I’m terrified.

Tro’s already there, leaning casually against the fence. Too calm. Troodon – so named for their tiny frame and giant brain – hasn’t stopped moving in the twelve years that we’ve been friends, and now they’re frozen stiff, fake-staring at their phone.

Run. Go home, while you can!

Heroes don’t run, though. Nor do everyday enbies like us, who know that school is in the rules. A lost commandment from the adults’ handbook: thou shalt be where you’re supposed to be.

I slide up to Tro and put a hand over their phone-screen. “Nervous?”

I breathe as they relax, and their foot starts taptaptapping on the fence. “Hey. Hi. You look…” They frown. “Exactly the same?”

“Uhh—”

“Bor, we talked about this. This auspicious day deserves some effort.’

“New sneakers!” I protest, pointing to my squeakyclean red Chucks. “Anyway, Bórok Delvedeep wouldn’t be seen dead in small-town human schools, today is aaaaallll Scout. Sorry.”

Tro’s nose wrinkles. “Hopeless.” Then, “Wait. You’re doing it? You’re going public?!”

“I am! Mum called Mr Boules. Pulled out trans rights legislation and told him exactly how the school would handle it, before he’d even said hello.”

“Eeee! OK, I shall allow you your protective drabness, I guess. Even though you should be wearing, I don’t know, an actual hero’s cloak or something. In rainbow.”

I want to argue that I’m not drab, but I am. It is my cloak of shadows: enough is changing today without drawing eyes my way.

We watch, just a moment. Tiny kids in too-big uniforms mill past, wrapped up in their own tales.

“You ready for this?” Tro asks.

“Not really. You?”

“No.”

But we are. As ready as we’ll ever be. When we loop arms, invoke the luck of the dice gods and march for our new life, you could, if you squint a bit, see two heroes stepping out on to the road.

*

“Missssster Corrigan!” Mr Boules pounces on me from round a corner, like he’d been lying in wait. “Walk with me.”

“I’ll catch you up,” I say to Tro.

“Sure?”

“Yeah.”

“OK! Ahhhh, we’re doing this!” They bounce, pulling me in for a too-frenetic hug, and something small and light and angular is pressed into my palm before they bounce away.

A dice?

Of course there’s a new twenty-sided die for this: dice are the cornerstone of every chance we take, and a lucky die kept in a pocket reminds you that you can – and might – succeed, whatever you try.

Boules watches them go. “Just the kind of attitude we like to see.” He nods. “Now. Walk?”

“Yessir.”

“I just want to make sure we’re on track.”

Ugh. I’m barely through the door.

“…that we get everything right. That you still want to … you know.”

“Use my name and pronouns?” He’s giving me an out. Or the school an out. And honestly, I almost take it. But I squeeze Tro’s dice tightly, imagine myself, shoulders squared and axe in hand, as Borók Delvedeep, dwarven High Adventurer, and push out the words, “Yes, sir.”