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Ozai hadn't seen anybody except for the guard who gave him his meals for a long time. He did not know how long, but it was too long. He couldn't even tell how many days it had been, because the buzzing power of fire that had once slid along his veins had disappeared. And with it, the sunlight was no longer a useful clock. It was somewhat of a surprise when the man appeared before him. A Water Tribe savage, and a southern one at that. The savage was dark of skin and cold of eyes, but Ozai knew his own eyes were much colder despite being the ruler of such a hot nation. 'Former ruler', his mind teased and Ozai could feel something bitter crawl up in his throat. He would rule again, and he would sit on that throne with his son's burnt corpse at his feet. "You have no son anymore." Had someone finally assassinated his sorry firstborn? Was this the man who had done so? "Do I not? If I no longer have a son, does this mean that he is no more than a corpse to be burned to ash?" The man's face did not change save for the slightest clenching at his jaw. "No. It means you cannot lay claim to him. I, Chief Hakoda of the Southern Water Tribe, claim him as my own."
Hakoda couldn't help but think of the man in the cell as pitiable. He would look pitiable, with matted hair and sunken eyes and the skin of a fresh corpse, if Hakoda could see anything but a monster. No, the man who attempted to take the world for himself was pitiable because he had nothing. The power he had traded his soul for was gone and now he was just a husk of flesh and cruelty. Ozai, the man who called himself the Phoenix King, laughed hysterically. "You want that maggot? That soft-hearted, weak-willed disappointment?" Hakoda wondered how someone could be so vile. "Ozai, the only disappointment is you. You are a disappointment to humanity. You abused and manipulated your own children to the point your youngest was institutionalized. And you feel no remorse. Not even for burning a thirteen year old boy." Ozai rolled his eyes and Hakoda fought the urge to roll Ozai's head off his neck. "It was discipline. Not that a filthy savage knows the meaning of that." The bars separating Ozai from murder were starting to look like they could be opened with the prompting of a fierce metal bender Hakoda knew. "You are a pathetic, sad man and you have as much as what you are. Nothing." Hakoda left the monster to rot away in his cell, withering away and had no claim to even the dust in the corners. Now, to convince the Dragon of the West to allow Hakoda to adopt Zuko...