Calm Before The Storm {Finnick Odair}

The Performance

The time from then seemed to pass like a flash. She was whisked off of the train, thankfully this time there were no adoring fans to meet her, and she was sent into the remake centre.

There her prep team made quick work of preparing her, much quicker than they had been after the games. Although she supposed she was much healthier now than she had been. They waxed her all over, and they seemed to be even more thorough than they had been the first time she arrived.

Boa trimmed her nails and Blaire cut about a centimetre of split ends off her hair, before Vesta began to work on her make up.

Hebe did truly find herself liking her prep team. They were difficult to hate. Boa was full of amusing stories about the Capitol, ones that even Hebe with her hatred for that stuff could appreciate. Blaire was always overjoyed to see her, yes he was the most loud and garish of the trio but you could tell he did truly care. And Vesta, although she was a woman of few words, always smiled kindly at Hebe, and she remembered how she had reassured her the first time they'd put the waxing strips on her.

However sometimes she found the people of the Capitol difficult to like as well. Especially when the topic of the games came up. Hebe wondered how they could do the job they did, watching year after year as the tributes they tended to died, and not feel some kind of disgust at the games?

It was something she had learnt to ignore. It didn't do her any good to worry about her prep team's opinions on the games, especially when they were probably some of the most sympathetic you would find in the Capitol.

She couldn't imagine any of them paying for a victor's 'services'.

Hebe pushed that thought out of her head, and instead focused on the calming sway of Vesta's makeup brushes across her face.

Eventually they were done with her makeup for the performance and interview with Caesar, and she was sent down the hall for what felt like the thousandth time to see Tigris. For once the woman was there before her, her hair in its usual sleek ponytail. She wore a silky black dress with a lower neckline so you could see the patterns of her body modifications.

For some reason Tigris' feline attributes had never bothered Hebe in the same way the other ones she saw did. Perhaps it was because Tigris was such a clear embodiment of a tiger that they didn't feel like strange alterations, but instead visual enhancements of what she should look like. Maybe it was so natural that she should have the physicality of a tiger because she also had the spirit and name of one.

"Hebe, how are you dear?" She asked, stepping forward to remove the girls robe and examine the job the prep team had done. Once she was sure it was up to her standard she turned back around and began searching through the closets for Hebe's dress.

"I'm alright actually. Better than I thought I'd be."

"Oh?" Tigris said, sounding genuinely surprised, "Most tributes dread this part."

Hebe laughed bitterly, "Yeah, I mean can you blame them?"

"No I suppose not." Tigris replied.

It was silent for a moment before Tigris finally found what she was looking for and emerged from the closet.

In her hands were two dresses, one short and one long.

The longer one was eerily similar to the one Hebe had worn to the tribute parade, except in tones of blue and green. It had hundreds of scales linked together to form a lattice, almost like the scales of a fish. Hebe supposed that was almost certainly what she had been aiming for.

The other was more skin tight, and would probably go down to about her knees. It was quite unremarkable with its swathes of blue and green painted across it. Until Hebe noticed the back with the jagged fin running up the spine.