Once upon a time, when he was young and naïve, a prince set on a journey. The world knew that the Fire Lord had to be the greatest there was, and so the Crown Prince had to become the strongest firebender in all the world. The greatest firebenders in all the world, however, were the dragons. To surpass them meant only one thing. But when he saw the two dragons dancing in the air, breathing flames of all sorts of colors—blue, green, red, and yellow among many more—he could not bear to destroy something so beautiful. The dragons had given man fire willingly; why must he take it by force then? It was a question that would burn in his mind for many years, but of course, it was not the story he would tell his son.
"And did the warrior find the dragon?" Lu Ten asked.
He brought his finger to his lips. "This part of the story is a secret, not meant for anyone else's ears. I'll tell it to you just as it was told to me, but only if you promise not to tell anyone."
"What about Grandfather and Uncle Ozai?"
"No. Besides, they have little patience for stories."
"What about Aunt Ursa?"
He thought this over for a minute. "Perhaps. But only if she has sweets and tea." Lu Ten giggled, bringing a smile to his face. "The warrior climbed the mountain steadily, guarding his precious flame. When he reached the peak, he offered it to the dragon as a gift."
As his paused for dramatic emphasis, Lu Ten asked, "And then what happened?"
The three words that came next were carefully spoken to evoke the magic that had happened that day: "The dragon danced."
Lu Ten stared in shock for a moment before blinking and responding just as his younger cousin would years later: "No way!"
His father chuckled. "Yes, Lu Ten, the warrior and the dragon danced. But it was not an ordinary dance—it was a firebending dance, long forgotten by our people."
"That's silly," Lu Ten declared. After all, nobody danced anymore. It was undignified, or so Uncle Ozai had said once when Lu Ten had been looking for someone to play with. Grandfather had been a little kinder on the subject—he liked Lu Ten more than Uncle Ozai did, for some reason or another—but not by much. The great Fire Nation simply had better things to do than prance around like some silly airbender. And in the end, the airbenders' dancing and prancing had led to their fall, while the firebenders burned like the sun above.
"The warrior thought the same," his father agreed. "But it was the only way he could speak to the dragon, since they can't speak like humans can. And when the dance was over, the dragon breathed fire around him."
Lu Ten's eyes widened, and he asked, "Was he okay?"
"Better than that. He saw all the colors of the fire, from the blue of its heart to colors he never thought it could have. The fire became part of him and taught him how to be strong."
Mystified, Lu Ten took some time to find his voice again. "So…what happened next?"
His father smiled. "That is a story that will have to wait for another time. I think it's your bedtime, don't you?"
In another time, when his enemies called him the Dragon of the West in whispers of fear and awe, the story came back to him. This time, he was not so naïve. A day before, he would have thought that the colors in the fire were to symbolize how the unification efforts of the Fire Nation were right, but now he wasn't so sure. Maybe all it meant was that he had more to learn, and the Fire Nation wasn't where he could learn it. As he sat beside Lu Ten's bed, he realized that he'd never finished the story. It was many years later, but maybe it wasn't yet too late.
The Dragon cleared his throat and started the tale from the beginning once again, now inserting the second dragon back in the story where it belonged. "When the warrior saw the beauty of the dragons' flames, he could not bring himself to end it. In shame, he confessed to them that he was sent to slay them, but he no longer had the heart for it. Instead, he wished to protect them from others who would not be so compassionate. Sensing his sincerity, they allowed him to enter one of their caves to retrieve a shed skin. With his own firebending, he made it look as if almost all of it had burned off. He took this and presented it before the Fire Lord, who believed him and bestowed on him the title of Dragon—the last of them, as he had apparently slain the last dragon. But the two dragons live safe with his lie, and no one outside their protection knows the truth."
With a heavy heart, he looked at Lu Ten. It was hard to think he was simply asleep—part of his skull was crushed from a boulder launched by one of Ba Sing Se's elite earthbenders. His breathing was ragged from smoke and dust choking his lungs. The doctors had been solemn when they told him that his son would likely die before morning and bid him to say his goodbyes. However, despite all he'd done in his years, the Dragon of the West could not bring himself to say it. He settled for something close:
"Goodnight, Lu Ten."
And for a culture that worshipped the sun, it was all the same anyway.
Years later, he'd all but abandoned the title of Dragon of the West. With the death of his only child, he was no longer Father. And with his brother's betrayal and his sister-in-law's assassination of his father, he was hardly the Crown Prince. Now, he wasn't even Fire Nation, but a traitor who could see beyond his former homeland's twisted ambitions—an old man with an impulsive nephew who was finally growing up and had realized the very same thing, abandoning all the titles and reverence he'd once longed for, now in search of his own kind of honor.
There had been apologies between them, but that wasn't what Zuko was saying this time. In a soft mystified voice, he said, "Uncle, we saw the dragons."
Iroh smiled, partly at the news and partly at the title—the only title that mattered now. "Did you?"
It was Aang, the young Avatar who'd once had several issues with his own title, who was positively bubbling with delight. "They were amazing! I've never been that close to them before! Well, not counting Fang—Avatar Roku's dragon—but that was in the Spirit World. And the colors were incredible!"
"Colors are overrated," Toph joked, getting a giggle out of Katara, both of whom—along with Zuko—were proud to have Aang call them Sifu. "Now, crawling around with badgermoles? That's the ticket." Sokka, who might one day make a good General, simply groaned at this and palmed his forehead, muttering something about minstrels and caves.
The conversation then turned from badgermoles to sky bison and lemurs, then to sea serpents and elephant koi, to owls and foxes, and even to baby sabertooth mooselions, of all things. Iroh poured more tea and passed around the cups, sipping his own as he listened to the kids' stories. From the sound of it, they were slowly coming to realize what he had in the years after his first encounter with the dragons: that despite the differences between them, despite their talent-given titles, all of the nations were one in the ways that truly mattered.
As always, I do not own Avatar: The Last Airbender. This story was heavily inspired by the Disney series American Dragon: Jake Long (which coincidentally starred Dante Basco and Mae Whitman)—the title was a working title for Jake Long, and the notion of using a shed skin as proof of slaying a dragon was a plot point in one episode.