Brunt Force
Life is expelled from him, breath gets short (this is when you die), chest contracts (this is long past dead).
In flash, in agony and mutilated, thoughtless burdens, he springs awake and sees his years span past him. Dash (dashing he thought he had been) and divide (conquer the scattered towns and countries still left to stand). And Iroh is made young again.
And he could almost short-circuit and explode a fuse (or two). But he feels just so alive, just so right and mighty. Just so that the world would stand still—if only for a moment—and listen.
The earth trembles underneath and he writhes, emerges, out of his deep core, like a bundled snake. And before him, Ba Sing Se towers and sways (never succumbing, never dying). It is like a mountain carved into streets and houses, paths and thatched roofs running, colliding in woven threads on a tapestry.
Hazy and sullen (silken) in his mind, he thinks back to the blasts and bolts hitting the walls. And asks: what was it all for? They are too proud, too stubborn to be bent. And he has wasted a lifetime away.
There is nothing left—
these haunts and saints have come to pass and rest.
The ghosts have made their voice hold—
and out of high-strung choruses and lightening shocks.
(For a second, he mourns his son.)
Rigid and taut, Iroh steps through the gates and send one final (farewell) flame across the watery, teary streets. He tenses and releases and watches as the last survivors shriek in terror.