"Ulmo, give me strength!" Rushing down to the water, the elleth caught her young daughter just as she was about to stick her toes into the rising water as the tide washed over the sand. "Beinie, you can't go in the water. You're get your dress wet, and we still need to visit your Grand'na."

"Why doesn't Grand'na come to the beach with us? She's so far away," complained the elfling, wagging her legs in the air. She continued to do so in frustration as she was carried up the shore and away from the water. Placed down on a nest of blankets beside a log, Beineilien peered over the top of her one-sided prison, and made a little wailing sound at being so far now from the water's edge.

The elleth rolled her eyes. "Child of mine, your Grand'na is not so very far away as you put it. We can easily walk to where she is."

"Then she should walk here, if she's so close." Beinie spied a crayfish inching along in the sand and watched him as he teetered across the beach. Curiously, she poked at him with her finger, and she and the crustacean began a short battle, claw against driftwood twig.

"Stay here, Beinie, I'm going to get your Ada, and then we will go and see your Grand'na for-" Biting her tongue, then elleth was only too glad that her daughter was more interested in her new friend to catch her near slip. "Well, stay here, and don't go to the water."

"But, Nana-"

"No. I forbid you to go in the water with your dress on." The elleth gave a nod, and turned to seek out her husband, who was down the beach a ways, where the sand was soft and he could write bits of poetry in Tengwar until the wind or the water erased his work and gave him a new page to write upon. He was Sindarin, one to have crossed the sea long ago from Lothlorien when Amroth was King. She was Vanyar – serene to his seemingly constant energy and excitement. Wrapping her arms around his waist, she smiled as she read the words that he was writing; the words that he would later sing to their daughter for her begetting day.

Closer to the water's edge, trouble brewed as little Beineilien continued her dual with her mysterious friend, climbing over the log which had been her only hurdle between herself and the sea. The crayfish, seeing his means of escape, cheated and snapped his tiny claw on one of Beinie's toes. Falling back into the sand, she lost track of the creature as he scampered back to the water.

Sitting up, Beinie spied the glitter of the sun playing against the surface of the water. With a smirk, she looked down the length of the beach, her parents' backs turned to her. Eagerly she ran to the edge of the water and stopped short as the water grazed her toes. As the decree from her mother played back in her mind, she manipulated the words to her own needs, and grinned.

"I think by now everyone should be at the surprise party, love." Holding the branch he had been using to write in the sand, the ellon tossed it out into the water, if only to hear the splash from his efforts. With a smile, he glanced in the direction his wife had come from and frowned. "Where has our little treasure gone off to now?" he wondered, shaking his head to see the empty beach.

Beineilien's mother was less subdued in her reaction, and gasped to see her daughter missing from her play spot. Kicking up sand behind them as they jogged back to the log, it was a flutter of pastel fabric closer to the shoreline that caught their attention.

"Laaa laaa la la la," sang the elfling, swimming happily around in lazy circles. Her dress was safely on the beach, tucked under a rock – as was everything else she had been wearing, just in case her Nana had meant to say she wasn't supposed to wear any of the special begetting day clothes she had been dressed in that morning if she wanted to be in the water.

"Beinie!" The elleth cringed at her own shout, having seen a few other elves dotting the shore. "Beinie, come out of that water this instant!" As the elfling began to rise out of the water, her mother suddenly shouted, "Wait, stay right there!" Blushing crimson, the elleth was happy to see that only one other had heard her outburst. Apologetically she smiled at the lonely lady, who smiled back and turned away to inspect some far-off point.

Shaking her head, Beinie's mother accepted the blanket that was brought from the log by the ellon and as discretely as possible ushered Beinie into it, tightly wrapping it around her. "Oh, you've gone and exposed yourself to poor Lady Celebrian," scolded her mother with a disapproving shake of her head.

"But my dress!" rang out Beinie's voice proudly. "I didn't wet my dress!"

Laughter came from down wind, and now the trio caught a blushing lady, turning her head away and trying to make her snickers sound like a cough.

"Oh, Beinie-boo, you're a bundle of giggles, aren't you my girl?" Her Ada took hold of her and carried her up the beach. "Let's find a spot up in the trees so your mother can make you presentable again, and then off to your Grand'na's house."

"For cake and chocolate and a party?" asked the elfling hopefully.

Trying not to smirk as his wife rolled her eyes, the ellon asked, "Who said you get a party? I didn't get a party this year," he pouted.

"But you were five hundred this year. And five hundred last year, and the year before that – you've been five hundred a lot. You can't get parties if you don't get older," she pointed out. "And I'm thirty-three this year. Last year I was thirty-two. So this year, I get a party."

"Who can argue with logic like that?" laughed the ellon as he led his family away from the beach.