@cornerstonc liked for Natori.
"Felines smell very warm, don't they?"
"Yes, yes!" Miranda's quick to add on, perking up at the same moment, the blanket shifting off of her shoulders and rolling down her back in a slow landslide. "Warm, mostly, yes. It is the fur, is it not? And small mammals like that — they always smell much warmer than the larger ones, even if the larger ones might be warmer. Nearly hot, even. Burning, but without the burning smell, just very hot, nearly humid but not quite, not dry either."
This contents Bellanda, who tilts her head up, chin first, has to close her eye to think more about it. Not much in this language describes smell, she's noticed, and the feeling is a lot like trying to squeeze a lot of thick paste out of a too-small tube. There's too much experience to fit into these words, this kind of song, too simple to really carry the full breadth of experience which she knows like no other. She'll try, though. If nothing else, she and Miranda are up here to try, and try they will.
"He doesn't have the milk-smell, does he? That's also common in mammals. He's more like an otter or a whale, in that sense, but not like seals. It's like a sweetness that carries close to the skin, but it can turn acrid over time. Maybe it has to do with the fur?"
"That could be it," Miranda takes her turn to add, tilting her fin towards her sister, waiting to help add clarity to the pieces she's adding. "But they get moreso as they get older; the mammals do, I mean. It gets sharper, more potent, and then falls off again, gets more muted. It is not quite like the scent of poor health, there is not a sour note of immune activity nor the rot-scent of truly failing health, it does not have the strange elements you see with sickness... It usually just gets lesser, though. Other things come out, as the large-smell vanishes."
"And because he is a cat," Bellanda lifts her hand to punctuate this comment, gesturing towards her younger sister, "he always has an earthy-note. Like... Combining with the warm, hot, scent. Smells like the earth, but not quite the dry earth, more like the earth inside the earth, like opened soil. Not wet, either, but richer. All around you."
Miranda flicks her fins at this, wiggles them with a smile tilting her lips. "Right! Felines always smell like... like a den, perhaps? Like earthy, usually dried grass or vegetal scents, but all around you, and very thick off of the fur, usually clinging directly to it, or upon something they have touched. So hot that it is like they have been laid out to dry, but you have laid down in the middle of them, and they are sticking to you."
Bellanda rests her hand down again, resuming her thought.
"And they have an oiliness to them, too, yeah? Like the otters, but like birds as well. Not like fish oil, but it sticks to your hand and your head. Like mink, maybe."
"Have I tried the mink before?"
"No, I don't think so? Remind me later to show you. He smells closest to the mink. He's more oily than the younger cats, but has more of the dry scent to him, over the fading older-smell. Maybe dusty is the right word for it?"
"Dusty could work. Musty, maybe, like the way landfolk rooms settle, the way they get untouched after a while. There is no movement in there, nothing to stir it all up, so it all begins to form a singular note... It is not like stagnant water, does not smell so dangerous... But it is like he has been there, or has settled like them, yes?"
"Yes, and he smells like other cats which have done the same. I could count them, but he's not much like the others, is he? Not like the one you hang out with, but maybe she's just the odd one out. I don't think I've met many cats, before."
Miranda nods to this, finding it acceptable. Acceptable enough, anyhow, because what happens next is her immediately turning the conversation away from scents and towards the topic of more typical domestic cats, and trying to get Bellanda to agree to come see some with her. Cats are one of the wonderful things about the land, after all. It would be a shame if Bellanda missed out.
