The 23 Cannons Trilogy

Clashing Tastes

Kaye grimaced in horror as the plump orange woman rubbed a truly repulsive smelling cream into his hair. In the last half hour, he had endured a full body wax, despite him plucking every last hair from his body the night before the reaping; being coated in some slime that was supposed to make his skin 'shine like the sun', when in reality it made him feel like a greasy pig; and then there was the haircut. Oh dear god the haircut. They had completely shaved the sides off of his hair, only leaving the top of it, and they had added extensions to the front, making it impossible to not be in his face ninety nine percent of the time. And to make matters worse, they weren't even the same shade of brown. He was a light brown, and it wasn't as if it was a hard to distinguish tone. But the brain-dead prep team had given him ginger extensions. Freaking ginger, of all colours. Kaye now looked exactly like one of those tacky slum ravers, the ones with the putrid highlights. All of this was going against every fibre of his being, being reduced to a cheap imitation of the social group that Kaye belonged to back home.

Finally, the woman stepped back, satisfied with the amount of gunk in Kaye's butchered hair. She smiled at him, showing her disgustingly dyed teeth. They were all carved into various shapes, as well; for instance, the two front top teeth were shaped like a dog and cat. Other teeth were even odder; Kaye was sure he noticed some sort of spiral in the back. At least that explained her god-awful lisp. Combining that with the terrible accent pretty much made it impossible for Kaye to not want to punch her in the face every time those glittery cyan lips parted, and noise came out. In fact, thinking about it as he stood naked in this small room, he was pretty sure, no, certain, that his boyfriend was dead wrong about how glorious it would be to look like a Capitol citizen. Sure, maybe from a distance a couple of them were okay to look at, but then you got close, and could smell the filth on the cosmetic products they so enjoyed to lace themselves in. If there was ever a naked flame, Kaye was sure that most likely the entire Capitol would spontaneously combust. Oh, wouldn't that be a funny sight to see: disgustingly mutilated examples of high society running around as their make-up sizzled and burned them to the core. He couldn't help but let out a snicker.

"What's so funny?" another member of the prep team said: a tall woman with actual rose stalks wrapped around her arms. Pretty much every time she moved, she cut herself on them. It would be even more disgusting if it weren't for the fact that she had dyed her blood the same shade of green, and had it smell like the plant, albeit a disgustingly exaggerated chemically enhanced version of the potentially delightful aroma.

"Oh, nothing," Kaye said bitterly. "Just thinking to myself."

"Ooh, I wonder what district people actually think about?" the third member of the prep team, a man with hair made of hardened chocolate, and a coating of frost over his skin, said. "I've always been curious." He leaned on the trolley with Kaye's reaping outfit attached to it, and looked at Kaye with wide, white eyes. "Could you please enlighten us?" Kaye folded his arms, and looked at them with scrutiny. There was no way in hell these clowns could physically be allowed near a tribute; their sheer stupidity was enough to make someone punch them. At least this explained why there was always at least one wardrobe malfunction each year that created the laughing stock district for the Games; the prep teams were so incompetent.

"We're really going to do this?" he said, sighing. "I'm honestly entirely the most boring person possible, thank you very much."

"Oh, we don't believe that for one minute!" the orange one squeaked. "Your attitude at the reaping was just so Capitol!" Kaye groaned. This thing was actually fawning over him. "I fell in love straight away!"

"Dear lord," Kaye mumbled under his breath. How could anyone be so flamboyant? It was just an irritation.

"Now, now," the frost man said. "We must not waste any time! The chariot parade is in twenty minutes, and we still need to summon Luciaya!" He frantically skipped around the room, in some sort of blind panic, his strange shoes squeaking on the slick wet floor.