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.It did not surprise Arilyn to hear that the guest cabin boasted a feminine wardrobe, and she did not doubt that she would find a number of garments that would fit her elven frame.Rumors suggested that the green elf druid was not the only elf woman who had found a place in Macumail's heart.Furthermore, the glint in his eyes suggested he would not be averse to adding a half-elf to his collection of fondly held memories.Not wishing to pursue this path, Arilyn thanked her host and rose to follow the cabin boy who came promptly to the ring of Macumail's bell.The captain watched her go and waited until he heard the bolt of her cabin door slide shut.Then he seated himself at his writing table and took up the parchment Arilyn had left there.Slowly, laboriously, he read the Elvish script to the place where the queen's ambassador was named.Macumail opened a small drawer beneath his table and took from it a tiny bottle of ink.It was of elven make, a rare deep-purple hue fashioned from a mixture of berries and flowers that grew only on Evermeet.Carefully he unstoppered the bottle and dipped a quill into the precious fluid.With painstaking care, he added a few tiny curves and lines to the Elvish script.It was fortunate, Macumail thought as he sprinkled the parchment with drying powder, that the Elvish words for Moonblade and Moonflower were so similar in appearance.The captain had heard from Laeral the tale of the elf-gate and the deep sorrow it had brought to Queen Amlaruil.Having witnessed the sadness in the queen's eyes and mourned it for love of her, Macumail was loath to do anything that might bring additional pain to the wondrous elven monarch.Yet Macumail also held the half-elven fighter in high regard, and he understood the importance of the task before her.And he knew, as well as any human alive, the difficulty that would face Arilyn in the shadows of Tethir.He himself had loved a woman of the forest, a green elf druid whose strange, fey ways had left him mystified much of the time.But from his elven love he had learned enough about the forest folk to suspect that the People of Tethir would reject a half-elven ambassador and perhaps even slay her.Passing as a full-blooded elf was never easy for the half-elven, not even for one as resourceful as Arilyn.Macumail had therefore devised a strategy that might help her do just that.Elven naming customs were endlessly complicated.Although it was not unusual for an elf to take on a surname that spoke of a particular skill or weapon- names such as Snowrunner or Oakstaff or Ashenbow- these descriptive titles were for common use: a name to use during travels, or to give acquaintances or outsiders, especially dwarves and humans.Among themselves, however, elves considered the giving of a family name and the recitation of lineage to be a vital step in formal exchanges.For Arilyn to identify herself to an elven tribe by only the sword she carried would be an egregious breach of protocol.It would almost certainly shout that her claim as Evermeet's ambassador was spurious.In her case this was particularly true, for moonblades were known to be hereditary swords, and a refusal to identify herself by family would be regarded by the elves as a blatant, arrogant admission that she was not what she claimed to be.And that, Macumail noted wryly, would go over in elven society about as well as an ogrish daughter-in-law.With this in mind, the captain had decided to give Arilyn a family name and an ancient lineage-all with a few small strokes of a quill pen.His opinion that these honors were truly hers to claim eased his mind some-what.Nor did he doubt that the borrowed glamour of the royal family would drape a protective mantle over the half-elven woman and silence many questions before they were spoken.And after all, it was well known that of all the races of elves, moon people were most like humans!The elves of Tethir's forest were insular, but they knew that no half-elves were allowed on Evermeet, and it would not occur to them that a half-elf would be permitted to carry the name of the royal family.A missive from AmlanuTs own hand, claiming Arilyn as her descendant, would settle the matter
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