The world ended in the sound of shattered glass and screaming brakes.
Alec had no time to react. One moment he was walking home in the rain, blind but confident, his fan folded neatly in his pocket — a gift from his late lover, a symbol of elegance in a chaotic world. The next, the air was torn apart by headlights and steel.
There was pain. Brief. Brutal. Then... stillness.
Then came the fire.
Not the pain of it — no, this flame was warm, familiar. He felt heat wrapping around his skin like sunlight against closed eyes. Beneath it, a soft rush of water, lapping at his feet. He couldn't see, but he could feel... everything.
He stood — or floated? — in a space of shifting elements. Fire above. Water below. A fan still gripped tightly in his hand, but pulsing with light. A voice echoed — not outside him, but inside.
"The world is unbalanced. You burned with restraint... and drowned in silence. Come."
His blind eyes, for the first time in years, filled with light. One iris burned crimson, the other shimmered azure.
Alec gasped — air in his lungs again. He was falling.
He awoke to the hiss of waves against black sand.Night sky above. Crimson moon. His skin younger, his breath faster. His limbs... smaller?
He scrambled upright — disoriented but alive. Hair, now long and silver, clung wetly to his face. He touched his eyes. He could see — stars, trees, firelight in the distance.
But it felt... wrong. Unfair, almost. His life had never been about sight — it had been about listening, feeling, adapting.
So he tore a strip from the hem of his tunic and tied it across his eyes.
The blindfold stayed.
A shadow loomed in the trees. A man's voice shouted.
"Zuko! You will learn respect!"
Alec turned toward the sound. Toward firelight. Toward history in motion.
The world had not waited for him — but perhaps, it needed him anyway.