{PROPER AN: Okay so I didn't post a second chapter last week like I promised I would and I am so sorry, I got major writers block for the first time since starting and it really sucked and I have no idea if this is a good chapter or not but it's all I got so I hope you like it...}
Georgia: Hello again everyone! So Altaïr is still being a bitch, and no I'm not kidding about describing his behaviour that way. *pinches bridge of her nose* He is driving me up the wall, seriously, I had to send him out a shopping run to get us some supplies, half of which I had to freaking make up just to get him out of here. Anyway I figured I would use this time to quickly send this off to Justagenericusername without his interference or whining. Which brings me to my main point, enjoy the chapter because I'm off to enjoy the rest of my Altaïr free time while I still can, so adios to you all. *goes to turn off camera but pauses* Oh and please review *frowns* nobody has been reviewing recently...it makes me worried nobody is enjoying my story...
How did I forget it was my birthday?!
"WHAT THE BLOODY HELL IS GOING ON?!" I yelled in confusion as I wriggled violently.
"You say the strangest things you know. And will you stop struggling, it's just us," a voice I recognised said from my left as I was pulled forward.
"Ben! What is going on?!" I asked in an ever so slightly calmer manner after I stopped trying to get away.
"That's for us to know, and you to find out later," Sally said from my other side as I felt myself be steered along through the halls.
I groaned in annoyance but said nothing as I was marched through the Dauntless compound. I really hated being blindfolded, so with each step, although slightly difficult with my shoes between my feet and the earth, I sent a seismic wave out so I could see where I was being dragged by my friends. It was at that moment I really understood what Toph meant when she said she could see without seeing and that being blind really didn't hinder her. I could possibly even see more than I would with my eyes. It gave me a whole new appreciation for the young, blind earthbender.
I quickly realised I was being led to the bottom of The Pit, and "saw" a bunch of people standing around that looked to be waiting for us. I say that because they all perked up and faced the three of us when was got closer. My friends took my blindfold off and I barely caught sight of the group of teenagers before I was deafened by the sound of yelling.
"SURPRISE!"
"Wait, what?" I was thoroughly confused for a heartbeat, but the penny dropped pretty quickly. They had set up a surprise birthday party for me!
"HAPPY BIRTHDAY!" Sally and Ben chorused from each side of me. I felt a massive grin stretch over my face. I definitely had not been expecting this, but it was a pleasant surprise in comparison to the last I had experienced.
"Thank you guys!" I exclaimed as I spun around and pulled my two friends into a hug.
"Don't thank us," Sally said from inside my left arm, "thank Four, it was his idea, we just helped him out a bit."
"Oh." I let go of my friends and turned around to scan the crowd for our resident party planner. I spotted him standing off to the side with him arms folded, looking more than a bit out of place if I was honest. So I shouted out to the room, "let the party begin!"
People soon started talking and heading for a table of food on the other side of the room while I headed over to Four. He raised an eyebrow as I got closer and said to me, "you are supposed to be over there, with everyone else, partying."
"I know I am, but it would be incredibly rude of me to not thank the person responsible for me having a party in the first place, wouldn't it?" I sarcastically replied with my arms crossed in defiance. But I quickly dropped them to sincerely say to him, "so, thank you for setting up a surprise birthday party for me, you really didn't have to so it means a lot." I gave him a large grin to show my appreciation.
He smiled back and said, "you're welcome, and I did have to. It's not a proper birthday without a party of some sort. Now get back over there," he finished, making shooing motions at me to go and join the others.
"I'm going, I'm going. Bossy boots," I grinned at him and darted off back to the group of chatting teenagers before he could ask the question that was clearly written on his face.
Half an hour later we had eaten almost all of the party food and sung happy birthday before eating the cake, sadly all I managed to eat was a slice of cake as I had been too busy receiving congratulations and having people talk to me. But, to be honest, seeing as my 19th birthday was spent clubbing, I was getting a bit bored. There was no pounding club music at the party due to Amity being the only musical faction that had nothing like what I was used to, and the music in my head only went so far seeing as I couldn't dance to it without looking like a complete lunatic. So instead I snuck off to find some alcohol.
'Alcohol will liven things up a bit,' I thought to myself as I hunted around The Pit to see if there was a liquor store or something along those lines. You see I'm shy when in a large group of people that I don't know well and have to socialise with, especially as I was the centre of attention most of the time, so some alcohol would loosen me up a bit and I could have some fun. I found a shop after a few minutes of searching, but I knew I would be checked for ID – which I had absolutely none of – so made a plan . . . kinda.
Frankly I'm not exactly sure how I managed it, but 3 minutes later I had a bottle of whisky in my hand. 'SCORE!' I grinned to myself as I walked back to the party. I unscrewed the lid and took a large swing of my favourite spirit, feeling the satisfying burn as the liquor went down my throat. 'Not bad,' I thought to myself as I compared it to my go to drink, Jack Daniels - although usually it was with Coke or similar which masked the taste a bit.
I took a few more gulps while meandering my way back to the others, and once I re-joined the party I made a beeline for the table with all the other drinks - keeping my prize out of everyone's sight. Because of course I was supposedly only 17, and that's too young to drink, at least I assumed that the age limit hadn't changed…
I made it to my destination, albeit with some suspicion aroused by my fellow initiates, but not Four and that's what was important. I poured myself a double shot and downed it before anyone could realise what I was doing, then hid my bottle under the table.
"What was that?"
Shit, it was Ben. "Nothing," I said as innocently as I could manage after being sketchy as fuck.
"Uh huh," a smirk grew on his face as he raised an eyebrow. 'Aw come on, he can do that too!' I whined to myself as he said, "yeah, no way I believe you. What have you got that we aren't supposed to have?"
I sighed before throwing him a cheeky smile and pulling the bottle out to show him. "You can't tell Four," I whispered as his eyes widened at the sight, but he didn't say anything, just nodded in confirmation without taking his eyes off the bottle. "Want some?" I asked, curious about how he would answer.
"Er, no. I'm okay thanks."
"Cool. More for me," I said shrugging, before taking another swig out the bottle and gasping as the liquid hit the back of my throat. He shook his head at me but didn't say anything as I re-screwed the bottle and placed it under the table, out of everyone's view. Once I had stood upright again I saw Four giving me a suspicious look from across the room, so I waved like a lunatic at him with a large innocent grin on my face. I was beginning to feel the effects of the alcohol I had drunk while I walked down the hall and it was making me very excitable, the lack of food in my stomach had make the alcohol hit my system faster than usual.
Speaking of food, I walked to the front of the table and grabbed myself a large slice of heavily iced chocolate cake – my favourite! I stood leaning against the table, plate in one hand and fork in the other, observing the teenagers around me that were supposed to be having fun but sadly were not. 'I need to do something to liven things up here, or they are going to get very bored quickly,' I decided.
While munching away at my slice I thought over everything I could do to get people excited and having fun – not an easy task when faced with twenty plus bored sixteen-year-olds. Luckily just as I was finishing my cake I came up with a couple of good solutions, in the form of party games. Just in time too, as the group of initiates were looking like they would leave any moment.
"Right! TIME FOR BULLDOG!" I yelled into the crowd with a grin after putting my plate back on the table, the alcohol making me confident in ways I normally would not be. I mean, trying to get a bunch of teenagers to play kids games . . . not something I would usually attempt to do. "EVERYONE LINE UP AGAINST THE WALL ON ONE SIDE OF THE PIT!"
"What's bulldog?" a random voice called out from the crowd as they walked over and lined up to the right side. I noticed out of the corner of my eye that Four looked equally confused.
I dramatically gasped and mocked receiving a blow to the heart before saying in an equally overdramatic tone, "you don't know what bulldog is? I am wounded. Thoroughly shocked." I stood up straight from where I had almost collapsed on the ground in my little show, saying "but I shall explain to you how it works," as I walked over to stand in front of them.
I stood facing them for a few seconds before beginning to pace back and forth in front of them, "bulldog is a game of strength," I said in a military manner, "speed, and endurance. We can do a practice round if you want, but the aim of the game is simple, all of you," I ran a pointed finger along the line of awaiting targets, "need to get from this side of The Pit to the other." I stopped pacing and spun around to point at the far side of the open space with a flourish, then took a few steps forward and turned to face them again. "BUT, in the middle is a bulldog – in this case me – who's aim is to stop you lot by catching them or tapping them or, in some violent cases, tackling you to the ground and saying "bulldog; one, two, three". Those who are caught join the bulldogs in the middle and help capture those left, the last person standing wins and is bulldog for the next round. Any questions? Do we need a practice round?"
I paused for a moment to see a line of shaking heads until someone piped up, "wait, are the bulldogs not allowed to capture us at some time?"
My eyebrows shot up at that, 'damn, forgot about that.' "Right, my bad. If you are touching a wall either side, you are deemed as safe. You can stay touching the start wall for 20 seconds after I say to start, but do so at your own peril cause you have to run before then and if you don't you are immediately a bulldog. Any other questions?" I paused for a few seconds to let anyone speak as I casually took a few more steps back. "Nope? No practice round? Good. Then . . . GO!"
Every single one of them charged towards me as soon as the word left my lips. 'No strategy at all,' I tutted inside my mind as my eyes fixed on Ben near the centre of the pack. 'Target acquired,' I smirked at him as I barrelled towards him, made quick work of seeing through his feint to the left and tagged him right in the centre of his chest. "Bulldog; one, two, three," I said with the smirk never leaving my face. He sighed in disappointment and pouted at his misfortune, but I barely noticed as I was racing off in the opposite direction to catch an unsuspecting slacker.
Obviously Aaron and a few others had thought I was too preoccupied in catching Ben so I wouldn't try or be able to catch them. How wrong they were. I sprinted up behind Aaron and tagged him in the back, clinging on to his shirt. "Bulldog; one, two, three," I shouted, "GOTCHA!".
"Nooo," he wailed as he came to a halt to glare at me. "Wait, you already got Ben though!"
"There is no rule against catching more than one person a round," I smirked at his attempts to weasel his way out of being caught.
"What? Ugh. Fine," he grumbled as he stomped past me back towards Ben. I grinned and turned around and walked over to join them.
"Right, you two spread out wherever you want. Don't be scared to use some force to get them, we are Dauntless after all. Let's do this," I held out my fists towards them. They looked at me confused, "you are supposed to pound them," this only caused the confusion to intensify. So I pounded my fists together to demonstrate the action, this seemed to register and they quickly formed a hand each into fists and held them out towards me, I grinned and pounded them as I repeated my earlier statement.
We broke off and took up positions across the room, each of us giving our opposition the stink eye and sneering at them, I even went as far as taunting them. Then I suddenly shouted, "GO," in an attempt to catch them off guard. It took them a second to register what I had said before they started running towards us bulldogs, but by that time I had already made a beeline for my dear friend Sally. I quickly tagged her without much fuss before catching sight of Zeke on my far left.
'This should be fun…' I smiled to myself as I headed in his direction. The others parted like the red sea in an attempt to avoid me as they thought I was heading for them, which made my run to him faster and easier. It didn't take me long to end up on his heels, 'damn this dude is fast,' I noticed frustratingly. But it wasn't going to stop me. 'He is mine,' I thought as I leaped forwards and rugby tackled him to the ground, both of us landing hard on the ground. "Bulldog; one, two, three!" I exclaimed with delight at my take down before climbing off him.
"Ow," he complained as he lay there, "that hurt!" He rolled over to stare at me accusingly, "you didn't have to tackle me!"
I rolled my eyes and replied, "yeah I did actually. You were too damn fast for me to get any other way, why do you think I wanted you as a bulldog?" I winked at him as I held out a hand to help him up. He accepted it with a huff before grinning once he was upright again.
"Well, nice to know I'm wanted." I laughed at his reaction and clapped him on the back before regrouping at the centre with the others to see who else had been caught. It turned out they had each caught a kid, Ben had nabbed Allen and Aaron had caught Sarah, both good additions to my little team as they added strength and speed respectively. I indicated for them to huddle up.
"Okay, welcome new bulldogs, the game plan is simple for this round. I want each of you to spread out and pick out one person from the crowd that is in front of you, make sure they are in front of you so we don't pick the same people. Then I want you to heckle them, jeer at them, goad them, call out their name, single them out and when I say go, you get them by any means necessary. Sound good?" They all nodded, "then let's get 'em," I grinned evilly.
We spread out and I looked over the line to see who was in front of me, it turned out that Kyle was amongst those in my line of sight on the left side of the room. 'Oh this will be fun,' I thought evilly as I sent him my best 'I'm going to fuck you up' grin, which resulted in him looking slightly confused before glaring back. I heard the others calling their targets out and figured I should probably follow my own instructions, "you're next Kyle! This should be a piece of cake!" His glare intensified as I began heckling him, "you couldn't run fast enough to outrun an eight-year-old!"
"You're mine Steve!" Sally shouted from between me and the left wall of the room, "you might be big, but that makes you easy pickings for anyone who can move faster than a snail!" My eyes widened as I turned my head to look at Sally in shock. It couldn't be denied that she was brave enough to be Dauntless after this - despite being the smallest here, she had just outright challenged the biggest and strongest initiate. I mean sure she was right about him being slow and easy for someone like her to catch, but that doesn't mean you tell him that!
I shook my head and turned back to face Kyle, who looked slightly shocked by the outburst as well. My body tensed, ready to roll as I yelled, "ready. GO!" with the intention to try and catch him off guard. Unfortunately, it didn't work as Kyle took off immediately heading diagonally towards the centre of the room and I sped off after him. He was attempting to use the rest of the group to slow me down, I could see his heading immediately as he was going straight for the opposite side of the room to put as many bodies between us as he could. Sneaky bastard.
I shoved my way past a number of teens, stumbling a little as I did, not paying them any attention as I was too focused on my target. I imagine they were slightly confused at my lack of attempt at tagging them, but I didn't care as I had bigger fish to fry.
Kyle was getting close to the other side of the room by the time I was clear of the rest of the runners so I spurred myself on to go faster. Somehow I managed to move my feet fast enough to position myself behind my, now slightly panicking, target and threw myself at him just before he reached the wall. I wrapped my arms around his torso as I collided with him and we tumbled to the ground as I quickly said, "Bulldog; one, two, three," finishing just as we hit the ground.
I rolled off him immediately and yelled, "and the quarter back is toast!" before laying flat on my back while I caught my breath. Not that I was doing a very good job of it. By this point the whisky had kicked in fully and as I stared up at the ceiling of The Pit way, way above me I was giggling wildly at the absurdity of the situation. I was in an alternate dimension, hell I was in a freaking book, and I had just brought down Kyle in a game of Bulldog in Dauntless HQ with a bunch of initiates.
As I was giggling uncontrollably on the floor two figures appeared in my field of vision, "err, are you alright there Georgia?" one of them asked. I focused on the figure that had spoken, surprisingly it turned out to be Zeke who asked and he had brought Adrien of all people with him. Not so shockingly, Adrien didn't look too worried about my wellbeing and frankly I didn't figure out until later – later as in now as I am typing this, because frankly I didn't care before – that he was just there because Zeke had caught him near where I was lying last round.
"Heheh," I chuckled, "I'm good, I'm great, super happy!" I grinned at them as Adrien rolled his eyes and walked off before I was surprised by a loud hiccup escaping my mouth. That was new, I don't remember hiccupping before . . . not that I cared that much at the time.
Zeke looked down at my grinning face with growing concern written all over his features, aw nice to know he cared, so I placated him and said, "c'mon and help me up will you?" I held my arms up and waved my hands around a bit in invitation slash demand, he sighed as he grabbed my hands and hauled me off my arse. "Thanking you, kind sir," I told him as I dusted myself off, 'damn there is a lot of dust on me.'
"Are you sure you are okay?"
"Yeah, I-"
"What happened? What did you do Georgia?"
"I didn't do anything!" I protested as I whipped my head around to see who was accusing me. Turned out it was Ben who had come to check up on me, no surprise seeing as he was the only one who knew about my intoxication, light intoxication I should add – I'm just a silly person by nature that comes out much more when under the influence. "Jeez, a girl laughs about falling on her arse and suddenly everyone thinks she has lost her mind. Yeesh, take a chill pill," I said as I walked past Ben and patted his shoulder a couple of times to calm him down.
"Take a what now?" Ben asked as he followed behind me back to the centre of the room.
I started walking backwards and told him that it just meant 'calm down' before turning back to face the way I was walking. While it was meant to be a fairly graceful move, it was quite the opposite when I lost my balance and stumbled to the point where I would have face planted if it hadn't been for Ben grabbing me.
"Uh huh, sure you are fine..." he said knowingly as he righted me. I just stuck my tongue out at him and continued walking to the other bulldogs – who were now the majority of the initiates, only five remained to be caught now. They had done a good job last round.
"Alright bulldogs, lets finish this!" I told them as I got near them. "Group up and pick someone to take down, I'll be at the far end with Zeke picking up anyone who gets through you all but I don't expect that to happen." They all nodded in acknowledgment and started bunching together to pick who of the five they were going to catch. I motioned to Zeke as he was walking over to follow me to the one end of the room, he shot me a slightly confused look but followed me to the back of the room regardless. "We are in charge of catching any stragglers that manage to get through the line."
"Ah," he inclined his head as he acknowledged softly, wasn't that difficult to accept his role here or why he had been given in – the guy was freaking fast on his feet. He stood peering around and shifting in place, looking sort of unsure where to go, so I told him to go stand on one side of the room while I took the other. As I staggered slightly over to my position I glanced over our line of bulldogs to see if they were ready – they were and were already heckling the runners, there were really getting the hang of being bulldogs now. 'My babies are growing up,' I thought complete with fake weeping inside my head, 'I'm so proud… Man, I amuse myself sometimes.' I mentally shook myself, 'no Georgia, focus, stop farting around.'
"Alright you lot, lets make this the final round! Aaand . . . GO!" I watched as the five take off like a shot, scattering in all directions to try and spread us too thin to catch them. Not that it worked, in less than a minute four of the five were tagged and the last person – Dan – won by a matter of seconds by simply being the last caught. I remembered him from capture the flag, he was a fast kid and good at getting out of tight situations it seemed, something very useful for this game. 'None of them even made it close to reaching me or Zeke, which is probably a good thing seeing as I'm feeling my balance go...'
We all went over and crowded around him to congratulate him on his win, I carefully walked over and said my part then left, after all it is only a game. But it seemed that the others didn't quite understand that. I watched on, swaying slightly where I stood, with a mixture of amazement and confusion as a group of the stronger guys hoisting Dan onto their shoulders and walked around, cheering their heads off for a good five minutes about him being the winner of bulldog. Finding it much more amusing that normal I smiled at their antics – they didn't even know what that meant and probably didn't remember what winning resulted in, at least if we played again.
As I watched them walk around, I saw Four leaning against a wall to one side of our little 'pitch' with a pleasantly entertained look on his face. Of course the ever stoic Four would not properly smile at such things - he was such a hard arse before Tris knocked some sense into him, good thing she did come along and loosen him up or I wouldn't have liked him so much in the books.
In the midst of my musings Sally sidled up to me to ask with a hopeful look on her face, "are we doing another round?"
I looked at her with a smile, "we can if enough people want to, go and find out if most people want to go again." A very excited Sally grinned at me before bounding off to question everyone she could find, desperate to play another round. "Heehee, silly Sally," I said to myself as she moved around the room, "heh heh, alliteration, good one Georgia. Funny Georgia."
"Are you okay?"
I yelped and took a step back to see who was talking to me when I tripped over my own feet, lost my rapidly dwindling balance and promptly landed on my arse. Four stood over me with a slightly amused expression, smug bastard, it was his fault I was on the floor so I somewhat indigently replied, "I was, until you made me fall over and look like an idiot, thank you very much for that by the way." I held out my hand so he could help me up but he just stood there, "are you going to help me up? Or just stand there like a wet lemon?"
His features morphed into a look of confusion and mild distaste at being called a wet lemon and didn't help me up. Instead he left me to pick myself up off the floor as he voiced his confusion, "what do you mean by 'stand there like a wet lemon'? What do lemons have to do with this? And why is it wet?"
I sighed and shook my head slightly at yet another useful phrase having been lost to these wonderful people. "To stand there like a wet lemon basically means you are standing around being idle and useless. I think it was a politer version of an old saying – 'standing about like a spare prick at a wedding' or something similar," I explained from what I could remember. I looked it up once upon a time as I also didn't know the exact meaning, just the general knowledge that it meant 'don't stand around and do nothing like an idiot', oh the strange things I remember.
"Ah. Alright then," he replied before a silence fell over the two of us. I shuffled awkwardly, unsure as to why he came over here as I knew it wasn't to simply stand next to me as we watched the others debate whether to play another round. I was about to open my mouth to say something when he beat me to it, "where did you get the alcohol Georgia?" he bluntly asked, getting right to the point as usual.
"What alcohol?" I lied smoothly. Or at least I thought I had until he replied.
"Don't lie to me. I can see you are drunk, as could anyone else who knows what it looks like. So just tell me where it is."
"Nope! Neevveerrrr!" I shouted as I ran over to where the group of sixteen-year-olds had clearly come to a decision to play another round, "you'll never take me alive!" I careered into the group and was caught by Ben and Zeke, who were about to ask me something but I cut them off to ask excitedly, "soooo, are we playing another round?"
"Yes!" Sally exclaimed as she bounced with excitement from the other side of the little circle that had formed. "Who starts as bulldog?" she questioned me.
"That would be Danny boy," I looked over to him with a grin, "so get in position everyone!" We all hurried over to our positions and played round after round after round of bulldog until we were all exhausted.
For me the rest of the night passed in a slightly alcohol induced blur of running teenagers, yells of victory and cake - all in all, it ended up being an awesome birthday party that I thoroughly enjoyed. It was certainly one of the most violent I had ever attending as a number of us retreated to the dorm that night spotting some rather impressive bruises, that were certain to be even more so the next morning and would only get worse during our last day of physical training.