𝐖𝐇𝐄𝐍 𝐈𝐓 𝐆𝐈𝐕𝐄𝐒.
chapter two; A Dauntless Hamburger
" Well, we're not Factionless yet. "
AMITY WAS HOSTING the Choosing Ceremony this year, and Marlowe didn't care to listen to the speech. Her mind clung onto the goodbyes her family knew were goodbyes as she stood in the alphabetical line of 16-year-olds.
A part of her was nervous now. Standing before an endless crowd, watching teens choose their own faction time and time again. There was one transfer— Amity to Abnegation. Then another— Candor to Erudite. Then, one that shocked the crowd— Amity to Dauntless.
This made Marlowe feel better about her drastic change. That, someone, had chosen bravery over peace, and Marlowe was only choosing bravery over selflessness. So, when Marlowe heard her name called, she didn't have fear.
She accepted the knife without hesitation, now more at home than it'd felt in her Aptitude Test, and sliced her palm open. Her grit her teeth, holding her hand over lit coals— but all the pain subdued when the sizzling of her blood was met with the cheers of Dauntless.
Marlowe knew it was customary. Dauntless were rowdy and cocky and it inflated their ever-growing ego when another faction's member transferred to them— but Marlowe remembered, she was not Dauntless.
Not fully, she was an initiate, but Marlowe would be. She wasn't going to make it this far only to end up Factionless. She was going to be Dauntless. Fully.
And the first step in this happened immediately.
Dauntless were the first to leave the ceremony, a privilege Marlowe found herself relishing in.
And then, it started. Dauntless members began cheering, running down the tens of thousands of stairs in the Hub. A sea of black that was familiar to Marlowe, ignorant bravery and stupid happiness radiating as the burst into the world.
Marlowe was grinning as if she was one of them.
She kept a good pace, proud that she was ahead of a few kids in black. But, the thing that really excited Marlowe, was the realization that she would be jumping onto the train. The crowd flattened into a thick line, alongside the tracks, as the train itself rushed past them. Instantly, Dauntless began grabbing on, lurching themselves inside, and Marlowe kept running.
She held her hand out, fingertips skimming the side of a handle, until she wrapped her digits around and let her feet leave the ground, swinging until she hit solid metal. Marlowe relished in the busy loudness of the train car, until, of course, she dared to look beyond it.
The Amity girl, whose raven hair fanned out as she sprinted along with the train, had tears running down her cheeks. Marlowe wasn't sure why she didn't just grab on— she easily could have. It wasn't like any of the transfers knew how to do it or landed gracefully, but that was the thing.
Bravery wasn't about knowing what to do, it was about figuring it out in motion.
And, while Marlowe was selfish and greedy, she wasn't cruel. So she held onto the handle on the inside of the train car and reached far for the Amity girl. Her eyes lit up, quickly grabbing onto Marlowe's hand. It was bumpy, as they worked together, but no matter, the girls ended up in a heap inside the train and this was all that mattered.
"Thank you," The Amity girl breathed out, "I mean— I wouldn't have—"
"You could've," Marlowe informed, "I swear your fingers were on the train. You just had to believe in yourself a little."
"Sounds like bullshit," A dark-haired boy, cloaked in black clothing informed, looking down at the girls. A Dauntless born. Not that he wouldn't have to earn his place just as much as they would. "We got a Stiff two years in a row, that has to be a record."
"How lucky for Dauntless."
His eyebrow cocked up briefly, seeming to size Marlowe up for a minute.
"I'm East."
"Nice name," Marlowe noted dryly, attitude already aligning with the Dauntless born.
"I'm Persephone," The Amity girl spoke up, smiling despite the growing tension.
"Got a name, Stiff?"
"Lowe."
Marlowe Prior was Abnegation. She was the hungry. The starved. She was a thin mockery of what she could be. Abandoning the weight of her first name was simply step one in becoming this entire version of her.
"And I have the weird name," East sighed to himself, "Good luck, you'll need it."
And she didn't exactly believe him. Marlowe thought it was just some heavy comment meant to instill fear in new recruits. Until people started jumping off the train.
"They're crazy," Persephone laughed, watching East leap alongside two other Dauntless born onto the safety of a rooftop.
Marlowe looked to the left, realizing they were nearing the end of the building.
"Yeah, well, I guess so are we," Marlowe breathed out, "On three."
"There's a gap!"
"One."
"I can't!"
"Two!"
"Lowe—!"
"Three!"
Despite Persephone's shaky arguments, when Marlowe shouted the number, both girls went tumbling from the train. Persephone hit the pebbles harshly, and Marlowe somehow gracefully rolled, landing face-up on the roof.
"Well, we're not Factionless yet," Marlowe breathed out, making Persephone laugh shortly.
"Hey!" The teens quickly gathered themselves, joining the crowd of initiates as a gravelly voice spoke up, "Listen! My name is Max, I am one of the leaders of your new faction! Several stories below us is the members' entrance to our compound. If you can't muster the will to jump off, you don't belong here. Our initiates have the privilege of going first."
No one was eager to jump. Until Marlowe began to step forward and East saw it too quickly, his feet moving faster and stationing him on the ledge of this seemingly endless fall. Dauntless born were silent, not cheering, because they weren't sure if East would survive or not.
But he wiped off the fear, grinned, and cannonballed into nothing-ness.
"Who's next?"
Marlowe wasn't letting anyone take this from her. She shoved through the crowd, opposing the gray clothes she wore. The brunette stared down, searching for something only to be met with shrewd darkness. She smiled lightly at Persephone's supportive cheer, turning to set eyes on the girl before allowing her body to fall backward.
Falling, falling, falling, snapping. Marlowe felt netting embrace her, sinking before snapping back up and settling. She wasn't dead. She was safe.
"Another Stiff!"
Marlowe's eyes snapped to the owner of the voice, a boy not much older than she with pitch black hair and a shining eyebrow piercing laughed. She had no choice but to scoot across the net towards him, admittedly she was surprised when he actually assisted her getting down from the contraption.
"What's your name?" A different boy called, his hair and general appearance lighter than the first.
"Lowe."
"Second jumper, Lowe!"
She was shocked at the applause, the crowd that waited below the platform in the huge, empty cavern. Even East was whooping for her. Marlowe breathed out a laugh, hurrying to her place beside East as another initiate fell infinity, unaware of a pair of eyes watching every careful movement.
↬
The two instructors lead the sizey group of initiates down a narrow, cave-ish hallway. They came to a halt, and a woman who hadn't said much to any of the initiates introduced herself as June before beckoning all Dauntless-born to follow him.
"See ya around, Lowe," East chuckled, shouldering Marlowe lightly in passing, jostling her into shock.
"That was weird."
"Yeah," Marlowe mumbled to Persephone.
Speaking of Persephone, it didn't take long to realize they would be a spectacle. Abnegation to Dauntless was rare, but not foreign, but Amity to Dauntless was virtually unheard of. And the two of them sticking together, well it was just asking for trouble.
"My name is Four," The boy with the calm exterior announced, capturing all attention, "For the next few weeks, I'll be your instructor. This is Eric," He gestured to the boy with the eyebrow piercing, "He's a leader in Dauntless who will be overseeing your training. Let's get to the tour."
Marlowe hung off of every one of Four's words. The Pit was a large cavernous. . . pit. The stone walls were filled with places for food, clothes, and leisure activities. Thin rock paths connected them, un-guarded as expected with Dauntless. But Marlowe thought it was amazing. How lively the people were, dressed in black but with the brightest smiles, the loudest laughs— it was like a dream Marlowe would soon wake up from.
Four led them to the far side of the Pit, where stone turned to metal grate and the sound of a violent waterfall plummeting into nothingness took over all other sound. He wasn't the best tour guide, as his only comment for this deathtrap was; "Jumping doesn't make you brave, it makes you dead."
He left them once arriving in the dining hall, where poor Marlowe was simply overwhelmed with the food. Abnegation had plain, bland food. Dauntless was. . . everything but.
"Can I ask you something?" Persephone posed, watching Marlowe try to plan her attack on her hamburger. "It's personal."
"Go for it."
"Why'd you choose Dauntless?"
"It was my result from my Aptitude Test," Marlowe answered offhandedly, furrowing her brows as she picked up the burger and a large clump of ketchup plopped down onto her plate.
"Right. . ."
"Why'd you choose Dauntless?"
"I don't know," Persephone admitted, making Marlowe look away from the cooked beef, "I got Amity on my test."
"What?" Marlowe questioned in shock, "So why didn't you stay?"
"I was bored," The girl admitted with a shy smile, shrugging, "I wanted more."
And Marlowe fell silent for a moment before with a new sense of bravery she picked up the burger and took a large bite, smearing a thin line of ketchup on the corner of her lip.
"Trust me when I say; I get it."
"So." Marlowe jumped at the intrusion, furiously wiping her cheek once seeing it was Eric who claimed the seat beside her. "We have a Stiff and an Amity in one year."
"Yeah, people continue to be shocked about it," Marlowe sighed, forgetting her place due to sheer annoyance rising in her.
"I won't be shocked unless you two make it past initiation," Eric spoke with a thin layer of threat, "You've got guts, Stiff. That could get you killed."
"Or it could get me into Dauntless."
Eric pointed at her with a small smile, saying nothing else as he slunk away from the table like a snake in grass. Something about him set Marlowe on edge. But she liked that.
In a strange way, being sheltered from everything for so long only drove Marlowe further into the dark. The self-indulgence. The instructors with piercings and hamburgers with ketchup.
And she liked it.
( AUTHOR'S NOTE. )
hi I'm really trying not to
make this a carbon copy
of Tris's initiation, and I swear
it'll be different from this point
on, because it's kinda hard to
make the whole jumping
and train scenes much different?
IDK AH