WE BECOME THOUGHTLESS

forty | hard lollies

"She's getting married."

The words didn't fit right in his mouth, a hard lolly with too many hard edges in the shape of a simple sentence. Tris swallowed down nothing to wash off the feeling of it. He was knelt by the lake, which was swarming with a crowd of hard-worked advena, all slathered in mud and sweat. The stench permeated the air. It was noxious.

Seb's head whipped to the side to stare at him. "What?"

"The Lady Fabia, her father is demanding that she marry," Tris couldn't look at him, instead devoting all his attention to his moving reflection in the muddy water below. He sighed. "I know what you're going to say."

The lump in Seb's throat bobbed up and down as he swallowed. He'd stripped out of his toga, wringing it out in the water, washing off the lingering stench of dirt and sweat. "What am I going to say?"

"That I was stupid to believe I had even a chance," Tris cupped his hands in the water and lifted it to stream over his brown shoulders. It was a delicious relief, the cold water against hot, burnt skin, and Tris couldn't help but shiver. "And you're right, it was stupid. I'm stupid."

Seb nudged him gently with his shoulder, crouched low from where he stood on the shore. The water lapped at his toes. "Hey, no, you're not stupid. I wasn't going to say that, I'm just surprised. You're – you're sure, then?"

Tris glanced off to the side, where a pair of younger looking advena were wrestling in the lake, laughing as they went tumbling into the water. For some inexplicable reason, he felt his chest twist up and ache, like he was missing something – longing for some old, forgotten experience. Of camaraderie.

There was nothing left of who he was, who he used to be, in the space between his ears. They'd stripped him bare, left him completely new and mouldable. There couldn't be anything left. And yet sometimes that ache roared up from inside his ribcage, blotting out all other noise. Sometimes he wondered whether they'd made a mistake, and that there were still a few leftover feelings clinging to his mind like wax.

But that was impossible.

Right?

Tris nodded. "Yes, I'm sure."

He could feel Seb watching him as he stood up and strode further into the lake. He wondered, stupidly, whether the Lady would call upon him again, or if she'd be too busy skimming through her expansive list of possible suitors to work on her art. It'd been a week since he last saw her, par from the carriages passing through the fields on the Aldine's trips to the city, and he was starting to get worried.

Tris was startled from his train of thought as a great big figure burst through the water and looped an arm around his shoulders. Marc laughed into his ear as Tris yelped and jumped, suddenly defensive, reaching over his shoulder to grab – nothing, there was nothing there. And yet his fingers were itching for something, something that was supposed to be there. A weapon.

"Aren't you jumpy, eh?" Marc laughed, shoving him in the chest. "What're you thinking about? You've got that very characteristic brooding face on again, I think you're scaring the young'uns."

"Characteristic? That's a big word, Marc. You sure you know what it means?"

The words were wrought with venom, and yet Marc didn't seem phased, brushing off his words like dry sand with another punch in his shoulder. "Oi, don't be an ass. I'm just messing with you."

Tris sighed, wiping a hand down his sweat-damp face, leaving a clean five-fingered trail down the layer of dirt over his skin. "Sorry, Marc. Just a little... off, today." He turned his head to see that Seb had started walking back, the skirt of his wet toga slapping his legs with each hurried step. "I think I scared Seb off."

A groove formed between Marc's eyes as he watched Seb scamper off, and worried his bottom lip between crooked teeth. He sighed, long and hard, and placed a big hand over Tris' shoulder. He was uncomfortably touchy, Tris thought. Although sometimes the brush of skin on skin was welcome, when Tris found himself needing that physical connection, when he'd been alone too long.

"Tris," Marc started, looking away. "I don't think Seb – I don't think you should hang around him too much."

Tris whirled around, tearing his gaze away from Seb's retreating figure. "Huh?"

"They're watching him." Marc cast his eyes to the side, where a pair of guards were standing a fair distance away, watching the crowd of advena with the air of forced nonchalance. Hands crossed over chests. Eyes skimming over the swarm before darting away, looking at the sky, the ground. "And I don't want what he has to say – corrupting you. You're too good, Tris. You'll never get out of here if – if..."

Tris frowned down at the shorter man, feeling a sort of instinctual urge to defend Seb roar up in his head. "He's never said anything bad to me, Marc. And I can think for myself."

"Can you?" A beat of silence, in which Marc looked genuinely (worryingly) concerned. Tris looked away. No, he wasn't sure if he could. "Just... promise me you'll report him to the guards if he says anything out of turn. Anything. A cleanse might be the best thing for him."

"But he's been doing so well!"

"That doesn't matter, not if his mind is turning in the wrong direction. What if – what if he turns on us, Tris? You've heard the stories. He could go completely rabid, jump us in our sleep. You'd tell me if he started sounding different at all, wouldn't you?"

Tris gulped. "Yes, of course. Of course I would."

He didn't mention the fact that Seb had been sounding suspiciously bitter in the last two weeks, or that they'd huddled together whilst everyone else slept one night, turning his scars over in the moonlight, and that they'd managed to scrounge up a single memory out from Seb's cavernous mind. That he remembered how he got the scar on his wrist, a flash of steel in snow, of soldiers and—

And this was going too far, Tris realised. But he couldn't tell Marc that. He'd never snitch on Seb, even if it meant that he would go rabid and destroy himself. He just couldn't.

Marc patted him once on the back before walking back to shore, smiling tightly, like he didn't quite believe him. Tris swallowed down the lump in his throat and turned his chin up to the sky. The evening sun washed over him like warm velvet. His lips parted to let in the cool air, cooler now that the sun was setting.

Without thinking, he raised his hand to his shoulder and felt at the edge of his scars. If Seb was able to remember, would he? Would the unreachable pieces of him still be left, even if his old mind remained confined in a bottle, somewhere far away? Tris didn't know if he even wanted to remember, he had no way of knowing if he'd go rabid, or turn savage, or remain completely normal. And the not knowing part of it was what scared him most.

"Which one of you is Tris?"

A voice boomed from shore, and fifty heads all turned to stare at a single guard. Slowly, after a moment of uncomfortable silence, Tris lifted his hand. The guard spotted him in the water and gestured him over.

"The Lady wants to see you."

Tris felt multiple pairs of eyes follow him as he waded his way to shore, casting his gaze downward to spare him the risk of making eye-contact. They felt like hives breaking out across his skin, like pricking needles, drawing blood. They probably thought the Lady was picking favourites – which she tended to do. The other advena never seemed to care.

It still felt humiliating, though. To Tris, who now knew that the Lady was getting married, and that she had no intention of being with him. Despite her calling him her muse, or the sweet touches, or the kind words. Despite it all.

The guard pushed him forward by his shoulder, and Tris very nearly whipped around and brought his fist down upon her face. His anger was so close to the surface, it felt like boiling bubbles. And being herded like cattle – well, it didn't do much to cool him off.

On his way to the Villa, Tris ducked his head under the doorway to the advena sleeping chambers to check if Seb was there. He wasn't.