The sky was robins egg blue.

I'd know, because I'd found a nest once. It'd been in this very tree, not more than four feet above from where I currently sat. It had been an awkward mess of twigs, dirt, feathers and hair with three tiny eggs nestled in the center of it.

My younger brother hadn't believed me when I told him. Not that he would have argued with me. He'd never. It was just that such birds hadn't been seen since before the War. Crows, sparrows, birds of prey those were all that were left.

But I knew what I saw.

The eggs had matched a description from a textbook I'd read at school.

So I'd pointed at the tall, old oak on the far side of the cabbage field and said, 'if you don't believe me, go see for yourself.'

It had been a challenge, fighting words.

I should have held my tongue. I should have known he couldn't climb that high, that he'd never reach the top where the nest had been. But I hadn't taken the time to think. I'd challenged him.

And when he fell, it had been my fault.

Asher had been afraid of heights, but I was always pushing him. Breaking the peace.

I hadn't meant it. I just couldn't back down.

The small boy, who'd lain at the base of the old oak tree with his amber hair and blank brown eyes was dead and it was all my fault.

Each year I returned to the exact spot from which he had fallen so that I could remember. Remember to keep the peace, and hold my tongue. To be kind as my faction required.

I could be kind.

And when I didn't want to be, I could pretend. It was for peace's sake after all. It wouldn't kill me to sweep my aggression under the rug. To have another slice of bread at dinner because the Branson boy three doors down looked at me wrong.

Peace wouldn't kill me, not like strife had killed Asher.

"You know, you're not supposed to be up there!" Lily Cole yelled from the bottom of the tree.

"I know." I mumbled just loud enough for her to hear before sighing. It was time to go. I whispered, "goodbye," and slipped from my perch, limbs working nimbly as I dropped from one branch to another.

Lily Cole was a bright blonde with a round face and sparkling blue eyes. She loved red and had a voice like an angel. She also happened to be my closest friend.

"And yet..." She said, gesturing up at the tree. "If your mom catches you..."

Lily never could finish a negative thought. I dropped down to the ground in front of the slender blonde.

"I know." I repeated as reassuringly as I could.

I knew exactly what they'd do to me.

Punishment was a rarity among Amity, but not unheard of. I'd be drugged. I was sixteen now and so I'd be treated as an adult. Rebellion was a vast crime.

It disturbed the peace.

After my brother's death there'd been a faction wide law laid down about climbing this tree. I'd be injected with the serum our bread was enhanced with. Forced into a more compliant and docile state. It was usually given to irate individuals, but my continual disobedience would warrant such a disciplinary action.

Lily and I never spoke of what would happen. She didn't like the negativity of it. She was a natural. Amity was her home. But she also understood why I risked it. She'd loved my brother as much as I had.

"Good," Lily said with a nod. "It's time to go, the bus will be here any minute."

On her last word excitement bled into her voice.

Today was the day.

The day of the aptitude test, and unlike every other sixteen year old in the city, Lily seemed to be ecstatic about it. But then again, the blonde had nothing to fear. She knew where she belonged.

I shook my head and followed after her as she pulled me towards the road.

About a half mile down was the bus stop. Kids ages five to sixteen were gathered there, waiting to be shuttled into the city.

Amity's farms were beyond the fence, and those of us whose family's worked them, lived there as well. Our ride was the longest and bumpiest. The children dressed in yellow and red spent most of the time singing, laughing and playing silly little hand games.

But not this morning. This morning was different. The aptitude test dominated the conversation and infused the bus's atmosphere with tension.

We knew very little about the test. We couldn't prepare for it. And yet somehow it was able to determine which faction we belonged in.

I couldn't imagine how.

How could such a thing tell me where I belonged, when I didn't even know myself?!

I could be kind. Would the test tell me Amity?

Would I accept such a result and stay with my parents?

I imagined myself like Lily, all smiles as I brought water to a worker in the field and sang songs by the fire at night. I really couldn't sing, tone-deaf, but it wasn't like anyone would say anything.

It wouldn't be kind if they did.

It would be a life of peace, of joy and kindness. A life of fairy tale happily ever-afters... and drugged food and faux smiles. Doing anything and everything to keep the peace. Because here in Amity it was peace that kept you safe.

It's what kept people alive.

After Asher, I could believe that. Did that make me Amity then?

I wasn't like Lily, which faction I belonged in wasn't as obvious.

I shifted uncomfortably in my seat, eyes staring out the window. I could see my reflection in the glass as we entered the city. I had almond eyes framed by straight brows. My eyes were green, just like my mother's. My face was square with predominant cheekbones, those I'd inherited from my father. I wasn't exactly remarkable to look at, a button nose and a thin upper lip finished off my features.

The most notable asset I possessed was my hair.

It was red, fire-engine red.

The locks fell to the small of my back, which wasn't very far giving that I stood at a petite five foot two. Seated next to Lily I looked like a child. The slender blonde was a leggy five foot eight and it seemed she had yet to stop growing.

Sometimes I envied her. I could see how the boys looked at her.

She was slender and I was thick. Not with fat, but with soft, fleshy muscle. I worked the fields after school alongside my parents and helped my uncle out with his cattle farm on the weekends. He lived further south of the city, along with the other animal farmers. There weren't many, but their pastures provided beef and poultry for our city.

My body was thick and fleshy from all the work.

If I wound up as Amity after tomorrow, I'd likely marry a man that was too kind to have a preference in women's looks.

I frowned at that. That wasn't what I wanted.

Every girl wanted to be enamored and adored, and thought of as beautiful.

I wanted to be beautiful.

The bus came to a stop in front of the school. The Upper Levels building was the oldest out of the three schools. It was made out of steel and glass, just like all the other buildings around it. In front there was a large metal sculpture that the Dauntless loved to climb. They'd dare each other to go higher and higher, while Abnegation avoided it like the plague.

Stiff's and mirrors, you'd think they were allergic to their own reflection by the way they acted.

I glanced at the shiny metal surface as I walked by. Was I vain?

Was wanting to be beautiful so wrong?

Would the test tell me Abnegation?

I visibly shuddered. Nothing against the Stiffs, but Abnegation just wasn't for me. I wasn't selfless. I'd gotten my brother killed in order to win a one-sided dispute.

I obviously couldn't be Abnegation.

So what about Dauntless?

The metal pierced, ink stained hooligans were fascinating to me. They reminded me most of Amity out of the five factions. Not because of their beliefs, far from it! But their energy. They were wild. They climbed anything and everything. They feared nothing. They laughed loudly and ran freely.

Dauntless dominated the city in a way that was unlike any other faction.

I admired their strength.

The Dauntless were peace keepers in their own right, and Amity respected them for that. But the way they acquired that peace was far from Amity's ways. They were warriors, ruthless and violent. Our first and only line of defense.

Sometimes I'd watch them patrol the fence, wondering what it was exactly they were supposed to be protecting us from. Our farms stretched out farther than they patrolled and we hadn't come across anything that could be threatening to our city.

Snakes, coyotes and wayward bear cubs did not apply to the Dauntless's threat watch, but that was all that was out there.

Lily held the door into the school open for me and I smiled at her. "Thank you," I said kindly as I stepped into the building.

The halls of the Upper Levels building were a river of color as all five factions came together to form a chemical mixture of chaos. There was no where else in the city where the factions mixed like this.

It was both beautiful and horrifying at the same time.

'A ticking time bomb,' an Erudite boy had once said. And I couldn't have agreed more as I was swallowed up by the current and propelled towards Advanced Mathematics when I really wanted Political Services instead.

Our classes were cut in half today, so that we could attend all of them before taking the aptitude test after lunch. It would likely be my last time walking these halls, depending on my choice tomorrow, it would be my factions responsibility to finish my education.

Amity initiates wouldn't return, I knew that for a fact.

They'd be sent out into the fields, pushed in hard labor to test if they were actually peaceful folk as they learned to cultivate the ground. Then when they were worn out and tired their patience would be tested further. That's when most initiates snap.

Patience was a virtue of love and kindness.

It was a moral Amity lived by.

I always pitied the poor souls that didn't make it.

Becoming factionless was a fate worse than death.

Lily and I parted ways as I finally reached my desired classroom, promising to meet up with each other at lunch.

A/N:

This story is a work in progress.

All comments and prompts are appreciated.

Divergent: Aurora can be found at divergentaurora dot tumblr dot com if you would like to view any companion photos I choose to post along with each updated chapter as well as Writing Progress Updates and other story related information.

Disclaimer: the Divergent Universe and Characters are property of Veronica Roth and are not my own.

Aurora Jacobs and all other Original Characters belong to me.