levana krone, capitol | fin

Rivers of darkness run down a back rigid with poise. Dye - from blue to green to red to pink to purple - has slightly worn once silky, healthy hair, even after countless damage repair treatments. After years of hue to hue to hue, she almost forgot its natural color - ebony.

From full cherry lips coated in sticky gloss spill boldness and charisma, saccharine melodies of molasses flowing through credulous ears. She is a steady pillar of confidence with a core of fire, sashaying down the corridors of the office building - her office building - in high fashion. Her face, sculpted by expert surgical hands, wears a glowing expression of pride that distributes throughout every fiber of her body.

She remembers, with a shudder, her dreadful youth, and the little girl with wiry dark hair, crooked teeth, and unappealing face. She once had only a few coins jingling in her pocket, but the former poor little girl has risen to a woman blessed with glory, fame, fortune, and unnatural beauty.

She remembers, with a shudder, her uneasy footsteps as she walked down the school hallways. She was stuffed into the corner of the classroom, lips sewn tightly together by awkwardness and insecurity.

(If I talk, they'll hate me.)

She wallowed in her solitude until she saw the inside of the glamorous, golden life showered in riches. Her eyes had zeroed in on what she wanted the most - beauty and wealth and respect. And so she decided it would be one day be hers.

She has succumbed to the Capitol's vain and selfish nature over the years of forming connections and collecting power, leaping her way to the top - with several snags and without grace. Levana Krone always gets her way. It is a well-known fact that the queen of cosmetics does not take no for an answer, and once she's at the top, she will not fall down.

The BOOM of a cannon and polished mirrors lie at the Capitol's blood and lipstick stained roots. (She once thought it was so terrible.) In the city that has sprouted above from the seeds of tyranny, selfish beings roam, she among them. Her home was once in the lower middle class sectors of the Capitol, where her heart was golden and young but lusting for beauty. Her rise to power has brought her to mansions and penthouses, a far stretch from her former living conditions.

Her motto - "Beauty is on the inside, but that doesn't mean you should be deprived of a pretty face" - has glided off her tongue smoothly for years, gracing radios and television screens all across the Capitol, drawing in men and women who long for good looks to Krone Cosmetics. She feeds off of their vanity and insecurity like a parasite, drinking in the seas of money that pour in from sales. Her original dream of spreading beauty to a world she once deemed hideous has eroded away, leaving her mind wired to think, business business business.

Rags are the seed of avarice, riches are blooming flowers.