Pastoral Elf Name Generator

The story

Tava knew she had entered the orchard tournament twice. She preferred to think of it as giving the new season an opportunity. Her naming apple tree had flowered that morning, changing the seasonal root she used from Dorn to Avel. The sign-up board had room for Tava Avel. It already contained Tava Dorn, whose afternoon had ended when she confidently played the worst card available. The tournament's rule was written above both names: one entry per person. Tava read it, looked at the flowering branch over the gate, and discovered that she was very interested in a philosophical question nobody else had asked.

The orchard gathering was not a championship of kingdoms. The prize was a glazed jug and the right to choose the music at supper. Players received wooden tokens for wins and surrendered them for losses; a person who lost all their tokens could stay to watch, eat, or complain. Nobody had designed the day to withstand a determined professional cheat. Tava was not a professional at anything, her brother said, except looking surprised when somebody remembered her promises. She had promised to help him and their younger cousin plant the family's lower plot before evening. The wet-soil window would not last through another leisurely day. Their inherited birth root carried practical duties, and this was one they had agreed to share.

She had time for one quick second attempt. That was the account she gave herself. The clerk at the far table had arrived after her first loss and wrote down the current seasonal name exactly as Tava spoke it. In this elven practice the associated living tree changed a name component, not the identity or obligations of its bearer. Tava knew this as well as anyone. She had corrected a delivery label the previous autumn without ordering a second delivery. But the new board looked wonderfully clean. Her earlier humiliation sat several lines away, apparently belonging to a person who had made less mature decisions in the resting season.

Her first new opponent was a little boy who had misunderstood the rules and was delighted to explain them badly. Tava won. Her second was a neighbor preoccupied with an argument over the supper music. Tava won again. The tokens made a lovely clicking noise in her dish. She had forgotten how pleasant it was to be good at the game. From the orchard entrance her brother held up a planting bag. She held up two fingers to mean two minutes. He held up one to mean something considerably less generous. She pretended not to understand and turned toward her third opponent.

The tournament used a decorative household mark beside each name so people could distinguish similar names across the tables. The morning clerk had drawn Tava's family sign backward. Tava copied that backward mark onto her new slip without thinking because she had liked its accidental elegance. Her third opponent, Brell, saw the slip and burst out laughing. He had beaten Tava Dorn earlier. He thought the second entry was an elaborate joke at her own expense, an invitation to play an exhibition hand while the next official pair arrived. He asked whether this new Tava had learned to count cards better than her unfortunate predecessor. She said the new Tava had benefited from a considerable period of reflection.

Then the clerk brought another token dish and called it an official round. Brell stopped laughing. He looked from the dish to Tava and waited for her to explain. She could have told him to complain formally. The clerk had accepted the entry; there was a flowering tree, a different root, and a board that did not object. She could almost hear how irritating the argument would become if she committed to it. Brell would have to turn a friendly afternoon into evidence that she was the same person he already knew. Her little collection of tokens suddenly looked less like proof of skill than like payment for making her neighbors perform the obvious.

Tava said she had already entered once. The clerk checked the two slips. There was the backward mark, there was the same given name, and there was Tava standing beside them with a face Brell described as excessively thoughtful for such a simple matter. She returned the second dish and its tokens. They were not converted into a prize for candor. Her two wins were removed from the count and the opponents were offered replacement rounds. She apologized to them herself. The boy wanted to know whether losing to somebody who did not exist meant he had actually won. Tava said he had lost to her, unfortunately, and now had another chance. He found this excellent.

Her brother was already on the lower path. Tava caught up carrying the planting bag she should have taken sooner. She expected a lecture and had prepared several replies. He gave her a patch to work beside their cousin and asked whether she wanted the crooked row or the very crooked row. She chose the very crooked row on the grounds that expectations would be manageable. The work was ordinary and unglamorous. They finished the promised share while the soil was still workable in their story's seasonal window. Nobody sang about her choosing family over fame. The cousin asked whether she had won the jug. Tava said no and was allowed to sound annoyed.

At supper Brell brought her the first slice of a pie because he wanted to keep discussing a hand he believed she had misplayed. She accused him of using pastry to secure an audience. He said he was learning from the tournament's finest philosopher. Across the table the little boy explained his replacement win to anybody who could not escape. The actual jug winner chose the music, and Tava disliked the first tune intensely. She sat through it. When the second tune proved worse, she got up to help carry empty dishes. Good conduct had not made the world reward her musical taste.

A week later Tava Avel played Brell at the kitchen table. There was no entry board and no prize except the pleasure of beating somebody who remembered every foolish thing she had said. Her tree was still flowering. Her family sign was still easier to draw the wrong way. Before the first hand she took a scrap of paper and wrote ONE PERSON at the top. Brell asked whether this meant she was finally certain. She said she was reserving the right to become a different person after losing. Then she lost, accused him of distracting her with logic, and asked him to deal again. This time she had all evening, and the rematch was actually allowed.