Clove's POV
We get in around 8:30 A.M. The Capitol's huge. Not big, not even bigger than District 2, but different, just grand. It's all shiny and candy colored and unnatural. Not my type, but it is marvelous.
We're immediately ushered to our prep teams. The room is huge and there are large spaces for each tribute, alternating boy-girl, meaning Cato is on the right side of me and the guy from One is on my left. We're each separated on three sides by a white curtain. It's a good thing too. If we were divided by something thicker, like walls, I might let out a scream from this torture they call beauty. I hear some throughout the day, from the weaker districts. All I can do is lie on the shiny metal table and let my prep team "fix" me.
Each tribute gets a stylist who collaborates to plan our outfits with our district partner's stylist and a three-person prep team. Our teams are wearing plain white clothes, which is probably the drabbest thing they have worn in their entire lives. The clothes may be plain, but the rest of their bodies are covered in colors and artificial ornamentations. In District 2, skin and hair are the plain parts of one's appearance, with clothing being the center of attention, especially if you can afford semi-nice clothes. For my prep team, it's the exact opposite. One of mine, named Qualia, has a choppy teal bob with bangs and swirly silver tattoos covering her body and framing her face. Another one, named Sasha, has cropped white hair and light magenta-colored skin. The final one, a man named Marcus, has purple eyes, green hair, and sleeves of orange tattoos.
For hours, they paint my nails, whiten my teeth, and wax just about every non-head hair off my body. At one point, surgeons come in and alter me so I won't "suffer through adolescence while in the Games". Then they tell me they do something similar to the boys, but so they won't grow facial hair. My prep team eventually starts actually getting me ready for the Parade, with a manicure, simple makeup, and my hair up. After all that preening all that they're going to do is put a hat over it.
Finally, I'm taken to my stylist, a man with raspberry-colored hair who introduces himself as Theon. He leads me to a back room where an extravagant Capitol dinner is laying for me. The large gold clock on the wall says its 2:15, meaning I missed lunch. I quickly dive in. I let Theon talk about how long he's been designing for tributes and how inspiring District Two is–like he's ever been there–and all that other crap while I feast and ignore the annoying Capitol-accented man.
Soon, I'm full, and Theon takes me to a place to get dressed. I see my outfit and all I can think is 'What the hell?'.
Cato's POV
I am dressed in sleeveless golden costume with a golden gladiator-style skirt and a matching hat with wings. What the hell? This has nothing to do with District Two. It's just humiliating.
A picture is taken of me wearing my costume, for them to put on the hanging screens over the road so our sponsors can see our faces up close.
Afterwards, I'm taken to the place where the tributes go to get into their chariots and start the Parade. Everyone's standing by the black horses, getting touched up by stylists. Our costumes may actually not be so bad. Well, not good, but not as bad as most of the other districts. I see a blonde girl in pink fur and feathers and jewels looking in a mirror as her stylist adjusts her costume; the guy from District Eleven getting powder dabbed onto his face while his small district partner stands beside him getting her metallic blue overall dress adjusted; the District Twelve tributes in black get lectured by their stylist. All the costumes are ridiculous, but at least ours make us look more badass than the silly bright colored ones everyone else has on.
Finally, I find Clove, wearing a feminine version of the same ridiculous outfit I am, except hers is more of a turtleneck and her hat covers her head with her hair completely tucked underneath it, whereas mine shows my hair and is basically just a headband-crown type thing with giant golden wings.
