It's a thought- I rarely get things from idea to prose, but the idea process is what's fun. This one needs more chewing over- these notes to self are mostly to remind me when and if a challenge opens up, but let's see what happens.

I'm wondering how exactly Fire Nation society functioned as regarding dragons- from what we've seen in the show, at least Sozin and Roku had them, but we've never seen anyone else with them- and in one generation, Sozin was able to turn the situation from 'respected animal companions' to 'worthy hunting'. Perhaps dragon-bonding and riding is something only the high nobility can do, as it's probably expensive as all hell to keep a dragon- thus, like horses only even more exclusive, they're a major status symbol for the top people who understand fire.

So we've got a fairly-rare but well known privilege of the nobles and/or any sufficiently badass firebender to impress a nest-guardian. I'm thinkin' someone finds an abandoned nest, gone stasis somehow- not cold enough to kill the eggs, but not enough to push them over into hatching, although perhaps colder is better for stasis- and in an attempt to impress Azulon/Ozai/the current firelord at the time, offers'em up. The intent is likely to raise them for hunting- let them run wild after hatching, perhaps.

As mostly-useless second-son (or, depending on timeline, fascinated and not-trusting-this-to-anyone-else Firelord) Ozai gets stuck caring for the eggs with the advice of a few ancient zoologists for comfort. It's basically like being in an extended sweatlodge that he has to heat himself. It's hot, tiresome, delicate work that takes all his concentration, lots of his skill, and most of his energy...

and one day, as he's staring into the flames, one of the eggs cracks.