Puberty had taken them unawares, not because they did not know it would happen but because their body began to morph into a thing unknown, a thing untenable with their own image of themself, an image they hadn’t realized they’d held so firmly. So they’d procured the binding vest and marched to the elders, beginning alignment processes as soon as they could. Having a set of people who could help Firuz live as the person they wanted to had made all the difference, and it was fear stopping Firuz from being what those people had been to them for their brother now.
