24 Years, 24 Tributes

Chapter 14

This chapter is another series of snippets from the characters who didn't get a POV last chapter. Not all the chapters will be in this format, but it seemed to fit here. I tried to capture various stages of the preparation for the Parade. Next chapter will have a different POV entirely.

Royal Spinel POV

The Capitol was a nice place to visit, but I was glad I didn't live there. It looks like it will have some top-notch training rooms, at least. Azure was cool enough. I'd seen him around the District before he left for the Games, but I was pretty young then. There was just something off about the Capitol. Back in 1, things were luxurious and all, but we had class. The Capitol was tacky. There was no way around it. Everything lit up, everything was sprayed with glitter, everyone seemed to be trying to be more bombastic than the next…

I was about to meet my stylists and get ready for the Parade. I had a feeling they were going to be even worse.

Venus POV

What a waste of time. What a colossal, enormous waste of time.

I was ready to hit the training room and see what the trainers had to offer, and here I was stuck getting poked and prodded and slathered and powdered by a bunch of silly old buzzards.

I wasn't sure I could until the Games started to kill someone.

Spencer POV

At first I wasn't sure about a bunch of people I didn't know dressing me up like a doll. That was before I discovered my razor-sharp fashion sense. I grew up wearing the same boring brown shirt and pants every day. When I saw the rooms packed full of tailored jackets, silk and satin button-up shirts, and more different types of ties than I could count, I thought I'd found heaven.

Then I saw the hair salon, and I knew.

Celestial POV

"Four has lots of water, right?" I heard my head stylist Rouge say to Kohl, one of her assistants. "I was thinking we'd make her into an icicle. What do you think?" she asked, turning to me.

"It doesn't really get cold much back home," I said.

"Oh," she said, and she drooped a little. "What do you have?"

I looked at my token.

"We have otters."

Daniel POV

Right after my insane stylist Blush finally managed to remove all of my clothes, I realized Sarla was going through the exact same thing. I leapt off the table and ran for the door.

"You can't go to the parade like that!" Blush protested as he ran after me.

"Gimme my pants! I ain't letting you lunatics accost my sister!" I said.

"She's probably already dressed. Some people aren't impossible to work with," Blush said.

I figured it wouldn't help her to have her buck naked brother storm to her rescue, so I sat back down on the table and glared daggers at Blush as he finished. I think it was the fastest he ever dressed anyone.

Astra POV

"What on Earth is this?" I asked my stylists as they finished my outfit. I'd already endured scrubs, pluckings, tweezers, makeup, and all sorts of horrors. This was just insult to injury.

"It's your outfit, silly!" my stylist Puff said.

"But what is it?" I repeated.

"It" was a weird gray blanket-like wrap that she tied on to me like a towel cape. She triumphantly topped my head with a headband covered in different shapes.

"It's abstract," she said, explaining nothing.

Last year the tributes from Six were dressed as the engine and caboose of a train, so things could be worse. I looked at my outfit and realized with horror that my stylist was actually improving.

Timber POV

"I don't wanna take a bath! NO, NO, NO!" I yelled as my three stylists wrestled with my shirt.

"But you're filthy! You can't have people see you like this!" Truffle said. She pulled my shirt over my head, muffling my protests.

After an epic battle, we decided I would take a bath still wearing my underwear. I was not about to let a bunch of ladies see me naked.

"It's nothing we haven't seen before," Cocoa sniffed. I folded my arms and said nothing. I continued sitting with my legs folded and my arms crossed as my stylists added powders and flower petals and junk to the water. It actually was the best bath I'd ever had. But I didn't want to take a bath.

Alayzea Mont POV

It was hideous.

I looked like a giant freaking sewing needle. I could assume Caldwell was wrapped in miles of thread like a fat caterpillar.

"No," I said to my head stylist, Baste.

"What's wrong? You look marvelous," he said.

"Take it off. Take it all off. You are the worsts stylists I have ever met," I said.

Baste looked like he'd failed his glorious ancestors. He dismantled the costume and stared at me as I stood in a white slip.

"Okay, here's what we're going to do…" I began. I took things over from there.

Miller POV

I looked good enough to eat.

More specifically, I looked like a giant loaf of bread. My stylist took one look at me and decided to break out his "husky" design. According to him, I was the perfect shape. There was only one thing that bothered me.

"Hey, you guys got any snacks around here?"

Bree POV

My stylists sure were nice. They guided me through everything and before I knew it I looked prettier than fresh butter. I couldn't wait to see what kind of outfit they had for me. Last year I remembered watching Leather and Cornflower in their black-and-white cow outfits. The year before that, the two tributes wore black-and-white cow outfits. Come to think of it, for the last five years it had been the same outfits.

"Are you ready?" Mint called as she rummaged in a closet.

"I'm ready! What am I wearing?" I answered excitedly.

She exited the closet and held up my outfit.

It was a black and white cow dress.

Apollo POV

I knew from the start my stylists and I weren't going to get along.

"I was talking to your sister's stylist Pecan," Filay began. "She and I think that since you're twins… you should dress alike!" He said this like it was a completely innovative idea.

I rolled my eyes. We got over that stage when we were three.

"Like, in the same clothes? I don't know if we'll fit," I said solemnly. I was sure that at this point he couldn't get any dumber.

"No, in matching outfits!" Filay said.

And with that, he proved me wrong.

Valerie POV

Ow, ow, ow, ow…

I was not aware I had so many things wrong with my body. Every hair got ripped from every piece of skin on me. My eyebrows were savaged until they looked like they were drawn on. I was dropped into three separate tubs filled with soaps, perfumes, and moisturizers. If I hadn't watched the whole thing happening on the wall mirrors, I wouldn't have recognized myself.

As I was gingerly toweling off and trying not to touch anything with my tender skin, my stylist, Cuisine, smiled at me and said the words that stopped my heart.

"And now the fun part begins!"