The Smell of Reality

The Smell of Reality

The Smell of Reality

"What is REAL?" asked the Rabbit one day, when they were lying side by side near the nursery fender, before Nana came to tidy the room. "Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?"

"Real isn't how you are made," said the Skin Horse. "It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real."

"Does it hurt?" asked the Rabbit.

"Sometimes," said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. "When you are Real you don't mind being hurt."

"Does it happen all at once, like being wound up," he asked, "or bit by bit?"

"It doesn't happen all at once," said the Skin Horse. "You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand."

"I suppose you are real?" said the Rabbit. And then he wished he had not said it, for he thought the Skin Horse might be sensitive. But the Skin Horse only smiled.

"The Boy's Uncle made me Real," he said. "That was a great many years ago; but once you are Real you can't become unreal again. It lasts for always."

- The Velveteen Rabbit

-------------

It's amazing what happens when you stop and think about your roommates and lovers.. For me, living in an organization with thirteen other people, you get to know them in so many ways; their personalities, their mannerisms and body language.. their ways of speaking. For me, I fell right into line. I was accepted as I was without question.. and.. I was grateful for that. On so many levels..

Being a therian, God has granted me with skills beyond that of a normal human... Combine that with my hypersensitivity mentally and physically... one could say that I am endowed with both a blessing and a curse.

I am a sensualist. I revel in the little things. I love nature in its many forms.. and I love the sounds and scents and feel of the way things are. And while it's nice to enjoy things with sight.. sometimes It's just nice to close your eyes and let your other senses reach out- touch something tangible and enjoy a new beauty all its own.

I love the scents of things... of people. And after a while, I began to distinguish people not only by sight and by name, but by scent characteristics as well..

It's hard to describe the scent of a person to people. It's not something most humans can pick up on. True, they can distinguish little messages, but their noses aren't really sensitive enough. I can do it... and I know Saix can too... I also know that while we both carry that talent, neither of us are as sensitive as Zexion is. Once you distinguish people in that way, it becomes second nature. You find that their signatures are just as unique. They all smell as humans do, but there are always undertones. They're what make us familiar..

Like Xemnas.. I can always tell when he is coming down the hall. His scent is clean, clear.. like ozone, but sweeter. Richer... like his laugh. The smell is that of the dark... a gentle, warm, quiet fragrance, like the way a room is when you curl up to sleep; like the sky after a storm. It is something full of newness, and yet as old- no, older than I. I find it comforting to lie there in the dark and feel him there, and to have the smell of him in the air. It meets me in the hallway first, embracing me before he does, filling me up with the love I know he carries. It's something that that brings a smile to my face and a warmth in my heart.

And Xigbar... he always carries the smell of rosin, like the kind you would put on a violin bow.. of rosin,sulfur and gunpowder... Makes me wonder if perhaps he keeps old fashioned arms about, if for nothing more than the sheer joy of going out and firing them every now and then. It wouldn't surprise me. There's far more underneath that exterior than most people think.. if they only took a moment to see.

Xaldin has the scent of his element around him.. You wouldn't think air has a smell if you don't know any better, but I know. His scent is sweet and clean.. the scent of country air and clothesline dried cotton. Sweet, yet clear, high and lofty, if you can think of a smell that way. He and I are very close, as he often looks after me as his charge, and I always smile when I pick up that scent. It's a comfort when no one else is able to be nearby.. that isn't often mind you, but still..

Vexen... Vexen's scent is hard for me to pick up on sometimes, but it's also very distinct. He smells of crisp, cold air and fresh snow. The scent color that follows is not the glaring white of half melted fallen, but the soft whiteness of new fallen powder. Sometimes it's mixed with the faint scent of chemicals, but oddly enough, the light familiar scent of number IV always seems to overcome that chemical smell.. As though his body were simply cleansing itself.

The lab is like that.. clean, clear.. often smelling of cleaners and chemicals, but it's not overpowering..and the smell is not.. sterile, like the way a normal lab does. It doesn't assault the nose with the heaviness of chemical cleansers, or the stench of formaldehyde; something I am eternally grateful for. I enjoy being one of his many lab assistants, and I can walk into the room to do so without getting a headache or feeling sick.

The infirmary is like that too. I find it often smelling of pine, sometimes of bleach, or both, suffused with the odors of gauze, bandages and tinctures, but it's clean and sterile.. truly so I think.. for it doesn't carry the undertones.. that insufferable, too-sweet smell of sickness. Hospitals smell like that. They reek of illness. They're trying to be sterile but they still smell that awful smell. I think that's why I hate them so.. Our triage area, the recovery room... none of it smells like that...

I think of the human world's Andre the Giant when I think of Lexaeus. He is gentle and kind. I'm pretty sure that sweetness in his nature is why Vexen loves him so. He smells of fresh earth and tilled soil, and sometimes of metal and ore. Few people know he is skilled at smith work.. but I do. I've watched him forge the metal from the earth he so diligently works with. His craft brings forth beautiful works, including the tomahawk he fights with.. Something, he told me that he spent much time on. That's respect right there...

Saix.. Number VII is an enigma to most people, I think... barring those of us who know him well. His smell is what some might call 'unusually sweet.' Not overpowering. not overwhelming in the least.. just sweet. Sweet and a little heavy.. dusky, like grass seed and honey, and a strange, exotic, off white scent.. the smell of moonlight filtering down across the land. Makes me think of running at night, feeling the coolness of the breeze and the feel of grass between your toes. Freedom.. That's what he smells like.

I love fire. I do. I always have. The most deadly element to the kin is that of the flame, and yet I have always been fascinated with it. Axel carries the sweetness of wood smoke on his body, like he'd been standing near a bonfire full of hickory and mesquite limbs. Ever since I was a cub, I loved that smell. It was sweet and beautiful in its own ways, carrying they hypnotic feel that fire has; watching the flames dance over the burning wood, the sound of crackling logs.. the pop of the wood as it gave itself for warmth.. the feel of that warmth trickling across the whole of my body when I lay near it. And of course the sweet, smoky smell that flavored the air around you. I've often heard Xaldin talk about that scent.. I know how much he loves it, because it means the man he loves is near. And he does love Axel so.. When they're together it makes me think of summer nights around a bonfire, telling stories, roasting marshmallows.. the smell of the air and flame. It clicked on levels most people would never dream of.

Like fire, I love storms too. I love the way the world smells when it rains. It's a fresh, wonderful aroma. Demyx smells like that. He smells like rain, like steady summer rain that patters its rhythm on tin rooftops and covers the ground allowing the earth to drink its bounty. Sometimes, when the others are away on missions, and I'm lonely, and I know he's free, I'll seek him out in his room, to listen to him play, and take in the smell of the rain.

Luxord... Ever the consummate gentleman.. His scent is crisp, clean cut, like the smell of a new dollar bill.. of new money, overlaid with the aromas of hot tea, peppermint and pipe tobacco.. He always carries the scent of pipe tobacco, though I know for a fact that he doesn't smoke. Sometimes he carries more exotic scents along with it.. the hint of cinnamon, the smell of raw sugar, vanilla. They're never strong, but more like afterthoughts.

Marluxia... Marly, in a good humor, carries the scent of flowers.. and fresh cut grass... leaf litter.. The smell of nature.. I find dayswhen the scent of number eleven is something akin to burying your nose into a heirloom antique rosebush. It's heady and sweet and strong, but never forceful. When he's come in from working in the garden, his aroma is like that of a bouquet of flowers; not like those gaudy things you buy at the florist shop or store, but a real bouquet of flowers, lovingly harvested and placed together as a centerpiece or given to a loved one. It's a scent I know well and smile upon having it reach my nose.

Larxene smells exactly like the element she works with. Electricity is very distinct, hot, and metallic. And like electricity, the smell not only seems to affect the nose, but affects other senses as well, It prickles the inside of the nose and fills the mouth with a taste akin to sucking tinfoil. But it fits her personality well, and it proves both a welcome smell as well as an amusing one as the prickle becomes more palpable the more mischevious or irritated that Nymph gets.

As we near the end of this ramble, we come to Roxas... Roxas.. I have not really been able to identify a single scent for him, other than he smells.. rather like a human should... No less spectacular than any other person here and a right wonderful person.. I just haven't identified a scent for him... all in good time I suppose...

Which leads me to my final person... My dear, dear Zexion. I saved him for the last for my own reasons. His scent is ever familiar to me, heady and intoxicating. It lingers upon my pillows, easing me to sleep at night. It's a spicy, sweet aroma warm gentle and inviting, the way cloves and mulling spice smell.. the way hot cider smells, light and airy and comforting, an incense that fills the air when he approaches, and one that I love dearly. As with Xemnas's scent, it embraces me before he does, letting me know that my love is near.

And so I drown my senses in the feel and the scent and the sight and sound of these people. The skin horse was right. Real isn't how you're made. And in my eyes you don't have to have a heart to have real feelings and care about each other. And when you are real, you can't be made unreal. And they are as real as the day is long.. and no one, NO ONE... will be able to ever convince me otherwise.