The Hunger Games ~ Peeta's POV

Chapter 4

Ch. 4

I cough as a woman named Ceria powders down my face with some type of coverup. It burns and gets up my nose whenever I inhale.

"Sorry, sweetie," Ceria apologizes. "It's supposed to clean your face and get you to beauty base zero." Ceria has a bright green swirl on the side of her left cheek and red hair, neon, so you can tell it's dyed.

"Don't mention it," I choke as she applies more of it to my face and neck. My prep team consists of three people- Gladius, Ceria, and Tigra. Gladius's whole body is a light three purple, probably what most Capitol people would call fashionable. Tigra embraced her own name by adding blue stripes tattooed to her arms and legs, and she has a chunk of navy blue in her honey blonde hair. They all buzz around me, inspecting me, improving me, trying to make me perfect, or as Ceria put it, beauty base zero. Gladius rips waxing paper off of my leg and I yelp. He smiles at me apologetically.

"My bad, Peeta, but it's going to hurt just a wee bit." RIP! I wince and imagine how many more to go.

"Why do I need to be waxed? I'm not a girl." I frown, and cross my arms over my chest. Tigra shrugs.

"Part of beauty base zero," she shrugs and goes back to snipping my hair here and there with an expensive looking pair of scissors. Of course. Beauty base zero. Right.

I sigh, exasperated, and look around at the room. It's a large room, painted light green, with a platform in the middle in which I stand on. There's a mirror for a wall to my left, and a big table of food behind the platform. There's also a table where all of the beauty tools are located. My prep team continues my whole total body makeover thing until I hear the clicking of heels clacking across the room.

"Hello, Peeta, hello, Gladius, Ceria and Tigra," a woman says in a clear voice. I look up to see a medium sized figure with short, honey blonde hair stride through the door and across the room over to me and the prep team. She looks fairly young, maybe mid twenties, early thirties.

"Portia!" The prep teak squeals with glee on behalf of their friend's arrival. "We were just finishing up on Peeta," Gladius continues while sweeping something blonde into a bucket. "He has a lot of hair." I bite my lip.

"I've noticed," Portia says as she inspects me thoroughly. "Good job on the hair, though, Gladius." Gladius salutes, which I find rather odd, and my prep team leaves the room. The door clicks shut.

"So, Peeta, what do you think?" I'm not sure if she means my look, or the Capitol, or something else.

"About what?"

"Yourself, silly. Look!" Portia laughs like the tinkling of bells, but her laugh has nothing on Katniss's. She points to the mirror wall and I turn around to face myself, but I look like an Oompaloompa.

"Don't worry, the orange powder will wear off in a few minutes. It's supposed to clean your pores." How can powder clean my pores? I don't know. "Just ignore the color." I study myself with squinted eyes and notice that I have no blemishes whatsoever.

"Flawless, I guess," I mumble, and she hands me my robe. And my dice.

"Here. Some of the Capitol staff found this in your pants pocket, and I figured you might want it back." I smile at her now, a real, genuine smile, and she smiles back. "I'm Portia, by the way, your stylist, even though you probably already knew that." We sit down at the table filled with food.

"Are you new?" I ask. "I haven't seen you before."

"Yes," she simply states and goes back to eating her chicken caesar salad. "So my partner, Cinna, and I will be working on you and Katniss's costume for the Chariot." Oh no. In the past the District twelve tributes were always naked and covered in black coal dust. We'll be no exception, for sure. "So, as tradition, we have to stick with the topic of coal." Oh, boy. "So, what happens to coal?" Lord, just kill me now... "Fire. That's what happens." She smiles deviously.