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

[oddthatway]

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.

Comments

[likeahero]

Oliver remembers bits and pieces of Tris' stories, knows the factions and their purposes and that being Dauntless is an important part of her identity the way being the Arrow is part of his own. "If I remember correctly, that means you trained together, right?"

[priordivergence]

I nod. If Oliver looks closely, he can see Christina's tattoos on her inner arm and under her eye, her Dauntless tattoo hidden under her clothes. They're done in the same style, solid black ink, as my own.

"We were transfers together. Initiates and roommates." First in the Dauntless dorms and then under Evelyn's regime.

[likeahero]

Someone that close, then, and still close friends. Oliver envies Tris for that; his own version of an initiation starting on Lian Yu ended with him alone and without friends, all either dead or presumed so.

"It's good that she's here, then. You look happy."

[priordivergence]

"For a year I was the only one who knew anything of my world at all," I say. The conversations had always been isolating, a reminder of just how alone I was after my upbringing in a world that had emphasized the importance of knowing where you belonged within your faction, community.

"It's nice having people from home. People I've missed."

[likeahero]

"It does change everything about being here," Oliver admits. He'd been going through the motions before Felicity arrived, and he felt like a different person after she did. He'd been reminded that he wasn't quite so alone.

"And now you've got two."