Vanilla #1: A Sorcerer of Scent

[settecorvi]

Author: Chel
Story: Demiurge
Title: A Sorcerer of Scent
Prompts: Vanilla #1: shopping, wafer cookie, whipped cream
Rating: G
Characters: Naveed, Aqil dar Qaleen
Word Count: 3161
Summary: Naveed is siharai: she sees minds embodied as architecture and surface thoughts as a visible, tangible corona dancing around everyone’s heads. She’s in training

Comments

[settecorvi]

Thank you! The sihara (and their Liane cousins, the mindreavers) are ridiculously fun to play with, especially when they start arguing about how exactly the siharai senses work.

And this is a silly worldbuilding note, because there will never be a time when I don't take the slightest excuse to worldbabble, but the scents that manifest as specific emotions in dar Qaleen's corona are unique to her; other people a) don't associate enough deep emotions or memories with scents for them to show up much in their coronas and b) would have different associations and preferences. Someone who didn't like plums would not have plummy happiness!

[kay_brooke]

Welcome!

I think this is just gorgeous. The worldbuilding seems wonderfully thorough and the two characters in this piece are very interesting. I love how literally tying scent to memory is a sort of magic in this world.

[settecorvi]

Thank you! This was going to be a whole lot shorter until dar Qaleen pointed out that she was a sorcerer, thank you, not a perfumer... and suddenly I have a new form of magic on my hands. And apparently a rather prickly new character who sees no problem in mentioning offhand to a twelve year-old girl that she can stop someone's heart with the right scent.

[shayna611]

You've got a lovely, richly detailed world going here, and this really does seem a decent introduction to it and to Naveed as far as I can tell. Although the whole realm of smells is out of the norm for her, the way you wove it in gives a nice picture of what her process and attitude are like anyway.

Welcome to RaTs :) Be sure to come check out the holiday games going on in the_malt_shoppe.

[settecorvi]

Thank you for the compliment and the welcome! Showing character through prose is one of the things I'm trying to work on, so it's great to hear some of that came through.

[bookblather]

This is so cool. This whole thing is just amazing. The description, the color, the scents, all of it is incredibly awesome. Fantastic, fabulous job.

[settecorvi]

Thank you! It can be hard to know the divide between purple and descriptive, especially with someone like Naveed who's very focused on sensation, so I'm glad I don't seem to have tipped over the line.

[sarcasticsra]

This is absolutely gorgeous. This world is so rich and vivid and detailed--I felt like I was right there with them. I marvel at your ability to fill in so much in such a natural, flowing way. There's so much information to take in, but this makes doing so effortless. Excellent work, and welcome to the comm! I look forward to more!

[settecorvi]

That is a fantastic compliment! Thank you so much.