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Paenvellon was not a young elf, though he was younger than some. He had been born in Harlond in the early second age, and he had spent his life on the seas. He knew that he was, perhaps, a naive elf, for he came from simple folk, and stayed simple his whole life. He fished, he weaved, and he sang to the sea, and dealt little in politics or war. He was Falathrim, and he wanted no more than that.
It was pure luck he had been in Mithlond, the terrible spring of 2510, when Celebrian of Imladris sailed to Valinor. He marked Lord Elrond, grieving and glad, and he marked his children--the twins on either side of their sister--weeping. The twins, especially, caught his gaze, for even in their grief there was something both fair and terrible about them, fey and fate-touched.
He didn’t know how often they had been back to Mithlond, the year he saw them again, and met them properly. He was fishing in the gulf of Lhun when he saw a river otter in the waves.
The little animal was small, far too small for even the low waves of the protected gulf, and Paenvellon spared no thought for why it might have been in the sea in the first place. He secured his net and his oars hastily, and dove straight into the water to rescue the creature.
The otter, once in Paenvellon’s little boat, regarded him with a tilted head and a curious little chirrup of a noise.
Paenvellon offered a hand to sniff, like he might to a dog he didn’t know. He spoke several bird languages, but not a single beast-tongue. “You are far from home, little friend,” he said aloud anyway, tone soft and low.
There was a chittering squeak.
Paenvellon looked over in surprise.
A sea otter had hooked paws over the edge of his boat and was looking at them both with a curious expression. The sea otter rippled into an elf, dark hair and grey eyes, resting his chin on his crossed arms on the gunwale. “Hello, friend,” he said cheerfully.
Paenvellon blinked. “Hello,” he replied. Then he looked back at the river otter in the floor of his boat. “You probably did not need rescue, then,” he observed.
The otter chirruped agreeably.
“He says he didn’t, but appreciates it anyway,” the elf in the water said. “I’m Elladan,” he added. “And that’s my brother Elrohir.”
“Paenvellon,” he replied. “I- am trying to decide whether to apologize,” he admitted.
Elladan laughed, and Elrohir cheeped. “Not necessary,” the elf said. “Truly, we’re grateful. If he’d needed it, I would be beyond glad you were here.”
“Would you like to get in the boat?” Paenvellon asked Elladan. “Or you back out, I suppose,” he added to Elrohir, but to be true both looked quite content with their current situations.
Elladan laughed gladly. “No thank you,” he said. “I came for a swim and a swim I mean to have. It was lovely to meet you, though. Are you from Mithlond?” he asked.
Paenvellon shook his head. “Harlond, on the gulf near the sea,” he said, and pointed vaguely.
Elladan nodded. “Excellent,” he said, not at all helpfully, and changed back to the sea otter. With a cheerful chirrup, he vanished again into the sea.
Paenvellon looked back at Elrohir.
Elrohir had ducked under the seat and was nosing through the nets.
“I’m fishing,” Paenvellon said slowly, deciding that, as Elladan had clearly decided to go, Elrohir was equally clearly deciding to stay a while.
Elrohir clambered onto the seat beside Paenvellon and looked expectantly at him, so Paenvellon gathered his nets and cast them into the water again.
Elrohir watched the process several times, listening intently to Paenvellon’s stilted narration. Then, on the third toss of the nets, he scrambled slightly awkwardly over the gunwale and flowed through the water with grace.
Paenvellon figured he was following his brother, until he realized the otter was darting through the glimmering shoals of fish, herding them like a particularly agile sheepdog on the side of the foothills of Ered Luin. Herding the fish, Paenvellon realized, straight into his nets.
It was a large catch in the stern and a particularly smug otter standing in the bow that Paenvellon brought back to his village that afternoon, and he greeted the fishmongers cheerfully as he tied off his mooring-ropes and bounded onto the dock. Elrohir chirruped his own greeting, attempting rather unsuccessfully to climb onto the dock after him.
Paenvellon rescued his friend before he could tumble into the water and set him on the dock.
Elrohir promptly stood against his legs, pawing at his trousers and chittering noisily.
One of the fishmongers helping unload Paenvellon’s catch laughed. “That’s as clear as day,” she said brightly. “My daughter does the exact same when she wants to be picked up.”
“What’s he doing here?” another asked.
Paenvellon stooped to lift the otter, and shrugged a shoulder. “I found him in the gulf,” he said truthfully. “Thought he might be in trouble so I fished him out, and he’s taken a shine to me, I suppose.”
“He’s a long way from home,” Harthriel said, handing over the cost of the fish.
“I said the same,” Paenvellon replied. “He’s been remarkably closed-mouthed about it.”
Harthriel laughed and patted his shoulder. “Have a good evening, Paenvellon,” she said, and headed off with her helpers.
“You too,” he called after her, and then looked at the otter in his arms. “Coming home with me, then?” he asked.
Elrohir chirruped happily and pointed a paw up the dock.
Paenvellon shook his head ruefully and headed towards his small little house on the edge of the dock-district. It was waterfront, and covered in birds as usual. He greeted the sea birds in their own tongues, told them about his catch (which they applauded) and introduced his new friend.
Elrohir waved, gurgling cheerily.
One of the many petrels that had made their homes carefully burrowed into the thatch of Paenvellon’s house and those surrounding alit on his shoulder to peer curiously at Elrohir.
Elrohir offered a paw, and got pecked sharply for his pains. He squealed in distress.
“Oy,” Paenvellon barked, jostling the shoulder reprimandingly.
Elrohir chirred sadly, tucking his wounded paw to his chest and looking up with wide, sorrowful eyes.
The petrel screeled in disdain.
Paenvellon scolded the bird in petrel-tongue, but the bird insisted Elrohir was a pest and a nest-raider. “He can’t get to your nests, they’re in the roof,” Paenvellon snapped at it. “And he helped me fish today. Be nice or go away.”
The petrel seemed surprised by his vehemence, and said so, before lifting off his shoulder to return to the eaves.
Paenvellon said, “Sorry,” to Elrohir in Sindarin, and took him inside. “Are you hurt?”
Elrohir shook his head and squirmed to be put down.
Paenvellon let him explore the little home--nominally two rooms, but divided only by a privacy screen--while he puttered around starting a late luncheon. “Are you hungry?”
“If you don’t mind,” Elrohir replied, starting Paenvellon enough to make him drop the pot. “Sorry,” he said. “Didn’t mean to scare you.”
Paenvellon turned to take in his guest. He was sticking his head around the privacy screen, displaying dark hair and grey eyes just like his brother’s. The rueful little half-smirk he wore was enough to stick Paenvellon’s voice in his throat.
“Also, I’m naked,” Elrohir said cheerfully, hopefully not noticing Paenvellon’s sudden awkward silence. “Can I borrow this robe?”
Paenvellon blinked away the image of Elrohir’s imagined body and croaked, “Sure, whatever fits is fine.” He hastily busied himself with the food. He had managed to scrape his brain back together enough to carry on a conversation with Elrohir by the time the meal was prepared, and they chatted easily into the evening.
Elladan turned up eventually, wearing a wet cloak kilted around his hips and nothing else, and it was only by seeing them together that Paenvellon realized that they were twins, and therefore almost certainly the Sons of Elrond. He lost a moment to awkwardness and stammering, which they gameley refused to acknowledge, along with all his attempts to do them their due deference.
Their status made him nervous, until they insisted that they weren’t anyone special, just sons of a minor lord raised to be soldiers, not lordlings themselves. Elrohir finally startled him out of his reticence by referring to himself and his brother as halfbreed mutts, which turned him so incoherent with fury on their behalf that Elladan managed to convince him to drop the formality.
Still, then, he could see the touch of fate on them, in a way that Elrohir alone, or even Elladan in that brief moment on the water, did not have, even laughing and engaged entirely in the small doings of Paenvellon’s fishing village.
He offered them a bed for the night, but they declined politely, and as the moon rose, they made their excuses.
“Come back to visit,” Paenvellon said impulsively. “The next time you come to Lindon.”
Elrohir met his eyes, and for the first time Paenvellon wondered what had made Elrohir stay in his boat. Wondered if Elrohir felt the same hitch in his throat Paenvellon had felt the first time he’d seen Elrohir as an elf. “We will,” Elrohir promised, voice lower and heavier than perhaps a visit between friends merited.
Elrohir changed skins, leaving Paenvellon’s robe in a heap, and Elladan scooped him to his shoulder easily, waved to Paenvellon, and waded into the gulf. He, too, changed skins, and then they were both gone in a flash of moonlight on the water.
Only then did Paenvellon pick up his robe and go back inside, chest tight with something like fear or grief.
He had never before cared much for the world beyond the Gulf of Lhun as long as it was not afire with war, but now when he ran across fisherfolk from Mithlond, he asked for news from afar, listening always and especially for news from Imladris.