11 - Scents and Sensibility, Gonou, R
Title: Scents and Sensibility
Author: andmydog
Warnings: Descriptions of carnage; ickiness
Pairing(s): None
Notes: #11 - Smell, 20 minutes exactly
It is widely believed that dreams, being the domain of fantasy and imagination, do not allow for the experience of the baser senses. One may observe a dream-rose, it is said, and one may perceive that one’s finger has become pricked upon the thorns, but one may not inhale the delicate perfume.
Like so many commonly held beliefs, this theory proved itself to be flimsy, easily torn apart.
You could smell, in dreams. Of that, he was certain. Learned men might claim that the odors were merely his imagination, providing a background to his replaying memories, but he knew better. The wet grass of the hillside, the dirt of the courtyard, the closed, musty air of the lower levels. A fragment of perfume, in milady’s chamber. Burning bread, burning wood, burning dung, burning flesh in the kitchens. Spilt wine, rice, grape. Spilt blood, thick and copper-rich, heavy in the back of his throat. Spilt viscera, hot and foul, reeking of those smells so often referred to as “earthy”. Bile. Urine. Vomit. Shit. The distinct, almost sweet meaty smell of brain matter, congealing in a sunbeam on the smooth wooden floors. Sweat. Fear. Despair.
Fifteen hundred dead, and he remembered them all. His dreams were not all memories.
The rich, soft mud of the road, that was a memory, and the tobacco stink of the one who all but stepped on him, too, but when his dreams looped back around, to the other side of the mountain and he began his climb anew, it wasn’t the same. The wet grass reeked of blood; the courtyard, of old laundry. He split one monster shoulder to groin, and the entrails that poured forth were beef ramen. He tore the face off another, the hot blood spattering his chest and throat, and it was tea, bitter for its weakness, not iron and salt, the scent so heavy he could actually taste it. A woman, soft and screaming, crushed underfoot, but her fear-sweat was a man’s musk, the clean, heady scent underlain with smoke and wind and soap. He killed them all, over and over, as they bled out antiseptics and coffee, and sweet, sharp sweat, old tobacco, older beer. Dust. Detergent.
The third time through the castle, he determined that he was dreaming. By the fifth, he was certain he’d gone mad. And on the eleventh (or was it the twelfth?) pass, when he reached for the door of Kanan’s cell and it faded into a water-stained ceiling, he realized he wasn’t that fortunate.
Don't kill me for the title. I had to.
Author: andmydog
Warnings: Descriptions of carnage; ickiness
Pairing(s): None
Notes: #11 - Smell, 20 minutes exactly
It is widely believed that dreams, being the domain of fantasy and imagination, do not allow for the experience of the baser senses. One may observe a dream-rose, it is said, and one may perceive that one’s finger has become pricked upon the thorns, but one may not inhale the delicate perfume.
Like so many commonly held beliefs, this theory proved itself to be flimsy, easily torn apart.
You could smell, in dreams. Of that, he was certain. Learned men might claim that the odors were merely his imagination, providing a background to his replaying memories, but he knew better. The wet grass of the hillside, the dirt of the courtyard, the closed, musty air of the lower levels. A fragment of perfume, in milady’s chamber. Burning bread, burning wood, burning dung, burning flesh in the kitchens. Spilt wine, rice, grape. Spilt blood, thick and copper-rich, heavy in the back of his throat. Spilt viscera, hot and foul, reeking of those smells so often referred to as “earthy”. Bile. Urine. Vomit. Shit. The distinct, almost sweet meaty smell of brain matter, congealing in a sunbeam on the smooth wooden floors. Sweat. Fear. Despair.
Fifteen hundred dead, and he remembered them all. His dreams were not all memories.
The rich, soft mud of the road, that was a memory, and the tobacco stink of the one who all but stepped on him, too, but when his dreams looped back around, to the other side of the mountain and he began his climb anew, it wasn’t the same. The wet grass reeked of blood; the courtyard, of old laundry. He split one monster shoulder to groin, and the entrails that poured forth were beef ramen. He tore the face off another, the hot blood spattering his chest and throat, and it was tea, bitter for its weakness, not iron and salt, the scent so heavy he could actually taste it. A woman, soft and screaming, crushed underfoot, but her fear-sweat was a man’s musk, the clean, heady scent underlain with smoke and wind and soap. He killed them all, over and over, as they bled out antiseptics and coffee, and sweet, sharp sweat, old tobacco, older beer. Dust. Detergent.
The third time through the castle, he determined that he was dreaming. By the fifth, he was certain he’d gone mad. And on the eleventh (or was it the twelfth?) pass, when he reached for the door of Kanan’s cell and it faded into a water-stained ceiling, he realized he wasn’t that fortunate.
Don't kill me for the title. I had to.