oddthatway | Give you something good to celebrate. [Gathering; Pre-dated to 6/5/15]

Tris ought to know well enough by now that I never go back on my word, once given. Especially when it comes to something as important as celebrating her 19th birthday. (And I have no doubt her and Four will find their own ways to celebrate later, but I try not to think about that. For my own sake.) She also still doesn't know that this celebration is about far more than her almost not being a teenager anymore. I'm putting my all into this because, back home, Tris doesn't get the chance to live this long. Back in Chicago, the Tris I've left behind is resting in a morgue.

I have the living room all decked out because of the rabbit. While Tris still isn't here, I'll admit: the damn thing's cute. And at least Tris had the sense to get a pet with Dauntless colors. It makes the whole pet thing seem far less Amity.

I've worked hard, tying ribbons of various colors - vibrant, spring colors like sky blue and lavender - and balloons around every available edge and corner. Behind the couch, I've put a banner that I've painted myself, which is why the writing looks so sloppy. Again, I've used the colors of the ribbons and the balloons, to write a simple message of 'Happy birthday, old lady!'

Not that Tris is old at all. Far from it. But I can't resist a bit of teasing, even for my best friend's birthday.

On the table rests a cake I bought at one of the local bakeries, in the shape of a bird, with some berries on top. It's the kind of quaint that I think Tris will appreciate. Next to it, my gifts: a slinky, shimmery light blue dress, because one can never have too many sexy dresses, and the other, a beautifully designed knife with crows etched onto the handle of the blade. Both were hardly cheap, but for Tris, I would be willing to spend far more.

So now I'm waiting, pacing through the living room, adjusting the various decorations while keeping an eye out for Tris.

I've invited others, of course. It wouldn't do to just be the two of us. Slowly, I'm beginning to understand how much Tris' friends here mean to her. So I've invited as many people as I've been able to get a hold of. Now all I can do is wait.

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“Hence your exemplary tact,” Athos deadpans. He still knows little about Tris’ strange and unsettling world, but the nature of candor is simple enough to surmise.

“I suppose this train was another one of those foolhardy tests.” The more he learns about these dauntless, the less he respects them. It is one thing to try the mettle of one’s soldiers; it is another to drive them to foolish actions on the battlefield because they have learned that acts of daring are of the greatest import. Such a strategy can only end in death.

"So you've noticed," I reply with an equal amount of wryness. Admittedly, Athos deals with my blunt words better than most people. Which makes me feel more accomplished and less of an ass.

"Yeah," I say, my tone sobering as I recall the Amity student who wouldn't jump, even when it meant they would be Factionless. "You got used to it after the first jump, and I enjoyed it, actually. But it's not the kind of test that really tries one's bravery." I shrug. "The state of Dauntless when Tris and I transferred in was already corrupted by Erudite. I don't know how much she told you, but basically, they were already training us to be mindless warriors."

I frown; I can't keep the bitterness from my voice. Not when I know how well I wound up molding to the purpose of Dauntless that Jeanine wanted.

“I have gathered bits and pieces,” Athos answers with a grimace, disliking the world these girls called home, this Chicago, more and more with each thing he hears. “And I am coming to understand that your superiors were foolish as well as cruel.” The two go together often enough, and he should not be surprised; but anyone who believes a mindless soldier is a good one has not seen many successful battles.

"So she has told you some of it," I observe. Though not all of it, clearly. I can't stop thinking of the Tris I've left behind back in Chicago - the one laying cold in the morgue. But I don't want to upset any friend of Tris, especially at her own birthday party. So I leave it be. "Foolish and cruel, certainly," I agree, though it's too simple an explanation to really describe the entire experience. Like the rest of us, in the end, they had all been experiments too. "They knew how to use that combination to their advantage."

“To what purpose was such manipulation?” It is one of the many things Athos has never quite understood about the world Tris calls home. Their leaders do not seek military conquest, or enforcement of religious code. Neither has he tried to broach the subject, for he can see too easily that Tris would rather avoid the subject. In contrast, this Christina is, well, candid. Perhaps she can share something more.

I pause at the question, trying, for once, to consider the most tactful way to answer it. "Has Tris told you about being Divergent, yet?" I ask him in turn. I wonder to just what extent he knows of our Chicago, or how much left of it I'll have to explain. It's complicated enough that I already know even more than Tris does of the workings of Chicago and the Factions. Athos seems trustworthy to me; with a pang, I realize, he reminds me of Will.

Athos inclines his head and folds his arms over his chest, watching her with cool blue eyes. “Some of it. It is a person who does quite fit within any one faction, is that correct?"

"Yes," I nod, though that isn't nearly the half of it. But then, I realize, it wouldn't feel right to talk to this Athos, understanding as he seems, before talking to Tris about everything that's happened. I'll have to do my best to explain without giving more than I want to away. "And thus, it makes them dangerous back in the Faction system. So they wanted to eliminate them. Being different like that, well. It wasn't a desirable quality to have."

Which is ridiculous, when you consider the way anyone could have ever thought humans to fit into one of five categories to begin with.

“So I gather,” Athos says grimly. He does not like to imagine anyone seeking to harm Tris, who has become like a sister, but more than that, he puzzles at the sheer absurdity of these factions. What purpose could they serve, except to weaken and divide? No man should be ruled by a single trait - certainly no soldier. “And did they expect you Dauntless to fight against these Divergent?” he asks, still trying to puzzle it all together.

"I don't pretend to understand the way they've tried to run our city and govern us," she says, trying not to think about how, in the end, Chicago ultimately did Tris the ultimate harm. "But growing up in the Factions, that was normal for us. I didn't question it until I met Tris, really. She opened my eyes in a lot of ways." His next question causes her expression to turn grim. "They did," she says, carefully. "They used a serum on us to control our wills. And then they set us loose on Abnegation. Tris' original Faction."

I don't elaborate beyond that; surely, he can read in my expression just what is I've done.

The more Athos hears of Tris’ story, the story of her people and their lives, the more grim the world they inhabited becomes in his eyes. He is far from naive himself, he knows that honorable men are rare and those in power rarely wield it well, and that mankind is an easily corruptible race. But the dark tale Christina spins is enough to make him appreciate the banal evil of France’s careless nobility, and the pettiness of court intrigue.

What Christina now tells him is monstrous.

“But you have now both escaped the clutches of your cruel masters.” It seems worth remembering at a time like this.

I don't really know how I can tell my story in a way in which people can relate; the true darkness underlying the structure of Chicago and the Faction systems echoes throughout the history lessons we received, but as far as I can tell, I've yet to come across any situation exactly like ours.

"Yes, we have," I say, my voice soft. I try to be grateful for that fact. I try not to dwell on the way she escaped back home. "And I hope I can build a new life for myself here, like Tris."

Not that I can ever make-up fully for the harm that I've done. But I can damn well try.

Give you something good to celebrate. [Gathering; Pre-dated to 6/5/15]

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