[Mnemosyne]

The evidence we have is pretty scanty, but it seems that the smell of King-activated athelas changes based on who's getting healed. When Faramir's under treatment, it smells like roses, but Eowyn gets a clean mountain breeze and Merry gets heather.

Smell is a powerful thing--it goes directly to your brain instead of getting routed the way all the other sense are, and the part of the brain that processes it is closely linked to memories and their formation. So it makes sense on an innate level that in order to be healed of soul-hurts, athelas would activate on smell to make you feel comfortable and loved--the opposite, in a word, of the deleterious effects of the Black Breath.

So. Imagine that you've been plotholed to Middle-earth during the Siege of Minas Tirith, get whacked hard with the Black Breath, and get to experience the Healing Hands firsthand.

What kind of smells would the kingsfoil-steam give off?