The next time they meet, it's Elrond who's singing.

Well, not singing, not really. Chanting. Thranduil doesn't recognize the language, though Elros probably would. The song is soft and thoughtful, not as emotional as a mermaid's song, and it fits Elrond perfectly.

"What is that?" he asks, and Elrond's muscles tense. "The song, I mean."

He stops singing. Thranduil almost — but not quite — regrets speaking. "It's a Hebrew prayer. Its called the V'ahavta." He looks sad again, but doesn't say what's bothering him. "How's Elros?"

"Normal. He's been much happier than usual for the last three weeks." Since he saw you, Thranduil doesn't say, but he thinks it.

Thranduil braces himself on the edge of the rock and pushes himself upward until he's sitting next to Elrond. "You're closer to the water than you were last time," he says.

Elrond smiles like bottled sunlight. "The ocean doesn't scare me as much anymore." He reaches out and threads their fingers together; Thranduil imagines what those finger would feel like carding through his hair and flushes at the thought. "I actually asked to come today," Elrond continues. "Maglor was thrilled, said it meant I was healing. I didn't say how much I wanted to see you."

Oh.

Thranduil doesn't grin like an idiot, but he wants to.

"I missed you too."

They talk for hours before Maedhros calls and Elrond has to leave.

For humans, love is a thing that grows and develops over time.

Mermaids are different. When you see them, you know.

There's a story in the Aegean about a girl who fell in love with a dolphin. They were apart for many years, until the girl threw herself into the ocean, to die with her love even if she couldn't live with her, as became the first mermaid.

In the Bering Straight the mermaids tell of how a boy fell into the icy sea, and returned to his family with the tail of an orca. He left them for the depths of the ocean four days later, and without his knowledge his betrothed followed; she drowned as well, swimming behind him, and when she too was reborn a mermaid they lived together in the realm of Sedna forevermore.

They have a tale in the Central Pacific of how a young woman went diving and didn't come home, and when her lover went to look for her body he instead found a mermaid bearing her face. Knowing she would never return to him he drowned in her arms — and when he woke up, transformation complete, they were never apart again.

But in every ocean of the world, to drown for your love is the greatest gesture possible.