CHAPTER FIVE
CYN'S P.O.V.
I've been in the Remake Center of the Capitol for hours. My hair is soft and shiny, my nails are perfectly shaped, my skin is new and soft. I feel like my identity has been changed too. This isn't me, it's who the Capitol wants me to be.
My prep team is finally done with me, and I wait in a room by myself. I wait for my stylist. Her name is Royal.
She walks through the door and the first thing I notice about her is that she doesn’t look like your normal Capitol citizen. She looks young with her short blonde hair, spiked up so you can see her natural light brown hair color growing in. She wears so little makeup, I barely notice it.
“Hello Cyn. I'm Royal, your stylist.”
“Hello.”
“Follow me to a sitting room, and we'll talk about your costume for the opening ceremonies.” She gestures out the door. I follow Royal into another room with chairs and couches and a table full of fancy Capitol dishes.
“So about your costume.” Royal begins, taking a seat on one of the couches.
“District eight. Textiles.” She says, like she's waiting for me to ask what my costume will be. As I take a seat on a small red chair, I try to think back to past games and what District 8 usually wore. Our District, in a way, represents clothes and fashion, so our opening ceremonies costumes are important to the stylists, but they usually get the wrong idea. District 8's costumes are the same every year: A colorful catastrophic clash of different fabrics and patterns with ridiculous headdresses.
I don't expect anything different.
“What are you thinking for my costume?” I ask.
“My partner stylist and I think you and your District partner should have costumes that don't match, but compliment each other.” I can't really imagine what she has planned.
A few hours later, I’m dressed in a short fitted dress in the style of a spool of thread. The bust is made of a silvery white tulle fabric, ruffled all around to my back. The same fabric and style just above my knees makes the skirt of the dress. In between these two pieces of silver tulle is hot pink thick thread, tightly wound from my ribs down to my mid thigh, forming my dress and making me look like a spool of thread. My hair is up in a high bun on top of my head with a bun the same color as my dress.
Princeton on the other hand is wearing a simple all-silver suit. Looking at us together, we look like a needle and thread, which is our District symbol. We wait for the command to board the chariots and wait for the parade to start. Our chariot is silver, pulled by gray horses. I look around at some of the other tributes and their costumes. District 1 is dressed head to toe in fake gems, pulled by white horses in a gold chariot. The District 4 female tribute, Calypso, I recognize her from the reaping. Calypso is dressed in something that looks like two coral seashells forming a costume. District 5's chariot is gold, pulled by pale tan horses. The District 5's female tribute, Electra, is in a dress that, from the waist down, looks like square flakes of gold with electricity running through the entire dress.
The tributes don't really talk to each other, they all just glare at each other from a distance as if planning who to kill first.
I don't trust anyone here, except Princeton of course.
We are told to wait in our chariots for the tribute parade to start.
Princeton steps on the chariot, extending a hand to me to help me up, he doesn't let go of my hand as we stand side by side on our chariot.