Hunger Games: Fandom Style

Chariots

Author's Note: Don't you love my creative chapter titles? I bet you'll never guess what this chapter's about!
Oh. You guessed it. In that case, let me get on to the main point: our lucky contest winners. After carefully reviewing all the suggestions I received, I created the costumes and gave credit where credit was due. If I used your idea, you can rest assured that a Capital stylist has your Username!
You'll notice none of the stylists have names. This is because I received no suggestions.
We are now . . . three chapters away from the bloodbath at the Cornucopia, not counting this one. Some deaths are set in stone. Others are negotiable. Feel free to try and persuade me to save Eowyn or kill Hans off painfully in the comments section.
My dear beta reader, you can rest assured that I have added material since you last saw this. Everyone else, enjoy! If clothes aren't really you're thing, (trust me, I don't blame you), you can rest assured in the knowledge that I hope to have a chapter on some Capital politics up by tomorrow. In the meantime, enjoy!

"No."
Leah's stylist blinked at her. "But - "
"No." It was the same thing she had said when he had told her to undress. It was the same thing she had said when they had tried to cut her hair. And she was going to keep on saying it until this idiotic man realized she'd rather ride the chariot stark naked than in the monstrosity that made even the mannequin look ridiculous.
It was made of a soft, silvery silk, which she could have dealt with. It was sleeveless which, whatever, fine. She could have even dealt with the whole "dress" thing.
She would not, however, wear a costume designed to look like a needle.
A tight hood was pulled around the mannequin's head so that the face poked out where the eye of the needle should be. The dress narrowed, becoming more and more skintight, until around the calves it gave up all together, narrowing to a point in the split skirt somewhere around the ankles.
Her only comfort was that right now some poor stylist was probably trying to put the leech into something equally as ridiculous. A spool of thread, maybe. She snorted. Seeing that would almost make riding in a chariot with him worth it. Almost.
Leah circled the dress like it was a wounded elk. "You can make alterations pretty fast, right? I mean, you'd have to, since you don't know what size the tribute is going to be."
"R-right."
"Great. So here's what you do. Make the hood looser, more the like the one I've got on now. Add some panels of fabric, really flowing, to the skirt, like - " She grabbed a napkin and pen from the table. She sketched it out quickly. "Like that. Much better, see? And then, to get that district flavor, we can add a sash, really loose, like a thread, and have a really big needle hanging on it to the side, like a sword." She stepped back from the design with some satisfaction.
Her stylist's mouth had dropped. She handed him the napkin. "What are you waiting for? Go. Do."
He scurried from the room.

Morgana surveyed the other tributes with a professional eye.
District 1, as usual, were dripping in jewels and frosted gold silks. The girl's hair was in a braid with deadly looking spiked wire woven into it. Pretty and deadly. Morgana approved.
District 2's offerings were dressed in gray with thick embroidery that could have almost been chiseled into it and light, swirling capes that looked like finely ground stone powder falling to the earth. The tributes themselves were well muscled but nothing remarkable, except for the way the boy kept patting his pocket. And the girl - Morgana's eyes narrowed. Was her locket glowing?
The dwarf was decked out in some sort of futuristic techno armor, as was that pale girl, Eowyn. The dwarf must have given his stylist fits with the dramatic alterations. Morgana smiled.
District 4's tributes looked surprisingly at home in romanticized pirate garb. District 5's clothes looked like waterfalls. Six's - well, Morgana wasn't sure how the stylists had managed to make railway themed outfits look tasteful, but they had.
For once, seven wasn't trees. Instead, the girl had been decked out like a wood nymph, complete with faint green highlights to her hair and around her eyes. Morgana was almost jealous, but then, unlike the girl, she wouldn't be dead in a month. The boy was dressed in a similar manner, but it didn't suit him quite as well, and he was obviously uncomfortable.
Eight was leather. Typical, although the confidence with which the tributes. wore it wasn't. The stylists for 9 had attached miniature smoke machines to the bottom of otherwise bland gray robes. The boy, Harry, seemed nervous. The girl was dancing in the rising smoke with an odd smile on her face. Had she been drugged with something?
The girl from 10 looked positively smug as she walked past Morgana. There was a faint whiff of something rich and earthy as she did. Odd.
Unlike his district partner, Sherlock had evidently refused to don a coal miner's uniform. Instead he leaned against his chariot in the same clothes he'd been reaped in. His dark eyes were scanning the other tributes. He paused a moment when they got to her. She looked away, unsettled.
Morgana, of course, looked fabulous in a sheath of gold fabric her stylist had said was an abstract representation of a wheat stalk. Arthur was dressed in a rich earth tones.
He frowned down at his sleeves. "I think I'm supposed to be dirt. That's rather insulting."
Morgana smiled at him as he helped her into the chariot. "It suits you." After all, you'll be buried beneath it soon enough, dear brother.
The fool took her hand and squeezed it in what he no doubt thought was a reassuring fashion as the chariot pulled out onto the track. Morgana's smile never flickered.
She did, however, look over her shoulder, just once. She could have sworn she had felt someone's breath on her neck.