A man strode through a shattered house, seeming to ignore the movement of the ground beneath his feet as he stepped. All around him lay the remnants of furniture and once-beautiful artworks, broken and tossed as if by a storm; and with them bodies, some disfigured beyond recognition, others with eyes closed as if they had simply lain down to sleep. The man overlooked these just as he did the shifting earth. Instead, catching sight of himself in a stand mirror that was miraculously undamaged, he suddenly laughed and began to call,

"Ilyena! Where are you, my love? You must come and see this!"

There was no response save the howling of the wind. Again and again, he cried, a crazed expression beginning to grow on his face as if his body knew what his mind did not. At his feet, the blonde-haired corpse of a woman stared up at him, accusing and full of sorrow.

As the man yelled for his wife, another came to the door, shaking his head over the state of the house and its inhabitants. He spoke:

"Look at you. Is this what has become of the greatest hero of an Age?"

The man at the mirror looked around, catching sight of the newcomer, and exclaimed,

"Where are you, Ilyena? We have a visitor! Have you bending, stranger? It is nearly time for the planting, and we can always use another set of hands."

The other man laughed. It was a harsh laugh, dark and without any true mirth.

"Stranger, you call me, but you know well who I am. You do not recognise me? I was once called Elan Morin Tedronai. But now…"

"Betrayer of Hope." It was a whisper, almost subconscious, and full of fear.

"You haven't forgotten everything, it seems. But too much. I must Heal you, so that you may know what you have done – what you have lost. Brace yourself, for my Healing is not as gentle as that of your water sisters."

Suddenly, the Betrayer grasped the man's head in his hands, causing the man to scream from an internal fire. His mind burned. But with it came clarity. His name was Lew Therin Telamon, Lord of the Morning. He was a bender of Fire and Air, Water and Earth. Warrior of Peace and Balance, Guardian of the Spirit World, husband and father and friend. He glanced down, eyes involuntarily drawn to the body at his feet. An anguished cry broke forth from his lips,

"Oh Fire, Ilyena! What have you done, Betrayer? WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO MY WIFE?"

"Not me, Lews Therin. Not me. You know it to be true. Do you see what your resistance against Chaos has cost you?"

"NO! Forgive me, Ilyena! Fire forgive me, I did not know! How did I not know?"

Tears rolled down Lews Therin's face as he screamed his agony, his world crumbling before his eyes. Suddenly, a light began to grow behind his pressed eyelids, and they snapped open to release it. The Lord of the Morning spoke again, voice layered with all he was, all he had been.

"I deserve death."

At once, fire sprang up from the ground to surround him, dancing in anticipation. The winds picked up and began to howl through the house, tearing off the roof in their rage. All around, living things and corpses alike shrivelled and died as all the water was pulled out of them. The earth began to buck and rise, lava breaking forth to spill out onto the surface. The Betrayer raised his arms in protest,

"What are you doing? Don't you see? You have lost this time! We have fought this battle a thousand times, but this time you have lost!"

He stopped talking as a torrent of water took him in the chest, blasting him into a wall. But Lews Therin wasn't even watching him. He moved his arms and legs in a strange, disjointed dance, bending the elements to do his will. And underneath him, the lave rose from the earth, higher and higher, but the winds cooled and hardened it even as it flowed. Calling on all the power of the spirits and his own lives, Lews Therin created a mountain out of a flat plain. And, once he was finished, he drew in the last of his energy and released it in an explosion that blasted his house and everything around it into oblivion.

Elan Morin Tedronai stumbled out from behind a shield of fire in time to see the light in his eyes fade and Lews Therin himself crumple to the ground.