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“That’s the wrong way,” Zuko called after Azula. The single dirt path they’d been walking split in two before them. Azula trekked confidently to the right. Zuko strode to the left.
Sokka dithered uselessly in the middle.
“And how could you possibly know?” Azula gestured with a sweep of her hand to the thick forest that sprawled endlessly around them in all directions, plunging both trails equally into shadows under the waning light of the sunset. “What, does that path look one percent less foreboding than this one?”
Zuko tipped his head in Azula’s direction and taunted her with a smirk. “Because I’m the Fire Lord. And as such, I’m born with an innate sense of direction.”
“Zuko-” Sokka interjected desperately.
Azula’s sharp, derisive laugh interrupted Sokka’s fruitless plea. “Ha! And I, your sister, your very own blood, somehow was not? Answer that , O Great Fire Lord.”
“Would you two cut it out already?” Sokka cried.
“Let me answer you with a question,” Zuko shot back. “What makes you so sure you’re going the right way?”
Apparently, neither sibling had heard him. Sokka smashed his hand into his own face.
Azula jabbed her pointer finger forcefully in Zuko’s direction. “Because we passed that tree with the weird branch an hour ago! We went down your path, and it took us in a big circle.”
Zuko gritted his teeth and drew his brows together as he advanced toward Azula, hands flung into the air. Had the temperature in the forest just risen, or were these two just giving him a blazing headache? “We did not! There was another tree with a weird branch. That weird branch was on the other side of the-”
“Every tree looks the fucking same out here, okay?”
This time, the shout had tumbled from Sokka’s own lips.
He found himself standing, arms and legs spread wide and hands raised defensively, between Zuko and Azula as flames billowed within the eyes of the two firebenders. Smoke curled from Zuko’s nostrils. Sparks crackled in Azula’s clenched fists. Sokka’s first instinct was to duck. But he stiffened his stance and glared daggers at both of them. “And it’s getting really dark, so of course we’re all having a little trouble finding our way. But you two trying to tear each other apart isn’t helping anything! Imagine I have to tell Aang and Katara and Toph I returned without two of their friends because they burned each other to the ground squabbling over who was the most lost!’”
Azula and Zuko immediately quieted. The last vestiges of daylight illuminated two pairs of glowering eyes.
Sokka’s voice cooled to a simmer. “Let’s just set up camp here, get some rest, and look at the map again in the morning. Now, can you both agree to that?”
“Fine,” Azula huffed.
“Fine,” Zuko muttered.
“Somebody make a fire,” Sokka commanded tiredly with a wave of his hand. “I’m going to set up the tents.”
Sokka slung the tent bag over his shoulder and stepped away, at last slipping into peace and quiet.
For about twenty seconds.
“I was going to start the fire!” Sokka heard Zuko grumble from behind him.
“My flames are prettier,” Azula protested smugly.
Sokka tried his best to ignore the new argument as he positioned the two tents on the flat ground and began to arrange the poles. But their perturbed voices drowned out the whir of the nighttime insects and made Sokka’s temples pulse with a dull ache.
“Your flames are unique!” Zuko hissed. “Do you want to get us found out?”
“Oh, by the thousands of people out for a stroll through the woods at night?”
A whoosh sounded, followed by the soft crackle and pop of dry kindling. The clearing was bathed in a soothing orange glow.
“Zuko!” Azula whined.
Sokka groaned to himself and stabbed the tent stakes into the yielding earth.
The slap of heavy metal against his thigh reminded him of the flask in his tunic pocket. He plunged his hand into the fabric to retrieve it and brought it to his lips. A couple swigs would be just enough to make his head stop throbbing, to gently twist the harsh shadows of the forest into adorable shapes, to turn the siblings’ arguments into sweet song-
He froze. His lips curved into a smirk. From the depths of his bag, he retrieved the mugs he’d packed. He poured a little cactus juice into two of them and filled them the rest of the way with one of Iroh’s brews, fruity and spicy enough to mask the flavor.
By the time Sokka returned, tightly clutching mugfuls of his concoction, Zuko and Azula had seated themselves at opposite ends of the fire and were staring silently into its flickering, wavering depths. Sokka sat between them and offered each sibling a mug.
Azula eyed the mug with narrowed eyes and swirled the liquid gently. “What’s this?”
“Just something to help us relax,” Sokka answered with a shrug. “We’ve all had a very long day and I think we could use it. And if you gave yourselves a headache even half as bad as the one you gave me-”
“Sorry,” Zuko said with a sheepish chuckle.
“Sorry,” Azula echoed at a mumble.
“Speaking of.” Sokka stood again, gathered his mug and his portion of dinner, and made his way toward his tent. “I’m turning in early. Wake me up if you start trying to kill each other again.”
“Will do!” Zuko called from the fireside. He waved to Sokka and shot him an unnecessarily cheery grin, then took a long sip from his mug.
Azula let out an amused huff. “I’ll wake you up after I kill Zuzu.”
Sokka facepalmed again and disappeared into the comfortable, quiet darkness of his tent.
Tea? Sokka had really given her tea to try to get her to calm down?
Azula stared at the pale red liquid that filled her mug - rooibos, probably. She grimaced. She hated that she knew this. Iroh had pulled the same trick on her when she was little. “Take a minute to sit, have some tea, and relax,” he’d offered, and she’d stuck her tongue out at him and darted away.
But after a long day of trekking, she had to admit the spicy, slightly fruity scent was enticing. She sighed to herself and took a sip. And another. And another.
By the time Azula had reached the bottom of her mug, the world felt gentler. The nocturnal birds and insects seemed to be singing to her. She glanced up to find her gaze resting on Zuko’s face, illuminated by the orange glow of the dancing flames. Warm, tranquil light surrounded her brother’s form in a halo of soft watercolors.
“Zuzu, you’re glowing,” she giggled.
“What?” Zuko cried. He leapt to his feet, palms frantically patting his clothes. “Am I on fire?”
Azula laughed some more. She couldn’t help it. “No, silly! You look like you sucked the colors of the sunset out of the sky and painted them around yourself. It’s - it’s pretty!” She pointed at the majestic border hovering around him.
Zuko glanced over his shoulder, studied Azula with a confused look, and raised an eyebrow. “I have no idea what you’re - fuck. ” He groaned loudly and pressed his hand to his forehead. “Damn it, Sokka! He must have put some cactus juice in your tea. You’re tripping!”
“How do you know he didn’t put any in your tea?”
“Because I’m not tripping,” Zuko answered indignantly.
A moment later, Zuko glanced upwards, silently and in slow motion. He raised a hand languidly and waved as though greeting a friend. Nothing was there but dark forest. Then, he whirled around and aimed a hard, accusatory stare in Azula’s direction. “Azula! It’s rude not to wave back when a tree waves hello to us!”
Azula raised her hand and wiggled it back and forth. She had no idea why. “Oh, uh, I’m sorry, Mr. Tree!” she said to the very average-looking arboreal plant before her.
But then, the tree buckled its trunk forward and swept its branches toward her in a gallant bow. Azula gave the tree a little salute in return, and it straightened and shifted back into place. Her gaze fell upon her brother once more. The hues radiating from all around him in every direction looked impossibly inviting. Azula shifted closer and closer toward him until their sides brushed and their shoulders scraped, and then she wrapped her arms around him, nuzzling into his neck. The sensation of being draped in a soft, fuzzy blanket consumed her, and a sigh slipped past her lips.
Zuko stiffened. “What are you doing?” he demanded.
“I wanted to touch the sunset,” she answered at a near-whisper. “It’s very cozy. You’re cozy.”
Azula felt her brother’s body relax against hers as he looped an arm around her waist. “This is actually really nice,” he admitted. His fingers trailed lazily up and down her arm. “How come we don’t do this more often?”
“Because we spend too much time shouting at each other? And right now - this is about to sound wild - I can’t figure out why we do that so much. I mean, I know why, but it feels so foreign that we still hang onto that so much, because all of that ought to be in our past, and I know that the words wouldn’t taste right in my mouth if I said them to you right now and-”
Zuko brushed a face-framing strand of hair tenderly behind Azula’s ear, silencing her rambling in an instant. “There are…tiny little suns shining in your eyes. Were they always there?” he said softly. He aimed a big, goofy, unfocused grin in her direction, the same one he’d worn that time he’d mistakenly drank a cup of tea elevated by some of Uncle Iroh’s strange herbs. Then, he stroked her cheek with his thumb in a motion so careful, so delicate, it was like he thought she might dissolve into ashes under his touch. “Was this always there?”
Her skin beneath Zuko’s thumb felt as smooth as ever. “What do you mean? There’s nothing there, Zuzu.”
The blissful look evaporated from Zuko’s face. He studied her with golden eyes that were suddenly very still and serious. “Then why do I see a scar on your cheek?”
“I don’t have a- Are you hallucinating a mirror?”
Zuko shook his head fervently. “No, no, it’s there! And it’s on you! It’s not like mine! And…” Zuko’s eyes drifted downward. He seized Azula’s hands and held them in both of his. “And your hands! There are scars all over your hands too! You-” He shoved Azula’s sleeves back, bunching the fabric up around her forearms and grabbed, clawed, at the empty air surrounding her wrists.
“Zuko! What are you doing?” Azula shouted. She clutched at her brother’s hands until they stopped their frantic gesticulations, and she intertwined her fingers with his.
He stared at her, subdued for a second, then began jerking his arms in a wild attempt to free himself from her hold. “I’m trying to get these chains off your wrists! Let me get them off! They’re- why am I holding the other end? Why? I-” Zuko’s hands slid limply from her grasp, and he drew his arms around himself. His eyes glistened in the firelight. At his lower lash line hovered tiny rivers about to churn into waterfalls. “It’s my fault,” he said through gritted teeth. “I did this to you. I never should have fought you that day, when you were so… I should have seen it, I should have realized it, I should have known better! I-” His voice rose until he was nearly screaming. “I hurt you!”
A strangled, pained noise caught in Zuko’s throat. His voice dropped to a whisper. “I never, ever meant to hurt you, but I did, and I am so, so sorry…Azula…” he barely choked out. Then, he collapsed into soft sobs.
Azula froze. For a second that stretched into an hour within her mind, time ground to a halt and the universe collapsed around them, leaving only two siblings at the edge of infinity, of nothingness, of everything. The campfire leapt into conflagration, burning a chasm between them.
Azula bit her lip and gingerly reached across the flames to touch Zuko’s shoulder.
He stiffened, but did not push her away. The flames sank back into the confines of the small pit before them and flickered comfortingly once more.
“Zuko, don’t be too hard on yourself,” she said softly. “We were just kids fighting an adult’s war.”
“Even still,” Zuko said between sniffles, “you’re my little sister. I was supposed to protect you, not challenge you to an Agni Kai when you were already hurting.”
An impulse captured Azula before she had the chance to resist, and the next thing she knew, she was pressing kiss after kiss to Zuko’s face, catching each of his tears as they dripped down his cheeks. She cupped his face gently in both her hands, and as she did, she saw them: jagged scars criss-crossing over her hands, fingers and forearms, angry red indentations circling her wrists as though they’d been bound by something metal. Her breath caught in her throat.
Then, Zuko rested his hands on top of hers. The marks dissolved away before her eyes, leaving only smooth, unmarred skin.
“Yes, it happened, and yes, it hurt me,” Azula admitted, speaking slowly. “But we can’t go back and change anything now. All we can do is try not to let it ruin the rest of our time together on this earth.”
Out here, under a twinkling night sky visible in patches between the treetops, Azula felt so impossibly small and insignificant, a speck of dust carried on by the wind to destinations unknown. In the middle of that sprawling world, no one knew her pain, knew what she had lived through, better than Zuko. For the first time, she felt that to be true. For the first time, none of their arguments or their battles seemed worth losing each other. For the first time, she thought if she and Zuko could just cling to each other, at least they wouldn’t find themselves adrift through the great vastness of life alone.
Zuko’s tears stopped falling, leaving only slick trails down his cheeks as ghostly reminders of where his pain and guilt had flowed out of him. A small smile curved his lips. “I’ll never hurt you like that again,” he whispered. “I swear. I promise.”
That multicolored sunset glow enveloped his form once again. Beautiful pain seized Azula’s heart.
“I-”
She had only just begun to process what she’d been about to say when the words bubbled unstoppably to her lips in spite of herself.
“I love you, Zuko. I always have.”
“I love you too, Azula,” Zuko answered.
“I - I don’t mean like a sister loves her brother. Though I love you that way too, don’t take it the wrong way! I mean - I mean, I love you like a girl loves her boyfriend, or like a wife loves her husband-”
“I know,” Zuko interrupted softly. She’d been babbling again, and he’d seamlessly caught her. “I know that’s what you meant. And…that’s how I meant it, too.” Then, he leaned in and pressed his lips to hers.
A swirl of pink, purple, gold and orange hues enveloped them both. Comforting warmth climbed up her spine and washed over her entire body. She leaned into the kiss, arms encircling Zuko’s neck, deeply inhaling and memorizing his scent of leather and smoke and unscented soap as though it was the last time they’d get to be this close to each other - when, in reality, it felt like the very first time. They clung to each other, pressing their lips slowly but eagerly together, until Azula’s lungs shivered from lack of oxygen. She pulled back to draw a long, full breath. Then, she giggled.
“What is it?” Zuko asked, golden eyes unwilling to part from the sight of her face for even a second.
“I don’t know,” Azula said between laughs.
Zuko smiled, then kissed her again.
After that, they retreated back to their tent to come down in the comfort of each other’s arms. They whispered to each other like naughty students in the back of a classroom, reluctant to disturb Sokka’s sleep any more than they likely already had. At intervals, they punctuated their rambling conversation with kisses - short, chaste kisses; long, sweet kisses; shivering, passionate kisses, lips parted, tongues touching and tasting, heat building between them, twice coming close to exploring each other further. But Zuko stopped them both times. Not like this, not when we’re high, he’d say, even though the same desire burned within his eyes.
Their conversations grew sparse as the heat clinging to their bodies cooled. Zuko’s hands combed languidly through Azula’s hair, recently freed from her signature topknot to flow freely over her shoulders. Azula’s eyelids felt so heavy. She told herself she’d shut them just for a minute…
“Hey, aren’t firebenders supposed to rise with the sun or some shit?”
Azula pried her eyes open at the sound of Sokka’s voice. Sunlight streamed in through the fabric of the tent. Next to her, Zuko stirred. She felt herself still nestled in the warmth of her brother’s arms. She brought a hand to her eyes to rub the heaviness of sleep out of them. “Um, yeah? Sure?” she mumbled.
“Then get up, you sleepyheads! Quick breakfast, then we hit the road!”
For a moment, the siblings peered at each other. The memory of the previous night filtered through Azula’s mind. Zuko’s transparent expression revealed that the same process was playing out in his thoughts. Azula could no longer see painterly hues dancing around the outline of her brother’s body, but she could still feel them when he smiled at her. His golden eyes darted around the tent, searching for Sokka’s shadow lingering outside. There was nothing. Zuko grabbed Azula’s waist, pulled her in closer, and kissed her.
Azula sighed against Zuko’s lips, desperately wishing for their embrace to last forever. But he pulled away too soon. She pouted, whined, and grabbed for him as he stood and began to dress.
“Later,” he reassured quietly. “Tonight. Now, let’s get moving.”
Azula huffed but resigned herself to her fate and got ready for the day as well.
As they emerged from the tent, Sokka greeted them with a wave and an innocent expression. “Good to see you’re both alive and in one piece this fine morning! So, how was your night? Did you manage to…relax?”
Zuko lobbed his entire travel bag in the direction of Sokka’s head. “Thanks for giving us cactus juice and not telling us, you ass!”
Sokka ducked, narrowly missing the flying luggage. He shrugged. “I had to do something! You two were shouting at each other half the day! I couldn’t take it anymore!”
“Sorry! But, uh, thanks, I guess?” Zuko added, doing a poor job of hiding his sheepish smile. “We did manage to work through a couple things.”
Zuko’s eyes met Azula’s over the morning campfire, which hosted a cast-iron pan full of pleasantly crackling strips of chicken-pig. She shoved down a grin. Zuko did not manage to smother his own smile. The urge to kiss him surged within her all over again.
Breakfast was already an afterthought. Her eyes wandered in search of a tree with a broad trunk as she dreamed of grabbing her brother by the collar, dragging him behind it where Sokka couldn’t see, and pressing him against the scratchy bark. There, her lips would tell him wordlessly that she felt no differently for him sober under the bright sun than she had last night when they’d observed the world together through strange lenses.