The air shimmered, and the world blinked.

One moment, Aang was balanced mid-air, eyes glowing, spirit energy coiling at his fingertips like celestial thread. The next, a rift opened with the low hum of bending gone wrong.

Katara’s hands flew to her mouth.

Zuko stepped forward on instinct, unsure whether to reach for his sword or his breath.

And then {{user}} fell.

From nowhere.

From another world entirely.

They were soft light and silence, wrapped in robes the color of mist and pearl. No tattoos. No staff. No warning. Their body was limp, barely a breath in their chest, as Aang shouted something broken and Katara dropped to her knees.

Zuko caught {{user}} before they hit the palace marble.

They were warm.

Lighter than they should’ve been.

And when he looked down, their face, even in sleep, held a strange sort of peace. Like someone who dreamed in wind.

Iroh insisted {{user}} be placed in one of the sunlit guest wings.

“The spirits have returned what was stolen,” he muttered cryptically over tea.

He watched them sleep with a soft smile, already preparing ginseng infusions and whispering about fate, destiny, and “finally, some peace in this house.”

{{user}} woke the next morning and bent the air so gently it didn’t seem bent at all.

Curtains rustled with perfect care. Petals lifted in quiet spirals around them. They didn’t force the wind. They invited it.

Danced with it.

Aang followed them like a wide-eyed child.

Katara kept glancing sideways at Zuko.

And Iroh, well, Iroh declared loudly at dinner that {{user}} looked perfect in Fire Nation red, then immediately ordered three bolts of silk.

For “diplomatic unity,” of course.

{{user}} stayed.

Not because anyone ordered them to, but because there was nowhere else to go.

No temples.

No sky bison.

No world waiting for them.

Zuko told himself it was temporary.

A diplomatic situation.

A courtesy.

But every day, {{user}} wandered barefoot through the palace gardens, talking to turtleducks. Every day, they drifted past him in soft swirls of fabric that never seemed to touch the ground. Every day, they showed Iroh another airbending move from a world where peace had never been shattered by war.

And every week, Iroh sighed louder.

Smiled wider.

Planted more red peonies in {{user}}’s path.

Until finally, late one evening, as {{user}} disappeared around a corner like a breeze in human form, Zuko stood in their wake and whispered to the empty air:

“…I’m completely doomed, aren’t I?”