//------------------------------//
// Discovery 
// Story: Honey 
// by RubyDubious 
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Rarity peered into herself in her make-up dresser mirror, however, it would be more accurate to say she stared at particular parts of herself that needed the ‘magic touch’. Though her girlfriend, Sunset Shimmer, would say that she didn’t need make-up, Rarity would always retort that there was nothing wrong with wanting to look one’s best. And so the better half of every morning was spent in the mirror, meeting with face peels, scrubs, cleansers, and moisturizers. 
It was especially pertinent that she look her best, because in just a few days was the Fall Formal dance, and she wasn’t about to lose the crown for the fourth time in a row. Sunset Shimmer was her girlfriend, of course, but when it came to the dance, Sunset could stand to lose just one time.
Rarity wiped off the last bit of moisturizer from her forehead when something caught her eye. There on the side of her chin, just adjacent to her mouth, was a small… hole. The young fashionista guffawed, she had gone through excruciating measures to make sure that any acne she had was properly attended to, and then hidden. She refused to believe she had any acne scars. 
Biting the inside of her lip, she leaned forward grasping all her hair in one hand to stop it from falling into her vision. And there, tucked away in a spot a careless eye wouldn’t be able to spot, was a crater. Rage built up in her like a volcano.
“Impossible.” She snarled, running a finger over the divet, and a sharp pain seared through the underside of her face like a fiery needle. She clenched her teeth in response, trying to contain any outburst. It was still too early for anyone in her family to be up, as her routine demanded at least two hours of attention, and she hadn’t yet showered or styled her hair, much less picked out her outfit for the day. 
Rarity leaned further into her mirror, trying desperately to get a closer look at whatever was on her face before bumping into her dresser and sending all the neatly organized cosmetics into a clinking tremor. She reflexively seized the sides of the bureau and stilled it. 
From what she saw, it wasn’t an acne scar, they were certainly painful to look at but didn’t cause that kind of physical sting. It wasn’t a cut or some kind of wound, she would remember such an incident that would give her perfect face a scar. Beyond that, she’d spent a tremendous amount of money on salves and foundations to hide them.
In a flash of irritation, she snatched a hand mirror and brought it close under the blemish. “What in the world are you?” She demanded, glaring down at the awkward angle the mirror was poised in.
What greeted her sapphire eyes was a perfect hexagon, miscolored and black, like dried blood, staring back at her, almost mockingly. Rarity retched. She wanted to explode. She was a girl without blemish, a girl who took extraordinarily, practically obsessive care of herself. It should’ve been impossible for such a thing to happen, but here it was, taunting her in the reflection. 
Rarity’s mouth pursed into a sour line and she calmly put the hand mirror down through trembling hands that failed to contain her fury. Calmer still, she took careful and measured steps to her massive plush bed, pristinely made according to her routine, grabbed one of many thick pillows, pressed her face into it, and screamed as hard as she could.
This can’t be happening.
She pulled the pillow away and drew in a shaky breath, recoiling at how sad it sounded, and waited precisely six seconds, and exhaled evenly. This was a technique that Sunset had taught her to calm down, and it kept Rarity from having plenty of little meltdowns. 
Part of the next step of the technique was to assess things logically, which, she wasn't used to doing.
“So,” she whispered her thoughts aloud, “I have this horrible, terrible, ugly, dance-ruining… crater on my face. I don’t know what it is, why it hur-r-rts, or how to fix it.” She kicked her feet, tossing the pillow aside to draw a hand to the unblemished side of her chin. 
“You also have friends who can help you, dear. Twilight might know what it is, and maybe even how to fix it.” Her face scrunched up in humiliation. “But that means you’d have to show her your horrible, terrible, ugly, dance-ruining… thing.”
Rarity could hardly stomach the thought of having the horrid hexagon on her face, but showing someone else, well, she ought to just drop dead. “Then,” she began again, “I’d have to hide it for now, and hope it goes away. It’s not like I’ve never hidden acne before.” She nervously giggled to herself. 
Rarity returned to the tiny stool before the boudoir and hummed as she fetched some foundation and paused just before applying it, her thoughts racing. Would this hurt? Is it really worth the pain? Can’t you just own it? Maybe it can be like a confidence booster for everyone else that even The Rarity Belle gets acne. “Yes, maybe so, but that little boost to the school body will have to come after I win the crown!” She stopped again, her hand frozen at an odd angle. She looked at herself in the mirror confused, as if there was something she was supposed to be doing but forgot. 
“A shower!” She burst, before dropping the foundation sponge and clasping both hands over her mouth. 



Somehow, in the time between Rarity stepping in and out of the shower, the blemish had multiplied. No longer was it a singular, vile hexagon, but it stood united among five more of its brethren, forming a small line from the underside of her chin to just below the center of her cheek. 
The girl would’ve wailed into her pillow were it not for the searing pain that stopped her from contorting her face. As she gazed into a hand mirror, her expression morphed from abject disgust to outright horror. 
Why is it getting worse? That’s impossible! Rarity watched her reflection become watercolor from tears. She opened her mouth to speak to herself aloud, but as she moved her cheek, agony silenced her. That’s not fair. She retreated into her thoughts. I did what I was supposed to. I washed my face, I stayed away from greasy food, and I didn’t even drink any of the wonderful lemonade Applejack makes this time of year. Why am I so… Hideous now? What even IS this? 
Rarity sat on her bed with her back to the wall, looking up at her ceiling fan as its four twirling shadows danced across the well-lit ceiling, and wondering what she could possibly do. 
Going to school today was out of the question, but that would mean she’d have to either tell someone what was going on or lie and say that she suddenly got sick. Her mother usually fell for that sort of thing, and both she and her sister, Sweetie Belle, had routinely spat chewed-up food into the toilet and said they’d thrown up and couldn’t go to school. 
Still, even if she did that, her girlfriend would wonder where she is, and why she isn’t at school, then would come the text message asking about it, and then Rarity would break down and tell her because she could never lie to her beloved, but she didn’t want to tell her that —
Rarity shrieked and her chin ignited in pain from her mouth opening so wide. 
“This isn’t that complicated Rarity.” She spoke through gritted teeth to the girl in the hand mirror. “Why can’t you accept the fact that you got a… Whatever this is!? It’s normal! You’re a teenager!”
Rarity furrowed her brow. “Because I shouldn’t have gotten this. My skincare routine is second to none, and I use only the —”
“Oh I know all about the routine Rarity, I’m there every day and guess what else, I pay for it too! Don’t you hate the weekend job at the coffee shop you have to take to pay for all this?” The designer retorted to herself, a common way of getting her thoughts in order through a self-dialectic. It was easier for her to talk to herself than in her head, or with anyone else.
“Of course I do! But we both want the crown, don’t we? We both want to be able to say that we were the belles of the ball, the Rarity Belles of the ball.” She winced as she had to move her chin to make an ‘l’ sound. 
“So what? You may never even get to go if it keeps spreading like this! You might even have to see a —”
“Don’t you say it, Rarity.”
“A dermatologist.”
Rarity writhed underneath her comforter. “Never! There’s no need!”
“How is there no need!? You’re in severe pain, and it spread this much in one morning. You might need to go to the hospital before anything else.”
“Do you hear yourself? You sound crazy.” A palpable silence lingered for a few seconds. “We just need to figure out what it is.”
“How do you suppose we do that?”
“We either search around, and waste our time, or ask Twilight.”
“But then we’d have to show Twilight.” 
“Do you have any better ideas?” 
“Take the picture...”
Rarity set the mirror down in front of her, stretched her arm out to the nightstand accompanying her bedside, and fetched her purple smartphone from under her artistic helix-shaped lamp, and positioned it in front of her bad side. Recoiling, she snapped a picture. No, that won’t do, the lighting’s too dark. She leaned back over to her nightstand and flicked the lamp on.
Knock knock knock
“Hello in there, sweetheart. You doing ok? I heard you scream earlier, and just wanted to check in on you.” This too was routine. Her mother, Cookie Crumbles, knew that Rarity was prone to screaming about minor inconveniences, but always checked, just in case something actually went wrong.
Rarity scrambled out of bed and to her purse on her boudoir, trying desperately to find something to chew up and spit out. Receipt? No, that’s not food. Change purse? Cute, but still not edible. The newest Shadow Spade novella? No, no, no! Why is there no food in here I know I left something in here! Rarity clawed through her bag.
	There, sitting beneath everything, was a long-forgotten Nutri-Grain bar. It must’ve been there for weeks, let alone months. But it was the only thing she had, and Rarity would be damned if everyone had to see her face today. She tore the bar free from its plastic prison and crammed half of it in her mouth before mashing it down to miscolored mush. Her knees collided with the diamond-patterned bathroom tile and she hurled the forgotten contents into their watery grave as soon as the bedroom door creaked open and her mother stepped through.
“Oh dear,” She rushed over to her daughter, “Let me guess: Another one of Pinkie’s weird cupcakes?” She asked as she rubbed her daughter’s back.
Rarity immediately went with the lie, “Yes, and I really ought to stop obliging her offers.” She put a quivering and queasy slant to her words to further sell the lie, straining with all her might to not scream from the pain opening her mouth to talk caused. As time had gone on since the shower, the pain steadily increased, as though some invisible force was applying more pressure to and beneath the blemishes. 
“Then we better get you into bed with some ginger ale, how does that sound?”
“Simply divine, but I had planned on attending band practice today —” That’s it Rarity, you don’t want to stay home, but your mother is making you.
Her mother didn’t remove her hand from Rarity’s back as she escorted her to bed. She pulled the thick violet comforter up and ushered her daughter beneath it. “Don’t you worry about that now, ok? You’re a priority, not your band y’know. So you lay right there and let your mother take care of you.” She cooed as she cupped her hand to Rarity’s chin, in a benevolently lecturing tone. 
“Thank you, Mother. I don’t know where I’d be without you.” Oh my goodness why does this blemish hurt so bad?
“I don’t know, in school probably.” Sweetie Belle spat from the bedroom door. She was dressed for school and looked as though she was about to head out to the bus stop, before stopping in and giving her unwanted opinion.
Rarity gave her an angered look that said shut up, hoping her sister would back off.
“Sweetie Belle!” Cookie scolded. “That is no way to talk to your sister. How would you like it if this was the other way around?” Good, she completely fell for it!
Sweetie rolled her eyes. “I wouldn’t, because I don’t like lying.” She leered at Rarity. “I don’t like going to school either, but if I have to, you have to too!” 
“That’s enough. You go wait in the car before you get in trouble, young lady. I will keep you from your field trip, do you understand? I expect an apology when you come home, are we clear?”
“Ugh, yes Mom.” Sweetie recited as she retreated from the doorway.
Rarity’s mother waited until she heard the front door close before she spoke again. “Sorry about your sister dear, she can be a bit of a handful sometimes.”
“Tell me about it.” Rarity nearly shook with pain. “You simply are the best, Mother.” 
“I try my best,” she responded, placing a strand of hair behind her ear. “Now you just sit tight, I’ll start making you some of your favorite soup from when you were a girl, ok?”
Rarity could only nod as her vision reeled from the pain.
When the door finally closed, Rarity snatched her phone up and positioned it in the same place as before. The very thought of taking such a picture of her defiled face almost made her puke for real. It’s the only step forward Rarity. You can do it! It’s only a… Horrible, vile, nauseating picture sent to your girlfriend of two years... 
Rarity flinched as she took the picture again, this time with proper lighting. Her flinch grew into disgust as she pulled up her chat with Twilight, and into outright revulsion as she sent the picture, along with the question, ‘what is this on my face?’ She clicked the phone off and tossed it beside her like a grenade. She hadn’t realized her hands were trembling.
Or that the number of holes in her face had grown again.