seemingly woven into the fabric. Gears are randomly stuck on in places, and there is an odd patch of shimmery black fabric on my left shoulder.
"That part represents factory smoke," one of the women behind me chimes in, seeing my fixation with that particular spot. I simply nod in reply, too horrified to say anything.
My shoes are simple gray flats to match the dress, and I even have a headdress made of long looping wire.
The ensemble is hideous.
I can't complain, though. It's not like that would change anything, anyway.
My stylist leads the way to the bottom level of the Remake Center, where most of the other tributes are already waiting. This is the first time I've seen any of them aside from Clink in person. Most are hidden beneath layers of clothing, so making out things like body shape is difficult.
I can afford to think about that later. I'll spend three days training with them, after all.
District Three's chariot is near the front of the line. We have just about the worst position in the line because we're so quickly forgotten. Districts One, Two and Four are always crowd favorites, and we're unlucky enough to be sandwiched in the middle. Overlooked.
Clink's outfit is no better than mine. His stylist went for a more robotic theme; he's dressed in what looks like a dark gray pre-Panem spacesuit, like the ones you read about in history books. It's complete with a stupid-looking glass dome covering his head.
"Nice outfit," I comment. Clink just looks at me and shakes his head, pointing to his ears.
"Can't hear you over the sound of my own breathing in here!" he yells.
The time for talking is quickly over as the anthem starts to play loudly. All of the sudden two giant doors open at the front of the lineup, and District One's chariot rolls out into the crowd.
I can see their chariot being broadcasted on the giant screens above the crowd. They look stunning, as expected.
When our horses begin to pull us forward I finally see everything. There are so many people! They reach over the sides of barriers, shouting and calling our names. Most of the attention and excitement is directed at Four behind us, but I hear my name more than once.
"Widget! Clink!" one woman screams. "I love you!"
These Capitol people make me want to shake my head in disbelief. You can't love me, I think, you don't even know me. You can't wait to see me die onscreen.
The chariots eventually pull to a stop in front of President Snow's mansion. I take a moment to look at the other tributes around me. Aside from One, Two and Four, the costumes are for the most part pretty ugly. The tributes from Seven are both dressed in tree costumes; Eight's tributes wear clothes that resemble patchwork quilts. Ten's stylists this year have dressed them up as farm animals, while Twelve's tributes wear baggy oversized miner getup.
Nine's aren't bad. The girl looks sweet, wearing a dress made from woven strands of wheat. The boy wears a similar outfit, but with a Grecian-style wheat crown adorning his head. Somehow he makes it look intimidating.
As if sensing my gaze, the boy turns his head and meets my stare with those deadly blue eyes. I feel the blood drain from my face as my breath catches in my throat. Scared, I quickly look away.
Snow begins his usual speech about the significance of the event, welcoming us all to the Capitol. I can't focus on his words. Somehow without looking I can feel the boy from Nine watching me intently, and my suspicions are confirmed when I chance a look to my left. Sure enough, his gaze is still trained on me; our eyes meet once again and he smiles unsettlingly.
When the parade is over we head to the Training Center, our home until the arena. Aeliana rides the elevator with us to the third floor, along with Beetee and Wiress. When we step out of the elevator, Beetee pats me on the back.
"Good job out there."
I snort. "Are you kidding? That outfit was awful!"
"It wasn't...the best," he admits. "But you made the best of a crappy situation. That's all anyone can really ask for."
I like Beetee. He's down-to-earth; he doesn't try to make things sound better than they are. And somehow he's still sane after seeing almost sixty of his tributes die.
"It's a big day tomorrow. Get changed. Shower. Eat. Get some sleep. In the morning we'll talk more about...things," he finishes.
"Okay," I say, heading to my room. The shower feels amazing, and I'm grateful to wash off all of the makeup from today. I manage to get rid of everything except the eyebrows; those are still darker and bushier than before. I wonder if they tattooed them or something.
It doesn't look bad, so I don't mind that much. Pulling on some more comfortable clothes, I head to the dining room for dinner. Beetee's right: it's going to be a big day tomorrow. I just hope I don't embarrass myself too much.