Tori and Tris

by secretkeeper0024

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 with secret training sessions. Can Tori and the Alliance keep Tris alive long enough to pass the final test or will she lose the love of her life. Complete.

23. Chapter 23 - Lighting a candle

Chapter Twenty Three - Lighting a candle

For the following weeks Tris and I led a relatively settled life, I went to work and Tris went to the compound. Although her ribs still gave her too much trouble to train in the pit, we trained together at home and due to her perseverance and determination she developed steadily. Tris found other ways to improve her skills and increase her value as a Dauntless initiate, she participated in phase two training with her cohort and with careful and strategic restraint she made only incremental progress.

Tris also invested considerable time and care to cultivate her personal relationships with her closest friends; Christina and Will had visited the studio frequently and were finally learning to relax around me. She was already a popular member in her cohort, other initiates were drawn to strength of character and courage defence of those who were made targets of unfair treatment or bullying. Tris had apparently been making other connections in Dauntless as well, made evident to me when she shyly presented me with a gift - beads for my dreadlocks.

I have been as happy as I have ever been in my life, I recalled the day I had wished Tris happy and then immediately thought it an impossible proposition. It was of course in large part due to having Tris in my life, who was in herself a ray of sunshine, but not entirely. I seem to have experienced somewhat of an adjustment in perspective, some might call it smelling the roses.

I was working as hard as ever and loving every minute. I made more of an effort with my relationships as well, apparently I my change in perspective was immediately obvious to those about me, and appreciated. Who'd have thought? I began mindfully redistributing the excess of resources we had accumulated which made more space for Triss to put her stamp on the place as well. I made her a gift as well. I had arranged to procure some sunflower seeds from Amity, I planted them in a large glass jar and sat it right in the centre of our window. When Tris saw it and asked me what it was all about, I smiled, completely chuffed with myself, and said "Planting some flowers." I was amply rewarded for my efforts that night.

Other changes were likewise taking place. Initiates, independently of each other, began resisting orders they felt directly contributed to a culture of bullying and intimidation and while they showed no aversion to training they used Fight club for sparring only. Eric tried to crack down and crack heads the moment he began to sense a loss of control and influence. Initiates continued to follow the directions of trainers and those in the Leadership Group they trusted, and although they attempted to continue to treat Eric and his cronies with respect, the effort was entirely undermined when they were unable to register the fear they once felt.

At the same time other Dauntless citizens began to remember another version of Dauntless and consider opportunities to bridge the gap between that and this. It became quite obvious to a great very many otherwise ordinary people that the choice was between two flavours of fear; fear of change and fear of remaining the same. To continue watching and informing was to continue to hand power to those who would not hesitate to wield it.

To embrace resistance was to accept the risk of sustaining presently that which they feared would occur at some point in the future. The choice was logically comprehensible but fear doesn't operate on logic. As people made the choice to resist, it was as though a light was flicked on, one by one lights were going on all over the Compound.

The two remaining fellows suspected of assaulting Triss were shunned within Dauntless, one confessed and the other defected in the night. This further undermined the legitimacy and influence of those within the Leader Group who had been reluctant to seek justice. Many of them saw the writing on the wall and either dropped away from Leadership altogether or submitted to demands for democratic rather than authoritarian representation.

It might appear to be an anti climactic end to the story - but not if you were one of those initiates who would otherwise have been cut.