*Note: I tried to reimagine both mermaids and kelpies (not sure what a good elvish word for those would be… fârochnen?). So my kelpies are more neutral/good-leaning figures rather than murdery tricksters (although I suppose they could be imagined to have a diversity of personalities if there's more than one), and my mermaids ended up being more like shape-shifting fish people that are easily convertible (a la Darryl Hannah in the movie Splash! … aaand I just remembered that's actually the setup of Disney-Pixar's Luca (minus the big salamander tails))
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The Dream
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He took off his soaked boots and set them at the edge of the beach. Then he headed inland, his head leaning forward as it hung heavy with his woes, his feet dragging along in his downcast daze. Despite his melancholy he still that it was a lovely place, with the warm sea breezes stirring the island greenery and dazzling flowers and tree branches bearing different kinds of fruit both familiar and strange.
Beyond some of the boulders jutting into the beach he soon spotted a small stream feeding into an inlet reaching in from the sea. He turned to follow it, trodding the short soft grass of its little banks past brush and tree. He wandered slowly along as the stream gradually grew narrower, and shallower, and eventually he came to the skirts of the small mountain. Issuing from some hidden fissure high up on its side was a singing little waterfall, cascading down the smooth rounded boulders to the mountain's base where it met the stream ribboning away back down to the beach. He stepped up alongside and passed it by, halfheartedly trudging and scrambling his way up the boulders beside it. It took him perhaps an hour to reach the top, where he found a wide platform of broad flat rocks and bare hard soil, and a couple of small trees whose short trunks roped in twisted curves up to crowning fronds of soft needling leaves. There he stood, and surveyed his surroundings.
It was not a very large island - he guessed that he could circumvent it in less than a day. The sea looked a bold royal blue, with fields of gleaming white here and there under the hard light at noon. Far in the distance on either side - north and south as best he could guess, he saw tiny spots of what he guessed to be other islands. But he could not guess at all where he was, other than very far from where he last remembered being, or how in the world he had got here, or even how he was still alive at all. It was somewhat cooler up here than down below, and the breeze was stronger, so he sat down and numbly stared eastward for a while. Not feeling ready to return to the beach, or do much of anything else, or to think or feel anything, he finally went over to the shade of one of the little trees and lay down to let his heavy heart return to rest.
He closed his eyes and let his mind wander in its repose, with a small idea that some sort of explanation would come to him. Before long the stabbing pain of the freezing heavy depths of the northern seas into which he had fallen came back to him, and his body tensed at the memory of it. But then new sensations also came to him, of experiences which felt like memories yet still unfamiliar, sights of young seals on great rocks inspecting him up close, and a silvery gray horse running through the frigid surf of a stony beach, the melodic lilting of echoing voices singing in his ears. Then suddenly he perceived himself being pulled through the lightless deeps of the cold dark waters, with strange shapes shimmering in greens and golds and creams and lavenders surrounding him. These looked like large and wondrous fish, and among them were other sorts: seals and dolphins and great seahorses and turtles. Then looking side to side, he stared bewildered, now noticing faces and chests and arms and knees in some of those fish: near in form to walking warm-blooded folk like himself, and yet still very much like fish. He could not see how he was borne alongside them, feeling only the sensation of riding a horse but seeing none beneath him. Still he squeezed his knees into the unseen being below him and gripped what felt like cool strands of thick hair brushing against his hands, and on they all went as the water rushed past his face like a fierce wind. He should have felt colder, he realized, far colder, and it had been long enough that the utter lack of warmth should have harmed him, if the lack of air had not. But as they went along he noticed no want for either. He passed through a thick dense forest of tall ropes of kelp, their waving stems and leaves brushing his arms and hitting his face. Then his strange steed took him down into deep narrow valleys filled with grand stones and shells and corals and plants, and creatures in all different sizes and vibrant colors, some gleaming in luminescence all of their own. Peaking out from large holes and along the walls of these valleys he saw little lights gleaming faint like the twinkling stars of the night sky, reminding him very much of the bejeweled windows and chandeliers and fountains of his home city when it glittered in light of the Great Trees. He heard the warble and trill of singing and laughter amid the sighing of the currents and the bubbling of the deep vents, observing it all in great wonder as he rode through the hidden canyons. Then he passed back out of these cheerful valleys, and into the dark silent seas beyond, leaving the curious friends behind and still clinging to his mount. Now he could see nothing but the occasional single black mass sliding quietly past in the distance and scarcely perceived other cracks and crevices and cave entries on hills and cliffs, probably housing the strange and fell creatures that descended into the world at its beginning, isolating themselves in their hidden sanctuaries as they fed and cloaked themselves in a malicious existence of self-loathing. Perhaps to such a place he was doomed to go, he thought, for such was the monster he had become. Then he heard voices speaking to him, but he could not make out the words, and looking around him in confusion he could not perceive their source. Onward he rode alone, wondering where this horse of sorts could be taking him, while the voices grew louder, echoing around in his mind.
He opened his eyes. Staring up at the swaying fronds of the little tree overhead, with only the whispers of a warm breeze and the surf on the beaches below singing softly into his ears, he lay pondering his dream for a while. Then his thoughts returned to his present: the shade of the branches on his face and the stone pillow under his head and the air against his arms. He still had no will to get back up, and was still not quite certain whether he was truly alive or dead, and thought perhaps he would simply lay and wait for the heralds of Mandos to come for him.