Changing

We will arrive in Absalom tomorrow night and I am so sick of being on this boat. Over a month and a half after leaving Avennara I'm finally getting to my destination.
 
Captain Halfbeard has been very hospitable while I've been aboard and I will forever be in her debt. Not just for the ride. She helped me understand some of my feelings about myself that I just could not make sense of.
 
It was funny, if a little annoying, how she kept calling me "Miss Ryel" but over time... I realized I liked it more than I thought. It turns out that sometimes the way we feel about ourselves on the inside does not match the way we look on the outside.
 
She told me about growing up in Highhelm with a million brothers and sisters and how they all saw her as a boy. Then one day she realized that was wrong. She wasn't a boy, she was a girl. Her family and her friends were confused but accepting. Her family called it her "changing" and they celebrated it.
 
Her family helped her choose a new name. Her father sneaked away with her clan dagger an had it polished and sharpened. He and her mom gave it back to her at her "Re-welcoming" ceremony, just as though the clan was welcoming a new baby. Her old name has been removed from all family and clan records.
 
I know I would never have the support she's had from her family. Especially after leaving the way I did. I'm pretty sure Aunt Ellyria would find a way to use it against me.
 
I still have no idea how Halfbeard knew just by looking at me. I guess sometimes you just know your own kind?
 
When she had her changing she changed her name. I don't think I will. I've always been Ryel. I don't mind. Though I guess I'm already doing things differently by even telling strangers my given name in the first place.
 
The whole tradition of not using your given name is stupid anyway. Why give me a name if you don't want me to use it?
 
When we dock in Absalom it will be, truely, the start of a new life. Nobody will have ever known me as a man. Nobody will know Ryel is my super secret elf name.
 
I'll just be me.
 
Ryel Tagnoye Layn. A woman.
 
Nobody needs to know.
 
-- *Miss* Ryel <3