Venatori have enhanced speed, strength, agility, senses and healing.  Which is all well and good for them, but a half human Venatori like myself – also called Minorem – meaning lesser we don’t always get those abilities.  Or any abilities.  While it’s not happened in many generations, there have been cases of a completely human Minorem.  Poor guy set out into the human world and no one heard from him since.

While I am lucky enough to get the super healing and senses  with the mental ability of a Venatori however strange mine is compared to others I wasn’t lucky enough to be full Venatori in powers – even with my being a Magnus.

However, even my normal abilities aren’t so normal – at least not my sense of smell which is where the title comes in – scents.  A great deal of my anxiety and comforts come from scent.  The things I remember most from my childhood are typically embroiled deeply with given scents.

My Nanny was a dragon – she smelled like a campfire.  From what I understand that’s a typical dragon smell and one way you can identify a dragon in human form versus a regular human.  That scent is often comforting to me, an upside, I have been told it’s what I smell like – so that leaves a whole lot of questions as to why.  But it’s probably a lot to do with what a Magnus really is… a half Dragon Venatori cross breed.  At least that was the origin of the Magnus ability in the Venatori.  So it’s logical in it’s own right. Though not many Magnus I know – and I know quite a few since I trained with them and under them – they don’t smell like a campfire.  Jace says it’s cause I’m a fire-starter and a strong one.  I can’t say for sure.

I’ve mentioned my mother’s apple pie before the sweet scent of cinnamon and vanilla mixed with the cooking apples.  It’s a comforting scent – a reassuring smell that makes me feel safe in a time I was safe.

But it’s not the smell I associate with my mother.  My mother always smelled of cigarette smoke and dirt.  Which as I grew up I learned the dirt smell was Patchouli – a hippy thing to do to cover up odors you didn’t want your parents to smell on your clothes.  So the smell of dirt is much better.  Really?

I remember burying my face in the height of my terror before getting on an airplane and smelling those two things.  My anxiety spikes when I walk past a person smoking a cigarette.  I’ve never been able to sleep with a smoker’s place, we almost always ended up in a public space – in some dark back room, a bathroom or in their car which usually isn’t much better than their place.

We all associate smells with our life, it sucks though when scents can cause a major destabilization in your life.