A young man slowly walked down a log dark corridor. He knew exactly where he was going even though he had never been there before. He had heard enough stories from the people around him to know where to find what he was looking for. Twenty years ago, he would have looked for a whom, but now it was much more of a what. A dying man, still young but consumed by the hate and evil within him, a man who twenty years ago was in the highest of worldly power. And this man had for the past nineteen years resided in the top room of a place known only as the Tower. The young man wished to speak with this man, he wanted to know the truth, he doubted that the old man would tell him the truth, but just by seeing him, the young man believed that he would know.
It happened to be the young man's 16th birthday, he should have been with his friends and family celebrating, but he decided to give himself the present he had always wanted, knowledge. The knowledge of this dark part of history, and tonight he was going to learn.
The young man grew anxious as he approached the door. He questioned his own intelligence in coming to this desolate place. He knew that if his father knew where he was he would be severely punished. But thankfully no one had seen him leave the party. And no one would recognize him in the clothing he now wore. It was just a simple traditional robe; nothing near to the elaborate design of the robe he had removed to wear this one. He wore no decoration on his head. It was merely covered with a humble hood. He was certain that he was unrecognizable in his current attire, and the man he went to visit had never seen him.
The young man did not know that he was only the second person to visit the old man in nineteen years. He also did not know that the last person to visit this man was the man's sixteen year old son, nineteen years ago to the day.
The young man finally reaches the door to the room. He knows that the old man will be behind bars, but he is still nervous and slightly frightened to be meeting this object of such disdain to his world. He quickly opens the door while his courage remains. What he sees is man sitting on a small mattress, he has long dark hair, but it is beginning to grey around his temples and in his beard. The men stare at each other. Finally the old man speaks. "So you have finally returned to kill me, my son." The young man is silent as he ponders these words. "I am not your son," he finally replies. "Then who are you, let me see your face," the old man retorts. The young man removes his hood while speaking, "I am no one of consequence, just a traveler who wished to see you." "I doubt that," the old man sneers. "You are the first visitor I have had in what must be many years now, my son was the last to visit me, at first I thought you were him, behind your hood, I could not tell, but now I see, you do not bear the mark of my son." The young man does not reply, he waits for the other man to continue. The older man stares at the young man for a moment, scrutinizing him, finally he speaks, "I know who you are, and you had better leave before you are found out. Your place in society cannot save you from the wrath of your father." Shock registers on the young man's face. "You say you know who I am. How can you? You have never seen me. I may not be who you think." The old man smirks, "I know you because you look exactly like the man I miss took you for from the beginning. And there is only one person who could learn to look like my son so well… his son. Though I do not know your name I am sure you know my grandson, and I am sure you are not here on merely a social call, so tell me what you want." The young man thinks for a
moment, this had all played out differently in his head, finally he knew his approach. "I do know your name, Ozai, and I want to know why you were evil and naive enough to want to rule the whole world." Ozai laughed at this, "Ahh young Prince, since I do not know your name and surely you won't tell it to me I shall just call you prince, that is your title correct, or has your father, Lord Zuko, turned to my way and demoted you to a peasant as I demoted him." "I am the crown prince of the Fire Nation, son of Fire Lord Zuko and Fire Lady Katara, and heir to the throne, but that is all you need to know." "Well my young prince, what you have just told me is very true, and yet by saying it, you are the evil and naïve one. You long for your father's throne just as Zuko longed for mine, and I longed for my father's. You have been born with the same evil that you say is in me. You desire the one thing that all men desire, power, and once you have a little, you must have more. That is why my grandfather decided to start that glorious war, for power, and that is why I would have finished it. No man was more powerful than I and no man could stop me." The prince looked at the old man, "You're right, no man was more powerful than you, a little boy was. I am not stupid enough to believe that I can obtain all the power in the world. And I am certainly not so unintelligent as to try to rule a country that fears and hates me. You are wrong about me, and my father, he did not want your throne, at least he didn't when it was appointed to him. He took it because he was the only person with enough honor to heal a world that you destroyed. For the past sixteen years that has been the story I have heard, and today I finally know it to be true. You truly are a deranged man, Ozai." "Am I more deranged than you, a young man who grew up with the best education possible? Taught by hands that helped to defeat the evil Phoenix King Ozai, and yet you have to get the proof from a deranged old man who is just the disappointing shell of that once great king." "I have heard enough, you are only trying to get me to revert to the evil of my family. I will not hear it." So the young man turned to walk away. But there blocking his path was the last person in the world he wanted to see. "Now do you see, my son, why I said to never come up to this place?" Fire Lord Zuko stared questioningly at his son. "Ozai is a master of manipulation, he can persuade even the pure of heart to turn against everything they believe to follow his sorted teachings." The prince said nothing as Zuko turned to speak to Ozai. "Your way will not prevail, even if you try to pass it on to my children, for you left a permanent reminder for them of just exactly how evil you are. You see father, the day that you gave me this scar, you removed your own honor, and increased mine. It may not have seemed so in your day, but today, in my day, and tomorrow in the days of my sons it is and will be true." Ozai sneered at his son, as Zuko walked out the door, his hand firmly on his son's shoulder. The prince turned to his father, "How did you know I was here?" "I saw you leave the party, I knew you would come here, I knew you wanted to know; now you do." "But … why didn't you stop me?" "I decide it was time that you know what my father really is, and time for you to decide what he will be to you." "What do you mean?" "I decided, nineteen years ago tonight, after I, the sixteen year old Fire Lord, left that room, having inquired where my mother was living, that he was going to be the man in the Tower to me, and that was all. I was not going to look at him as the man who destroyed the world, or the man who scarred my face, or even as my father. He was merely the man in the tower, not worth my time, but then again, I had never been worth his time, so why should I care. That was the outlook I took, however wrong it may seem, now you must decide who he is to you." The prince looked at his father, "He is the epitome of evil. I want nothing to do with him ever again." Zuko nodded with a concerned look on his face, he knew with his son's reply that his father had struck a chord in the boy, and only time would prove how devastating the affects of this night would be to his son.