Finnick visibly paused when he saw who was standing mere feet away. She was decked so outrageously in Capitol fashion that it practically startled him for a moment. It'd been weeks since he'd seen anything approaching that level of clashing color and distorted shape, and seeing it again made him feel like he was underwater.

They'd been arriving in waves, so maybe he should have been prepared for this -- him, Jo, Katniss; Annie; Peeta; Haymitch -- but everyone who had come had been so firmly rooted on the side of the resistance that he had failed to consider that maybe a Capitol person would just stroll in. He'd always thought they'd come to attack, to tear them apart. He hadn't considered that they'd just arrive, an apparent accident like the rest of them.

It took Finnick a further moment to actually place the woman standing in front of him -- Effie Trinket. Katniss' and Peeta's handler. He made a point of knowing all the escorts, all the stylists who worked in the Games. They overheard all sorts of things and empty-headed as they usually were, were oblivious to what sort of secrets were valuable and which weren't, so they were ready to spill all of them. Out of everyone who could have arrived from the Capitol, they were probably luckiest it was Effie.

But that still didn't completely soothe Finnick's worries away.

Still, he smiled charmingly, dimples on stark display as he fell back on old training without a second thought.

"Miss Trinket," he greeted her, a touch of coyness curling into each syllable.