She walks them through the Pit, the Chasm, with the fast rushing water beneath (can't really help wondering whose body they're going to find at the bottom of it this year, but that's a morbid thought, even for her), the dormitories and the bathroom. And yes, she does in fact relish the looks on their little faces when they see that. It's a bit petty that she smacks her shoulder hard on Sara Lance's and Oliver's too, as she passes, but so what. She's always been petty.
She finds Shado in the Pit, already piling food on her plate.
"How did first day go?"
Felicity scowls. "I think I'm gonna end up strangling a Candor this year."
Shado rolls her eyes. "You say that every year."
"Yeah but this one's a Lance. I mean it this time."
Shado chuckles in her cup as Laurel's head snaps in her direction, thundering frown on her face. "Hey!"
"What?"
Laurel narrows her eyes at Felicity but then the stern expression gives way to a brilliant smile. "I know Sara's a smart-ass and she'll probably have trouble learning to do as she's told but isn't it great that she's Dauntless! I missed her." She ads, more quietly and clearly meant just for Felicity's ears.
The muscles on Felicity's shoulders bunch up regardless. She wants to tell Laurel to keep those kind of thoughts to herself when they're in the middle of the Pit like this. 'Faction before blood', remember? But then again Laurel would probably roll her eyes at her. Sometimes - times like this, for instance - her paranoia makes Felicity feel the crushing weight of her loneliness more acutely than ever.
"So what are you going to do after you're done with this year's initiates. Slade will want an answer soon, you know."
Felicity hunches over her food even more. Yeah, she knows.
"I haven't decided yet." She says instead. Proof enough that she was never meant for Candor: she lies all too easily and all too well, sounding like she believes it even to her own years. That's the easiest way to lie, in her opinion: you have to believe even a small part of it, to make other people believe it.
To her left, Shado is very carefully eating her salad, mouth full so that she doesn't have to join this conversation. Felicity tries to imitate her by stuffing her face with beef.
Knowing Laurel, she has a vague but probably correct idea of where this is going, and she knows that she won't like it.
"I don't get why you keep refusing him." Laurel says, almost predictably. "I mean, I get that you like working in the control room. And that you like to lead almost as much as you like to follow-" Shado snorts in her drink at that, and Felicity rolls her eyes, pushing at her with her shoulder just enough to make her rock to the left a little. "But when you're offered a position in the leadership, that's something else."
Laurel leans in, face suddenly serious and her eyes sharp. "You could make a real difference, you know. With you as a voice in the Dauntless council, we wouldn't have to rely on people like Isabel to speak for us and make the decisions."
"Laurel!" Felicity snaps, spine going straight with pricking awareness.
"What, it's true."
"It doesn't matter if it's true." Felicity says, deliberately slow.
"It does matter, Four!" Laurel insists. "I've seen the program for this year's initiation! That woman is not the kind of Dauntless I want to stand for. She shouldn't be within 500 feet of the initiates, but she gets to train them her own way. Things would be different if it was you in her place, steering things."
No. No they would not. She'd thought that way too, a couple of years ago but she'd been proven dead wrong. But instead of saying that , Felicity takes a deep breath, praying to the silent god above that she might have the strength to keep her voice low and unaffected.
"Laurel… you're going to let me eat my food in peace, or I'm going to move someplace else where I can do that without your voice in my ear. Okay?"
Laurel grits her teeth so hard that the muscles of her jaw strain and tick. She shoves her plate away from herself.
"Fine. Have it your way." She gets up but then thinks better of it and leans in, one hand on the middle of the table as she speaks. "You know, there might come a day when something terrible happens that you could have prevented, and on that day you'll wish you had taken a stand for something that matters."
Her words hurt right where Felicity is most tender and Laurel probably knows that. It's her specialty: cutting through the bullshit and digging her fingers right where she knows it most hurts. But at least, Felicity notes absently, she has the forethought of keeping her expression neutral, and her voice low.
"…I never thought I'd see the day when the only Dauntless in recorded history with just four fears acts like a coward."
Laurel's voice is barely above a whisper, but Felicity hears her clear as a bell. Felicity looks up just in time to see Laurel register the effect of her words, the hurt she caused vibrating between them, alive in Felicity's eyes in a way that Laurel recognizes. But she grits her teeth against saying anything else, and Felicity knows that she's not going to get an apology anytime soon. Her face hardens with that knowledge, eyes going cold with anger.
Laurel doesn't hang around for it to evolve into something else though, and for that Felicity is grateful. She signs and stabs her beef a little more roughly than necessary.
"Don't." Shado warns, her voice low and almost right by Felicity's ear. "Just don't go there. Eat. We have rounds and then patrol. You'll need it."
Felicity nods and takes another bite. It tastes like ashes in her mouth but she pays that no mind. She's gotten good at giving her body what it needs and ignoring the rest. It's what got her through her own initiation, years ago.
Well, that's not quite right. Shado is what – who - got her through her own initiation, just like she gets her through the difficult times now. Felicity glances to her left, where Shado is picking up another roll and chewing at it carefully.
"She doesn't understand. She can't." Shado says as she turns to look at Felicity in the face, dark eyes calm and deep. "And you can't change her mind about some things. You know this."
Felicity looks away.
Yeah, she knows. Doesn't mean it hurts any less.
She never thought she would be making friends in Dauntless. Never thought she even knew how, really. To this day, the mechanics of it are a bit of a mystery to her. If Shado hadn't taken her under her wing two years ago, Felicity would have kept being the Stiff that was the youngest ever to transfer; the weird girl who spent all day in the training room and her evenings in the fear landscape and back again. She has no idea what would have happened to that girl, if she really would have snapped and finally shattered into a thousand pieces.
It would have been ironic that she'd survived years in her father's house without showing the cracks, and that they should finally start to corrode her in the one place where he couldn't reach her.
Felicity doesn't know. She doesn't know what would have happened and in the long run it doesn't matter because whatever Shado saw in her, it made her reach out and drag Felicity out. To take a breath, play a game, make some friends. Friends like Laurel, and Nyssa. Shado herself.
Friends that may have not saved her life, but they sure made that life into something that Felicity thought might one day be worth living. Friends like Laurel, who are in fact right… but being right is not enough. She's not willing to risk her life on it. She's not. She might be a Stiff beneath the black clothes and heavy make up that sits on her face like the mask that it is, but she was always too selfish for it. She doesn't want to die, fighting for a change that cannot happen. Not right now.
Because Laurel doesn't see it, but Felicity can: that deep wide chasm that she keeps dangling over, the fire red brimstone beneath. There is a storm coming, and a single person standing in front of it is not going to make the difference. Not even if that person is a Divergent.
Especially not then.
But these are all things that Felicity can't tell Laurel. Because deep down, though they are friends, Felicity doesn't trust her. She doesn't trust anyone. Not really. It's against her nature