Pinewoodtea

This scent makes me think of: It's late, just past midnight, and you're hard at work in the smoky kitchen of your village. You wanted to make something new, something different, so you left a petition and a few coins at the edge of the woods yesterday morning. You woke up just a bit ago with ideas cramming themselves into your mind, compelling you to dip into your stashes of sugar and the richest creams. You could swear the floor beneath your feet is actually pine needles and loam, your metal tools are all warm in your palm without being near a fire. It's surreal and you should be worried but you're too caught up in how good everything smells. You don't think you're making this just for yourself anymore, but you're enjoying yourself too much to worry tonight.

This scent makes me think of this: It's right at the end of the season for the beds of chrysanthemums and marigolds. You fell into a bed of them with a lover (or lovers...), and throughly exhausted everyone involved in the best ways. You all made your way home, picking stems and petals off your brightly patterned clothes, wiping off any errant sap from the stems. Everything is bright as you wander through the fading gardens. Laying in a pile of pillows in the middle of your room, the bamboo flooring and closed screens keeping you cool. The light dims and the room falls into grey tones. Someone set a few sticks of sandalwood incense burning, but you can't find the energy to crack the screen door open. You can hear someone mumbling in their sleep, but you can't quite reach oblivion, so you watch the rise and fall of sleeping chests amid the tangles of embraces.

From this scent, I think of: It's early spring, everything is a riot of fluffy white and pink blossoms. You're at a garden party in a fancy estate, sitting under an apple tree in full bloom. Your light clothes are freshly washed, and warm as you bask in the sun. There's a glass of lilac-colored cordial in your hand, and you can hear the merry laughter from the others on the lawn. A breeze carries the scents of the perfectly manicured flower beds to you, and the perfume of a passerby dressed in pastels and lace.

This scent makes me think of: It's late, and you've walked through a seedy part of town seeking some mystical supplies. You ducked into a shop with a door barely taller than yourself. It's dark, and a censer of myrrh clogs the shop's air. Dark red wood shelves filled with dried herbs crowd against innumerable wood and metal apparatuses. The proprietor steps out from a backroom and offers you a cup of bitter tea. By the time you finish your cup you find the bottom filled with honey, and the air is sweeter too. The proprietor smiles, ready to do business.

The image I get from this scent (from a very aged bottle): It's morning, the first gleam of watery gold light is warming the rolling hills. You spent the night in a bed roll under a tree, and now you can shake off the dew. You take a deep breath as the light hits your spot, and the blue-greys of night are washed awake with the warm golds and pale greens of dawn. You stay there until the light dries all the leaves. You find a little yellow flower and a few wild herbs on the path as you continue onwards.

The image I get, wearing this: You're braving a night in an ancient cathedral, long abandoned. As the night drags on, you could swear the walls drip black, sticky tar, but it disappears into mist when you touch it. You brought along a gold censer of consecrated incense, sitting in the reach of its warm scent is what keeps your resolve alive. You take a deep breath, assured that you'll last until dawn.

This scent is so beautiful, it paints a vivid picture in my mind: A bowl of warm, rich, melted chocolate sitting in a kitchen window that's been framed with cedar. It's a homey place, lots of gently polished wood worn from use. Whoever's cooking just turned around to shred some mint to infuse, but all the focus is on that bowl of chocolate. There's a vanilla pound cake baking in the oven, and outside the window the summer heat is softening everything, the little bit of wind ushers in a hint of the forest into the kitchen. Everything is drowsy and calm, like a memory slipping out of focus before one falls asleep for a catnap, the taste of a chocolate chip cookie still on the tongue.