The Land of Blood and Honey (The Hunger Games Peeta's P.O.V)

Chapter 5

Chapter: 5

"Pop!" I hear the noise of a lid being opened by a member of my prep team; I nervously await what is inside the container, until Flux a gold haired member of my prep team scoops a hand full up of what appears to look like some kind of gel, out of the container. Flux proceeds by rubbing it around my chin, mouth, and side burns.

The gel has a warm tingly sensation at first, then it slowly turns to a stinging burn, I let the words escape my mouth "ouch! What is this?" I ask Flux trying not to move much.

"Calm down its H.D," he tells me, "don't worry it'll make you look almost as handsome as me, unlike your little friend I heard she was a nightmare to work with," I laugh at this although the gel continues to sting. "What exactly is H.D?" I ask, "Hair disintegrator!" he gasps, "It gets rid of all your grody facial hair."

I laugh and the stinging stops, they wipe it off my face and strip away my robe. Flux and the rest of the team take a step back and smile, "you're golden! Let's hope your fellow tribute can be fixed up as nice as you, you'll have Capitol girls falling at your mercy" flux tells me.

I smile and thank them as they walk out and make me wait for Portia my stylist, she walks in and inspects me and says "you're a lot more handsome then I expected you to be." She says "and you have a great body build, very muscular, I think Cinna's idea is going to look great on you!"

"Thanks, but what exactly is the plan?" I ask

"You see the idea is to have you dressed in your districts profession," she starts "which in your case is coal miners," I pause and think to myself good god I'm going to look so stupid in the opening ceremonies!

"Let me guess we're going to either be naked with coal dust painted on our bodies or were going to wear stupid lantern hats? Either way it's going to be a failure." I tell Portia, she chuckles and shakes her head in disappointment, "have faith in me Peeta, you really think I'd let someone as handsome as you look like an idiot in front of all Panem."

I laugh and say "I hope not," a few hours later I'm dressed standing next to Katniss, listening to Cinna, her stylist, he explains the effects the fake fire will have on our suits. "It's not real flame, of course, just a little synthetic fire Portia and I came up with. You'll be perfectly safe." Cinna enthusiastically explains. Although the idea doesn't frighten me too much, I still have doubts in the back of my mind, I could possiblely end up barbequed when we reach the city's center.

When I glance over at Katniss, she appears tp be a lot more worried than I am, I chuckle under my breathe and she turns to look at me, I shrug my shoulders and mouth "what?" at her she, she smiles and laughs. Then Cinna continues to blab on about how he wants people to remember her as "Katniss the girl on fire!"

Shortly after that Portia and my prep team arrive and were whisked down to the bottom level of the remake center which is essentially a gigantic stable. The opening ceremonies are about to start. Paris of tributes are being loaded into chariots pulled by teams of horses. Ours are coal black. Cinna and Portia direct us into the chariot and carefully arrange our body positions, the drape of our capes, before moving off to consult with each other.

"What do you think?" Katniss whispers, "About the fire?" I laugh and tell her "I'll rip off your cape if you'll rip off mine," "deal," Katniss says

I laugh once again and start to actually become nervous at the thought of becoming a human torch. "I know we promised Haymitch we'd do exactly what they said, but I'm not sure if he ever considered this angle." Katniss tells me, "Where is Haymitch, anyways? Isn't he supposed to protect us from this sort of thing?" I object, "With all that alcohol in him, it's probably not advisable to have him around an open flame," she says.