Ozai came down from the dais with slow steps, like a predator sizing up its prey.
—"Did you interrupt a training session?" he asked, his voice soft… way too soft.
Zuko tried to speak.
—"I… wanted to help the soldiers. It looked like—"
A dry thud echoed through the room. Ozai hadn't touched him, but he'd struck the floor with the edge of his cape, and the sound was enough to make Zuko drop to his knees out of sheer terror. Azula laughed under her breath. Ren didn't.
"This is useless," Ren thought. "If Zuko breaks now, he won't be good for anything in the future. I need him functional."
Ozai raised his hand, fire forming in his fingers.
—"You have dishonored your name, Zuko."
Zuko closed his eyes, waiting for the impact.
Ren acted. He took a step forward, firm, showing no haste or defiance. The action was fast enough to get in the way, but controlled enough to look like respect.
—"Father," Ren said, his voice clear. "With your permission… I wish to speak."
Ozai didn't lower his hand, but he looked at Ren with cold interest.
—"Will you intercede for him?"
Ren bowed his head with measured reverence.
—"I do not intercede. I explain."
Azula stopped smiling; that actually caught her attention. Ozai slowly lowered his hand, though the fire still burned on his fingers.
—"Speak."
Ren knelt between Zuko and Ozai, not to protect the child… but to place himself exactly where his father had to see him.
—"Zuko didn't disobey out of rebellion," Ren said, carefully choosing every word. "He did it out of loyalty. He wanted to help the soldiers, even when he wasn't capable of doing so."
Zuko opened his eyes, surprised, confused. Ozai listened without blinking.
—"That is weakness," the Fire Lord sentenced.
Ren bowed his head… but smiled subtly.
—"And it is also potential. Blind loyalty is useless… but guided loyalty can be dangerous. Zuko wants to protect what he considers important. That can be molded. It can serve you."
Silence filled the room. Azula seemed fascinated. Zuko swallowed, shaking less. Ozai extinguished the fire.
—"Do you think he can serve?" Ozai asked, like he was evaluating a broken tool.
Ren lowered his eyes, humble in appearance, calculating in reality.
—"If you allow it, I can take charge of correcting his discipline. He will do as I say. And if he fails again… I will make it clear to him."
Zuko tensed up. The fear came back for a second. But Ren, without looking at him, placed a firm hand on his shoulder. A simple gesture. A "trust me" that Zuko needed to hear, even if Ren didn't feel it.
Ozai observed the picture, sizing up Ren, not Zuko.
—"Very well," he said finally. "Zuko will remain under your supervision. If he fails, I will consider that you have failed too."
Ren bowed deeply.
—"I accept the responsibility."
Zuko looked at him like he was a savior. Azula looked at him like he was a brilliant ally. Ozai looked at him like he was a useful instrument. And Ren looked at them all in silence, knowing he had just tied another thread. Zuko was his. Azula was intrigued. Ozai, trusting. Everything was going exactly as he planned.
After that, a whole year passed before the young Azula started falling into place just like Zuko.
The palace was quiet at that hour in the afternoon; Ursa had gone out with Zuko to visit the etiquette teacher, and Ozai was in some private meeting that none of the servants dared to mention. Ren knew those hours: the gaps where no one was watching, where he could mold pieces without interruptions.
Azula was in the inner courtyard, practicing blue fire. Her breathing was tense, almost rigid, and every movement carried an obsessive precision… the kind of obsession born from the need to please an unreachable father.
Ren watched her for a moment from one of the hallways, in silence. The girl missed one of the strikes, a flare burned her before it could form, and Azula pursed her lips with contained anger. There it was. That microsecond where she didn't feel perfect.
Ren walked toward her as if he'd arrived by chance.
—"Your wrists are tense," he commented without judgment, like a master who knows the exact mechanism of the error.
Azula turned. Upon seeing him, her eyes softened slightly. Ren was the only one who didn't treat her like a child, and at the same time the only one who never humiliated her with condescension. She needed that, even if she didn't know it.
—"They're not tense," Azula responded, but there was a crack in her voice.
Ren didn't contradict her. He slowly circled her and stopped behind her.
—"Show me the move again," he asked.
Azula, always eager to prove herself, obeyed. The flare came out better, but still not fluid.
Ren nodded, as if evaluating something much bigger than a simple elemental strike.
—"You know?" he said calmly. "At your age, I didn't fully control my fire either."
A heavy silence fell. Azula stopped breathing for a second.
—"You?" she asked, genuinely surprised.
Ren let the effect settle. Being imperfect by choice. Vulnerable at convenience.
—"My fire was strong… but unstable. Like it wanted to come out faster than my body could handle. It took me time to understand it."
Azula swallowed. Ren could see her mind working: if Ren was strong and was once imperfect, then she could afford to fail too. Ren had planted exactly the idea he wanted.
—"It's normal for power to advance before you do," he added in a low voice. "It happens to you because you are too talented, Azula. More than any other child in this nation."
He made a perfect pause.
—"More even than me at your age."
Azula's shoulders relaxed. That was the masterstroke: not empty flattery, but meaningful comparison. She didn't want to be the best in the world; she wanted to be better than him.
Ren knelt in front of her to be at her height.
—"But power without control is like a weapon without a hilt," he continued. "It cuts you before it cuts others."
He gently took her wrists, guiding her hands into a more flexible posture.
—"Release the fire, don't push it. The fire already wants to come out of you, it doesn't need you to force it."
Azula closed her eyes. She breathed. And this time, the blue flame bloomed clean and beautiful, like a burning petal.
Ren smiled just a little, the kind of smile that seems hard to get and therefore tastes twice as sweet.
—"See?" he said, letting go of her hands. "I knew you could do it."
Azula opened her eyes, bright, almost hypnotized. He took a step to withdraw, but she grabbed his arm.
—"Ren…" her voice trembled for the first time. "Do you think… someday I'll be able to be… better than Zuko?"
Ren leaned in to look her straight in the eyes.
—"Azula," he whispered, "you already are."
He allowed a calculated silence.
—"And one day, if you keep listening to me…"
The girl didn't blink.
—"…you can be better than anyone."
Azula squeezed his hand tightly, as if he were the only person who really saw her. Ren returned the gesture, but only enough to reinforce the bond. Nothing more. As the little girl smiled, he turned his head slightly, letting his cold, calculating gaze get lost in the gardens. A brilliant, moldable tool, hungry for recognition. Exactly what he needed.
But despite his meticulousness, plans don't always go the way you plan them, that was made clear that time...
Night was falling over the palace, covering the hallways in an unsettling silence. Ursa walked with soft steps, almost floating between the red columns as a servant opened the doors leading to Fire Lord Ozai's private lounge. She rarely asked to see him in private. That request alone raised eyebrows.
Ozai was with his back turned, watching the fire of a low fireplace. He didn't even turn around when he said:
—"You don't usually come at these hours, Ursa."
She closed the doors behind her, took a deep breath, and advanced with the trained dignity of a noble. But under that calm there was something else: a maternal alert that had been growing for days.
—"I want to talk to you about Ren," she began, without beating around the bush.
The silence tensed up. Ozai finally turned, with a calm expression… way too calm.
—"What about him?"
Ursa clasped her hands in front of her. She didn't want to sound paranoid. She didn't want to sound like a mother looking for problems where there aren't any… but she couldn't ignore it anymore either.
—"He is… different," she said, searching for the right words. "Even for a child who has suffered so much."
Ozai raised an eyebrow slightly, as if Ursa's concern was a waste of his time.
—"All different children need guidance," he replied. "Especially one with such extraordinary potential as him."
Ursa swallowed. There it was: the glint in Ozai's eyes when he spoke of Ren's power. Not affection. No paternal interest. Ambition.
She continued:
—"It's not just his skill with fire. It's his behavior. His way of… looking. The way he seems to anticipate everyone's reactions. Even mine."
Ozai took a step toward her, slowly crossing his hands behind his back.
—"And does that worry you?"
Ursa held his gaze.
—"He's four years old, Ozai. Four. And he is capable of saying exactly what another person wants to hear. Even before that person knows it."
Ozai didn't blink.
She continued, feeling that for the first time she was voicing something that had disturbed her since the first day Ren crossed the palace threshold.
—"Sometimes…" she confessed, "I feel as if he is evaluating me. As if he were trying to understand what would make me lower my guard. And when he is wrong… he corrects himself. As if he were learning from us, not like a child… but like an adult hidden behind his face."
This time, Ozai did react: he tilted his head slightly, studying her with a mix of curiosity and suspicion.
—"You are describing an intelligent child, Ursa. Not a monster."
She shook her head gently.
—"I'm not saying he is evil. I'm just saying there is something in him… something that doesn't fit. When I look into his eyes, I don't see a child. I see someone measuring my words, my emotions, my movements."
Ozai's gaze sharpened, as if he were starting to lose patience.
—"The boy's mother died, Ursa. By your own testimony, it was an accident. Did you expect that kind of trauma to produce a playful spirit?"
The tone of that last phrase made Ursa's skin crawl. But she didn't back down.
—"It's not about the trauma," she said with firm calm. "It's about intent. Ren observes, stays silent, and when he decides to speak… his words always have a purpose. He never improvises. He never explodes emotionally. He doesn't act like a small child who lost his mother. He acts like someone who is trying… to fit in."
Ozai took another step, standing barely a few centimeters from her.
—"Perhaps it bothers you because he doesn't belong to you," he whispered, with a thin smile. "Because he is not your son."
The phrase was a dry blow. Ursa took a deep breath to maintain her composure.
—"What bothers me," she replied in a low voice, "is the idea that perhaps you don't understand what kind of child you are bringing into this palace either. Someone who looks at Azula as if he has known her before. Someone who provokes Zuko to study his reactions. Someone who even with you… carefully chooses every word."
The fire crackled between them.
—"Ozai," she added finally, "I don't know what Ren is exactly… but he is a child who learns too fast. Who observes too much. Who hides too much. And I don't want to see our children become pieces in a game that he understands better than we do."