No, Wind/Tyran/(read below) doesn't know who Leaf really is. When they were sent into the woods as children, they made a pact of sorts not to know/ reveal their true names, because they didn't want such things as rank or title or job to get in the way of their friendship or memories.

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It was with no small amount of personal pride or accomplishment that I casually handed the box to Taradriel, not wanting to admit how much trouble it had given me. It was a regular and rough box, but that made no difference. She smiled as she opened it, nodding slightly. "I knew it would be lovely," she murmured, running a finger along one of the graceful, yet strong arches of mithril. "Quite fitting for a beautiful elf, wouldn't you say?"

I lifted a brow. "Taradriel, I do not know who it's going to," I reminded her, faintly amused at her asking me my opinion on the beauty of any she-elf.

"It is going to a lovely young elf I once knew for a few years—Alyeni."

Involuntarily my breath hissed out at the name, my hands forming tight fists. Unable to look at her any longer, I sharply turned aside. "Don't be stupid, Tara," I spat. "Alyeni died the day after Mother and Lyran were buried."

"Stop it!" she exclaimed, actually stomping her foot like a much younger elf instead of the motherly one she usually was around me. "She isn't dead—but your father as good as buried her. It's time for her to come back, to rejoin the world."

"I—" I caught myself, closing my eyes tightly against the thing she was asking of me. "She cannot come back—there is nothing of her left." I did my best to keep my voice even and calm, but it was a loosing battle.

"There is," she insisted stubbornly. "Alye, you—"

"Tyran, Tara. I am Tyran."

"No you aren't. Tyran is a male."

"Is he?" I asked. To anyone who didn't know me as well as she—and eight others—did, my voice would have been considered deadly, and the elf unfortunate enough to encounter it would have flinched and backed away.

Tara was hardly phased. "You just answered yourself."

I slammed my fists on the table, making it shake and creak in protest. "Damn it, Tara!"

"Don't swear at me, child!" she snapped.

"I'm no longer a child, and as for swearing—you try growing up male and see how often your tongue responds to the social graces expected of all she-elves!" I all but hissed the words at her, wanting nothing more than to back the evening up and send the pendant with the lad Haradan sometimes paid to deliver things.

She narrowed her eyes, clearly not pleased with my stubbornness against her obviously planned ideas for me. "I held my peace when your father began this foolishness. I thought he'd snap out of it and realize he didn't have a son any longer, but a beautiful daughter."

"He didn't."

"No," she agreed softly. "And while you have coped with it—"

"Coped, Tara?" I asked bitingly. "I have acted and been seen, referred to and believed male for over two thousand years. How can that compete with eight years of being my mother's little girl?" I shook my head, running my hand through my greasy and sooty hair. "It can't."

"Alye didn't die… you just transformed her to him to please your father… not that you had much of a choice."

"No," I agreed bitterly. "And he's not about to admit first that he has no son, and then that he forced his daughter to take that place, sending her into the woods at such an age when most she-elves are just learning which pots are used to cook what."

"You're old enough now to go on your own—"

"That's not how things go, Tara, and you know it. Even if I were to sever the connection, remove him from my life, what then? Why bother, Tara? Yes, I was born female, but I've been one of the guys for so long I don't know how to be anything else."

"What of marriage?"

I snorted at that. "You must be joking, Tara. To who?" To what? Male—which would be very odd for us both, as I had been forced to emulate them to such a degree no one would believe otherwise of me, which would be understandably off-putting for most any male… and who would want the ones it didn't, anyway? Female? That thought made my stomach turn, and it was one thing my father had neither expected of me nor pushed for, perhaps some part of his demented logic knowing that would eventually get his… our… little secret revealed.

"You know you have your mother's beauty, if you would only look the part for once—"

"You could dress me up, fix my hair… But I would still be Tyran. I have been Tyran for so much of my life I can barely remember anything else, Tara."

"I know," she agreed quietly. "But you shouldn't resign yourself to being alone for the rest of your life."

I smiled, and knew it was bitter even before she flinched at the sight of it. "I have Father, haven't I?" Then I softened slightly. "And you."

"And Leaf?"

Something in her tone made me look up at her. "Tara?" I asked cautiously, not liking the look in her eye though I couldn't put my finger on why.

"You like him," she stated, the way she spoke putting some twist on the words that made me hesitant to answer.

"I love him—have since we were too young to realize such."

She gave me a triumphant smile, and I finally caught on, barely able to retrain myself from rolling my eyes to ask the stars for patience. I also decided that she-elves aren't a different species from male elves—they're just raised so differently they always know what any other she-elf means, leaving those of us raised mostly by ourselves in the woods totally in the dark. It was an interesting observation, but I forgot it rather understandably, under the circumstances.

"Tara, don't even think about it. I've known him—"

"For over two thousand years. No one else could have such a history with someone."

"Tara, he used to pull my hair and push me into the pond."

"And what did you do to him?"

I couldn't help a smile at the fond memories that immediately popped to the fore of my mind. "Hid his bow at the top of the tallest tree. He was always in love with that darned thing. Lugged it everywhere on the claim it would protect us if we ever came across anything." I'd nearly laughed at him for it. His tiny bow and simple wooden arrows—which he had sharpened into points—wouldn't have killed so much as a squirrel unless he beat it over the head with the bow.

"See? You already know everything good and bad about him."

"I watched him grow up, as he watched me, and we watched everyone else. Tara, it means nothing, other than he will have more of a right to be angry with me for the deception."

She sighed wearily. "But do you not look at him? See him through the eyes of a female?"

I looked down at the table, saw my outburst earlier had knocked a vase over. I set it upright without really thinking about what I was doing as I pondered her words, and if I should really answer. But Tara was the closest thing I'd had to a mother since mine had been killed, so there wasn't really much of a choice that I could see. "I'm afraid to," I admitted on a soft whisper. Admitting a weakness was foreign to me.

"Afraid of what?" she asked, confusion obvious.

"Of looking," I sighed, wishing her odd insight would extend enough I wouldn't have to spell this out. "If he sees me looking… should he notice my gaze if I should decide that I like what I see… then he'll either figure it out—rather unlikely considering how long he's believed me to be a male—or he'll steer clear of me. Either way, I lose one of my best—" and more or less only "—my best friends."

"But he is your friend."

I blinked at her blankly. "So?"

"So, he should understand that you didn't have a choice. He knows how demanding your father can be, doesn't he?" she asked, hands propped on her hips.

"Yes… And he believes I should have broken free—of course, that when he thinks me to be male."

Taradriel sighed, understanding what I meant by that. She-elves were expected to stay around the home until married, for the most part, or at least to live quite close to home. Because my flet was close to Tara's, my father didn't mind not conforming with those unwritten rules too well… but if I should try and use any more freedom that would be given to male elves without question, he would remind me I was his, and he would say what I could and couldn't do. He never actually called me his daughter, never called me by female pronouns… but I'd gotten used to it.

Even if it rankled from time to time.

With a shake of her head, Taradriel moved to a chest. "Your father is in Imladris this month, as well you know. So you're going to the prince's celebration—as Alyeni." She stood and unfurled a gown.

"Is it a costume party?"

"Don't be impertinent," she sighed, shaking the gown as if to get me to take it.

I lifted a brow and crossed my arms over my chest. "You are insane if you believe I'm going to so much as put that on, much less go outside… or to a feast and night of dancing where I told Leaf I'd try to meet him!"

"So he'll find out," she said calmly.

I was anything but calm at that proposition. "Tara, he can't ever find out! No one can!" I was vaguely aware I sounded like a child of eight, but I couldn't help it.

"You are not a male. Is there anything wrong in letting them know that?"

"Tara," I groaned, slumping into a chair. "I have never tried to be an adult she-elf. I know nothing of it! I shall be an utter fool, and so uncomfortable in my own skin I'll be so miserable there will be no point in going at all—Leaf or not!"

She laid the cloth against me, testing it against me or something. It made me decidedly uncomfortable, enough that I slid out of the chair and rose, running a hand through my unbound hair. "I've already informed them that Alyeni will be arriving to join the prince in celebrating his birthday."

I snorted, crossing my hands over my chest again. "How'd you do that? Called me a resurrection of an elf who never physically died?"

She sighed and shook her head. "I've called you my honorary niece, visiting for a time."

"Visiting?" I asked, latching onto the word.

With a nod she looked me over. "I know you're uncomfortable in her skin now, and with fairly good reason, considering you've been Tyran for so long, but you have to try, or you'll regret it in several thousand years, when you're alone because you never told the world the truth that only your father, you, me and the stars now know."

"Sometimes I wonder if he remembers," I grumbled, not at all pleased by the prospect, but knowing I would go along with it because otherwise Tara would be in a bit of a jam. When she looked hopefully up at me I sighed, closing my eyes.

She beamed and directed me to strip, shaking her head as layer after layer of my work clothes came off. She sighed as the confining vest I wore came off, leaving me feeling out of my element even as I quickly bathed. Tara washed my hair, smoothing it down, leaving it free to wave if it wished. Then she forced me into so many layers of material so against what I was used to I felt as if I couldn't breathe. My chest was just as confined—but instead of hiding it, it was on display. The long, full skirt brushed against my ankles in a way foreign to me, and that was before I looked down at myself.

I nearly had a panic attack. Only reminding myself all the hunts for orcs and spiders I'd gone on in the last centuries of our time in the woods kept me in control of myself. It seemed silly to be upset about a change of clothes in comparison, but still…

Tara finished with her fussing, and put the pendant I'd created around my neck, letting it drop to what I considered dangerous levels on incredibly bared skin. She tilted her head at me, and smiled at her job. "There," she declared. "You are as lovely as your mother," she sighed wistfully. Then she looked up at me and laughed softly. "Oh, don't look so! You'll be fine."

"Fine?" I asked, aware my voice had gone much higher than usual. I winced, knowing that was yet another thing I was going to have to constantly be aware of. I couldn't walk like a male, talk like a male, sit, eat, drink… "Damn it all, I'm staying home!"

"You are not!" Tara insisted, some of the sparkle leaving her eyes in a way that threatened she would drag me to the halls if I didn't go willingly. "You're going, even if you spend the night in the garden they have outside the great hall."

I tilted my head in consideration. There was a large clearing within that garden, which could be used for tournaments as long as they weren't on horseback, so I had been there once or twice, watching my weapons put to use in the hands of other elves. Off to the ends, though, the garden grew thick and dense, sheltering small nooks with hidden benches where I could escape unnoticed for hours. One look at Tara assured me it would be easier to hide away than try to convince her to let me get away with not going. "Very well," I sighed, looking down at myself, still feeling oddly bereft, though I was wearing far more material than usual. "But I need a cloak."

"No," she stated firmly. "You look wonderful, dear little elf." She took my arm—thankfully covered with material so my fading scars from working with molten metal didn't show—and led me to her looking glass. "See?"

I started to turn to her in annoyance, but the reflection caught me with an irresistible snare, drawing my eyes back. I was aware my jaw was going slack, but couldn't help it. With an intense longing I couldn't deny, I reached out to touch the image before me, feeling pain as I was unable to touch the she-elf I had just found in the mirror. Anguish in the form of tears clawed at my eyes to be released, but I held them back, too used to being a male to let them run.

"Didn't you know?" Tara asked quietly, having seen and understood my reaction. I had to wonder if anyone else in the world would have understood, and found myself doubting it.

"How could I?" I whispered back, almost afraid to breathe for fear I would lose that which had just been miraculously given to me. Over two thousand years since I had seen this vision…

Tara sighed and shook her head. "I've seen it every day since you grew up. I thought you did as well… but I have been quite wrong before." She reached out and fondly tucked a stray hair back into the small twist she had pulled a small section of hair back into. "Her eyes were a bit darker, but otherwise you look exactly like her." She tilted her head in consideration. "You're taller, too."

I snorted a bit of laughter, and shook my head at her. I took a shaky breath and forced myself to look away from the image, feeling bereft without it.

With a gentle smile Tara took my arm and followed me down the ladder, walking with me almost to the gates. "Go on, now."

I managed a small smile for her, then lowered my eyes as the gates opened for me and a few other elves—predominately female—who had arrived at the same time. Seeing how much I looked like my mother had given me just enough confidence to come—no one would recognize me in a simple glance, at least. After all, I'd never seen the connection before tonight.

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