Kindling the Spark

The Victory Tour

5: The Victory Tour

Gale POV

Today is the camera shoot for our Victory Tour outfits. The outfit that I will propose to Katniss in. Cinna and Portia arrived half an hour ago and are having tea with my family in our living room. I was told to go and have another bath or shower and make myself look the best I can. That's done now though and Portia will be coming up with my outfit soon. She's done fairly when in not making me look like I'm dressed up for Halloween so far, I can only hope she keeps it up.

I hear a knock and the door and tell her to come in. Portia looks my body up and down, examining me to see if I look clean enough and pretty enough, which makes me a bit uncomfortable. "We've matched your outfit with Katniss's," she tells me. "Most of the photos will be taken with you together. The pictures will be broadcast soon after we take them, but you probably won't get to District 11 until about three today."

Portia opens the bag, revealing my costumes for the next few days. There are three and they seem almost identical. There is also a set of casual black clothes for the train journey. First Portia gives me a suit the exact colour of the District 12 coal and a shirt in a slightly lighter grey colour. A black leather belt and some new shoes.

The material of the suit and shirt is odd, it seems to have threads of another fabric running through it, crossing and overlapping. The first few suits I have didn't have this feature. Noticing my interest in it, Portia smiles and takes an object out of her pocket. It seems like an oversized lighter.

"Another fire effect?" I ask her.

"Basically, but this time we aren't setting your whole outfit on fire. The fire will keep to certain threads that are running through the suit. I noticed you examining them." So I'll look like a piece of coal with fiery wires running through it. I can imagine it, it sounds like one of the better outfits.

She lights what I originally thought was a loose thread at the bottom. Slowly, the fake fire spreads throughout my shirt like the wires are veins. I look in a mirror at myself. Overall, my appearance is very District 12- and oddly in a good way. It doesn't look like normal smart clothes, but it also doesn't make me look ridiculous.

Portia brushes my hair to the side and teases out any tangles. She then highlights the odd thread dark grey or fiery orange to match with my outfit. Also, she puts a bit off make up on me just under my eyes to hide the dark circles resulting from nightmares about the Games nearly every night.

Then I am led out of the house to where there a crew of camera men stand with Katniss. Katniss is wearing a lighter version of my outfit. Her dress is the same colour as my shirt, paler than my suit. It also has the strands of fire through it and ginger highlights in her hair. There is something graceful about the dress, like a bird. A phoenix perhaps, rising from ashes and coal in District 12 to become a symbol of hope for the Districts. These are the clothes that I will propose in.

I smile at her and stand next to her. "You look amazing," I whisper to her. "Better than any other tribute or Victor that I've seen before." Katniss returns my smile and takes my hand in hers. I notice that she has mockingjays tattooed along her inner arms in light grey and the mockingjay pin in gold on the back of each hand.

We face the cameras, hand in hand. This seems like the pose that they wanted because there is the flash and click of cameras as we smile. We are shown the photo of ourselves. We look quite dark in the outfits. More smiling evilly than smiling happily I think. I wonder if this was the intended effect.

There are a few more photos taken and some of Katniss and I alone. Then we are taken back inside and dressed in different outfits to have pictures taken again. The next outfit is lighter and makes me look happy, not plotting. Katniss is wearing a similar dress to the one she wore at the interviews before the games.