FEARLESS

DIVERGENT

"You look nervous". An older Abnegation woman stated, standing behind the girl, quietly admiring.

"Not really," Emery replied.

It wasn't a lie, but it wasn't the truth either. The girl didn't know what she was feeling right now.

She knew how she was supposed to feel. Anxiety, fear. The fear of being told her home was in fact not her home, and that she belonged somewhere else.

But her stomach danced with quiet butterflies rather than sickly fear.

"Well, you're acting different". Ella said.

Ella was the girl's guardian. Bringing her up not to be curious, but submissive and meek. Emery tried to hide her true nature as best she could, but that's just the thing, she wasn't very good at hiding it.

And right now Ella could feel the curiosity radiating off of her.

"You're being a little too curious don't you think; for an Abnegation. Aren't you the one who taught me that?" Emery stated, smiling a little. Her opening her mouth wasn't very Abnegation of her either.

"I could say the same for you; smartmouth" She teased. Ella positioned the girl in front of the covered mirror, stroking her hair. "You ready?"

"It's only my reflection, not a monster" Emery poked at Ella's tone.
But in Abnegation one's reflection almost was.

Three minutes that's all they got.

Emery watched as the door slid open and saw almost an unknown figure stare back at her.

The person in the mirror had light golden eyes, almost the colour of fire, with dark, long eyelashes protecting them. The person was tanned with a graceful dusting of light freckles on her ski-sloped nose; perhaps 10 or 12 at most. 

The figure also had long light brown, hair to just above her belly button that caught the orange and amber flares from the rays that flooded through the window, making it a beautiful medium brown with undertones of the sun.

Was it too selfish to think this figure was pretty, even beautiful?

Emery looked away quickly, hearing her mother's words echo through her ears.

"Never stare too long in the mirror".

"You don't have to be embarrassed you know. Looking at yourself", Ella lightly grabbed the girl's chin and angled her eyesight back to the mirror. "You're too beautiful to waste Emery,".

"Why are you saying these things, usually you would scorn me if I did them; why today, why now?" Emery asked

"Look I never said I fully agreed with how Abnegation runs, I think it's healthy for us to see ourselves, love ourselves; maybe too much can be hurtful, but a little is just right", she tucked one of Emery's long strands behind her ear. "And as for it being today that I tell you this, is that simply I know you, Emery. I'm not going to kid myself believing you will stay here for the rest of your life.  You are curious, clever, completely and utterly mad but, brave and adventurous. I know you might not want to hide all that away just to keep me happy". Emery smiled at her words. She couldn't deny a life outside the Abnegation compound was something that called out to her. But which one?
"Trust the test, right?" Emery whispered.

As Emery looked at her figure in the reflection, she caught a flicker of fear in Ella's eyes.

Strange, she thought.

***

Emery pushed through the door into the testing room, her name being called a few minutes earlier. She was greeted by the back of a Dauntless woman, her back covered in tattoos. Emery wondered what the pinch of a needle on one's skin feels like.