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You’d be forgiven for not recognizing the lone rider as the Firelord.
Apparently, Azula had been having a particularly difficult day at the Institution, and all it took was the slightest slip up on the part of the staff for her to escape. Zuko wished that he had been more surprised by the news, but some part of him had always known that it was a matter of time. He was just glad no one had been killed.
The royal guard had immediately issued a manhunt and began sweeping the capital for any sign of her, but Zuko knew that she wasn’t going to be found if she didn’t want to be.
Which is why he hadn’t mentioned the photo she had left him.
He had found it after the Kyoshi warriors had ordered him to his room, laying on his bed with seemingly nothing else disturbed. It was a simple oil painting of a field not too far from the palace, clearly taken from some trinket stall in the city. Besides the field itself, the photo didn’t show anything but the sun setting over the ocean. The message was clear to Zuko: come alone.
Which brought him here, to the back of an ostrich horse, galloping over the open field. Obviously, this was some kind of setup, but for the life of him Zuko couldn’t wrap his head around it. She had been in the palace, she had had her chance to strike while he was alone, but for whatever reason she didn’t take it. She had an angle, and Zuko was going to find out what it was.
Scanning the horizon, Zuko searched for any sign of her.
Eventually, he spotted her, standing by the edge of the clearing. Her back was turned to him, and the wind off the ocean waved through her unkempt hair. Zuko rode a bit closer before dismounting and making his way towards Azula.
“You got my message.” Zuko didn’t respond. “Perhaps your little trek around the world managed to shave a smidge of naivety from you, after all.”
“Azula, don’t do anything you’ll regret, just-”
“Just what? Go back to that wretched cell? Watching helplessly as you burn our country to ash?! As you tarnish our family’s name for all time!?” She laughed then, a cold, joyless clamor that froze Zuko where he stood. She had turned back to face him now, stepping slightly away from the ledge.
Zuko’s eyes narrowed.
Azula’s laughter came to a rasping end, and she turned back to the cliff, overlooking the sea. “Y’know, from up here… I can almost understand it. Tearing her home, her family apart, all with a son she’s convinced is saving it.” She chuckled to herself. “It’s poetic, almost. Ruthless and grand… Like daughter like mother, I suppose.”
“Azula, you- you’re not making sense. Please, just,” Zuko kept his voice even, as if speaking to a cornered animal. “The doctors at the institution, they can help you, but I need you to come with me.”
“Help? No, they're not there to help me. They’re your doctors, Zuko, which makes them hers.” She turned and glared at him. She was searching for something in his features, he could tell, but she didn’t seem to find what she was looking for.
Zuko couldn’t make sense of her words, but he took solace in the fact that she was using them, instead of trying to murder him. “You wanted me to come alone and I did. Now what is it you want, Azula?”
“What is it I want?” Azula’s glare shifted to a smile, but there wasn’t any less malice in her eyes. “Why, a witness of course, and who better than her most prized pawn.” She took a step closer to the ledge, and Zuko’s eyes widened.
“She wants me to rot in there,” Azula continued. “She wants to see me broken, but I’m not going to let her. I may not have been able to stop her, but Agni burn my soul, I will not grant her the satisfaction of my failure. She’ll have to make due with her bastard!”
Contradictions were funny things. All at once, Azula was moving too fast and achingly slowly. Faster than he could blink she had leapt, yet she seemed to float there for hours, gravity and time and all of the laws of the universe seemingly confused over how to proceed.
Then she was falling. And Zuko was falling too.
He grabbed her before either could tell what happened, and maybe it was the fact that they were falling to their deaths, or maybe it was just that it was Zuko, but she was thrashing wildly in his grip. If she was screaming, Zuko wouldn’t have been able to tell.
Still he held her, tighter than he thinks he’s ever held anything, fingers a vice on any part of her he could reach. Through the rush of wind past his face, Zuko managed to open his eyes, and saw just how close the ground was getting. Maintaining his hold on his sister, he rolled them both around until his feet were facing away from the cliff, then he kicked out a jet of fire and shot them both towards the wall. They collided against it roughly and bounced off the cliffside, away from the rock and water below and towards the tree line.
Again, Zuko rolled him and his sister until they were mostly upright and kicked with a roar, releasing another fire blast and slowing them as much as he could. Then he buried his face into some part of his sister, and clamped his eyes shut.
They crashed into the trees, and Zuko couldn’t separate the snapping of branches from bone. Millions of knives tore at his flesh, but not for a second did his hold on Azula falter. Eventually they hit the ground, continuing to roll down the incline of the forest until they ended up on the beach, crashing to a stop in the sand.
For a few seconds, nothing but pain registered for Zuko. Every sense was shoved to the recess of his mind as a throbbing agony demanded his full attention. Still, he didn’t dare loosen his grip, not for a moment.
Eventually, some of the sounds of the outside world began to trickle through the roar of blood in his ears, and he could hear Azula trying to say something.
“W-Witch! Skunk-rat!”
He was on top of her, he realized, curled over her like a tri-thon guarding its young. Against the wishes of his aching body, he tried to rise off her. From this new vantage point he could see that her eyes were glassy and distant, as if staring right through him, and tears were starting to well up in her eyes.
“You have him! Your golden child’s already sat on the throne! Yet you can’t even allow me the freedom to-”
“Azula, I-”
She shifted her focus to him. “And you! Why do you care?! What could you possibly have to gain from any of-
“Azula!” A heat flashed to life in his stomach then. The pain of the fall had mixed and melted into something much older, and he slammed a white hot fist right next to her face. Distantly he could feel that the sand under his hand had turned to glass.
Then she was silent, and her golden eyes went wide, staring into Zuko’s matching set with something like fear. They stayed like that for a few years, a few seconds.
“You said my name first.”
“...What?”
“It was after your first birthday,” Zuko continued. “I remember… It was late and I was holding you and you- you said my name. Or at least something like it. Zaza, zaza.”
Azula remained silent.
“The nurses had told me it was impossible, that- that babies couldn’t make words with the tongue sounds until they were much older. They said that I had just misheard, that you had been calling for mother or father but… I remember. Clear as day, I remember you calling for me.”
Zuko panted as he finished speaking. He could barely stand to keep his eyes open anymore, and his arms wobbled as they struggled to hold his weight. But through the pounding in his head, he held his sister’s gaze.
Her eyes were still wide, but the fear had faded out of her face, and Zuko couldn’t read what had taken its place. Maybe it was just the shock and pain of her injuries, but more than anything she just looked… Lost.
He collapsed, but as he did he curled in on her once more and buried his face in her neck. With all his remaining strength he gripped onto her prison uniform, cradling her like they weren’t anything more than brother and sister.
Azula didn’t try to struggle out of his hold this time, maybe too injured to try.
They were found some time later, in a pool of each others’ blood. The doctors had said it was a miracle they were even alive. Both were cared for by the palace physicians, kept just one room apart.
Eventually, the princess was returned to her institution, with promises from the staff that security would be tripled, and the Firelord returned to his duties at the palace. At his request, no official record of this incident was ever logged.
To most, it was soon forgotten.