A/N: I finally got around to writing something again! This story was born mostly of an OChem lab that included 50 minutes of doing literally nothing but boiling a solution, and is in fact both my first Avatar story and my first attempt at a crossover. Maglor is my boy and I love him and I really like the idea of him traveling the earth stopping people from doing stupid shit like he did. How did he get here from Middle Earth? Well, either there's something between the western edge of the Fire Nation and the eastern edge of the Earth Kingdom, or AtlA-verse is the size of Pluto. So just pretend that if you keep going east you hit Valinor. The title is from The Silmarillion.
They meet him first when they are very young. Zuko is six, Azula only four, and when they hear a man singing, of all things, they are too intrigued not to investigate. "Why is he singing?" Azula stage whispers from atop the sandy dune. "Boys don't sing." They have finally found him, standing in a cove strumming a harp. They don't understand the words, but the tune kind of makes Zuko want to cry.
The song reaches its end and the man turns, smiling up at them, and addresses Azula. "Among my people singing is considered a high art, penneth. I believe it is a gift to be shared with all." The meaning and the mild reprimand are lost on her as she shrugs carelessly and scrambles down the sandy cliff. Zuko follows her, more cautious in the face of a stranger.
"Who are you?" he asks softly, gazing up at the man in awe. It was generally considered insulting to call a man beautiful, but there is no other word that can fit. His black hair is long, not quite hiding gently pointed ears (pointed?), and framing high cheekbones, a narrow nose, and thin lips. But his eyes are what the children cannot look away from- pure grey as a storm cloud and filled with emotions too old and too deep for them to comprehend. They are cast in shadow as he looks at them, but only for a moment. Then they clear, beaming light and merry, and he gives them a friendly smile, sitting cross-legged so they can look him in the eye.
"My name is Maglor," he replies, "and I come from very far away."
"Oh. Are you from Ba Sing Se?" That is as far away as Azula can imagine at her age. Maglor laughs clear and high.
"No, penneth, farther even than that. Farther than any have gone before." He frowns for just a moment. "But let us speak not of me. What are your names?" He asks like a man who already knows the answer.
"I'm Azula, and this is my brother Zuko." Ever bold, she answers for the both of them. "Our grandpa's the Firelord."
"Azula!" Zuko hisses, giving her a small shove, "Mom and dad say not to tell people that!"
"It is alright," Maglor interjects with a small smile. "Your secret is safe with me. So, brother and sister, hm? It is good to have a sibling." Once more, sadness shoots across his face. "Take care of each other." His voice is grave and serious, and he speaks as though he holds them to a vow. Zuko and Azula share a glance and a shrug.
"Okay," Zuko replies with appropriate solemnity. Azula sticks with her shrug. Far off down the beach they hear their mother calling. Maglor hears her too, and stands and wipes the sand from his robes.
"Farewell," he tells them with a smile, "and may the light of the Valar shine upon your paths."
"Um, you too, I guess," Azula replies, hurrying to catch up with her brother.
"Might I give you one piece of advice before you go?" They stop at the crest of the hill. The cheer is gone from Maglor's face and his countenance is stern and severe. "There will come a time," he tells them, certainty ringing from his voice, "in both your lives when you must choose between what is right and hard, and what is wrong and easy. Do not make such choices with haste, no matter how great the temptation may be."
They listen, but they are young. It isn't long before they forget.
Ten years later, they come back to the beach. Zuko sits, staring out into the night, when he feels his sister behind him. "Ever planning on sleeping, Zuzu?" He shrugs and ignores her. Eventually she gives in to the silence. "Well," she says with an exaggerated yawn, "I'm going to sleep. You can-" She cuts off abruptly, staring into the distance. "Do you hear that?"
Zuko sits up straight and listens. Somewhere down the beach a man is singing, a low and haunting tune that sends chills down both their spines. It is a familiar song, echoing in the back of Zuko's head. Azula looks disturbed. "I know that song." Zuko stands and starts down the beach, leaving Azula to catch up in his wake.
The little cove they come to jogs his memory, as does the singer strumming his harp by the waves- a tall man, pale and fair, who turns to face them with a stern countenance. "You have forgotten what I said." There is anger in his voice, but mostly there is disappointment, and Zuko feels a familiar stab of shame.
"Who are you?" Azula asks harshly, her posture defensive.
"One who has learned many lessons, penneth, and would not see others walk the path of his mistakes." Many people- most people- are intimidated by Azula, but this man is not. He stands straight to face her, grey eyes narrowed, and suddenly Zuko remembers.
"We've met before. Right here, a long time ago. Your name is Maglor." A smile crosses Maglor's face for the first time.
"You do remember, Zuko. I had thought you were too young." His eyes flit across the scar, dark and prominent even in the night, and his gaze fills with something more understanding than sympathy, but kinder than pity. Azula eyes him curiously, the defensiveness gone from her stance.
"I remember you too," she says slowly. If he'd thought it possible, Zuko would say that his sister looked afraid. Maglor seats himself cross-legged on the beach, just as he did before, but this time he invites them to sit as well. He meets their gazes with a seriousness that stills any complaint.
"I have a tale to tell you, children. Listen well, and learn from it as I have. It began thousands of years ago, with my father." They sit, pinned in place by the weight of his stare, as he tells them a terrible story. It is a story of death, and pain, and loss, of how pride and the desire for power doomed an entire land. It is a story of burning ships and sundering seas and the wrath of the very spirits themselves brought down upon the earth. And at its core, it is a story of Maglor, of one alone surviving while seven others died, doomed to walk the earth until the very end of time. It is, above all, his warning to them.
They sit in silence when he is done. They have nothing to say in the face of such a tale. Azula stands and runs, her face bitter and filled with rage as she curses him into the night, ruthlessly stifling her fear. Zuko sits, gaze vacant, until morning dawns and Maglor has vanished with nothing more than a nod and another look of understanding.
Weeks later, when Zuko is back on Ember Island under completely different circumstances, he seeks out the singer by the sea. He wants to tell Maglor that he listened. That he learned. He never finds him, but he hears his voice. His song is bright and full of hope.
They see him once more, ten years later again, and this time they both remember. He turns to greet them, his eyes as light and merry as when first they met, and this time they smile instead of scowling. "I had hoped to see you both again," he tells them, sitting on the beach and resting the harp in his lap. They sit across from him. Zuko is relaxed, a small smile gracing his face, while Azula still seems slightly wary in his presence. But she throws no curses at him as she did before, instead sitting in quiet contemplation.
"We listened," Zuko tells him with a grin.
"I know," Maglor replies. He is proud of them, and he makes no attempt to hide it. "You have grown, and all for the better. Both of you have," he adds, turning his eyes on Azula.
"Hard and right," she replies quietly, echoing his words from long ago. "It took me longer." Maglor laughs.
"Not so long as it did me. Besides, how long we must study matters not once we have learned the lesson." They sit in silence for a while, which Maglor fills with his harp and voice, singing songs of love and joy and loss. The sun burns low on the horizon when he stops, looking at them with a fond sort of a sadness. "I must leave you now for good," he says. "It suits me ill to stay too long in one place. I can move on, now that I know you are well."
"You stuck around for twenty years just to see what happened to us?" Azula sounds incredulous, but Maglor only smiles.
"What is twenty years to me?" he replies. "I have all the time in the world."
"I hope you get to go home one day." Zuko's words are abrupt and he blushes slightly. "I mean… you believed that we could change. Well you've changed too. Maybe one day the spirits will see that." Maglor smiles gently, in a way that says he does not think it so, but he rises from the sand and bids them a fond farewell, just as he had twenty years before.
"May the light of the Valar shine upon your paths."
"And may the sun look down to protect you," they respond in unison. He goes as quickly as he comes and Zuko and Azula are left alone in the cove, the memory of a song in their heads.
The Fire Nation has a legend that they tell, the story of the Singer by the Sea. They say that if your soul is troubled, run to the shoreline and he will meet you there, for he will suffer no one lightly to walk in his footsteps. He is fierce and he is gentle, he is stern and he is wise. He has lost much and suffered greatly, but the song he sings is one of hope. Stand by the sea and listen, and you too shall hear it and take heart, for eventually even the darkest of nights shall be lit by the sun, and even the most lost of souls shall find a way home.