One of my longest chapters, yay! Only a little Valden in this one, mostly Tris at Winding Circle. Tris isn't going to have a fun time of it, after all. Her personality is not compatible with most people- obviously.
Valden was blearily aware of something in the room with him. The world had faded in and out since he'd gotten back from Urda's House. He really wasn't sure where he was anymore…
"…make sure he doesn't die before the Chandlers get here!" he heard a harsh female voice say. "The girl's death was enough. I don't need my reward to disappear all together!"
"Dead?" another voice whispered. "Maris, what-"
The voice identified as Maris hissed him into silence. "Quiet! Do you want to wake him up?"
"No, of course not." The man blustered. "But, the girl…?"
Maris made an impatient noise. "The first one there slipped a little with his knife. My moles in the harriers say there's enough blood in that room for the girl to have bled out. She's with the Dedicates now."
Valden felt something catch in his throat. Tris… was dead? Through a haze of pain, drugs, and confusion, crushing despair welled upwards. No, Tris wouldn't ever leave him alone like this!
"Keep him out until the Chandler comes to pick him up." Maris instructed. "And see if you can fully heal that knife wound. It makes him looked like damaged goods."
"But I-"
"You're a healer, aren't you?" the woman cut in rudely. Valden could easily imagine her threatening glare and could sense the healer cowering. "So heal him. I don't care if you're bled dry by the time you're done. I want him strong enough to travel."
"Y-yes Maris." There was the sound of a door closing.
Valden felt the air move around his face and the scraping of a chair against the floor. The healer must have sat down by his bedside. Cool healing magic washed over the constant ache in his side , rendering it painless for the first time in weeks. He couldn't help the relieved relaxing of his chest muscles and the loosening in his brow.
"Ah, I thought you might be awake." The healer said quietly. "My sleeping spells aren't as potent as they once were."
"Hmm…" Valden hummed. He was so tired, and he really didn't care…
"Maris has set up a meeting with the Chandlers next Sunsday." The healer said briskly, wiping at Valden's face with a damp cloth. "You'll be on a ship to Ninver before the week is out, I suspect."
"It doesn't matter." Valden murmured. He felt strangely detached from his body. "Tris is gone."
The healer didn't reply, and Valden drifted back into darkness.
It took Tris three weeks to heal enough to leave the infirmary. Three weeks of pain medication, bandages that pulled on her newly healing skin, and a forceful resetting of her broken jaw that had left her cringing for hours afterward.
She was so relieved to be leaving the confining ward that she even forgot to worry about what she would do now.
"Oh." She sat back on her cot, her head dizzy from indecision. Her father was gone, probably dead, and she was now alone in the world. Tris swallowed against the lump in her throat, fighting back tears lest they fog up the new spectacles the healers had procured for her.
Taking a deep shaky breath, Tris forced her fear and indecision down. Hadn't she cried herself to sleep enough these past few weeks?
"Dear, Dedicate Rosethorn sent these to you." One of the healers said briskly, setting a bundle of clothes down on her cot. Tris frowned. She'd only met Dedicate Rosethorn once, the first time she'd woken up in the Winding Circle infirmary and most of that visit was a blur.
"Did she… did she buy these for me?" Tris asked the healer, only to look up and find her at the other end of the ward, administering willow bark tea to a temple novice with a bandage around his head.
Tris scowled down at the clothes. "How does she expect me to pay her back?" she asked herself, her hands recognizing the cloth as quality, not merely the sewn together rags that she and Valden had wore for the past few years. It would take six months of her piss-poor wages to pay for the clothing, coin she couldn't spare. It was strange to realize she couldn't afford to be touchy about charity.
It was a sobering thought.
"Trisana, are you done?" the healer called, rapping on the screen. Tris poked her head around the screen and nodded, following the elder women across the ward towards her bed again.
"It's time for your bandages to come off!" she said brightly, smiling at Tris warmly. "I suppose you'll be happy to be rid of them, hm?"
Tris could only nod dully, dread weighing her down. Why on earth would she want to be reminded of her dead father, her ruined future, and destroyed prospects inscribed on her face for the world to gawk at? These temple dedicates could be so naïve.
As the healer unpinned and unraveled the bandages around her head, Tris knew what she'd see; her entire face swathed in bandages, with slits for her eyes, mouth and nose. It was constricting, claustrophobic and itchy, but Tris considered it the lesser of two evils. She preferred the unknown that the bandages provided; if she ignored her reflection when the bandages were changed, it hadn't happened. It wasn't real to her yet and she'd prefer to keep it that way.
A puff of fresh air lit on Tris's face and she reflexively took a large breath, grateful for the fresh air at least. Her cheeks felt clammy and sweat streaked her temples, matching the slightly damp cloth an orderly was gathering from the foot of her bed to be boiled for later use.
"There." the Dedicate said, smiling slightly. "Isn't that better?" she handed Tris back the glasses she'd taken and Tris hastily jammed them back on her nose.
"Here you are." The healer lifted a small hand sized mirror from the deep pockets of her habit and flashed it at Tris before she could glance away and her breath caught.
A long ropy scar stretched from the corner of her eye, across her nose, and slowly tapered off in the center of her opposite cheek. It was raised and a bright red, like a streak of blood across her face. She knew instantly that, though the red would fade eventually it would never truly go away completely. It would remain with her always…
Tris turned away from the reflection, her eyes downcast as the healer bustled away down the beds. She would not cry-
"Trisana Ramsey?"
It took her a second to register; she'd only begun using the last name Ramsey a short while ago after all, and then she turned around.
A woman in a habit of Water-blue stood at the foot of Tris's cot. The smile plastered on her face seemed completely fake, and it faltered slightly when she caught sight of the girl's face and male attire.
"I've been sent to escort you to the dormitories."
"I'm to stay here?" Tris asked, her voice rough.
The woman seemed slightly scandalized. "It is the temple's duty to take care of lost ones who come to us."
Tris's jaw tightened. She knew exactly what this hussy was thinking; Mire girls were infamous for their low morals after all, and it must irritate this Dedicate that one of those low mannered ruffians was being admitted into her beloved temple. Tris personally didn't know what the woman was worrying about. After all, she didn't look like much. Even the least picky of Mire scum wouldn't choose a scarred, possessed girl to lay with.
The stereotype still hurt, though.
"Of course." She managed through gritted teeth and followed the woman out of the ward.
Honestly, Moonstream stopped expecting knocks when it came to the great mages who lived in her temple. She looked up at Rosethorn from behind her mahogany desk and smiled. "Thank you for knocking, Rosethorn, I really appreciate the courtesy."
Rosethorn didn't even have the decency to blush; she merely sat down in the nearest chair and fixed the darker women with an expectant stare. "Courtesy is not waiting three weeks to tell me what is going on, Moonstream. "
"Everything will be explained." The Head Dedicate said, serene under the other woman's scrutiny. She raised a letter from the pile on her desk, exposing Niko's seal. "Including Niko's ramblings."
"I suppose Niko filled you in?" Lark said as she entered at a much more sedate pace.
"That's one way of saying it." Rosethorn said wickedly, smirking at the slight darkening of the Head Dedicate's cheeks.
Moonstream cleared her throat. "If we could get back to the matter at hand…?"
"Be nice Rosie." Lark said, patting her friend on the knee. "Now, what did Niko say about the boy?"
Moonstream looked from Rosethorn to Lark in confusion. "Boy? Are we talking about the child you brought in three weeks ago?"
"Of course." Rosethorn said, sounding a little irritated. "Who else could it be?"
"Well that 'boy', is in fact a girl." Moonstream said, passing the parchment to Lark. The thread mage's eyebrows rose, before smiling slightly and looking over to Rosethorn.
"I suppose the clothing we sent over needs a little adjustment."
Rosethorn snorted in agreement.
"The records were woefully inadequate- we're only able to tell that the subject in question, a Trisana Ramsey, is ten years old and was definitely not born in Emelan. We're not sure where because any question we ask that goes back more than two years ago is unanswered." Moonstream continued as if the two hadn't spoken. "From what Niko wrote, the girl is not possessed, or elemental- she's an ambient weather mage. Particularly strong, from what Niko can tell."
Rosethorn sat up straighter. "Is she dangerous?"
"Extremely." The Head Dedicate said, sitting back. "Her magic is keyed to her emotions- it's been pure luck that girl hasn't started a lightning storm in the middle of the Mire, or worse. As it is, I've been receiving complaints from the Head Healer down in the infirmary, claiming that one of the mages is playing tricks on the healers with the weather. Freak rainstorms and such, conjured by an errant apprentice." Her eyebrow raised. "I would suggest enrolling her in lessons with the other girls boarding here, with emphasis on meditation. If that is acceptable?"
Lark sat back. "Why us, though? We found her yes, and her teaching is our responsibility, but what of her family? Any relatives?"
"She had a father, but he's missing. We thought he may have been the one who attempting to kill Trisana but when she gave her testimony to the Provost Guard, she claimed her father was abducted. The investigative mage noted that the amount of blood suggested death."
"Making me her guardian." Rosethorn finished, propping her chin on her fist. She closed her eyes in thought, taking a deep breath and exhaling sharply through her nose. "A good a plan as any, I suppose." Rosethorn said. She looked to Lark. "Lark?"
"I suppose we'll have to see how things unravel." Lark said, running the hem of her habit through her calloused fingers. "She may yet have trouble- I remember how it was when I came in from the Mire and was surrounded by the other initiates in the dormitories." Her eyes darkened. "People can be exceptionally cruel to each other."
The dormitory wasn't getting any better after two weeks of staying there. It seemed that the girls who slept in the beds around her had declared the 'Mire Girl' fair game. Her bed and possesions had a tendency to be out of order when inspection came around, which did nothing but cast her as the troublemaker to the Dedicates in charge. Her clothing also had a habit of running off whenever she bathed- it once took two hours for someone to come along and fetch a robe for her, forcing her to miss all of supper.
She didn't really understand why she was at the dormitory in the first place. What was the point? She certainly wasn't enrolled in etiquette classes like the merchant and artisan girls around her who aspired to marriage into nobility. In fact, most of Tris's days consisted of trips to the library and baths where she spent hours making up for the last two years when books and cleanliness had been few and far between.
The only real class she was required to attend was mage studies. She didn't know why, though. She'd explained that she hadn't any magic, that she'd been checked... Master Opalsign hadn't seemed to care, though. He'd merely directed her to sit and begin meditation.
"Ramsey!" Tris jumped as the instructor harshly rapped the marble floor, bringing the girl's wandering attention back to his lesson. The girls around her tittered, sending snide looks that didn't escape Master Opalsign's hawkish eyes. He whirled on them, turning away from his best student as he dealt with the errant girls who fooled about in his class.
Tris fell immediately into the prescribed seven breaths in, hold, and seven out sequence. She ignored the fidgeting and whispers from the girls around her, concentrating on herself. She slowly felt the ground fall away from her body. She rose, blinking owlishly into the sky, passing through the roof of the Temple's classroom to the air above. It felt good to feel so untouchable, to be free within herself. She sighed in pleasure, a small smile touching her lips. It was so peaceful.
Meditation soon became her favorite class- if only so she could get away from it all for a while.
Tris smiled, remembering the feeling. She had felt … wonderful. Like she was free of cares, free of the past, present, and future and at one with everything.
Pah! Tris snorted, continuing on the spiral path to the Hub, a slate clasped in her hand. Such thoughts came from reading too much useless philosophy!
"Nonsense." She muttered. Had her father been here, he would have protested. Besides designing ships, philosophy had been his favorite hobby. He would have quoted some ancient philosopher on the power of destiny or something inane…
"Oi, girlie!" Tris blinked, and looked up. While her mind was elsewhere, she'd made it to the Hub kitchens, her feet automatically traveling the route she'd taken pains to learn on one of her many free periods. One of the kitchen hands was waving her over, an impatient look on his face that indicated she'd been called more than once.
"From Dedicate Lilystrafe." Tris said, as the flour-streaked Dedicate took the slate briskly.
"The Solstice celebration?" the Dedicate asked an eyebrow raised. "That ninny wants her order in this early?" Still muttering to himself, the cook got out a ledger that had been stowed under the large counter that ran against the wall. She stood there awkwardly while the man bustled around, shifting from one foot to the other .
"Will you stop that?" the man asked crossly as he noted the order on a piece of wax paper, before wiping the slate clean.
"Sorry," Tris said. "It's just- well, I've missed supper by now-"
The man's expression cleared. "Ah." He said, understanding dawning. Tris supposed as an Earth dedicate, the man was fully prepared to believe the worst of the Water dedicates in charge of the Girls Dormitories. "Dedicate Gorse always has food ready for runners- don't worry, you can't miss him- just tell him Ingalls sent him and he'll load you up with so much food you'll forget about missing supper entirely."
Blinking, Tris took the blank slate back and followed the man's pointing finger to where this Dedicate Gorse was.
Ingalls was right, Tris thought. You'd have to be completely blind not to notice the man. Bellowing out orders like a red-faced, flour covered god of the hearth, Dedicate Gorse cut an imposing figure. Anyone who could make people scurry like that was someone to respect.
"Initiate Inleigh, could you please refrain from burning the bread while you're daydreaming? Dedicate Thrush, please bring that basket of preserves this way, yes, thank you- Shurri scorch me, Jok! Where is Jok! He needs to deliver this to Discipline! It's not Rosethorn I'm worried about, it's Lark! Heaven help us that woman if terrifying when vexed-"
Rosethorn? Lark? Tris's brow furrowed. The only recollection of the two had been hazy shapes looming over her, comforting her in her agony, and soothing darkness. In fact, other than the gift of clothing she hadn't heard hide or hair of them. She felt flushed with shame, remembering that she hadn't even thanked either of them for getting her to a healer in time. What her father would say!
"I'm here, I'm here!" a young man in the white robe of an initiate ran into the kitchen, snatching the offending basket off of the corner.
"You're late again, Jok!" Gorse thundered, his face vaguely threatening. "Second time this week!"
"I'm sorry Dedicate Gorse!" the man said, his face contrite. "I'll deliver these right away, and then come right back!"
"You better, or I'll box your ears, Shurri strike me if I lie." Gorse threatened before turning away. His eyes rested on the spot where Tris had been standing before flicking away.
Tris did her best to follow the Initiate Jok as discreetly as possible. She walked slowly, about a hundred yards behind, watching him carefully incase he turned off of the main road suddenly. The clock behind her chimed seven o'clock. The initiate flinched and, cursing, started into a loping run. Tris, groaning, started trotting behind herself. She hated running.
After five or so minutes, both Tris and the Initiate were huffing and puffing- Tris groaned with relief when he stopped running and turned off the main path and onto a path that led up to a quaint little cottage with a connecting garden. It was nestled near enough to the outer wall that the long shadows of afternoon stretched across the yard to the front door.
"Dedicate Lark!" Jok called out, knocking on the door. Tris hid in the shadow of the wall and a carefully pruned bush. There was silence for a beat and Tris's heart thudded in her ears. Why was she so nervous?
"…Jok, is that you?" A tall woman with a head of brown curls that were vaguely familiar and a green habit stepped into the open doorway.
"Aye, Dedicate." Jok raised the basket of goods for Lark to see, handing them over with a slight bow and grin. "Fresh, with Gorse's compliments."
Lark's smile was kind. "Thank you. I know Rosethorn will be less cranky now." Her smile was impish and, even if it wasn't directed at Tris at all, it still made her feel at ease.
"You're welcome Dedicate Lark!" Jok waved as he turned and left, passing Tris's hiding spot without even a glance her way.
When Tris looked back towards the cottage, Lark was gone. She attempted to swallow the lump of unease in her throat. She couldn't just… just walk up to someone who was apparently important enough to have her own cottage in a complex with Dedicate Dormitories for a reason. As far as she knew, only the Head Dedicate of Winding Circle, Moonstream, had her own quarters. The courage that had compelled her to follow Jok failed, and Tris slunk away like a kicked dog, cowed under the weight of her own excuses.
Maybe tomorrow.
Perhaps the karma from her failed attempt to thank the women who saved her life was the reason her life took a drastic turn for the worse. As the seasons slowly turned from spring into the heat of summer, the girls who slept around her were becoming more vicious in their bullying, and Tris herself was becoming more dry and acidic than usual. She found that a quick shutdown of her tormentors' attempts to hurt her often had better results than taking it stoically and she used that knowledge to her advantage.
"Freak!"
"Ugly!"
"Mire rat!"
Tris carefully rearranged her glasses on her nose, careful of catching them on the ridge of her scar. Her eyes flicked up to the ring of girls who circled her like the feral dogs that had hunted in packs back in the Mire. Prettier, though, she thought and smiled a little to herself.
"Why are you smiling?" one of the girls demanded. Tris's eyes narrowed. Was this the girl she'd cut down by insinuating she was a bastard-daughter, or was that the one to the left?
"Who cares?" One of the girls said haughtily. One of the ringleaders, if Tris wasn't mistaken. "These lower class girls don't know respect if it spat in their faces. On top of that, she's a Mire girl, a whore, isn't she? All Mire women are, you know. Breeding disease and spreading around the pox; it's no wonder her father ended up in a box-!"
"What did you just say?" Tris demanded. Her skin felt hot and a little too small for her body. She shook with rage. "Do you want to repeat that, louder? I'm pretty sure your mother must've heard you- wait." Tris exaggerated her pause. "I remember your mother. Very nice woman, even if she'd been had by the entire commonwealth of Summersea-"
"Take that back!" the girl hissed, her cheeks pink with embarrassment as her compatriots tried to silence their giggles.
"No." Tris said calmly, though her body was as tense as a wire. She didn't think that she'd have to resort to violence, but if it came to that, she'd been the one on top, not bleeding in the dust.
"My mother was a lady." The girl hissed, looking to her friends for support. "Someone of class. Something you'll never understand as you'll never rise above the gutter! I stake my name on that!"
Tris's sneer was ferocious. "A whore by any other name."
The girl screeched with rage and leapt with her nails outstretched to claw at Tris's face. Tris didn't scratch, she ended the fight with a quick but clumsy punch to the girls cheek and a stomp on the girl's stomach when the girl was down.
That ended the fight quickly, but had the added effect of bringing the dormitory Dedicates running. Tris didn't struggle when they towed her away, but merely smirked back at the enraged and frightened faces of the other girls. The look on their faces was worth the stinging switches that Dedicates had given her for fighting in the dormitory.
Tris knew they were planning something the second she sat down to supper. There was an air of anticipation that hummed over that tables and the glances thrown at her from down the table weren't lost on her, either.
"Freak."
Tris sat ramrod straight at table, her gaze fixed on the far wall as she ignored the harsh words and sharp pinches of the girls next to her. Her face was stony, the only ripple across it being her still rather noticeable scar.
She supposed she hadn't endeared any of the girls to her during her stay of two months, but Tris couldn't think of anything she'd done to receive such harsh treatment or cruel words. The dedicates in charge of the dormitory had made it clear how they thought of Mire girls who presumed to attend Winding Circle and wore breeches . She supposed the rest of the girls had taken their cue from there. They were single-mindedly focused on making her life a complete misery and despite her resistance, she feared they were winning. She'd felt more lethargic than usual, and even reading didn't hold its appeal anymore. She was more often found lying face up on her bed, not sleeping but not fully awake. Tris felt dead, really. The weather outside reflected it too, with grey clouds rooted in place over the temple dormitories; Tris vaguely remembered hearing one of the girls complaining that not even the Temple weather mages could move the dreary clouds away.
Tris bent her head in prayer as supper was blessed, ignoring the tittering from a pair of girls a few seats over, no doubt mocking her short hair or choice of clothing. She sent up her own private prayer, less a coherent sentence than a fierce yearning for… something. Death, maybe or perhaps just a night's sleep without worrying whether her dorm mates would make off with her shoes.
Dinner concluded with a minimum of antagonism, considering it was usually a battle to keep from flinging her potatoes in the smug face of the girl sitting across from her. Tris hunched her shoulders, keeping her head down. When things got quiet, excepting a few smothering smirks and sniggers, it was usually before something big and humiliating happened to her. Her eyes narrowed but she kept her eyes on her plate, focusing on eating. She wouldn't give them the satisfaction of reacting. They weren't worth it, her father would've told her, just ignore them.
Tris's backbone arched as a cascade of freezing liquid cascaded over her head, white running in rivulets down her face and back. She turned to see a smirking girl picking up an empty pitcher from the floor, presumably from where it had spun away after the server had tripped.
Ignore them, Tris thought woodenly, rising to her feet among the stifled laughter that had erupted around the long supper hall.
"Ramsey!" Tris stiffly turned to where the dormitory dedicate was making her way toward her. "Sit down girl, you are not excused-" the womans next words were caught in her throat as Tris's look intensified into an icy glare. The dedicates hair rose on her arms and somehow, instinctively, knew that Tris was the one causing it.
Tris turned away, her lidded gaze sweeping over the tables, most of which were convulsing in mirth at her predicament with the exception of a few individuals who looked horrified.
Ignore them, she chanted. Ignore them, ignore them, ignore them-
There was a screech as the stone floor exploded. Tris's hair stood on end as she shielded her face from the flying chips of stone. The smell of lightning permeated the very air, filling Tris with a sense of euphoria. Instead of horror, she felt only vindication as the screams slowly tapered off as the dust settled and all eyes fixed themselves to the humiliated girl still standing in the center of the hall, virtually untouched. Laughter was replaced by fear.
Tris was vaguely aware of cuts from chips of stone slowly seeping on her arms, legs, and face. She took a deep breath, swept her gaze across the terrified faces of the girls assembled, then turned on her heal and left. She felt disgusted; with them, and with herself.
She was done with this.
Tris dragged her feet as Dedicate Staghorn towed her to the office of the Dedicate Superior. The woman's grip was like iron, and Tris was sure she'd have dark marks around her upper arm for her trouble but something like stubbornness was insisting on struggling just a little, so she wasn't led like a lamb to the slaughter.
"Stay here." Staghorn commanded, her eyes daring Tris to disagree before she turned on her heel and stalked into Dedicate Superior Moonstream's office. The door clicked shut quietly, but the barrier was quickly rendered irrelevant when Staghorn began shouting.
Tris shrunk a little in her seat, scowling at the mahogany before looking out the window at the sun playing across the grassy lawn in front of the administration building. A few lazy clouds puttered along the sky and Tris felt the usual yearning to join them. Gods, anything to get away from this suffocating place!
The door slammed open, banging off the wall as Staghorn stormed through it. She cast a dirty look at Tris before striding off, down the way they had came. Tris made a rude gesture at the fussy Dedicate's back, spitting after her.
"Now, is that anyway for a young lady to act?" Moonstream stood in the doorway, her hands folded into voluminous sleeves. She eyed Tris, looking her up and down, measuring her against some invisible yardstick visible only to her.
Tris couldn't help the thought that she probably fell piteously short and scowled at the woman in annoyance. "Do I look like a young lady?" she asked rudely, her scar catching the sunlight and making it impossible to ignore.
"You could be." Moonstream said.
Tris scoffed. "Who wants to be waited on and married to some stranger? Too well born to even tie their bootlaces or talk to honest working folk? No thank you."
Moonstream merely dipped her head, ignoring Tris's antagonistic attitude. "It's been brought to my attention that you are a bad influence on the members of Dedicate Staghorn's charges. Also, you blew a hole in the floor of the dormitory supper hall." her tone was wry, as if she couldn't quite believe it, but was willing to go along with it anyway.
Tris sat back, her face defiant. "Prove it."
"I don't need to." Moonstream said, drawing a slip of paper from a pocket ensconced in her robe sleeve. "A simple signature could have you in a Temple almhouse, or worse, in the streets again."
Tris's face bled white. She gulped at the knot in the pit of her stomach. This is it. This lady was going to end any chance of getting above the Mire and poverty, with a simple swipe of her pen. "Don't."
"Oh?" Moonstream's voice was bland. Her face betrayed nothing. "You don't want this? I would guess by your behavior lately that you were asking for a dismissal. All your teachers, with the exception of Master Opalsign have reported that you are sullen, bitter, and antagonistic. You don't concentrate in your classes and your work is often rumpled or ripped."
Tris sneered in response, but didn't respond. Her words seemed to be stuck in her throat. Why fight the inevitable? This lady had already made up her mind about her anyway?
"The Dedicates seem to be of the opinion that it's a personality flaw, a character failing on your part because of your upbringing in the Mire. In my own opinion, and in the testimonies of unbiased third parties present, I have come to the conclusion that you are merely a victim of your circumstances. After all, not many would be able to stand two months of torment without blowing up- though your meltdown was rather spectacular, I have to admit."
Tris regaine the ability to breath. "You mean… I'm not being sent away?"
"Well that depends." Moonstream said, sitting herself beside the girl on the bench. "I have a nice number of Dedicates screaming for your dismissal, not to mention the influential parents of some of the children sent here." She chuckled. "You have quite the talent for stewing contention."
"My pleasure." Tris mumbled.
"I am willing to cut a deal." Moonstream said. "I know a place; Discipline, it's called. A quiet little cottage with tended by two Dedicates who will oversee your stay here as well as your lessons in magery."
"It sounds like a punishment." Tris said. She ruefully remembered the 'discipline' that the Dedicates had been so fond of handing out and absently rubbed at the raised welts on her calves. Dedicate Staghorn had broken the skin.
"It could be, if you chose to see it as such. In my opinion, it's much like a small vacation. Especially away from the young ladies who seem to delight in making your life a misery."
Tris's face brightened at the thought. "So all I have to do is promise not to be horrible and I can go to the Discipline place? "
Moonstream nodded.
"Alright." Tris accepted after a second. She gave the parchment still clasped in Moonstream's hand a sideways glance. "Um, could you- ah, I don't want you to waste it, but would you mind throwing that away?"
Smiling slightly, Moonstream turned over the piece of parchment, baring its empty surface. The dreaded dismissal had never really existed in the first place.
Next chapters going to have whats happening to Valden more than Tris- though she will meet Rosethorn and Lark. At this point, she does'nt know they live at Discipline and Moonstream forgot to tell her the names of the two dedicates. Valden will be given a surprising role in this story. Obviously, as Tris grows it will transition more to her point of view as Valden slowly becomes less important and she doesn't depend on him as much- but never fear, I will not kill my beloved Valden Ramsey off.
I love him too much.