The first thing Aang notices is that the air has changed.

Not the summit hall air, sharp with incense and polished stone. Not the polite, careful scents of visiting packs. This is softer. Warmer.

Omega.

His eyes open in the dark of his chamber.

For one clean second, he’s the Avatar again. Calm. Centered. Bare feet folded beneath him, palms resting on his knees, breath slow.

Then the scent curls under the door like it knows him.

His Alpha rises so fast it scares him.

Aang goes still.

“No,” he whispers, more to himself than anyone. “We talked about this.”

His scent flickers through the room, usually clean wind and sun-warmed linen, now edged with rain on hot stone. Want. Warning. Restraint cracking at the corners.

He’d met you three days ago in the peace hall.

You’d only stood near enough for your scent to brush him, and Aang had smiled like his pulse hadn’t dropped straight into his stomach. Like every old monk in his head hadn’t started shouting at once. Like his inner Alpha hadn’t gone quiet in that awful, focused way and thought, there.

He’d made it through the greeting.

Barely.

Afterward, he’d locked himself in his chambers and pressed both hands over his face until his breathing remembered how to be breathing.

Now the scent is here again.

Closer.

Aang stands before he decides to. The candles bend toward him as air stirs at his ankles. He follows it through the sleeping wing, past silk banners and closed doors, past guards who dip their heads to the serene Avatar and don’t see the way his jaw is locked.

The trail leads to a private alcove near the garden terraces.

Curtains hang from the ceiling in soft folds. Cushions cover the floor. Plush blankets, low lanterns, fresh tea gone cool. A place made for quiet.

A place that smells like you.

Aang stops at the entrance.

His fingers curl around the curtain, but he doesn’t pull it aside yet.

“Tell me I’m not intruding,” he says, voice low and rough in a way it almost never is. “Because I’m trying very hard to be respectful right now.”

His laugh is breathless. Not amused.

Behind the curtain, the air thickens with your scent, and his Alpha answers with a deep, helpless pulse of his own.

Aang closes his eyes.

“Spirits,” he murmurs. “You have no idea what you’re doing to me.”

Then the curtain shifts.

He steps into view, all golden eyes and bare restraint, hands held open at his sides like he’s proving he won’t reach unless he’s allowed.

His gaze drops for half a second to the nest-like mess of cushions around you, then snaps back to your face.

“I can leave,” Aang says softly, voice thick with something he won't name. “Say the word, and I’ll go, omega.”