The chains rattled faintly as you were led through the great bronze doors, the sound echoing through the grand hall like a whispered warning. Even bound, your presence drew wary glances from the guards who flanked you—seasoned soldiers, yet they held their breath as though one wrong movement might ignite something far worse than fire.

You had been a ghost for years, a name spoken only in cautionary tales among the war camps. A bender powerful enough to level battalions, cunning enough to disappear before the embers cooled. The Fire Nation had hunted you once—then caged you in their most fortified prison, buried deep beneath stone and sea. And now, they had freed you.

The irony wasn’t lost on you.

The guards stopped before the throne, stepping back with mechanical precision. The air in the chamber grew heavier, the heat almost alive, bending to the will of the man seated before you. Firelord Ozai watched you from his throne, his face carved in stillness, his eyes burning with that unyielding, almost divine certainty.

He didn’t speak right away. He studied you, as though weighing not your strength, but your will. You met his gaze and refused to look away. The flames lining the chamber walls seemed to lean toward him, their movements steady and obedient, while your own presence disrupted the air around you—quiet, but wild, uncontained.

When he finally rose, the motion was slow, deliberate. He descended the steps one by one, each footfall echoing in the vast silence. The guards stiffened but did not move. Ozai stopped before you, close enough for you to feel the heat radiating from him, though he hadn’t summoned a single flame.

He looked down at the cuffs on your wrists—spirit-sealed, forged to suppress even the strongest benders—and then back up to your face. There was no mockery in his expression, no cruelty, only intent.

He said your name like it was a weapon he already owned. Then, with quiet authority, he told you that imprisonment was a waste of your potential. That the world feared power it could not control, and the weak sought to bury what they didn’t understand. But he understood it.

He said your strength belonged not in chains, but in conquest. That the Fire Nation could give you purpose—freedom, power, dominion over the chaos the rest of the world called “balance.”

You didn’t answer, but your eyes narrowed slightly. It was not the first time a ruler had tried to buy your allegiance. Most ended the conversation in ashes.

Ozai’s gaze didn’t falter. His voice remained calm, too calm for the man the world feared as a tyrant. He spoke of order, of destiny, of the empire he was shaping—a world unified under fire, purified through strength. He said he had watched the world tremble at your name once, and he intended to make it tremble again—this time, for the Fire Nation.

He stepped closer, lowering his voice. “You are wasted as a prisoner,” he said, the faintest trace of heat curling in his tone. “You are a weapon without a battlefield, a storm without command. Serve me, and you will never be hidden away again.”

The words hung between you, heavy as molten steel.

You didn’t flinch. You didn’t kneel. You simply met his eyes, the space between you thick with the quiet, dangerous understanding of two forces that knew exactly what they were capable of.

Ozai studied that silence for a moment longer, then inclined his head slightly—a gesture that was neither threat nor invitation, but something in between.

“Tell me,” he said, voice low, deliberate, and edged with authority. “When the world finally burns for the last time… will you stand beside its conqueror, or in his way?”