#but im humming and hawing between writing the traditional ending

[youareunbearable]

Mermaid!AU where as a boy Fingon saves a wounded merman with long red hair who was beached and tangled in a net. He helps free the merman and return him to the sea, and as thanks he gives him a golden ribbon that has some of his brilliant red scales dangling from the end.

Fingon takes that ribbon and hides it, not wanting to share his merman with anyone else, and as he ages he would have thought the encounter was a dream if not for that ribbon.

One night, on his 25th birthday, he wears that ribbon in his hair, and he and his siblings and cousins go sailing around the islands that make up their home in celebration. The party is loud and joyful and the fireworks over the ocean are brilliant. Except something goes wrong and suddenly, the boat has caught fire.

Fingon, as the eldest, makes sure all his siblings and cousins are on a row boat and safely away from the blaze, but before he can jump overboard to swim to one, a piece of the mast falls and hits him in the head right before he jumps. Fingon slips into the ocean, unconscious as his family screams for him.

Unknown to the humans above, King Feanaro's seven sons circle underneath. Celegorm and his pet shark are more than happy to feast on the unlucky sailors in this shipwreck, Maglor prepares a sirens song to lure those in the row boats into the depths, while Caranthir, Curufin, and Ambarussa wait to loot the sucken vessel.

Maedhros, the eldest of the sons and crown prince of the seven seas, is the first to see Fingon in the water. At first, he is entranced by the beauty of the drowning human, how the fire light overhead dances across his unconscious face. Maedhros swims closer, and his silver eyes widen when he sees his ribbon and scales in the hair of this unconscious man, the very gift he gave away years ago to a young boy that saves his life. A boy that must have grown up into a man since then. This man.

Maedhros calls off his brothers, sends them back home as he drags the mortal back up to the surface. The least he can do for the man's valiant efforts is to repay them. He sings as he swims, urging thr waves to help the swiftly reach the shore, to take them for enough out that he won't be washed back in with the tide.

On the sandy beach, Maedhros looks down at the mortal man and feels something in his very soul sing out. He is no singer, not like his younger brother Maglor, but he is a merman and does have the ability to attempt to put that feeling into song. As he sings to this man, coaxing the water out of his lungs and to heal the wounds on his head, Fingon wakes a little.

Fingon hears the most enchanting voice as he comes back to wakefulness. His eyes are bleary with salt water when he tries to open them, but he sees red hair and glowing grey eyes and his heart swells. He almost forgot those features, hazy like a long forgot dream that they are. Weakly, he reaches up to brush a red strand away from sharp cheekbones. He hums along so the melody that is imprinting itself into his heart, not aware that the same is happening to the merman above him.

Hearing him sing, it unlocks something is Maedhros, something he didn't know he was missing. Impulsively, he bends down, breathing in the same air as this mortal, his mortal, and pressea his forehead against the brown skin under him. Nothing but breath and Song and the waves lapping at the shore.

Then, shouts in the distance. Voices calling out a name. "Fingon!" They cry.

The man, Fingon, Maedhros knows now, just blinks. Brought back to reality with the sound of his brothers and sister's frantic calling. Between one blink and the next, the being above him is gone, a splash the only signal of where he disappeared too.

Fingon scrambles to sit up, hoping to catch another glimpse. In the distance, highlighted by the red dawn rising, a flash of red scales glint before they vanish below the waves.