Forbearance • A Cato Hadley Story

1.04

The Capitol was beautiful to Livia. The architecture of each building was exquisite and memorized the girl as she walked through the crowd to get ready for the Tributes Parade. One thing Livia picked up on quickly was that the people in the capitol must have thought that Halloween was everyday. Every outfit in Livia's sight was big, brightly colored, and definitely caught one's eye.

After walking for a bit, Livia was led into a building far more advanced technologically than any building she had ever walked into. Even with District Two being luckier than most, they didn't have amazing technology so Livia was quite impressed with the building. The girl was quickly rushed into a room around the size of her living room and was stripped of all her clothing, being forced to put on a blue hospital-like gown.

One by one strips with wax pulled out sections of hair from her unshaved legs. "Have you ever shaved?" the woman said with a look of disgust. Livia looked at the woman in utter shock at her words. Never had she been spoken to with such harshness. Even back at school in District Two Livia wasn't spoken to in such a tone. Never did she think that anyone would speak to her just as rude as the trainers back at school, let alone more so. But boy was she wrong.

"Well we don't exactly get the luxuries in District Two that you get here in the Capitol. So no, I haven't." Livia spoke back coldly, not in the mood to deal with the woman's attitude. After that the rest of the hour taken to cleanse her of any trace of her previous home was spent in silence; the only noise being the sound of hair being pulled from the remainder of her body hair and the brushing of her golden, medium length locks.

It wasn't until she had been sitting in the room alone for what felt like hours that she heard the door to her room swing open and shut loudly behind whoever had entered. Startled by the noise Livia shot up on the lit up table she had been laying on. In front of her stood a blue, almost a blue raspberry sort of color, haired woman in a short, royal blue, fluffy dress and royal blue heels. Her hair was short and held tight curls in close proximity to her face.

The blue haired woman smiled kindly at the blonde and soothingly held her hand, caressing the top of it lovingly. "You are so brave, my darling. What you did was so courageous." the woman told her with a solemn expression. Livia just flashed a quick smile back and kept her eyes focused on her lap where her hands sat, held in her stylist's left hand.

Livia didn't exactly want to talk about the whole situation but as she would be spending a good portion of her time with this new stylist of hers, she knew she needed to be kind. "Most people just congratulate me." the blonde spoke in a whisper. The stylist frowned at Livia's comment. And though she would never know how these tributes felt going into the games she was left with her imagination and how scared they all must be.

"Well, I don't see the point in that." the woman told her truthfully. Livia could tell by the older woman's body language. It was one of the things the shorter girl was able to pick up at a young age, body language. She was able to tell by her eyes. The woman looked straight at her and with all the seriousness she could muster, showing her honesty. "Anyways, I'm Annette and I'll be your stylist. They have the tribute parade, they're gonna take you out and show you off to the world." Annette told the shorter girl in front of her.

Livia sighed in frustration at the statement. Of course the Capitol wanted to show off the tributes, setting them up as pawns in their little game. It was completely absurd in her opinion but she ultimately knew that there was nothing she could and that she had to obey if she wanted better chances of survival. "So you're going to make me less ugly?" Livia asked half-heartedly. Annette gasped at this and put her right hand on her heart in shock.