Chapter Text
Sokka looked at them in confusion. Ever since the spider hole everyone had been talking about some pretty specific events that he had no idea about. And now Elros shows up and saves them and they talk about more things Sokka doesn't know. Now they were whispering, probably about more stuff he didn't know.
Finally, they finished their secret conversation and turned to face him. Maedhros laid down and closed his eyes. Sokka turned towards Elros. "What do you want to know?" Elros asked.
"Everything, from the beginning," Sokka said.
Elros nodded. "I don't really know everything because neither him," he gestured over to Maedhros, who waved, "or Maglor ever told us fully how we had gotten to that point. I know he had five other brothers and had sworn an oath to get the silmarils, which his father had made." Maedhros said he had six brothers, so maybe Maglor was the name of one of them? Maybe the silmarils were some kind of...Sokka really didn't know.
"My mom had one of the silmarils, but when Maedhros and Maglor asked for it she said no and jumped off a cliff, turned into a bird, flew to my dad who was trying to get to Valinor, gave him a silmaril, and he turned into a star," Elros said. That made no sense at all. Elros looked at his expression and laughed. "It really did happen," he said. "If I hadn't been there I wouldn't have believed it."
Sokka still didn't believe that someone had turned into a bird and the other person a star. It just wasn't possible. Things like that didn't happen to people. "Maglor found us, me and my brother Elrond, and ended up raising us with Maedhros. He taught us sword fighting and how to be diplomatic, while Maglor taught us how to use the harp and sing, as well as how to bake actual good food."
Now that Elros was talking, Maedhros didn't exactly sound like the backstabbing Fire Nation spy Katara had explained him as. "What about the burn on his hand? And the whole volcano thing you had mentioned earlier?" Sokka asked.
"Well, there was a huge war in which everything finally managed to turn out okay. Maglor and Maedhros got the silmarils back, except they burned them. Maglor threw his into the ocean and continues to wander the beaches, and Maedhros jumped into a volcano," Elros said. "He must have been reborn at some point, otherwise he would not have been able to get into this situation and I would not have seen him." He cleared his throat and looked over at Maedhros, who had fallen asleep as they talked.
It didn't really sound like Maedhros was a bad person. He still didn't understand what the murder and torture stories were. It sounded like he was a pretty good guy. "Does he have any good stories? I was trying to get him to tell me earlier and he wouldn't," Sokka asked.
Elros grinned. "Maedhros actually kept a stache of baked goods in the corner of his room. Once, Elrond and I found them and ate everything in one sitting. We got pretty sick afterwards but it was worth it. He never actually moved the stache, he just started making sure he locked his door," Elros said. "Another time, we braided his hair to his bedpost. Maglor had to go up and help him unbraid it. He was not happy and was determined not to fall asleep anywhere near us."
Elros looked back at Maedhros and lowered his voice, leaning towards Sokka. "He didn't sleep for days, when Maglor tried to get him to sleep he ranted about how Maglor had never gone to bed at reasonable times in Valinor. He was walking and tripped, the second he hit the floor he had actually fallen asleep," he whispered.
Sokka barked out a startled laugh. Next time they were chased down by Zuko, he was going to have to find a way to use his new blackmail material. Mawdhros had woken up and was looking at them in amusement. "Is there a reason you're whispering, Elros?" he asked.