Chapter Text
Zuko had known he was an omega since he was a boy. He'd known just as long that his omega training would begin when he turned twenty. Fire Nation law had required it since the dynasty's founding, and being the Fire Lord's son earned him no exemption.
An omega prince couldn't inherit the throne. He'd had years to accept it. And yet, he still lay awake as his twentieth birthday approached. No one had told him much about the training itself. Whenever he asked, they said he'd learn when the time came.
"Your training begins at dawn," his father told him the night before. He was busy reading from his scroll as he spoke. "See that you conduct yourself with the honor befitting the imperial line."
"Yes, Father." Zuko kept his hands at his sides, resisting the urge to curl them into fists. "I know my duty."
"Then I expect you won't need reminding."
Zuko bowed and waited to be dismissed. His father didn't even look at him the entire night, only indifferently reading his scroll.
The rules were simple. Female omegas had proper wombs and could bear children, so they were cherished and kept in luxury. Male omegas could slick and go into heat, but they had no wombs to carry a child. So they served another purpose, as trained holes for an alpha's pleasure. As of tomorrow morning, that was what Zuko was.
If this was the service the crown asked of him, then he'd give it properly. He was still a prince, whatever the law said. He'd do it with honor or not at all.
Training started with his clothes, or what passed for clothes. The head attendant, an older beta, supervised while the serving staff folded away his court robes and brought out the sheer fabric instead. Zuko had seen omegas wear this in the city streets. He just hadn't let himself picture it on his own body.
"Does a prince have to wear this too?"
"Your designation takes precedence now, my lord." The beta attendant held the sheer fabric up to the light. "The cloth isn't meant to clothe you, it's meant to present you. An alpha should see what he's being offered without having to ask. You'll understand once it's on you."
And he did understand the moment they put it on him. The front panels fell open from collarbone to navel, because his flesh was meant to be seen, with fabric so translucent that the pink of his nipples showed clear through the weave. The hem stopped halfway down his thighs, and when he bent or turned too fast, the hem rode up off the curve of his ass. He caught two serving girls staring at him and felt the heat crawl up his neck, but there was nothing to cover himself with. That was the point of his new uniform now.
The piercings came a week later. They sat him on a stool while the smith pushed gold through each nipple, two attendants holding his shoulders to keep him still. Then came the chains, fine gold links hooked from each fresh ring up to his new omega collar.
Then there was his cock cage. They locked his cock in it that first week, slim gold bars fitted snug against him, and it was the cruelest part of all. Omegas didn't get to cum without an alpha's permission, and there was no alpha yet. The cage made sure he remembered it.
Then came the etiquette lessons.
A prince gave orders, and an omega took them on his knees. The etiquette master was a beta man who had trained three generations of court omegas, and he had no patience for an imperial prince's pride.
Zuko learned to call himself "this omega" instead of "I." He learned to answer every order with "yes, master," and to thank an alpha when he was scolded.
"Again," he said, whenever his temper leaked into his voice. "Omegas never talk back to their alpha. Again."
"This omega understands, master," Zuko said, and again, and again, until the words started to feel natural.
The next etiquette he learned was that he wasn't allowed to walk on his own anymore. Morning and evening, a servant clipped a long leash to his collar and led him around the palace grounds. Some days the servant walked fast on purpose, so the hem of his gauze rode up with every step, and the gold chains swung and tugged at his nipple rings. Other days they clipped a tiny gold bell on each nipple ring, which would chime softly at every step. That way, no one in the palace had to look up to know the omega prince was passing.
Courtiers gathered on the verandas to watch the omega prince take his walk, the same sons of ministers that he used to hang around, who once fell at his feet to befriend the Fire Lord's son.
"Used to be such a proud prince, I heard," one of them whispered. "Who knew there was an obedient omega underneath it all."
"I'd pay good gold for the Fire Lord to let me take him to bed," another said.
"You couldn't afford him," a third said. "He's meant for some lord from an allied nation, mark my words. Even if he's omega, a prince doesn't come cheap."
At first, Zuko kept his eyes down the first few weeks out of shame. But later on, he simply learned to get used to it.
The afternoons were harder, because that was when they trained his body for its real purpose. No one was permitted to touch him, since he still had no alpha master and an omega's purity was half his price. The trainers used rubber training cocks instead, increasing cock sizes week by week, just to prepare whatever girth his future alpha master would be.
They started with his mouth. They sat him on a cushion and fed him the training cock an inch at a time, every day, until he lost his gag reflex. By the second week he could swallow the whole length without his eyes watering, passing through his throat easily no matter how big or long. They even taught him where to lick and how to hollow his cheeks. By the end of the month he could take it in his mouth for hours, drool running down his chin the whole time.
"Your alpha will spend whole evenings like this," the trainer told him, patting his cheek while he knelt there with his mouth full. "Reading reports, drinking wine, using your throat like a chair cushion. A well-trained mouth can be more pleasurable to an alpha than an omega's cunt."
By his fifth month they moved on to his hole. They had him kneel onto the breeding bench, a low padded frame built for exactly this, and buckled him into place. His shins rested in the supports, his chest tipped forward over the curved rest, and padded cuffs held his wrists down near the base so he couldn't rise. The frame kept his knees spread and his ass up for easy access.
The steam engine stood behind him with a rubber cock fixed to its piston arm, pounding into him for four hours a day, as his training required.
"An omega who cannot take a cock is a useless omega," the beta trainer said. "You won't be useless, will you, my lord?"
"No, master, this omega won't," Zuko managed, and the machine punched another moan out of him in response.
His own member stayed locked in a cage the whole time, which was the cruelest part. His cock swelled uselessly against the cock cage and leaked, pre-cum stringing down to the floor. The pleasure built with nowhere to go, coiling tighter in his gut until he was panting against the leather, his thighs shaking against the restraints.
"Please." He barely recognized his own voice. "Please let this omega cum. I'll be good, I'll do anything."
It only made the trainers turn the machine faster while he remained caged.
Every session was written down. A trainer sat in the corner with a bound ledger and recorded his progress, sometimes through the number of moans and the sizes of training cocks he learned to take.
"Seventh month," Zuko heard him read out once, "Takes the second-largest size without preparation. Slick production adequate."
They even put a basin beneath his breeding bench for every session to measure his slick output. When the engine finally wound down and they unbuckled him, the head trainer lifted the basin to the light and measured the volume of slick he produced like he was measuring harvest yield. "Twice the slick today. That's better than last week."
Soon, he was taught the basic lines and positions required of an omega. The etiquette master called them "courtesies."
The first position was submission. He knelt upright with his palms flat on his thighs and his head bowed. It was how an omega waited beside his alpha, because he was no longer allowed to sit on chairs or share a table.
The second position was presentation. His forehead laid on the floor and his ass raised up, his knees spread. An alpha said "present" when he wanted to inspect the goods. In this position, he was instructed to say, "This omega presents for his master. May he be of use."
The third was offering. He lay on his back with his knees drawn up and spread, holding himself open with his own hands, hole fluttering in the open air. "This omega's hole is empty. May it please be filled, master," Zuko was taught to say.
The fourth was service. He knelt with his hands behind his back, his mouth open and his tongue out. It needed no explanation, and it was the one they drilled the most, because the trainers said an omega's mouth would earn him more favor than his hole ever would. "This omega's mouth is warm, if master would rest in it," he was supposed to say. Then, when it was over, "This omega thanks his master for his cum."
His education used to consist of governance, history, geography, and firebending. Now his schooling was a menu of ways on how to be fucked. But Zuko learned to abide, because for every word and position he got wrong, the trainers had what they called 'corrections'.
For small offenses in his etiquette lessons, they hung weights off his nipple rings and left him to wear them for a whole day. The first time it was small gold teardrops, and the second time heavier ones that dragged at his chest, a dull pull at his nipples that sharpened every time he moved. He still had to walk his laps on the leash wearing them, still had to kneel through his lessons with the weights swinging. When they finally came off at the end of the day, his nipples were sore and swollen, and an attendant rubbed balm into them so he could sleep comfortably.
For worse offenses, there was the paddle. It was a broad rectangle of stiff red leather over a wooden core, made specially for misbehaving omegas. Unlike whips and canes, this design was to make sure that there were no marks left on his pale skin. After all, no alpha wanted damaged goods. They bent him over the same breeding bench, cuffed his wrists, and instructed him to count the strokes out loud while he thanked them after each time his ass was spanked by the paddle.
Talking back earned him ten. He'd learned that his first week, when the head trainer tugged his leash too short and Zuko told him to go find a dog if he wanted to lead something around.
"Ten strokes," the head trainer said, unhooking the leash. "And you'll count them yourself, my lord, since you're so fond of giving orders."
He spent the next day unable to sit down properly. He never made that joke again.
Firebending earned him thirty.
It was the winter of his first year, and it had been a bad morning. His heat was close enough that his whole body felt raw, and a new trainer grabbed the back of his neck without warning him first. The fire came out before Zuko could think about it, a burst of flame that took the man's sleeve off.
Thirty strokes. They made him count every one. By the last five he was sobbing openly, slick running down his thighs where each blow rocked him forward, his voice hoarse from saying "thank you, master."
"You won't firebend at a trainer again, will you, my prince?"
"No, master, this omega won't." He moaned when the paddle came down for the the twenty-ninth spank. "This omega won't firebend again."
The rewards were rarer than the punishments, and those came from the Fire Lord himself. His first came near the end of his first year.
He was strapped naked to the breeding bench when his father came to hear his progress report. His heat had started that morning, and by the time they buckled his wrists down he was already trembling, slick soaking into the leather before anyone had even touched him. His cock ached in the cage. His father walked in reading a scroll, like this was one more appointment between two others.
The trainers talked about him like he wasn't in the room. His etiquette master said he'd been obedient enough lately that they only needed the paddle on occasion.
"And his temper?" his father asked.
"Nearly gone, Your Majesty. He watches his words now."
His father held out a hand, and the head trainer put the training ledger into it. Ozai flipped through months of neat clerk's writing, pausing at a page here and there. "Slick production up a full measure since the spring. Depth adequate for a larger knot. Begging rated satisfactory." He closed it. "The crown's investment is coming along."
Then one of the trainers pushed a training cock into him and worked it slowly in and out, so the Fire Lord could see for himself how well his hole could slick and swallow cock now. The moans and practiced lines came out of him on cue, the way the trainers taught him.
"So full. Oh, oh, this omega's so full, master. It's so good."
His father looked up from the scroll and nodded once.
It was the closest thing to praise Zuko had gotten from him in years.
"You may spend yourself tonight," the Fire Lord said. "I'll observe, to certify your progress."
They unbuckled him and unlocked the cage. His cock hung small and soft from its long confinement, already twitching back to life in the open air. They brought him to a low chair with a training cock strapped upright to the seat and made him kneel over it while his father sat from a short distance, sipping tea.
"You may use that to get off," the Fire Lord said.
"Yes, father."
He sank down on it slowly, and the first inch punched a sob out of him. It had been months since anything had been allowed to feel good, and the heat made every nerve raw. He started moving before anyone told him to. His freed cock had gone hard and leaked steadily onto the wood, bobbing with every drop of his hips, and he didn't dare touch it. Even unlocked, he remembered etiquette.
"Father, please," he begged, because even now he'd been taught not to cum without permission. "Please let me, please, I need to, I'll be good, please."
"You were always a disappointment to me," his father said, sounding bored. "A clumsy bender and a soft-hearted prince, with years of tutors wasted on you. When you first presented, I wanted your status kept quiet. I thought I was sparing you from living the way other omegas live. It turns out I shouldn't have bothered. We've finally found something you have a talent for. All those years of firebending drills, and this is what you were good for all along."
An omega didn't talk back. Obediently, he said, "Yes, father."
"Go on, before I change my mind. Quickly, now. I have a late evening council meeting after this."
"Thank you, thank you, thank you," words spilling out of him in a rush.
He grabbed his cock with his freed hands and stroked. It didn't take much. A few seconds later a broken wail tore loose from his throat, and his cock spurted in weak, aching pulses across the seat while his hole clamped down around the training cock still buried in him. He kept moaning through it, unable to stop, riding the pleasure out on shaking hips until his knees gave and he dropped forward onto his elbows. Drool ran down his chin and his eyes stayed crossed, and he was too far gone to care what he looked like.
The hall went quiet except for his gasping.
"Adequate." His father stood and straightened his robes. "See that you're this obedient when your alpha master arrives to collect you one day. I would prefer not to be embarrassed."
"Yes, father," then quickly, he remembered to add, "Thank you, father," because etiquette required gratitude for a reward.
His father crossed the hall without looking at him again and left through the door. Zuko cleaned the seat himself with the cloth an attendant handed him, wiping away every trace of himself while his legs still shook. Then he knelt in his submission position and offered his softening cock up to be caged.
The lock clicked shut.
He slept more soundly that night than he had in months. He couldn't tell anymore whether he dreaded the training or lived for them. His last thought before sleep was that if he was very good tomorrow, perhaps they'd let him have another reward.
𐫱𐫱𐫱
Zuko was twenty-two when they told him he would finally meet his alpha master.
He'd become a fully trained omega prince by then, a different creature from the prince he used to be. The temper had been worked out of him, mostly. He knelt when he was expected to kneel and spoke when he was spoken to, and the trainers rarely needed a paddle for him anymore.
The hard muscle from his firebending training had softened into something softer and more slender. His hair had grown long and silky down his back, his skin kept pale and pampered. Even his scent had changed, sweet enough that alphas turned their heads when he passed in the gardens. The trainers called him a perfect beauty.
His father summoned him the week before the feast.
"Your master will be the new chieftain of the Southern Water Tribe," Ozai said. "A young alpha, near your own age. He's betrothed to Princess Yue of the Northern Tribe."
A beta princess could be a wife for politics, but a beta couldn't serve an alpha's bed the way a trained omega could, so the Fire Lord had offered his own son instead.
"He'll want to examine the merchandise," Ozai said. "See that he likes what he sees."
The night of the feast, they spent the whole afternoon getting him ready.
They scrubbed him in the bath until his skin ran pink, then lathered him with mild oils, plum blossom and honey, chosen to sweeten his own scent rather than cover it. The attendant ran the blade over him one last time, through the crease of his groin and between his cheeks, until there wasn't a hair left anywhere on him.
Then they dressed him the way they'd dressed him for years. A few panels of gauze that were more decoration than clothing, gold chains running from his nipples to his collar, the omega seal gleaming at his throat. Years in the cage had shrunk his member to a dumpling's size, locked up small in its gold bars. They'd seated a training cock inside him too, so his hole would stay sweetly open through the long dinner ahead.
He walked into the main hall barefoot at the end of his leash, smelling of honey and his own warm omega scent, and every head turned.
The Water Tribe chieftain was younger than Zuko had pictured, brown-skinned, a fur cloak draped over one shoulder, and a wolf-tail. He watched Zuko come down the aisle with his wine cup frozen halfway to his mouth.
"This... is the prince?" the alpha said.
"That's right." Ozai sounded almost smug. "My son. He's been adequately trained as a proper omega."
The chieftain's eyes moved over him slowly, from the collar all the way down to where the gauze did nothing at all. For the first time in years, he felt shy.
"Come, my son," the Fire Lord said. "Meet your new master."
Zuko crossed the hall and knelt at the alpha's feet, palms flat on his thighs, head bowed.
"Sokka of the Southern Water Tribe. This omega is glad to meet his new master."
"Master, huh." Sokka scratched the back of his neck. "The Fire Nation's really a different place. That's gonna take some time for me to get used to."
Omegas didn't sit at the table, so a floor cushion was brought and set beside the alpha's chair. Zuko knelt onto it while the feast carried on around them.
Sokka continued to talk trade with the Fire Lord, tariffs and port access, a conversation they probably had awhile ago before Zuko interrupted them. Every so often, mid-sentence, the alpha reached down and petted his hair gently. No one had ever touched Zuko like that. The trainers' hands were always rough and cold, and the courtiers only ever looked on from a distance. Sokka's fingers were warm, and once they scratched lightly behind his ear, and Zuko had to press his knees together to hide the slick that was starting to drip into the floor.
"You see how sweet he is," Ozai said, watching them over his cup. "You're welcome to sample the goods, Chieftain. Consider it a gesture of good faith between our nations."
"Sample the..." Sokka coughed into his wine. "Right here?"
"My son is yours to use as you please anytime, anywhere."
Zuko knew what was expected of him. He slipped from the cushion to his knees beneath the low table before the Fire Lord had finished speaking, and the courtiers didn't even pause their meals. This was what was expected of omegas after all.
Sokka, to his credit, looked down at him with something like concern. "Hey, you don't have to..."
"This one is trained for it, master," Zuko said. "Just don't spill your wine on my hair."
Sokka laughed, a little startled, and it was the first honest sound Zuko had heard in this palace in years.
Then Zuko unlaced him, and the laughing stopped.
He'd expected it to be like his training cocks, which were cold and tasteless. Instead Sokka was hot against his tongue, tasting of salt and musk. His mouth watered so fast it was shameful.
He sank down in one slow slide, the way the trainers had drilled into him, throat opening around the head until his lips brushed the base. Sokka made a choked sound above him and grabbed the edge of the table.
"Everything to your liking, Chieftain?" his father asked, mildly amused.
"Never better," Sokka said, strangled. "Great feast. Really generous hospitality."
Zuko worked him slowly. He pulled back until just the tip rested on his tongue, then swallowed him down again. Two years of training meant his gag reflex was completely gone, able to push several inches of cock down to his esophagus without struggle.
He used everything the trainers had drilled into him, slow suction using his cheeks, a roll of his tongue. He hummed happily when Sokka's hand fisted in his hair.
"My son is yours to keep, should the terms suit you," Ozai said, watching Zuko's head work under the table in satisfaction. "Fuck him, beat him, spoil him, it makes no difference to his manners. He'll be nice and obedient. I kept a close eye on the training myself."
Ozai lifted his cup, as if in toast. "He's the finest trained omega in the Fire Nation. That he was a prince once only raises his price."
Sokka's laugh came out breathless. "Yeah, well. Hard to drive a bargain with a prince's throat around my cock."
Zuko should've been humiliated. He was, somewhere under the want, but his mouth kept watering around Sokka's cock and his hips kept rocking back at the rubber cock still seated inside him.
When Sokka came, he let him spill hot and bitter down his throat. Zuko swallowed everything the way he'd been taught, then cleaned him with his tongue and laced him back up, neatly as a servant should. He stayed there afterward with his cheek against Sokka's knee, because his own cock was aching in its cage and he needed a moment.
"So," Sokka said to the room at large, voice gone hoarse. "I'll take him."
"You'll honor the terms?" Ozai asked.
"Opening the trading routes, buying Fire Nation steel, sending healers to your capital, all of it." Sokka's hand found Zuko's hair again, gentler this time, and his thumb stroked once behind Zuko's ear. "He's coming with me."
Under the table, Zuko smiled against the alpha's knee. For the first time since presenting, the desire in his gut didn't feel like shame.