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// What Desire Smells Like 
// Story: In Slytherin Colors 
// by EmberQuill 
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It was finally her turn to step up to the cauldron and take a whiff. She was torn, as her hooves brought her closer to the rim of the cauldron. The Slytherin was curious, of course, but watching the faces of her classmates had left her uneasy. 

There was a vulnerability in their faces when they drew back from the softly shining mixture. Stallion and mare alike, no one had been prepared for what they smelled. Everypony’s interest— no, their attachment, to whatever they smelled was obvious— it revealed a manipulable weakness in them. Her fellows in Slytherin house had walked up there like she had planned to, with a blank mask in place, but all of them had failed to keep the shock and longing from their faces. 

They however were not the ones telling their friends in hushed whispers what it was they smelled. Very foolish, Ember thought, cataloging whatever scents her classmates told their friends they had smelled. Did none of them realize how vulnerable that smell had made them? Did they not realize they were telling everyone with ears what made them tick, something that could help them be taken advantage of?

It was not the sort of thing she wanted to display before the class. But she knew better than to believe that she could keep her casual blankness in tact when all of her classmates before her could not.

Carefully she drew up and placed her hooves gently on the lip of the cauldron to balance herself, and breathed in a delicate sniff of the spiral shaped steam that rose from the mother of pearl colored liquid.

Evergreen— pine, oak— the woodsy smells hit her like a physical thing— but not like a brick wall— rather, it was as if that physical thing she ran into were another pony. The smells were — intimate? Somehow. It was love potion after all— but woodsy? Ember’s face flushed as she took in a deeper breath, and she found it was hard to tear herself away from the cauldron, despite the fact she knew she had to look like all her other classmates had been.

She’d never found the scent of a forest so intoxicating before… Getting a hold of herself quickly, she took another deep breath in before carefully stepping away from the cauldron and back down on all four hooves. Her face still felt hot when she settled by her table, but she had time to compose herself.

Her table mates had already gone, and Slytherin to the core there was an unspoken agreement that they would not make eye contact until they were all composed. To any outside house it might have looked cold. The silence, the lack of chatter about what they had experienced— but really, one of the nicest things any Slytherin could do for you is politely decline to acknowledge a momentary weakness.

Ember looked back at the front of the room while the next few students took their turns. How strange… she was an indoors-y type pony, but every nuance of the smell that she remembered had been natural and earthy. The Slytherin rubbed her nose with her hoof until she had her blush under control. 

She’d wonder about it some other time. The lecture was about to start.