Tori and Triss - Chapter Two - Choosing Ceremony

Tori is a resistance fighter, part of a secret alliance within Dauntless against their tyrannical Leadership Group. Tris is a struggling initiate with a powerful secret. With Eric stacking the deck against Tris, Tori provides Tris with secret training sessions. Can Tori and the Alliance Tori keep her alive long enough to pass the final test or will she lose the love of her life.

Chapter Two - Choosing Ceremony

I hope I don't see Beatrice at the Choosing Ceremony, in fact I wish I would never see her again. Truth be told I have seen enough of her in my memories and my dreams - she was my first thought when I woke up too. I kept replaying various parts of our conversation on a loop, deleting comments I now think were less helpful and adding in things I wish I had said. She was such a surprising mix of submissive defiance, I have to admit I liked her.

I still hope she will choose Abnegation, it is her best chance of remaining undetected, and I hope she will be happy there. I don't know why I think that. After all, I'm not happy, I don't know of anyone who is. But still, I hope she is. I arrive at The Hub apparently fashionably late. The older I get the more cynical I become about politics and the tactics employed to reinforce its legitimacy. The speeches and ceremonial bull shit are nothing more than authoritarian nationalistic fetish porn. I am either less able, or less willing, to tolerate such propaganda and increasingly unable to keep my internal dialogue - well, internal.

I hide in the shadows at the back of the Dauntless section, clapping quietly for our new members, already prepared to love them. My body goes rigid as the name Prior is called out, a knot tightens in my stomach. I see him stand, a tiny grey wave against an ocean of various shades of grey, must be her brother. I see him reluctantly drop the hand of his sister and it makes me happy to think they might have been close. I am reminded of Georgie. Caleb is taller, darker and more sturdy than his sister, but he too is skinny. He takes endless sideways steps, like a crab, to reach the middle aisle. He strides purposefully to the front, he takes the ceremonial knife, cuts in his hand and lets his blood fall into a bowl of water. Erudite.

I happily presume that this defection will close the door on any ideas his sister may harbour of defecting, keeping her safe with her family in Abnegation. Beatrice's name is called, I shiver involuntarily. I see her rise, her mother and father stand to let her pass, patting her back and stroking her arm as she passes. She has none of her brother's confidence, she takes forever to reach the front, I find myself silently chanting 'Abnegation, Abnegation'. Her shaking hand reaches for the knife, she makes the cut and holds out her dripping fist wavering between various bowls. I mentally repeat 'Grey Stone, Grey Stone', willing her to make the smart choice, the safe choice.

The room is silent and I swear I hear the hiss of liquid hit hot coals. Dauntless. Beatrice has also defected, I suddenly feel very cold and empty. They will find out about her here. A cheer goes up as Dauntless welcomes our newest initiate, I take advantage of the ruckus and slip over the back of the rail and head discretely for the exit. It is the worst choice she could have made, they will find out about her here and kill her. The only way I can think to mitigate the devastation I feel is to shrug my shoulders and pretend that this is an event of little significance, that it happens all the time and remind myself that I don't even know the kid.

I have to get back to Dauntless, I have work to do. I stuff my hands deep into my pockets and decide to think no further about the girl. I walk purposefully from The Hub toward the railway lines, I shinny up a pylon without raising a sweat, pop aboard a slow rolling train and ride back to Dauntless. The facility was unusually desolate, read creepy, given that most everybody was at the Choosing ceremony. I take this rare opportunity to be alone and stocktake the tattoo parlour store room, afterward I meet some of the Dauntless Leadership Group for a drink at the bar and listen to the news of the day.

I like to refer to this period as peak trade - it's when all the newbies arrive at the compound and the new adults from our own faction combine as brothers and sisters to form their own cohort. The practical consequence of a new cohort is an increased demand for clothing, food, weapons, ammo, first aid supplies, you name it we need it. It's a period of increased activity for all and particularly fraught for our new initiates. Many of them are scared shitless, homesick, desperate to fit in, they have no baseline level of fitness and no defensive skills at all. They are often physically and emotionally strung out, and can be seen running from the pit to the first aid quarter, to stores and back to the pit hiding injuries and hoping to remain undetected. At meal times they dont talk much, they don't know anyone and are too busy ramming food down their throats, hitting the communal showers and falling onto their cots.

I attend regular leadership meetings bodily but my heart isn't in it, luckily there is enough testosterone at present to render my disinterestedness invisible. Sadly, we are divided amongst ourselves. On the surface it may appear that the old guard opposes the new - but the conflict is not nearly so neat. Tensions are less obvious than they are real and very dangerous. The new agenda has almost completely supplanted the old, establishing a cultural shift featuring unnecessary and unpleasant competition and bullying. In this environment, the sense of family that once characterised Dauntless has eroded and we have been reduced to fearful, silent individuals rather than various tightly knit, allied kinship groups.

I care deeply. As a Dauntless transfer, I had been afforded a generous welcome. I had been trained to a very high standard in an encouraging environment, my abilities had been carefully developed and I had been groomed for leadership. Dauntless are my family - a rather dysfunctional family at present, granted. More than my life, I value the idea of handing on to future generations, that same Dauntless spirit that had been handed to me. I haven't given up, and I won't. I still don't have a clear plan but I plan to continue to resist.

The new crew relies too heavily on intimidation and brute strength to secure their objectives and agenda. Team meetings are less an opportunity for discussion than as an exercise in administrative exploitation, where roles with access to power and prestige are hoarded and undesirable tasks are forced upon those considered expendable. The big boys who think they run this joint assume the real currency is force - overt or implied, but if there is one thing I understand about this racket - it's the value of friendship. My primary objectives are to keep the old Dauntless traditions alive, I covertly keep up old friendships and surreptitiously cultivate new ones. I also try to keep my head down.

All but a few of the oldest friendships have slowly become tainted by fear and suspicion and frequently just plain fatigue. I've never been one to wish I could do my youth over again and thank god for that, it was hard enough to do with friends let alone in this sterile environment. I have worked very hard for a long time to grease my own wheels, I have forged deep bonds with key people and I am highly respected by the people who really count - members of Dauntless. No one watching would pick them, but we are the backbone of this faction and we will be here to put it back together when these egomaniacs have lost their heads.

Case in point; a new rule change was announced, not discussed, it will see the least successful initiates cut from Dauntless. That's right - cut, forcibly ejected from our family and made free to join the Factionless. If it wasn't for the distress this new rule caused all but a few initiates, and the devastation it will cause a small number of initiates I would actually rather enjoy it. The new rule actually undermines the whole faction system, an argument I have only ever dared make within the confines of my own mind. This pathetic, hypermasculine culture was unpleasant, unnecessary and served to erode loyalty to both the faction and to each other.