ANOTHER COG IN THE MURDER MACHINE | FINNICK ODAIR

𝙲𝚑𝚊𝚙𝚝𝚎𝚛 𝟸

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I wrinkle my nose up in displeasure as the people of my prep team pluck every last hair from my skin. They had already bathed me and washed my hair, which was probably the best thing of this whole experience. I didn't have many actual baths at home, nowadays I usually just washed up with a damp rag in the morning before going to work with the animals.

"Alright dearie, stand on this pedestal and we'll go get Jynx," One of the ladies instructs me, helping me up onto the platform.

"Oh, I just love Jynx!" Another exclaims excitedly as they leave the room to go get the Jynx person.

I do what they say, standing awkwardly on the pedestal in a bra and underwear feeling uncomfortably exposed. The least I can hope for is that Jynx isn't a man– not a mean man, that is. This whole experience already has me freaking out enough.

"Fleur, for goodness sake, let me do my job!" A woman wearing an orange jumpsuit walks into the room, shutting the door behind themself. "Marrow Ellis, right?" I hesitate before nodding, and they hum. "My name's Jynx, though I'm sure you heard the prep team's jibber-jabber about me. I'll be your main stylist while you're here in the Capitol, getting you ready for interviews and the like..." She drones on, filling the room with a pleasant aroma as she walks around it. They're obviously wearing some kind of perfume, though it isn't one of those overwhelming ones that one of the girls of the prep team wore, managing to simultaneously burn my nostrils as she washed my hair.

"Please tell me you're not going to dress me up like a cowgirl," I murmur to Jynx.

"Oh god, no. Though I had to make the outfit slightly livestock themed, I will not be dressing you up as a cowgirl. I want to see the tributes flourish, not moo." They shake their head in disgust, thumbing through the rack full of dresses and suits.

"Ah, here we are!" She pulls out a burgundy dress that reaches the floor from the rack, showing it to me. The dress has a v-neck– though I trust that it will cover all the right bits– and a leg slit. "I took inspiration from your Reaping Day outfit, I hope you don't mind. I also added a leg slit for easier movement because these kinds of dresses can be a pain to walk in."

They help me get off the pedestal and into the dress, quietly guiding it onto my body. "There we go. What do you think?"

I look down at myself, smiling slightly. From what I could see, I actually looked pretty– which didn't happen often, especially for people in 10 who almost constantly smelled like animal poop. "I like it. Thank you."

"Aww, you're welcome, sweetie. It's my job to help you look stunning, after all– Those other stylists were not the best at doing that for other tributes from your District."

It took a few more minutes to pull the full outfit together, but in the end I'm wearing the dress, brown boots made of a mixture of leather on the outside and wool on the inside, and a cropped leather jacket. She also gave me a bull head ring and styled my hair into double french braids, each braid running down the adjacent shoulder.

As for makeup, eyeliner dully outlines my eyes, my lips are painted in a nude color, and blush is dusted over my cheeks and nose. Jynx had said something about my 'natural beauty' and 'not wanting to make me look like a clown', which I'm incredibly grateful for. From what I had seen from past Games on the TV, stylists tended to go way too overboard on makeup, especially for the higher Districts– or the Career Districts, as most people in 10, 11 and 12 called them. How the citizens of the Capitol could find that amount of makeup and puffy clothing that's hard to move in even slightly desirable, I would never know.