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     DAVINA felt very far away. And not just physically – though sitting at a table between Will and Peter, across from strangers in a strange place was very far from home – but mentally, too. She could barely concentrate as dinner began and the noise from their arrival died down, the blonde staring at the table as if it would give her instructions on what to do next.

In the centre was a platter of food– hamburgers. She had scarcely realised how hungry she had grown through the gnawing anxiety and nausea of the Ceremony, and with a grimace remembered the last time she had eaten had been lunch at her family's home.

Davina grabbed one for her plate, layering it with her choice of fillings before sitting back down, resting her elbows on the table as if that would reignite her appetite. Someone next to her said something but she ignored it, until they nudged her.

"Do you mind?" she bristled, turning to see the pretty Candor boy. Peter, she had heard him called on the train.

"Are you deaf?" he retorted. Davina furrowed her brows in offence. "I asked if you could pass the ketchup."

"Ask louder," Davina said pointedly as she grabbed the bottle for him and passed it down.

"You're meaner than I thought you'd be," Peter mused as he spurted an ungodly amount of sauce onto his burger bun.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Davina asked, still not touching her food.

Peter shrugged dramatically. "You have a resting bitch face. But I thought maybe you'd be nice because of it."

Davina glared at him slightly. "You don't make it easy to be nice to you. You're pretty until you open your mouth."

Peter an eyebrow at her, looking smug. "You think I'm pretty?"

The blonde rolled her eyes. "I'm mean, not stupid."

"Guess not, Nose," Peter scoffed, taking a whopping bite of his burger.

"Davina," she corrected. "Not Nose."

"What's that, Nose?" he asked around a mouthful of food. "I couldn't hear you."

Davina gave up and turned away, as a hush fell over the hall. She followed the general direction of everyone else's eyes to see a blonde, heavily-pierced man entering. It was so quiet his footsteps could be heard, as he headed towards their table and took a seat with Four.

She stared at him for a few seconds, gauging that the crowd's reaction must mean he held some authority or at least reputation, before looking away to the person sitting on the other side of her.

"Holy shit," she whispered.

"What?" he asked through a mouthful.

"That's Eric Coulter," Davina told him. "Remember? He was only two years above us." She said it quietly, as if maybe he'd hear from where he sat a few places away from them.

Will's eyes widened as he looked at the man. "Oh, shit."

In school Davina had barely known the boy, but she knew enough to place him. His family hadn't been particularly well off but he had been very smart. If she racked her brain enough she could remember a photo of him receiving an award was framed in one of her classrooms. He was still talking to Four, but she was too far away to hear what he was saying.

Davina turned to the side to see Peter looking across at the Abnegation boy. He had a sharp, triangular face, with messy brown hair and eyes so dark she couldn't distinguish his irises from his pupils. But the most striking part was the thin scar on the left of his face, a mere white line trailing from his now-permanently-slit eyebrow and a few inches below the eye. Davina wondered how someone who had come from such a soft Faction would've gotten the precise injury, as it was old enough to have faded and turned white.

Peter, however, only jeered at him. "Oh, another Stiff."

The boy looked up. "I thought Candor were supposed to tell the truth, not point out the obvious," he said effortlessly, and Davina stifled laughter at the shocked look on Peter's face. The Stiff held eye contact for a few moments before looking back down at his plate.

"Wow. A speechless Candor," Davina mused at Peter. "There's something I never thought I'd see."

"You're mean," Peter chastised, tearing his gaze off the Abnegation boy.

"Says you," Davina responded.

Peter only seemed spurred on by the teasing, grinning at her. "It's Peter," he told her. She only looked at him. "My name– but you can keep calling me pretty, if you'd like."

"It'll be pretty asshole by the time the night ends," Davina fired back.

"That works, too, Nose," Peter said simply.

Smart-mouth, the similar nickname for Candors, didn't have quite the same abrasive ring to it as Nose did for Erudite.

Davina hated the nickname, coined from them stereotypically always having their nose in a book. Or maybe because Erudite liked to look down their nose at all the other Factions. One of those– and they were both something Davina didn't want to be associated with.

She turned away from Peter, hating that his teasing got under her skin so badly. He kept his eyes on her, as if expecting a rebuttal, but she stayed indignant and finally touched her food, even if her appetite was still shot to hell.

After dinner, which passed with much less teasing and talking (at least from Davina's angle), Eric led the transfers out, while Four seemed to have disappeared. Only they left, as what Davina could only describe as a party continued on behind them. A small part of Davina felt left out, but a bigger part was curious about what happened next in their initiation.

They followed the former-Erudite down a series of hallways, with no indication of where they would be going. Davina theorised he must have been one of the leaders, judging from his entrance during dinner and his charge of them. The Erudite in her was impressed– he would only be around twenty if she remembered correctly.

The ground underfoot was uneven as they continued further, and no one dared to talk, the main sound being their footsteps echoing off the walls. Davina was still near Will, frustratingly, and Christina and Tris. Her so-called best friend was still doing his own thing, it seemed.

Eventually, Eric stopped in front of a wooden door and crossed his arms over his chest. The initiates gathered around him instinctively.

"For those of you who don't know, my name is Eric," he introduced. "I am one of five leaders of the Dauntless. We take the initiation process very seriously here, so I volunteered to oversee most of your training. Some ground rules," he continued. "You have to be in the training room by eight o'clock every day. Training takes place every day from eight to six, with a break for lunch. You are free to do whatever you like after six. You will also get some time off between each stage of initiation. You are only permitted to leave the compound when accompanied by a Dauntless," Eric explained, before gesturing to the wooden door.

"Behind this door is the room where you will be sleeping for the next few weeks. You will notice that there are fourteen beds and only eleven of you. We anticipated that a higher proportion of you would make it this far."

"But we started with fourteen," Christina protested. Davina sighed at the gall of the Candor girl.

"There is always at least one transfer who doesn't make it to the compound," Eric replied, devoid of any emotion to those who had lost their lives before initiation had even begun. He shrugged. "Anyway, in the first stage of initiation, we keep transfers and Dauntless-born initiates separate, but that doesn't mean you are evaluated separately. At the end of initiation, your rankings will be determined in comparison with the Dauntless-born initiates. And they are better than you are already. So, I expect–"

"Rankings?" Myra squeaked. She was a bit away from Davina, her hand in Edward's. "Why are we ranked?"

Eric smiled, an eerie sight in the blue light cast by the lanterns. "Your ranking serves two purposes," he began. "The first is that it determines the order in which you will select a job after initiation. There are only a few desirable positions available." Davina narrowed her eyes. So, it was a competition? "The second purpose is that only the top twelve initiates are made members."

Davina tensed. More than competition. A game of survival.

No one moved or said a word, before Davina cut in. "What?"

"There are eleven Dauntless-borns, and eleven of you," Eric explained, his eyes not even looking for Davina. "Four initiates will be cut at the end of stage one. The remainder will be cut after the final test."

Davina could feel the air struggling to get into her lungs, and despite so much distance between them, the shadow had come back. It pressed onto her, squeezing her skull. What would the tests be? What were her odds opposed to everyone else? She had no idea, and was treading dangerously in unknown territory.

"What do we do if we're cut?" Peter spoke up from behind Davina.

"You leave the Dauntless compound," Eric said, "and live factionless."

Myra clamped her hand over her mouth and stifled a sob, Edward wrapping a comforting arm around her. Others around them had similar reactions to the sombre and unexpected news. Davina felt herself harden.

She would be stubborn, she would be strong. Brave. She hadn't risked it all by choosing Dauntless only to fail. This was not the mirror or the blue, this was something new. What was she if not Erudite? What was she if not persistent? Factionless, she thought.

This was more than earning her Faction's favour or her mother's approval, this was her future. For that, she told herself, she would do it. She would not lose.

"But that's...not fair!" Molly, one of Peter's two friends, exclaimed. She sounded angry, but the look on her face was one of fear. "If we had known–"

"Are you saying that if you had known this before the Choosing Ceremony, you wouldn't have chosen Dauntless?" Eric snapped. "Because if that's the case, you should get out now. If you are really one of us, it won't matter to you that you might fail. And if it does, you are a coward." Eric pushed the door to the dormitory open.

"You chose us," he told them. "Now we have to choose you."

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      THERE WAS no privacy in the dorms– the bathrooms were shared by everyone, and there weren't any form of separate rooms or quarters. Bunk beds were set up along the walls and some in the middle in rows, and it was first come, first serve as the transfers fought to claim their space. Davina didn't rush, still half-focused on what Eric had sprung on them. That and there would be a few bunks spare for the transfers that didn't make it.

They were provided with black, Dauntless-esque clothes for the night, which Eric told them was a gesture of kindness and they'd be expected to buy their own as soon as possible. Davina had only kept her head down until he had left and started to change. Everyone could see everyone amidst the bunks, and the situation was uncomfortable as Davina expected.

But, she relented. She had nothing to hide, and there were far bigger issues at hand than getting changed in front of strangers. Issues such as earning her place in her new home, issues such as facing challenges Davina couldn't prepare for, issues she should have been prepared to face when she chose to leave behind her home, and not agonising over.

Undoing her hair for the night revealed her blue Erudite ribbon, and Davina stuffed it under her pillow instead of handing them over to be thrown away with the rest of their old Faction clothes. That small piece of fabric was a small semblance of home, a sentimentality she wasn't quite sure she could let go of yet.

"Hey." Davina glanced up from where she was sitting on her bed to see Edward approaching her, not accompanied by Myra for once. "How are you holding up?" he asked, taking a seat on the bed next to Davina. She shuffled over to give him space as it dipped with his weight.

"I'm fine," she replied, easily, even if it wasn't completely true. "Why?"

Edward sighed. "I know how hard it would have been for you to make this decision."

Davina's gaze fell. He knew her the best out of everyone.

"Gotta live with it," Davina shrugged, trying to make it seem like she was nonchalant; unbothered. Edward clearly didn't believe her, and she probably wouldn't have, either.

"I'm right here, okay?" he said softly. "No one's leaving."

Davina only nodded in response. "How's Myra?" she asked, swerving the conversation away from her vulnerability before Edward could push further.

Edward's face shifted at the sudden topic change, but he didn't fight it. "I... she's waiting to see what the stages are. At this point, who knows what they'll make us do?"

"Right," Davina said, tightly. The two sat in silence for a few moments, Edward looking at the floor and Davina at her lap, where she continually weaved her blue ribbon in and out of her fingers. "Well, goodnight," she finally said, hating the awkwardness that had enclosed them.

Edward gave her a small smile. "Goodnight, Davina." He kissed her forehead, something he'd been known to do before, but rarely, and left for his own bed.

Davina stayed upright for a while, staring at the blue fabric between her fingers for longer than she cared to admit. Most of the lights had gone out by the time she slipped into her own bed, rolling over many times until she got comfortable.

Anxiety clawed at her insides, and she knew it would not rest until she knew what initiation involved. Under her pillow, she continued to twist the blue ribbon around her fingers, knowing there would never be a time where she would don the colour again.

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      DAVINA punched her twin once. Just once. She had punched Edward countless times during their training, punched many of the athletes and boys who frequented the school's gym, and her instructors over the years. All casualties of the hobby she had chosen, all without violent intent (mostly). But Viviane Todd had only been struck once.

They had been twelve, and Davina had been doing the sport for two years by then. She had accepted it was something she was passionate about, and that her mother was angry, and that her mother wished she was Viviane. Blah, blah, blah, twelve-year-old Davina had thought, because it was easier to be dismissive than take it to heart. And she did take it to heart.

"If you can't beat them, join them," someone said once.

And that was exactly what Davina had hoped to do when she had forced Viviane to come to school on a Saturday one day. That wasn't the odd part, Erudite were rather encouraged to study outside of hours and go the extra mile, but it was odd that Davina had given her her gym clothes and was grinning.

She had been nagging Viviane for what felt like months to come with her and Edward once, just to see the thing that brought light to Davina's eyes. It had nothing to do with the fact that Davina was good at something for once, or that she wanted their mother to look at them both in disappointment for once. None at all.

"If you think it's safe," Viviane had mumbled as she pulled her hair into a bun atop her head.

"Sure it's safe!" Davina had jeered. "Just do as I do."

Viviane hadn't looked reassured as she sat to the side, watching her twin and Edward warm up and practise the movements. She had jumped in surprise when the pair had begun to fight, the two tweens still yelling dramatically as they were taught with each movement.

Her blue eyes had been wide, but fascinated, as she watched. Time ticked past, and the tally for the pair and their victories was counted. Davina had won that day, which only boosted her ego further, as she approached Viviane.

"Is that it?" her twin asked.

"Yep," Davina grinned. "I won."

Viviane furrowed her brows. "You won?"

"You should try," Davina had stupidly said, out of annoyance or confidence she couldn't remember.

Davina knew her sister knew nothing about self-defence or combat. Davina knew she had the advantage for once. Davina knew she could win against her twin with utmost ease.

She had gone straight for the face, the crack of skin against skin snapping through the room. Viviane had let out a cry and gone down, holding her face in her hands as Davina faltered. Edward had rushed over from where he was cooling down, always the caring one, as Davina stood stunned to the side.

Her hands were shaking, guilt and shame pooling in her stomach.

Viviane had looked at her through her fingers, eyes watery and wide as she was helped to her feet by Edward.

"Please don't tell mum," Davina had begged. It was the first thing to leave her mouth. Not if her twin was okay, not an apology. Selfish. "Please– please she already hates this enough."

"You hit me!" Viviane spat.

"It was an accident," Davina insisted.

"Was it?" Viviane scoffed. "You love being good at something I'm not. Rub it in my face. Actually, shove it in my face."

"I didn't mean to," Davina pleaded. "Viv, please, I was just trying to show you."

Viviane said nothing else as she hurried to the changerooms holding her face, Davina following after her without hesitation. Edward was left standing alone, watching with wide eyes.

Davina's twin was scanning herself in the mirror, pinching at the bruising on her lower lip and the edge of her jaw. The overhead lights weren't flattering on the wound.

"Oh, god," Viviane said in frustration.

"What is it?" Davina asked desperately.

Viviane had looked at her through hooded eyes and a sneer. "I look like you."

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pavina have officially met and their banter is mwah

if there are mistakes here, it wasn't edited, sorry

this was a shorter, filler chapter to lead into the first day! i know my updates aren't super consistent so thank you to everyone who tunes in, i do see you <3