"So, uhh ... maybe you could give us a ride as a reward? You know ... just a couple of laps around the mountain? That would be hot! Flamin' hot!"
— Kuzon testing his luck with the mother dragon.[1]
Kuzon was a friend of Aang's from the Fire Nation before the Hundred Year War. A mediocre firebender, Kuzon loved to have adventures; at one point, he even climbed four mountaintops in order to see a dragon.[1]
Kuzon took Aang on one of his earliest adventures: He had bought a map of dragon nests, eager to finally see and ride one in real life. After searching three mountaintops, the duo finally found what they were looking for: while scaling a fourth cliff, a green dragon passed them overhead while chasing a man. However, the two soon discovered that the man fleeing from the dragon was merely a decoy; while the mother was busy, the rest of the poachers raided the nest for her egg.
Kuzon and Aang immediately grew furious, so they concocted a plan to stop the poachers from getting away with the egg. Realizing that they could not take on all the poachers at once, the two friends used their bending to trick the men into believing the mother had returned early. Kuzon used his firebending to create a flame, while Aang waved a cloth back and forth to recreate the sound of approaching dragon wings; Appa chipped in as well by growling. Kuzon thought that his fireballs were "way too wimpy looking" to be originating from a dragon, so Aang lent him a hand with his airbending; together they made a flame big enough to scare off the poachers, enabling Aang to retrieve the egg from the abandoned poachers' mount.
The mother dragon returned, seeing him holding her egg. Kuzon came to his friend's rescue by drawing her attention to him by firebending and calling her a "big chicken lizard". His diversion worked as the dragon turned her head and raced over to him. In her haste, she knocked Aang over with her tail, however, making him drop the egg. Aang barely succeeded in catching it before it smashed to the ground, but by doing so the two friends earned the trust of the dragon. As a reward for saving her egg from the poachers, Kuzon asked if the dragon was willing in giving him a ride, to which the dragon growled at him.[1]
When Aang first learned of the War, he mentioned to Katara that he had a friend from the Fire Nation, although he did not specify that he was talking about Kuzon.[2] Aang mentioned Kuzon's name for the first time to PrinceZuko when pondering over the possibility of him and Zuko being friends if they would have met under different circumstances.[3] Aang later assumed "Kuzon" as an alias when truant officers sent him to a Fire Nation school, and he was forced to come up with a name on the spot.[4] He later told the story of the dragon egg to Zuko after they had learned the true form of firebending from Ran and Shaw.[1]
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