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Finn started out with a good family. A mother and father who loved him, a sister who she fought with often but loved at the end of the day. His first family tried their best, but they didn't know what to do with a child who was also an elf, or a daughter who was also a son.
At a young age, the puzzles in the house were one of the few things to keep her occupied. Reading sometimes seemed like too much sitting still, but he had to do something clever, because she was fast learning that's what people admired him for. So, puzzles. She wasn't sure how it happened- to this day, he blames Amy, because everything was her fault back then- but some of the puzzle pieces got into the wrong box. Once, she was trying to build a thousand piece puzzle, and it was almost done, but the only piece left in that box was the wrong shape, the wrong design. It didn't belong there.
It belonged to a different puzzle.
Finn thought he might be that puzzle piece.
Fitz started out with an important family. Their valued emissary father, their beautiful mother who worked for centuries in the human assistance program before it was shut down. Their older brother, who won prestigious awards at Foxfire. Their baby sister Biana, who everyone knew would grow up to be just as perfect as her mother.
And then there was Fitz.
Fitz was perfect at everything. The Vackers were the prime example of what elves should aspire to be, and Fitz lived up to every expectation. They were the golden boy, after all. (Never mind that something twinged in their chest every time they heard the phrase. They should be thankful to be called golden.)
No one knew that, some nights, they would cry over school assignments they just couldn't figure out. No one knew that, when they didn't know what else to do, they baked, and sometimes the cakes came out burnt. No one knew that, one night, they stole a dress from Biana's wardrobe and tried it on in front of the mirror. No one knew that they tried their hardest to commit that image to memory. No one knew that they thought about this every day, that they wished they could be... a little more feminine. Not entirely, just... somewhere in the middle.
No one knew anything but the golden boy, and no one knew they were a bit too broken to fit into the world like they were meant to.
Keefe started out with a terrible family. No matter what xe did, it seemed to be wrong. Bring home a ninety seven on a test, and Cassius would scream about the remaining three points until his voice was hoarse. Bring back one hundred the next test, and why didn't ae get any extra credit? Cer hair was too long, ce needed to cut it. Ze cut it short, and suddenly the issue was that it didn't lie flat.
"Your hair is getting too long again," Gisela complained.
Ve ran hir hand through it. "I like it."
Cassius glared. "It makes you look like a girl."
"That's good. I feel like a girl today."
Gisela marched over and grabbed a strand of xyr hair. "You are a boy," she hissed, as the scissors snipped and blond locks fell to the floor.
"Well- I am sometimes- but- not always-"
Snip. Snip. Snip. "You are always a boy. Stop speaking nonsense. You cannot change who you are like that. Stupid child." Snip. Snip. Snip.
Keefe watched pieces of itself cut off and swept away.
Finn lost her first family, and got a new one. They didn't click to fill one another's broken pieces. Some jagged edges would never be filled. But he loved them, and they loved her. And even when he told Grady and Edaline knew things, anything she thought might tear them apart further, that love didn't change. First, that he was apparently a science experiment. Then her pronouns. Even when he said that her name was Finn, they nodded and hugged him. She didn't fit, but his parents tried their best to make her feel welcome.
And he did. She felt at home.
Fitz's family splintered down the middle, their mother disregarding her flawless reputation to be with a woman named Livvy, too bright and colorful to fit with the elegant, pristine Vackers. Alden left. Alvar did too, disgracing the entire family, and Fitz was meant to live up to what Alvar was meant to be. Even more perfect than perfect.
Instead, they moved in with Livvy. Learned to become less of a golden boy and more colorful, more... themself.
Keefe left eir family, if Gisela and Cassius could be called that, and moved into Elwin's house. Ae had nowhere else to go. And over time, Elwin's house became less of just zir last safe space in the world, and something like a home. Elwin let xem buy whatever ve liked. It could grow its hair longer, let eir partners braid it. They made fir a pronoun pin, and bracelets to signal if ae felt more feminine or masculine at any given time. Elwin didn't chip off any pieces of Keefe, and ce could grow into hirself.
Finn, Fitz, and Keefe are all outcasts, pieces of a puzzle no one knows the solution to. There might not be any other pieces of those puzzles out there. None of them match, and they don't fit together neatly. It's messy, and nothing near perfect. But the love is there even if perfection is nowhere to be found. Even if they aren't designed to fit together, they are a family, and nothing could change that.