Smell
(slight) Rikku/Auron
Takes place during FFX.
Auron always had a bit of a funny smell about him. Rikku always wondered about it – it draped over him like old cobwebs, almost not there unless you were looking for it.
There were other smells woven in with it, of course, things that were uniquely him. Sometimes Rikku would slide her sleeping bag so close to his that their elbows would bump, and he would look at her strangely. She would smile guilelessly and say that she didn't like to sleep alone, and it wasn't like she cuddled or anything, and his virtue was in no danger. He'd scowl and let it be, and in the middle of the night she would turn on her side, so close to him that his breath warmed her face. And she would breathe in everything that he was – steel, sword-polish, soap, sweat, campfire smoke, sake. Sharp and bitter but warm. Strong.
He smelt like Home.
But there was That Other Thing, too – deserving of its own capital letters, in Rikku's mind, because it was just that odd. It wasn't a bad smell, necessarily – just different. Sort of sweet, but clean, not sugary. It smelt… unearthly. It smelt wrong.
It wasn't until she stood on the steps of the Farplane as a stray pyrefly floated by, and she caught a whiff of the air it disturbed as it passed.
That was when she knew.
He must have smelt so much better when his heart had been beating.