SWAN UPON LEDA; hunger games

chapter 2

    That was how she ended up in a white swan-feather pantsuit, one that reached from her low-chest to her ankles. Everything was feathers—she wasn't sure if they were real or not—except for the suit top and heeled boots, both of which were a stark white. Her feather-bound top reached low on her chest, shaped in a v, which followed the very line of the suit-top. Her pants were also made from feathers and moved with her whenever she took a step. At first look, she would have thought that they would be itchy or rough against her legs, but they were really quite soft, almost like silk. She felt like falling over whenever she walked, the heels on her boots so high.

    It was unusual, but beautiful.

    Tigris placed a hand on her shoulder. She smiled. "You are beautiful."

    They are interrupted by the knock of a fist against the door. A knock that sends chills down Leda's back, because she knows, in that moment, that the clock is reaching its last seconds.

    The door opened and in walked Maxime, his hands clasped behind his back. "Darling, you look stunning! Absolutely enchanting."

    Leda feels heat rush to her cheeks. She was not used to the attention, to the compliments. She was used to gray clothes and plain hair, no makeup. She was used to being average, nothing special to look at. No one stopped to watch and let their eyes trail after her, not to watch her fade into dust. No one questioned it, either, when Finnick Odair's eyes lingered, or when Peacekeepers watched her closer than before. She was a beautiful girl, but she wasn't...enchanting, as Maxime seemed to think.

    She, however, is enchanted by the performances of those on the screen in front of her, the ones that she suspects have been acting all their lives. The people of the Capitol have falsified smiles that she sees through, poison dripping from their tongues and lies falling from their lips. She sees the deception in their eyes and the way it weighs them down from the makeup that masks their peeling and sagging skin.

    She sees it; she just wishes that others did, too.

    Before she knows it, she is being forced to become like them. She is guided from the room where she has been since she arrived, dressed in a form of attire that she has never worn before. She could look in a mirror and not recognize the girl—no, woman—staring back at her. Not with her skin coated in makeup and her hair pulled back so tight her scalp hurt. It felt like everyone around her stared at her as if this woman she was dressed as was the real her. Everyone but Finnick.

    Finnick stared at her with wide eyes and mouth agape. With pinched brows and words stuck in his throat. He stared at her the way that he did because he knew what it meant. It meant that her childhood was being pulled from her hands, and her from him, from the safety that they had once known. Because these clothes, the makeup, the extravagance...it was all a sign of what was to come.

    He leaned against the doorway of the room, arms crossed over his chest. He stared at her like she was a stranger. On the outside, he supposed, she was. But on the inside was the girl he had grown up beside. The girl who enjoyed simply sitting on the beach, listening to the waves and feeling the sand beneath her feet. The girl who would tip her head to the sky and feel the wind and the sun. The girl who liked quiet days, slow mornings, and painting in the cove near her family's home. The girl who helped anyone who asked and would continue to do so until she no longer could. This was the girl who played games with her brother even when she was tired; the girl who somehow always managed to put up with Finnick's teasing and wild behavior.

    But he pushed it back and said, "It's time, Leda. We gotta go."

    And as those last seconds ticked down on the clock, Leda entered the main room of the Training Center, hands holding up her pants, chest growing tighter and tighter as every second passed.