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The corset pushes against Zuko’s ribs and he can’t breathe. Fire comes from the breath, all his instructors had said, and how is he supposed to firebend when there’s a weight crushing his ribs, pushing down on his lungs?
“Try harder,” his father snaps, and he’s trying, he’s trying so hard, but the fire is just not coming today. It’s not working.
“Let me do this without the corset,” Zuko begs. He can do it, if only he’s not wearing this stupid thing, he can.
But Ozai just sighs and turns away. “He won’t be presented to Father today, then.”
—
His servants dress him up, lace him into the fire-gold and jet black corset, into heavy ceremonial armour he’s never worn before. Mama would have done it, before, but Mama—
Mama is somewhere else.
And Zuko can’t think about it. Not now. Not with his father holding his hand as they stand on the palace balcony, looking down at the masses of red-clad cheering citizens.
“Your Crown Prince, Zuko son of Ozai!” Ozai’s voice drowns out everyone else’s, booming across the crowd. “Your next Fire Lord.”
Zuko struggles to breathe against the weight of iron, bone, and his people’s voices.
—
The shape of the material is unfamiliar.
It’s been so long, and yet—
Someone bothered to find his measurements, to make it fit his body perfectly. The golden flames carved into the black-stained bone flickers in the candlelight, a dragon catching flight out of the fire, a phoenix reborn in blood. He traces the jagged grooves of the carving, the patterns some craftsman had carved for him.
“Zuko?” It’s Azula, outside his door. “Come on, hurry up, everyone is waiting for you.”
He takes a deep breath and reaches out.
There’s no reason to hesitate. At long last, he’s home.
—
The corset can’t be tightened properly—Katara would kill him if he jostled his lightning wounds.
It doesn’t matter, not really. It’s a private ceremony, a tradition of the Fire Lord’s family, but Zuko is the Fire Lord, now. He makes the tradition.
Still, he holds his breath, asks for it to be pulled as tight as it can safely be. When he breathes out, gold-green-purple flame lights up the room for a second. He can still feel his breath. The pressure of the bone isn’t quite tight enough to hurt more than it would anyway.
It’s a good start.