A Circus of Eagles [An HG Fanfic]

Makeover - Apollo

Apollo

The women crowded in front of me look nervous and I don't blame them. Cadence allowed herself to be led away easily enough but I'm not a soft touch and judging by the way they hang back before approaching me, they know that.

As usual, there's four of them. The designer and the three stylists. In this case they look like a family; they all have the same wide mouths and high foreheads. Apart from that there are no similarities between them whatsoever. Each seems to have settled on their own color scheme that stands out more than the actual clothes that they're wearing and which, even for Platinum, where they must be from, is a bit much. You wouldn't find such tackiness in Amethyst.

Scratch that. You would, just not anywhere around me. Give me my favorite black skinnies and black satin any day.

After a hushed pause in which I stare at them and they stare at me, the smallest inches forwards. She's dressed in a sickening combination of sky blue and baby pink and her eyes are wide and shimmer unnaturally. "Apollo?"

I nod.

"Apollo...Lyric?"

"If I'm not then they've got the wrong guy."

The yellow-and-purple one and the red-and-mauve one titter behind their hands as if I've said something hilariously funny. These two look my age or at the very least hardly any older. They must have been in the reaping bowl yesterday - what would have happened if they'd been reaped? Does this family supply a constant stream of eye-watering stylists? Do they all have to wear sunglasses inside?

"It is you!" She reaches out for my cuff and then snatches her hand away. "I always thought...okay, we always thought," she amends, when the yellow-and-purple one coughs, "well, we love Not My Scene, okay? Like, really love them. We've got all your chips! Like, Ganna there - she's Morgana only don't call her that -"

"He can call me anything he likes."

Yikes. She even flutters her eyelashes with it. I consider telling her that she's not my type but I've met girls like this before; it doesn't make a difference. So I stay quiet while the younger one keeps on chattering. The more they chatter, the less input I'll have to make and the less time they'll spend fussing with my hair.

"Like I was saying, like, Ganna collects every picture of you from the holos, right? She's got them all plastered up around her walls and...anyway. And Brianne has been to every single one of your gigs, like, but I wasn't allowed to go to the last one because...oh! How thoughtless of me. I'm scatty."

I nod, almost remarking that that is self-evident. She chuckles but can't meet my eyes. "No, I mean...it's my name, like. My name is Scatty."

"Scatty," I repeat, slowly, wondering what kind of monsters her parents are. She flushes. Not that it's easy to tell under the porcelain foundation, but it's definitely there, a shadow blooming on her cheeks.

"Ye-es. Scatty. You can laugh if you want, like, I won't mind."

"Only because it's him!"

She turns on the red-and-mauve one and for a second it doesn't matter that she's a head shorter than them because she practically explodes with fury. "Shut up, shut up, shut up, Bree! Just because Mother hadn't run out of imagination when she gave birth to you and just because you've got a thing for that what's-his-face with the pig nose doesn't mean you can embarrass me like this, alright?"

The older two giggle to themselves again and Scatty bursts into tears and sweeps from the room, trailing curses. The remaining woman sighs.

"I'm sorry you had to see that, Apollo," she says. Her voice is soft and gentle and patient and she's just watched the whole scene without blinking. "My nieces can be cruel to each other."