The Stark Naked Race
Disclaimer: I do not own avatar.
A little known secret
of the Fire Nation was that the throne of the
Fire Lord was not
inherited. Whenever the current Fire Lord reached a
certain age,
or fell ill a race was held to decide the next Fire Lord. Only
nobles
were allowed to enter, and generally those who lose are killed by
the
winner whenever he rises to power. There is one very odd rule
to the game:
Everyone must run naked.
When
it came time for Azulon's successor to be picked Ozai and Iroh
were
among those competing. A surprising number of other nobles
were
competing. Once the clothes came off the noble contestants
the cheap-shot
jokes began. The roar of laugher and jokes
distracted many of the
contestants, only Iroh and a couple of
others heard the announcer begin the
race with a "GO!"
Ozai was trying to hide in the middle of the crowd. He
had only just
begun to strip and was doing so as modestly as
humanly possible. When the
other men began to run, he realized
that he was going to be too far behind
to have a chance in the
race. He decided it was best to escape before too
many saw him.
Ozai dropped to the ground and crawled into some bushes near
the
starting line.
Azulon
impatiently waited at the finish line for his successor to be
named.
An unfamiliar crossed the finished line shortly followed by his
elder
son. He wasn't happy.
A fortnight later, Ozai finally crossed the line. He only ran
when no
one else was in sight. He was shocked to see that his
father had been
waiting for him.
"Some
'Piandao' guy won the race," Azulon stated irately. "You
could
have at least tried."