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Sweet Qingxin root, uncooked almond and raw dough.
That's what Xiao smelled like to your pre and post heat brain; like comfort and mossy nests and warm, soft things - sweet, calming and all encompassing.
You loved it. You loved everything about how Xiao smelled, to the point where you'd ask him to scent some items for you before you left Liyue's borders because it calmed you down so throughly. Since Xiao was an old world siren, before you had become a courting pair, the Yaksha would side-eye you, his judgment and confusion and general distrust worn clearly in his golden gaze. He still scented them, though not as throughly as your silly little omegan mind would have preferred, lightly rubbing the offered items across his cheek and the wrist of either wing exactly once.
Now though, with his newfound understanding of how much his scent meant to you and how much it helped you be calm when stressed, Xiao was more thorough in his scenting. Brushing them against his face and neck more firmly, even going so far as to wear some of your larger items until they were soaked in his scent, placing them among your stuff mere minutes before you finally left. The siren would watch, helplessly amused when you chirped and cooed over the items, burrowing your face into them before peppering him in thankful kisses.
Some - like Verr Goldet - had noticed your obsession with Xiao's scent, looking at you strangely when you described the smell. And when you finally said the words, when you attributed such traits to Xiao. All mighty, vigilant, stoic, Xiao...
They laughed.
Xiao wasn't warm dough, or subtle almonds or sweet, delicate flowers.
Xiao was supposed to smell something like steel, cold and sharp, or bitter and stinging, like the winds he controlled, or even acrid and damning, like the blood he spilled so often.
Xiao was supposed to smell like scary bad bad run scary
But he didn't.
Even when he got too close to your nest, and you hissed at him, snapping at the strange male alpha that suddenly appeared in your room and didn't smell quite right. Where another alpha - a regular human alpha - would have doubled their pheromone output - choking you in a cloud of admittedly calming, but ultimately suffocating scent... His subtle, fragrant scent stayed neutral, his feathers flat and scent glands muffled.
Even when your heat addled brain couldn't choose whether to chase him off, or pull him into your nest, or just roll over and present... Xiao's sweet, calming scent stayed, his nose nearly blind to your amorous scenting.
Even when - finally - you let him into your nest, pulling him into your safety bubble; letting him scent you and groom you and do all the courting gestures of hunting and preening and nesting that his instincts - inevitably more different, and louder than yours - demanded of him... His scent stayed sweet and soft and warm and only got thicker and more loving when you went looking for it.
Because Xiao was sweet and soft and warm and gentle and loving, even despite loving a simple human like yourself.
He showed you that with small gifts of Qingxin flowers on your bed, with warm pelts, with shiny rocks and crystals and every time he nested with you during your heats, tolerating your indecisive omegan brain struggling to categorize this strange male unwilling to mate you despite your heatscent.
Xiao was yours to love, and he considered you his in turn.