¹ THRONE ─ the hunger games

[ 013 ] kiss the ring and let 'em bow down

ALL AFTERNOON, Iko's prep team swarmed her without mercy and without reserve.

Time passed painfully slow as she kept her arms firmly at her sides in an effort to resist the pressing urge to hit them whenever they came too close, closing her eyes whenever they told her to so they could paint her eyelids and dust powder over her nose. They primped and prepped, slathered her in questionably coloured products that made her wither a little on the inside at the strange sensation, waxed and trimmed and plucked at misplaced hairs and tutted like she was at fault for the state of her appearance, clucked and flustered over ugly scars she refused to cover up and the dryness of her skin. She'd been through this once, prior to the tribute parade, but she still wasn't inured to the persistent and pervasive invasion of her personal space. But what did this sort of invasion mean to these people, who've undergone so many aesthetic surgeries they barely resembled human beings? Come to think of it, Iko had begun to think of her prep team as a trio of exotic birds rather than actual people as they hustled and bustled around her like bees buzzing around their hives in the spring.

Granted, Iko thought that if she was going to be a victor of the 68th Hunger Games, she should probably learn their names. They were going to be part of her entourage for her victory tour, anyway. But after that, they weren't her problem anymore. So, maybe not.

Gritting her teeth, Iko tried distracting herself with the Games as Thing 1 and 2 fussed over her eyebrows and hair in a flurry of hands and tools and Thing 3 busied herself with ripping off the wax strips from her legs. While they worked, they chattered away in bubbly, agitated voices that drilled through Iko's head. From time to time, she caught words like shiny and fabulous and in-season, and none of what they were talking about registered in her mind. Each time Thing 2 got a little too exited, she tugged on Iko's hair a little too hard and a spike of pain lanced through her scalp. Iko hissed, and Thing 2 dissolved like foam into stuttered apologies and fearful eyes.

Not soon enough, they stepped away from her, and Iko's skin stung from all the handling, all that grime scrubbed from her flesh and out from under her nails, polished and buffed and shined until she glowed like satin. Somehow, despite the hours of discomfort and torture, she'd come out feeling like a brand new person. There was a cloth thrown over the full-body mirror, which Iko was pretty sure orchestrated for entertainment value, so she wouldn't see her prep team's masterpiece until Janus had her fitted in her dress. All this work just for three minutes of stage-time seemed a little excessive.

Without wasting a second, Janus entered on cue, toting a long, flat bag in which Iko assumed was her dress. Iko stood.

"Humour me this once," Janus said, shaking the bag. "Close your eyes."

Iko complied, too out-of-body to resist. Not once back home had she ever bothered spending this much time on her appearance. She heard the sound of the bag unzipping, a rustle of what sounded like a thousand small rocks clattering against each other, and then the liquid cool of satin slipping over her skin like water cascading down her body. After a couple seconds of silence, and Janus making sounds of approval, Iko heard the hush of the cloth over the mirror as it fell away. Then she felt Janus' smooth hands on her shoulders as he guided her to her left a couple paces.

"Okay, now open them."

Iko's eyes snapped open and the person in the mirror looked nothing like the monster who'd grown up learning how to be deadly. In the mirror stood a girl with the night sky for her evening gown, a thousand tiny, glistering diamonds winked back at her, like Janus had sewn stars into the skirt of her dress, tumbling like black smoke down her legs in a small pool of gossamer at her feet. The sleeves were sheer, shimmering with tiny flecks of silver. Her skin shone like moonlight, and her eyelids were artfully smudged with dark shadows that made her seed-black eyes gleam wickedly. Under her eyes, from the lower lid, thin rays of silver beamed down her cheeks. They'd painted her lips black, smudging silver glitter over her bottom lip as though she'd just sipped the stars from a straw. Her nails were painted a glossy black, tipped with silver, like the edge of a blade. Atop her hair, which cascaded past her shoulders in dark waves, sat a silver laurel wreath. Her crown.