All the way back to the Dauntless-headquarters, Keena had been uncharacteristically quiet.
Quiet.
Eric had never seen her quiet before.
Silent? Yes, many, many times. But there was a big difference between her being silent and her being quiet.
When she was silent, you could tell she still had a lot to say but simply choose not to; her mischivous eyes would betray her loud mind. In that case, one look at her would demand an acknowledgement that she was a force to be reckoned with. Her razor sharp, calculating mind was something to be feared and admired all the same.
She was a dangerous woman when silent.
There was nothing intimidating about her being quiet, however. She just sat against the wall of the train compartment, hugging her own legs and resting her chin on her knees. Her eyes were glanced over as she looked at the by-passing landscapes.
She looked small, defeated and weak.
Eric despised it.
He hated weak people and not only because Dauntless had no use for them. It was because there was no need or reason to be weak. Either you had a happy life without a worry in the world and there was no cause to become weak, or you had an unhappy life with lots of troubles and there was no option to become weak.
If tough-life people would break down and and develop an all consuming self-pity causing them to become weaklings, their troublesome circumstances would make sure they'd end up dead. Thus, weaklings were merely easy-life people with lots of unfounded self pity.
He himself hadn't had a life full off rose petals, rainbows and sunshine, but there was no use in crying about it. If he could be strong, so could everybody else. Furthermore, as a leader, he couldn't tolerate any Dauntless being weak, for the sake of the army, the city and thus, the safety.
But if he had learned anything from the past two weeks of initiation, Keena was far from weak. She might have her moment of weakness now but it didn't make her become it.
So, just for this once, he'd let it go.
Four seemed to be of the same mind as him and so the trio remained in silence as the train transported them back to the Dauntless compound.
/
"Keena!" Lara greeted as soon as Keena set foot in the cafeteria. "How did it go?"
"Killing a dog makes a Dauntless, apparantly." She smiled.
Her friends congratulated her on being a real Dauntless although they all had suspected as much. They meant wel, but for Keena it stung to have them so happy for her deception. Normally, she wouldn't have minded, but today wasn't like usual.
Today she had lied.
She kept telling herself over and over again that she didn't have a choice but the fact was that she did.
She choose to lie.
And it wasn't so much the lie that bothered her, but the fact that it hadn't felt as bad as she expected it would feel. She had no doubts or regrets, and that was what bothered her.
She never lied because she didn't want to inflict pain on people like that, but in this case not-lying would've had her killed. Between hurting a cold-hearted Jeanine Matthews with an untruth or saving her own life, she had chosen herself.
She stood by her choice.
But it did feel like the end of yet another chapter of her old Amity-self and she just hoped that at the end of initiation her siblings would still be proud to call her their sister if they knew how much she had changed.
As a child and young adult. You see the world in black and white; right and wrong, good and evil, truth and untruth.
But maybe lies were a necessity at times and maybe lying was not always such an utterly bad thing to do. After all, it was a messy and complex world they lived in, nuances could and should be found in everything. Except in Candor of course. Candors would live forever in that perfectly black and white world, but was it ethical? Should every person be treated like every other, while their circumstances were far from the same and thus one person was clearly not comparable to another?
Candor would say yes. An act is an act. A deed a deed. A punishment a punishment.
Keena disagreed.
Still, her new revelations made her head spin. All the way back to the Dauntless headquarters she had been wrapping her head around this new concept of lying and what it meant for her as a person.
Althoug she would continue to prefer deception over lying, she would lie when she had to; when it came down to a life-or-dead situation like this afternoon.
But when she did lie, she would not allow herself to feel any kind of negative feelings because of it. It was her right to protect herself.
Certainly, no one else would.
Eating and chatting amiably with her friends, Keena noticed Jasper enter the dining room with a sly smile on his face. He was walking purposefully to their table. Great. Just her luck. As if Jeanine wasn't enough unpleasantness in one day.
"Well, well. Look who's back." Jasper taunted. "Did you finally find out that you should've stayed in Amity, little flower-midget?"
"Well, well. Look who still didn't upgrade his orginality." Keena shot back. "Did you overhear Eric call me that all by yourself? Who's a good boy?"
Jasper narrowed her eyes at her.
"Is it Jazzy-bell? Yes, it is." Keena continued in a voice as if talking to a puppy.
"Stop that!" Jasper commanded Keena in a hostile whisper, who other than grinning widely, looked utterly unimpressed. In the meantime they had attracked the attention of more tables than just the one Keena and her friends were sitting at.
Keena shrugged in response. "I already killed one dog today, I think I can fight another."
"You little bitch!" He spat. "You think you are so popular, but mark my words; no one gives a shit about you! Your friends were just fine without you today, the trainers want you gone, and I have it on good authority ..."
Keena noticed a malicious glint in his eyes.
".. that even your dear mother didn't love you. She rather whored herself out across the city than spend time with a humiliating daughter like you!"
There were gasps comming from all around the room.
Keena stood up and walked slowely around the table until she was standing in front of him. The top of her head came as far as his nose, but it mattered not.
She stared him down.
For a long while it remained silent. The entire cafetaria was watching them closely. For this time, Jasper thought himself the victorer.
Oh, how wrong he was.
When Keena finally did speak her voice was ice cold, calculating and dangerously emotionless. It commanded a silent attention in a way that no fool would dare to challenge.
"Bravo, what a fine find you did." Her words were sharp like a razor, her voice dripping with sarcasm. "You think you are so clever, revealing a part of my past you had no business in knowing. But you forgot; I care not and I shall forgive you for your repulsive nosy ways." referring to the nickname of an Erudite; 'Nose'.
Jasper scoffed but Keena wasn't quite finished yet.
"You try to knock me down when I'm on my way to the top of the initiation board. Instead of fighting me like a real Dauntless would, you try to pry your way into my head, trying to weaken me mentally like an Erudite might. No Dauntless would act that way; Only a coward would."
With those words spoken, Keena brushed passed him, slowly making her way to an exit.
Her back was towards Jasper as he opened his mouth to reply, but it was as if she had eyes in the back of her head and she put her hand up in the air, stopping him before he had even uttered a word.
"No need for you to have the last word, Jazzy-bell. I'm sure it was something erudite." She said without looking back and she made her way out of the room. Leaving behind a fuming and embarrassed Jasper and a shocked and impressed Dauntless crowd.
The doors had just closed behind Keena when they eruptered in a loud racket of laughter and shouts.
It wasn't long before her friends came to find her.
"Oh, My, God!" Mira exclaimed, dropping an arm on Keena's shoulders and leaning heavily onto her. "You killed it! His face; Priceless. Your voice; So facking terrifying. Beautiful. Chapeau. No words." Mira was full of excitement, making Keena shrug off any negative feelings and laugh along. Mira was truely precious.
"Yeah, you were pretty bad-ass." Jonah agreed. Maximus and Gale nodded along.
"And you know we love you right?" Lara asked carefully. "He's just full of bullshit."
Keena smiled at the tall brunette. If Keena hadn't seen Lara's fighting skills, she would have been sure the girl was an Amity. She was always so kind, which was like a miracle having grown up in Erudite. The kind of people they produced there were not easy to lable as warm or kind people. Jeanine, Eric, Jasper.. Lara however seemed the total opposite. Keena guessed it was some sort of anti-reaction.
"No dear, I know you guys were all just sitting in a corner today, eagerly waiting my return as you were all very depressed and confused without me to entertain y'all." Keena joked, winking at a snickering Gale.
"Busted. Now you're back however, how do you guys feel about getting some tattoos and piercings?" he asked.
It was not a bad idea. Although they would still have some fights to come, they would start with knives tomorrow and for the remainder of the week. Meaning, there would be lots of time for the first sting to ease away so it couldn't be used against them in a fight.
They all agreed to go but walking through the Pitt, Keena's eyes fell on a hairdresser shop instead. Shooting a pleading look to the girls they shrugged.
"We can't all get a tattoo at the same time anyway." Mira said.
And so the girls split up with the boys and entered the shop.
One and a half hour later the girls left the shop with their new hairstyles.
Lara's former brown locks were now a deep dark green, Mira had cut her raven hair into a messy bob and Keena had her long wavy blonde locks dyed into a smokey grey with some occasional mint green string wrapped dreads throughout her hair. The darker color of her hair in contrast with her lighter skin, really made her bottle green eyes pop.
They all looked amazing and told each other so as they moved on to the piercing shop. Mira and Lara had bought some clothes earlier that day so they would wait with the tattoos. Keena however decided to treat herself after the challenging day she'd had facing the ice queen herself.
In both ears she wanted a standard lobe and upper lobe piercing. Additional to her right ear she also chose to get an industrial and snug piercing. Her left ear would get two helix rings, an outer conch and a tragus. All would be in rose gold.
Yes, her Dauntless-points would be almost spent up all the way, but this was the first time in her life she didn't have to watch her money and save it for food. Being an initiate food and a place to sleep were free. For the first time in her life she could treat herself and what better way to do it than becoming a full dauntless? She also wanted to get some tattoos but as she wanted them to mean something she hadn't quite figured out what to get yet.
She only knew it had to have some connection with her siblings, but as she found names tacky she was still deciding on what exactly.
By spending almost all her money on piercings, she would have some more time to figure it out without the temptation of 'just getting one done already' as her spending-points would be too little for her to do so.
And so she did.
"You look so Dauntless!" Mira excitedly yelled, a nodding Lara behind her. "The rose gold looks awesome in combination with your hair as well!"
As they exited the shop Keena bumped right into something.
Or someone.
Looking up, she looked into the piercing blue eyes of Eric.
Nope. It was a something after all. If his wall of a body wasn't enough to deem him not human, his face was playing along by being a stone mask of indifference and annoyance as well. As soon as his eyes met hers, however, it changed into something akin to surpressed curiosity.
"Get of off me." He ordered curtly while grabbing her upper arms and pushing her backwards. His touch however was gentle and his push more a guiding than rough.
What the actual fuck.
Was it not just a week ago when he had pushed her at such a force she almost collapsed in the middle of the dining room? And did he not roughly trip her and push her back onto the floor merely a day after that?
She wasn't complaining that he didn't now but let a girl be shocked.
To make it weirder, he looked as confused as she was feeling.
"Katharina?" she heard a voice say. Turning slightly around to look at the figure next to Eric, she saw a face she hadn't seen for a very long time.
"Alijah? Oh, wauw. How great to see you! How are you?" She asked giving him a short hug.
True, she didn't like hugs from people who were not her brothers or sister, but for people she hadn't seen in a long time she would make an exception.
They made a minute of small talk until Eric stated they should go.
"I'm sure we'll see each other soon enough." Alijah said with a little wink. "I have a feeling you're not going anywhere any time soon."
And with those words he hurried after Eric, who'd already walked off.
She turned around to her friends to see them stare at her completely dumbfounded.
"What?" Keena asked honestly.
Mira and Lara looked at each other and back at Keena, who was standing there clueless.
"Oh, dear. Sorry to break your innocent Amity bubble... we need to talk." Mira grinned wickedly.
