Elrond hates the ocean.

Maglor and Maedhros don't want him to, but he does. He'll go to the beach with them with minimal resistance because they live in California and they'll bring him along no matter what he says or does, but he never goes anywhere near the water. And they have no such qualms (though of course they don't go swimming, the currents are too strong and it's freezing cold) but his fathers understand his fear, and they don't push him.

Today is foggy rather than windy, which is par for the course for Bodega Bay in the spring, and it's cold enough to seep through Elrond's jacket but not so cold that he can't take off his sneaker; the rocks are sharp, but he can get a better grip if he's barefoot.

So while Maglor and Maedhros throw a Frisbee, Elrond goes exploring.

The tide's in and his tunnel's flooded, which would freak him out if he weren't twenty feet above the water already, and the ridge of crumbling shale is high but no more difficult than he remembers. He's on the other side and out of sight in minutes.

Elrond hates being near the ocean, but even he admits that it's beautiful. He's never seen a beach like on postcards, with fine white sand and palm trees and warm blue water that's calm enough to trust yourself to (Northern California beaches have sand that's coarse and rocky, permanently grey skies, silver water that's cold and choppy with riptides, high cliffs, and the only plants are tough grasses), but there's a dangerous sort of beauty to it all the same.

Even more than that, though, he loves the sense of being alone. The Pacific is huge, the sky infinitely larger, and Elrond is the only living thing in sight. Even the ever-present seagulls don't dare disturb the peace.

And then, Elrond hears the singing.

The words are in a language he doesn't recognize, he thinks it might be Gaelic. The tune starts off quiet, a sweet, simple melody that reminds him of Maglor's lullabies, but it gets steadily louder and steadily more haunting until Elrond can feel tears dripping down his face, cooling quickly in the March air.

The thing is, though, he isn't crying. Not really. There's no pressure behind his eyes, no red runny nose, no corked-shut throat; his eyes aren't even stinging, and he knows without looking that they aren't red. It's the sort of crying that only happens to pretty girls in movies, Elrond thinks, and refuses to follow that train of thought. Instead he closes his eyes, listens to the song, and doesn't wipe the tears away.

The singing abruptly stops. "Hello," says a soft voice from his left. There's a Scottish accent, slight but there. Elrond turns and —

— oh.

He's about thirty yards away, low enough on the rock that he could reach down and touch the ocean if he wanted. Long blond hair reaches his hips, where bronze-tanned skin turns into a long, shining purple tail.

"Hello," he repeats, in a soft voice that again reminds Elrond of Maglor. "My name is Thranduil."

Elrond stands and picks his way down the rock, settling nearer to Thranduil — near enough to the edge of the water to make him nervous, but not so close that he's about to panic. "Hello. I'm Elrond."

The mermaid, because what else could he be, smiles. Not one of the bright sunshine smiles that Elrond sometimes sees on his classmates' faces, but something darker, a puzzle of a smile; Elrond's fingers itch with the need to solve it, and he wishes he'd brought a Rubik's Cube.

The smile slowly fades away as it becomes clear that Elrond isn't going to move any closer. "There's plenty of room here."

He sounds hesitant, like when Maedhros doesn't know how to approach anything to do with emotion, and Elrond almost reflexively reassures him. "It's not you. I'm just scared of water."

He stops, and waits to be laughed at.

But Thranduil's nodding, he understands. Odd, since he's a thing of the sea, but Elrond doesn't question his luck. "As well you should be," Thranduil says. "The ocean is pretty, so people often forget that it's also wild." Bright violet eyes turn away from Elrond's face to watch the churning Pacific, and he's vaguely relieved. "But may I ask why?"

They've only known each other for a few minutes, not counting the singing, and normally Elrond wouldn't say this yet. But something about Thranduil is — disarming is probably the right word, and Elrond finds himself opening up in a way that he usually wouldn't. "My twin brother drowned a few miles down the coast when we were twelve."

Thranduil blinks twice, and says, "Was his name Elros? If it was, then I know him."

And — it was. Elrond can't do anything but nod, and Thranduil slips into the water — "I'll be back in fifteen minutes, wait here!" and vanishes in a flash of gold and violet.

Elrond sits crosslegged on the ledge, and waits for him to return. It's not like there's anything else to do.

When he does return, he's breathless and smiling. And Elros is with him.

It wasn't hard to find him, as he's nearly always in the same place, and a simple "I've found your brother" was enough to convince him to go. Thranduil doesn't usually swim so fast, but Elrond is even happier now than Thranduil could ever have guessed.

He waits in the water, watches the twins' reunion, and is happy for them.

(It's not enough and he knows it.)

(But Elrond is smiling now too, and it's so beautiful that Thranduil refuses to push his luck.)

People who drown in the ocean become mermaids.

They never age another day, but they can be killed, and they remember little of their previous lives. Nearly all know their names, and most have another name as well, a few flashes of image. For a few, life on land is completely blank.

Thranduil knows that his father was a woodworker. He knows his own name, and he thinks his father's might have been Oro-something. Both of them smiled rarely but beautifully.

(Thranduil's smiles come easy now, and Oro-something is a name on a stone and barely a thought in his son's mind.)

Elros knows his name and his brother. He knows cream-and-coffee skin, dark hair, grey eyes, long fingers skilled at puzzles and chess, a carefree laugh that hasn't been heard in four years.

(Somewhere there's a hazy image of a raven-haired man with clear eyes and a sapphire voice. But Elros doesn't think on that.)