I see hope is here, in a plastic box [July 19, 2014]

[priordivergence]

Mo gives me a knowing smile when I walk in behind Peeta and I shrug back at her, as if I have no idea what she means. Already, just looking around, I'm wondering about the other tattoos I could get, thinking of the ones I already have and how they could be integrated into new work. My left arm has healed beautifully and I can't help raising it to show her.

"I'm here as moral support," I promise her.

Mo smiles and nods Peeta towards her chair, "Sure you are. Anyway, I'm Mo. Good to see you, Peeta." She holds out a hand to Peeta while I take a seat at the edge of the booth. This is Peeta's tattoo, his moment. Whether or not my skin craves more symbols can wait until he's done.

"You ready?"

Comments

[fuelforthefire]

"As ready as I'm going to get."

Moral support is what I need today. This isn't a place that I thought I would find myself, I hadn't ever even considered it. But since talking to Tris about hers, it's been on my mind. I know exactly what I want, and I explain that I want twelve stars inside my arm without saying why. She nods, and I sit, and before I can change my mind she's started, a stencil of the stars from my wrist to my elbow in a pale blue transfer.

"What do you think," I say to Tris, glancing from my arm to where she sits.

[priordivergence]

"It's not as bad as they make it out to be, really," I promise. Behind me, Mo rolls her eyes and I pretend not to notice.

"It looks like a constellation. I like it."

[fuelforthefire]

"It's needles Tris." But then, I've been injected with worse; the tracker that they put in our arms in the exact place the woman is getting ready to tattoo over more of an indignity. I'd had it removed when I came here, the only evidence a small white scar where the twelfth and largest star will sit. "Are needles suddenly supposed to not hurt?"

[priordivergence]

"Of course not. I didn't say it was painless." Nothing's painless, after all, not in the long run. "Just that it's not that bad."

I sit backwards on the chair, watching him. "Would I have this many if it was unendurable?"

[fuelforthefire]

"Tris, you're kind of crazy sometimes," I say to her, hoping she knows what I mean. It's meant well, just like I know that I sometimes trust too easily, believe the best in people because I want to. "You kick my butt on a regular basis, remember?"

[priordivergence]

I smile, not denying the accusation. It goes without saying that I'm crazy. I was Dauntless after all. While I can't say that I'm honest, I can say that I'm not lying to him.

"It won't be so bad, that's all."

[fuelforthefire]

The needle touches my skin before I can respond and it’s all I can do to not jump or shout. It only takes a moment, however, for the pain to fade to an annoyance or irritation and nothing more. “Okay,” I say when I manage to look back up at Tris, finding it easier to not watch what’s happening. “It’s not that bad.”

[priordivergence]

"Told you," I said. To distract him, I point out the tattoo on my collar bone. "This was the worst one. My first tattoo and right next to bone."

[fuelforthefire]

Even though it doesn’t hurt exactly, I’m glad of the distraction. If I look at the gun against my arm I feel the pinch and press of the needle more than if I look away. “Then I’ll stick to the soft bits, and avoid bone.”

Not that I’m planning on more of them. This one simply felt right.

[priordivergence]

I smile. I'm not teasing him, precisely, but I know the implication. "I always told myself I was only ever going to get this one." Again I tap my collarbone. Peeta's seen my shoulders and my arm. He knows how well that worked.

[fuelforthefire]

I laugh at that, the laughter distracting me from the buzz of the gun. "What else would I get?"

[priordivergence]

I shrug. Tattoos are strange to me, a dictionary of my own symbols and meanings. The Dauntless and Abnegation symbols mean one thing from the viewer's point of view, but to me they carry a different kind of weight, as do all of my birds.

"You'd think of something with meaning for you."

[fuelforthefire]

“Maybe just the one, for now.” It’s not a large tattoo, the stars are all small and don’t require a lot of shading. She’s halfway done already, and I grit my teeth as she works over the small scar. “Okay. That one hurts.”

[priordivergence]

"Because of the scar?" I don't reach out to comfort him because Mo will kill me. I don't dare mess with her process. Nor do I dare ask what caused it. If Peeta wants me to know, he'll say.

[fuelforthefire]

"Scars always hurt more," Moe says, and all I can do is nod. I hadn't realised that, not that I would have changed the positioning of it. I look at Tris sheepishly. "Tracker scar."

[priordivergence]

Unconsciously, my fingers touch the side of my neck, where I've endured so many needles for serums and tests and truth. And, once, a supposed tracker.

"I've never liked those."

[fuelforthefire]

"I wouldn't have had it if they hadn't made us." It was so they could watch us in the Arena, always find us no matter where we are. It doesn't take much longer and she's changing needles, adding some shading to give the stars depth.

[priordivergence]

"I know." Nor would any of us have taken the serum if we'd known.

But they'd lined up for a tracking device without a second thought, letting Dauntless take them over. Most of them had never considered what it could do.

But I knew. I knew then as I know now that I've had enough of injections and serums.

[fuelforthefire]

I understand the way that she looks, it’s too similar to my own so much of the time when I think about these things. I force a smile, ignoring the buzz of the gun. “Yet here I am, doing this to myself.”

[priordivergence]

When he catches my eye, I nod my own unspoken understanding. We've both seen terrible things and seen people submit to it without a thought.

Sometimes doing this seems almost civilized by comparison. At least we're making choices.

"It's looking good so far."

[fuelforthefire]

It is looking good, and the white bits of the stars help set them off, highlight them just as they would if I were painting. “I guess skin is just another canvas.”

[priordivergence]

I nod, because that's how I learned to see it. Our bodies are our canvases, but also our billboards. We use tattoos to mark the fears we've conquered, the people we've lost, to tell our stories.

"Why do you think I have so much art?"

[fuelforthefire]

"Because you're crazy?" I say my smile turning to a wince as she traces over a part that I swear she's already done a few times. And just like that it's done, and she's cleaning it and covering it in plastic, telling me how to care for it. I pay, and turn to Tris, looking down at my arm in awe. "I really did it."

[priordivergence]

"Not crazy. Dauntless," I say. I can't help smiling, even if they'd fallen and even if they're not here, they were still the place where I learned who I was.

"Yeah. And it looks amazing."

[fuelforthefire]

"I'm beginning to think they're the same thing," I tell her, smiling down at the stars on my arm. I want to show Claudia, and Katniss, and it surprises me to think of the one before the other, but pleasantly so.

[priordivergence]

"You would think that," I say, smiling. Many people who weren't in Dauntless had said the same thing, because they could never understand the bond--the family--that came from surviving and finding strength together.

Smiling, Mo talks him through the aftercare while I wait, admiring her work on my own body as well as Peeta's.

"When I have the money, I think I know what I might get."

[fuelforthefire]

The money is the least painful part of the transaction to me. When we're done I'm smiling and I can't consider getting another. "What do you want?"

[priordivergence]

“We believe in ordinary acts of bravery, in the courage that drives one person to stand up for another," I say, looking down at my bare right arm. "It's part of the Dauntless manifest."

The part that I wanted to be. I want to be brave for the sake of others more than for myself now. Because Four had been right; selflessness and courage aren't so different. Although my faction ultimately forgot itself, I don't have to.

[fuelforthefire]

It may be a lot of words, but they’re good words too. They appeal to me and I nod as I think of them. “It’s a good sentiment. Maybe you weren’t all as crazy as I thought.”

[priordivergence]

"Maybe we weren't, at the start," I say, smiling a little sadly. "By the time I joined, they'd srayed away from that..."

I force my smile a little brighter, "Let's buy you a coffee."

[fuelforthefire]

I recognise that look too. It's the one I get when I think too long about home. It's too hard, the feelings mixed up with things that I still miss about it and all the things that I disliked and hated.

"Coffee I can do."

[priordivergence]

"My treat," I say. There isn't a lot I can give, or was ever capable of giving on my own, but this I can do.