Powerful

24. Every Inch of Me is Trembling, But Not From the Cold

It was the third time in as many mornings that Jord awoke with a jump, startled awake by the nightmares that seemed to constantly plague her. This time, the sound of her terrified scream awoke everyone else in the base, and Rory, who'd been on lookout duty, hurried back inside to see what was happening, alarm written over her sun tanned features.

"Jord! Are you okay?" She asked quickly, watching as Virg pulled her into his embrace, trying to calm her down.

"I'm okay," she mumbled, after a second or two. "I keep having nightmares. Sorry I woke you guys."

"Don't worry about it," Hannah told her, blinking at her blonde friend sleepily. "You lowkey saved me from my own, so..."

"Aw, Hannah," Jord sighed, turning to look at her.

"You have nightmares?" Trent asked his girlfriend, looking at her with sad eyes.

"Not always," she said, allowing him to thread their fingers together. "Just... whenever I do, it's the same one. I don't really wanna talk about it."

"It's okay, you don't have to," said Trent, smiling at her.

"Let's talk about something happy then," said Gini, sitting up, and smiling at everyone. He moved to cross his legs, accidentally pulling holes in the mat he was lying on.

"Gini, we spent ages on those!" Ems scolded him. "It's your fault if you have to sleep on the dirt again."

"Sorry," he grinned at her sheepishly.

"Okay, lets all say one fact about ourselves that nobody else knows," suggested Rory, suddenly looking interested. She picked up her mat, and her jacket she'd been using as a blanket, and moved it to where she could still keep an eye on the valley out the door.

"Really?" Ox groaned. "It's too early for games that require a functioning brain."

"Feel free to go back to sleep," Hannah told him, and Ox rolled his eyes.

"As if I'm missing this." 

"You go first then Rory," said Jord. "One fact."

"Okay," she nodded, pausing to think for a moment. "I think I've got something. This is kinda weird, but anyway..."

"Go on," Ems nodded, encouraging her to continue.

"So basically, I didn't really know which faction I belonged in," she said. "I'm now aware that I'm a cross of three factions, but at the time, the lady doing my aptitude test just entered it automatically as Amity, and I had no idea why I got that result."

"So you are part Amity?" Asked Virg.

"I am, but also Abnegation, and Dauntless. I mostly favour my Abnegation side, however, and if I was going to be honest with myself, I should have picked Abnegation. But I ended up choosing Dauntless because I missed my brother."

"Wow," said Trent, his eyes widening. "That's heavy. I knew you guys were close, but damn."

"That must have been hard on you," said Hannah. "Did you tell your brother?"

"No," said Rory. "The only person who knew before now was Joe, and he helped me a lot." She smiled at this, glancing at the man in question, and Joe returned her smile, before patting her arm affectionately.

"I don't believe our society had the right idea introducing the faction before blood law," said Gini. "It's destroying one of the closest bonds humankind can have, and it's the sort of self sacrificing love that empires are built on. I don't think you did the wrong thing, Rory."