King of Dauntless

Chapter 9: Day Off

Finally some free time after a long strenuous week this is well needed. As I walk out of the training room trying to figure out what I'm going to do for the reset of the day. The fights went fast so it's still early; I could go get more rest. Happy with my fight I decided to go to the cafeteria to get some victory cake then maybe I would sleep a little.

As I was Heading to the cafeteria I heard running behind me; quickly turning I saw its Pax with a wide smile on his face.

"Fred! I won my fight!" he grabs my shoulders and shakes me excitedly.

Rolling my eyes at my nickname that he has decided to use.

"Good job! I won my fight as well."

" Yes I knew you would win. Let's go celebrate; I have the perfect place. And since we have the rest of the day off we can explore more of Dauntless, and later we'll go meet some friends of mine."

He saw me make a face when he said meeting new people. After the whole everyone in initiation hates me i reverted back to my amity ways of ignoring a lot of people.

" come on you need more friends than just me; not that I'm complaining, I will always be your best friend. You best remember that." he waged a finger in my face with both of us Chuckling.

"I've made friends." I muttered.

"Oh yeah like who." Pax challenged

"Like ...um... Alex! And...uh Four?" Pax gives me a deadpanned look and then laughs.

"So your trainer?  Who you barely talk to and Alex the person I bring to lunch on occasion and you barely acknowledge. Yeah we are making new friends. Let's go."

Pax started dragging me in the opposite direction I was going for the cafeteria and my heart breaks not being able to get to the one thing I really want. Victory Cake.

Letting out a big sigh at my disappointment. Pax head snaps in my direction.

"Why are you sighing like that. You act like you don't want to be with me." He gives me a fake hurt look with his hand on his heart.

Giggling at how dramatic he is, I play along.

"It's not you, it's me." He is trying to keep a straight face but is losing his composer. "I really just wanted my victory cake and now it's out of my reach."

Looking at me so amused "that's it you just wanted cake. We'll have plenty of time for cake later." He leads me to the pit.

"What are we going to do here?"

"This!" he stops right in front of the tattoo shop. "It's a good way for new initiates to feel dauntless, so let's split up and find something good. Then when we're done we'll surprise each other. Sound good?" Feeling excited I nod my head. "sounds good."

We split up and started looking for tattoos we would like. They have so many to choose from and I have no idea what I want, but Pax must of had something in mind because he was already heading back with an artist.

Tigers, birds, flowers, symbols they have anything you could think of. As I'm studying the details on one of the designs I hear someone talk behind me.

"If you have something in mind and don't see what you want we can draw it up for you." The tattoo artist told me from the counter while he watches the customers look around and decide. I gave him a nod and carried on looking.

Looking at a couple of different designs I got an idea and took them to the tattoo artist behind the counter.

"Finally decided what you want?"

"Yeah." I hand him the two designs "can you combine these two?"

"Yeah no problem." He went to draw out the stencil. " My names Kai by the way."

"Ari." There was a long pause before looking at me.

"Wait are you that new amity transfer that everyone has been talking about?" I sit back in the chair as he preps the area for the tattoo.

"Um yeah i guess that would be me." i look unsure as to why people are talking about me throughout dauntless.

Kai noticed my uneasy expression and quickly tried to explain himself. "Nothing bad i swear. It's just that everyone talks about how impressive you've been doing for a transfer; Amity at that." He places the tattoo stencil on the spot I want.

"There is one person that i know though. He cant stop complaining about you; telling me how insufferable you are and saying you wont even make it through your first fight. Talked about it all last night while getting his tattoo finished."

"What?" I stutter out.

All you hear is the hum of the tattoo gun as he starts to work. There was a minute of silence with the soft hum as the needle makes contact with my skin.

"Don't worry he doesn't like anyone to begin with well except me." he chuckles. "Im his only friend. I think? Does Not help how he's always angry though." I hear him mutter kinda to himself. He focuses on the tattoo. My skin slowly became numb to the sting of the needle as he worked.

I started thinking about what he said already knowing who he was talking about. 

"Why does he hate everyone?" I suddenly ask, letting my curiosity get the better of my. After a long silence Kai looks up at me then gets back to the art. He slowly started to explain.

"I may be his "friend" which means i don't just give out his secrets." he gave me a playful glare. "But in all honesty I don't know why he acts the way he does. It's just how he's alway been. But one thing i know for sure is his goal right now is to make your training as hard as he can, so good luck at that because i definitely wouldn't want to be you right now." with a smirk on his face.

"Thanks." I told him sarcastically. We sit in silence as he finishes up the tattoo.

"Ok it's all done." he cleans up the spot. "You initiates have it lucky being able to have free tattoos, so not fair."

I get up to look at my tattoo in the mirror. "I love it! Thank you so much."

"No problem come back anytime; I will be glad to help. Maybe next time you will get some piercings." he suggested while wiggling his eyebrows.

"Maybe after training. Don't want anyone using that against me."

"Definitely. Smart idea."

As we are walking out of the backroom I see Pax waiting around for me.

"Oh good you're done. We are running late to meet with everyone. Come on let's go." he pulls me but I drag my feet to slow him down. "Oh come on we talked about this they already like you so all you have to do is meet them." he teased. Sighing I turned to wave a Kai. "Thanks again. See you around." then Pax finally was able to drag me off to make new friends.