parallel threads

With each passing year, the inherent difficulty surrounding a trans person's life dissipated, if gradually. A little less prejudice here. A little more protection there.

But passing wasn't always just about fooling general society with your presentation. Sometimes there was an element of participation - of wrapping yourself into something greater as you transformed each angle of each step of each day.

Elly, being smart and strong enough to brave Jugend, was also smart and strong enough to realize that the government, through the military, did not do nearly as much for others as it did for itself. Ad campaigns designed to recruit driven young people into being "heroes" and extreme tests of committment led you to believe that you were really part of something greater, and you were rising above. But it simply wasn't true.

She'd use it as an incubator until she could find some actual good to do. Maybe try to move into a branch that staffed aid workers. It was a start, anyway...

But despite all her cynicism, Elly couldn't help barking out a "What do you think you're doing?!" when she saw a recruitment flyer outside her base being carelessly tossed aside by a youth with long hair and a wiry frame.

No, not the Jugend type. Not for several years now.

The youth flinched, but upon turning and seeing Elly, untensed and dropped his fists.

"I just wanted space to hang my flyer. And your base is right here. It doesn't exactly need advertisement."

A voice, just like Elly's, in the middle of training. The flyer currently crumpled in fist beckoned viewers to art therapy sessions. If not for the reaction she'd just seen, Elly would have thought the loose, belted pants and armbands a costume.

"What's your name?"

There was a pause, just long enough. "Fei."

"I'm Elly. And I'm happy to meet you."

Fei hummed, this encounter clearly having gone well above plan.

"Everyone expects martial artists to wear wraps - wrists, ankles...chest."

"Everyone expects women in the military to be buttoned-up, masculine."

Paths, different. Goals, the same.