I can't help but think that what Cecelia is saying is wishful thinking. Some kind of dream of making the games worth something. The bond of twins, I think and scoff. What is a bond like ours worth if it's meant to be severed?
Still, I hold Fedya's hand when we step off the train. The crowd is huge. Some kind of light is flashing and I can see people with cameras and something on their backs making them look like huge bugs. I look away from the cameras only to face another one. Wherever I look, there's a face, a pair of eyes meeting mine. The crowd is so colourful it hurts my eyes. As Fedya waves carefully, I do too. There's a churning in my stomach that only gets worse when I lock gazes with a crying woman. She looks moved, wiping at her tears with a pastel purple handkerchief. I realize that she's grieving us already, like she knows her favorite character in a book is about to die. I swallow down on the bile in my throat and pull my hand out of Fedya's. I regret it as soon as he looks to me, confused, but I can't stomach it. I'd hold his hand anywhere else, but not here.
Cecelia nudges my shoulder and I know she wants me to grab his hand again, but I can't. Instead I let us be moved forward with the crowd, peacekeepers and a few flimsy ribbons the only thing keeping us from being trampled by our colourful fans.
The grooming process makes me feel not too unlike a sheep being sheared. The stylists working on me chat away, and I'm moved around like a doll so they can remove every last piece of hair on my body, including a moustache I wasn't even aware I had. They smear an odd-smelling liquid onto my skin and after a moment they just wipe the hair away. One of them cuts my hair, to make it more shapely, according to them. I can't tell much of a difference in the floor-length mirror by the table and chair I'm moved between. It's still short by the neck and ears, curtain-like swoops on top. Still red. At least I still look like me. They've done something to make my freckles more prominent and somehow dyed my lashes a darker brown, compared to the almost-white they'd been before.
I've zoned out again, watching myself in the mirror. I practise a winning smile. I don't know what that is, but anything works. Something charming that will win people over. There's a gap in my front teeth that Fedya doesn't have. Is that charming, or?
I jerk at the sound of the door opening. I reach out and grab the paper laid out on the table and pull it up to shield myself. Suddenly I'm acutely aware of how naked they've left me, and all I can do is stare at the woman entering.
She looks like a cat. A tiger. I've seen people here that have had some kind of surgery to look better (or what they deem to be better, at least), but nothing quite this drastic. Her face has been altered to truly look like that of a cat. Her upper lip is big and has big whiskers protruding from it, and she has what I can only assume are tattoos that make her stripy. Even her eyes are somehow cosmetically altered, her pupils shaped like slits. For a moment I expect her to hiss or meow at me, but she speaks like everyone else in the capitol.
"Hello, dear", she says, "My name is Tigris. You're Freya, no?"
No one here ever asks my name, just says it and asks me if that's right. Of course it is. I highly doubt they'd mix me up with someone else, not even Fedya. I nod quietly. Tigris. Fitting name. She comes closer and places a pair of long, clawed fingers under my chin. Moves my head up, then side to side. Calculating. I lick my lips nervously.
"Don't do that. You'll dry your lips out", she notes immediately and I press my lips together like I'm trying to keep my tongue in my mouth. "You're cute. Not that beautiful, but cute. We can work with that", she notes. It stings, for just a second, that she doesn't think I'm beautiful. Then I realize her definition of beauty probably is very different from mine. I don't look very.. Feline.
She perches on the edge of the chair and looks me over. I'm still holding the cloth to my chest, feeling pried open by her gaze. I look away. I don't like her very much.
"We're dressing you as needles", she says. She doesn't seem perfectly happy with it.
I look back to her. "Needles?" I ask. It's the first word I've said to her. What's needles supposed to mean? Just like, one big needle? Is she actively trying to make me the laughing stock of the entire Capitol?
"Yes. Needles", she agrees, but apparently doesn't want to elaborate.
In the end, the needle look wasn't that bad. Both me and Fedya were dressed in hot pink jackets. He had a pair of matching trousers and I was in a pleated skirt. Now, hot pink doesn't really have anything to do with needles, but they probably wanted to use some kind of good, interesting fabric since we're from the textiles district. The real kicker were the hundreds of thousands of needles sewed on to the clothes, rustling like jewellery as we moved. I'd already pricked myself twice. The jacket weighed a ton, and the skirt was uncomfortably tight around my waist so as not to slowly glide down and off me. At least we weren't in huge, plush, phallic costumes resembling needles. Our hair had been spiked - mine upward, Fedya's ponytail straight down. It wasn't my favorite part of it all, but anything was fine when I thought about what it could've been.
Koltander Créme claps his hands in excitement. He's changed his look up and is now in a full-body, skintight, metallic blue jumpsuit. It makes his nipples uncomfortably obvious through the fabric and the only thing keeping me from looking any further down is the obscene amount of bangles he's wearing, matching the rainbow leopard sidecuts. The jumpsuit even reaches out to his fingers, like some kind of ridiculous built-in glove. How he even got into it was a mystery to me.
"You two look great! It's honestly so new and fresh to see twins here! You look so alike! I've honestly never seen twins before. Can you read each other's thoughts?" He asks and reaches out to correct a needle that's wrapped itself around another one on the shoulder of my jacket. I give Fedya a look, and he looks like he's about to burst into laughter. I bite my tongue, Fedya's laughter threatening to infect me, too.
"No", Fedya replies, "but sometimes we need to go to the toilet at the same time", he notes. I reach out to smack his shoulder and only realize a fraction of a moment too late that it's a bad idea, some of his needles digging into my hand. I swear and pull my hand back. Koltander doesn't seem to notice. He's nodding solemnly, like Fedya has given him some important information about how twins work.
*
"Do not hold hands", Cecelia instructs as we get onto our chariot. "It might put you off balance, but it might also be read negatively, like you're trying to stand out. Don't try too hard. Just smile and wave like the rest of them, listen when President Snow speaks, and then smile and wave again on your way back out. Got it?" She asks. We nod, inclined to believe she's right.
And so the chariots ride. The crowd roars. I plaster on my previously practised winning smile and fight the weight of the jacket to wave to the people. They don't look real to me. They remind me more of a flowing piece of fabric, every head a part of a thread. It moved in unison, in waves, as their hands wave. I imagine myself a needle on a huge table, soon to be picked up and used by the seamstress. She needs me to create, to sew. She doesn't care much for me, I'm just a tool. The fabric moves, like waves, and she picks me up and threads me. Later she'll put me back down, and I'll lay still and unmoving until she returns, for my only purpose is to be used by her until I break or rust away.
I feel the faintest tap to my hand and I turn to look. It's Fedya. He gives my half-lowered hand a pointed look and I realize what I'm doing. I raise it again and keep waving, the muscles in my arm already burning. I've been zoned out most of the ride. We're already rolling into the square in front of the President. He's on the upper end of middle age, I think, some of his hair still blonde, though it's hard to pick apart from the grey at this distance. His lips look red and his eyes serpentine. I much prefer Tigris' gaze. I wish quietly that he doesn't look my way.
He holds the same speech I've seen on TV sixteen times. He thanks the crowd and the tributes, tells us why we're doing what we're doing, and officially inaugurates The 63rd Hunger Games. I swallow down more bile and look to Fedya. He's already looking at me. We both lurch as the horse starts moving again and I bite the inside of my cheek. An unwanted fantasy flashes before my eyes, of Fedya beaten and bloody, dead in a creek somewhere. His limp body, floating down a stream, colouring the water red and brown with his blood. All of a sudden, I'm convinced I'm going to throw up.
My mouth waters all the way back to the training centre. I manage to, somehow, keep my lunch down until we're out of sight of the crowd. I run a couple of steps off the chariot, on my way to a bathroom, until I realize I have no clue where one is. I end up emptying my stomach onto the concrete floor. I retch again, and again, and again, and I know the other tributes are looking. They see me for what I am now - Scared and weak, unable to even handle the slightest ride of a chariot.
"Oh deary me", Koltander Créme says. "Poor girl! You must've eaten too much, you poor starved soul!" He says. At least he's kind enough to help Fedya get me onto my feet and wave some servants down to wash it away. I give the avoxes a momentary, apologetic look. I nod. It's helpful that he gives me the perfect reason. I don't even have to lie, he does it for me. When I look at Fedya, though, I know he knows it's not refeeding syndrome. I swallow down more saliva, but I feel better. Still weak, but not as nauseous.
I don't eat a lot of dinner that night. Partially because I still feel queasy, partially to let Koltander believe the reality he's built up for himself. Fedya keeps commenting on how good the food is. Koltander chirps back, thinking he's keeping a good conversation, but I know he's trying to make me eat. I do my best. Small pieces of bread at a time. The crescent-shaped, flaky, almost sweet breads are my favorite, enough to make my mouth water by just looking at them.
Once dinner is done, I lay down in my bed and stare at the ceiling. It's not long until the door creaks open. Fedya doesn't have to knock and he knows that. Instead he hops into the huge bed beside me and lays down. We stare at the ceiling together for a while, like we're trying to see constellations in the way it's built. Like we used to.
"You okay?" He finally asks.
"Never been better", I reply drily.
He sighs. "What did you think about today? During the chariot ride?" He asks.
I'm quiet for a while. We rarely keep things from each other, but I don't want to scare him. I lick my lips and think of Tigris and her feline eyes telling me to stop. "I imagined you dead", I admit, "Floating down a river."
He's quiet for a long time. I am too. We don't have to speak to know what the other one is thinking. That the odds were not in our favour this time around. That the true scope of our situation is impossible to understand. That one, or both of us, is going to be dead in a few days.
"If you die, I'm killing myself", I tell him. "If you don't win, I don't either."
He's quiet again, "I might die. I probably will. We probably will."
"I'll try to protect you", I say, and he says it too, like some stupid stereotype of twins finishing each other's sentences. We turn to look at each other, then. My own face is mirrored in his. He's annoyed at me, angry even. I realize he thinks the same of me as I think of him. He thinks I have a chance.
"Don't you understand I don't stand a chance?" I ask. "I'm not like you. I'm not agile, nor am I as fast of a learner as you. You're charming and I'm not. You stand a chance. Just let me protect you."
He sits up, teeth clenched, "You think so little of yourself", he says through his teeth, "You're fast. You're smart. You're one of the most resourceful people I know, Freya." He says and turns to glare at me.
I glare back, but I can't stand to do so for too long. I ponder what he's said and all I feel is sadness. What does it matter who of us can do what? Why do we care so much? Do we really think we can survive against the careers? I reach out and grab his hand. It's stiff, but after a moment he lets me take it. "To protect each other. To not hurt or kill each other. On blood", I say, reminding him of our pact, the one that left me so calm after we made it. It settles me, and it seems to settle him, too. I sit up and hug him.
We sit there for a very long time, chest to chest, heart to heart. I can hear his pulse, his neck pressed to my ear. Our hearts beat at the same pace, as close to each other as they could get. My brother, his heart that i've shared my existence with. We'll go out of it together.
