"Evelyn Brinley, better known as Lady Red, victor of the 72nd Hunger Games. Won her games at 15."
"Why Lady Red?"
"Because she always wears red. Oh, and she won her games by burning the remaining tributes alive."
✮
"𝑮𝒊𝒓𝒍 𝒐𝒏 𝒇𝒊𝒓𝒆? 𝑯𝒐𝒘 𝒄...
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EVELYN'S MOTHER LOVED DESIGNING DRESSES. She loved the art of designing and the feeling when she finally finished a dress. Of course, she never made a dress for herself, she never had enough fabric to do that. Despite living in the textile district, fabrics were hard to come by. But she had enough fabric to make a young-Evelyn-sized dress, so she would always give the dresses to her daughter.
Her mother would faint if she saw the dress Evelyn was wearing now. Once again, Xanther had managed to prove himself a genius. She was in a sleek, long-sleeved, sweetheart-neck, red dress that went down to the floor. There was a slit that went up to her knee and the Capitol had a machine that could make braids in seconds, so Xanther had it style her hair into goddess braids.
"I'm probably going to change your style to knotless box braids before you go to sleep tonight," Xanther said as he did her makeup, "They'll be a lot easier to maintain than your natural hair in the arena."
"Okay," Evelyn muttered numbly, sitting completely still as the stylist finished up her face. This time he went for a bolder red instead of a soft one, and he added red gems under her eyes for the "cherry on top" as he called it.
"Caesar's interviews are straightforward, I promise you," Xanther told her, "He'll tell you what to say. Well, not exactly but he'll kind of guide you through it. Caesar is one of the best of the worst when it comes to the games."
"You don't seem like you're a big fan of the games," The tribute pointed out, crossing her arms as she turned to look at her stylist.
Xanther chuckled dryly, but his mouth formed a grimace, "I can't say I'm a big fan of them. I'm not the type of person to go crazy over the tributes. I enjoy designing for you guys though. You can despise me and the rest of the Capitol all you want, Evelyn, but you also have to keep in mind that this is what we grew up with. It's a reality TV show for us, not a homicide."
"It's a little hard to keep that in mind when I hear everybody cheering and shouting our names. And when people are betting on whether we live or not."
The stylist went silent for a moment, patting the girl on the cheek, "I know, it's disgusting to you guys. We're immoral and evil."
Evelyn was beginning to love her stylist, but he was still from the Capitol. He said things that pissed her off, and sometimes he said things in a tone that pissed her off. The condescension in his tone was clear, and she hated that. He said it like the districts had no right to hate the Capitol. Why shouldn't they hate the Capitol? The Capitol took everything from them for its benefit and then gave them nothing back. Nothing but a few grains and "protection".
"Mhm," The girl responded.
Xanther realized that she didn't want to talk anymore, so he let it go and led her backstage. All of the other tributes were already lined up in district order. 1 was in the front and 12 was in the back. The stylist didn't say anything else, he just shot her a thumbs-up, pushed her toward the line, and then walked off. Jordan was standing behind her, he was dressed in a black suit again and his black hair was tied back in a ponytail.
