//------------------------------//
// Nectar 
// Story: Honey 
// by RubyDubious 
//------------------------------//


Two Months Earlier




Rarity slowly moved her view from left to right, scanning the decorations in the Canterlot High School gymnasium searching for even the slightest imperfection. Principal Celestia had tasked her with the decorations for the Monster Mash Dance, scheduled for Halloween night. 
The dance happening at all was an accomplishment, as Rarity, Luna, and their good peer Picket Fence had been practically begging Celestia since the start of the year. They must’ve collectively gotten over several dozen ‘no’s’ before the decisive ‘I suppose, if you can gather the funding for it.’ Rarity would never forget the little dance Luna did upon hearing the news, which ceased almost as soon as it began, followed shortly after by firm orders. 
Rarity crossed her arms and gave a curt nod to herself, finding satisfaction in her decorating. The lighting caught the smoke machine’s fog perfectly, the cobwebs and dangling spiders were immaculately placed, and the wax pumpkins standing guard with styrofoam tombstones along the walls couldn’t have been arranged better if she tried.  She knew that because she’d spent nearly an hour doing just that. On either side of the gym in front of the pushed-in bleachers lay a simple fold-out table topped with a pumpkin-print cover that Rarity had stitched herself for the occasion, each holding a punch bowl flanked on either side by festive, and unfortunately healthy snacks. The punch bowls even had ice in the shape of skulls. It was the very epitome of a mild and family-friendly Halloween event, which were Luna’s exact instructions.
Just as Rarity put a finger to her lips in thought over where she should hang the felt bats she hadn’t got around to yet, the world suddenly plunged into darkness as a pair of hands descended over her eyes. 
“I’d like a word with the one responsible for this decor.” A familiar coarse voice cooed from behind, prompting a smile from the tailor. 
“Hmm,” Rarity tilted her head up and into the hands, her voice droning and snide like a bored secretary, “I don’t know, Picket Fence. Do you have an appointment?”
“I figured I wouldn’t need one to tell her that her work was tacky.” Fence teased, returning the sarcasm.
“Tacky!?” Rarity guffawed and swatted off his hands and turned around, jabbing a finger into his chest as she spoke, “Why, in all my years as a designer, I’ve never detested a word as much as that one! In the little time I’ve known you, you’ve been nothing but a scoundrel!” 
Picket Fence was a tall and imposing figure hewn from marble and brought to life. It’d only been two months since he transferred from the Vanhoover Academy of the Arts, but he wasted no time in becoming the Class President and pushing for some pressing demands of the student body. 
He ran a hand through his dirty blonde hair and rolled his icy blue eyes. “Aw, c’mon Rarity, you don’t mean that. Besides, even if that were true, I think I’m a pretty good problem to have.” 
“Yeah, right.” Rarity rolled her eyes in turn. “I must admit, you’d be forgiven just this once in thinking of my work as tacky, for ‘tacky’ is what was ordered, so ‘tacky’ is what I delivered. Still, I’m quite pleased with my work, and I’ll not have another word about it.”
“You’re pleased with—”
“Not another word!” Rarity stomped her boot into the laminated wood beneath her. 
“Alright, alright. But speaking of the dance itself.” Fence couldn’t help but look out onto the, admittedly milquetoast display and smirk at what he saw. 
“Go on.” The look in Rarity’s eyes could melt steel. 
The towering teenager was not dissuaded by his friend’s animosity and took it as encouragement if anything. “How would you like to accompany me to it?”
Rarity’s expression softened into one of thought. “You want to take me to the dance?”
“If you’d be willing to have me, yeah.” He winked.
Any girl around Picket Fence’s age would’ve likely melted on the spot at such a proposition. Here was a boy who was so ideal that he couldn’t be made in a lab if all the world’s resources were pooled into it, who would be welcome on any stage with any boy band, but… Didn’t really do anything for Rarity. 
“Sorry darling, but I must decline. I know I’ve worked so hard on this, but I promised Sweetie Belle we’d spend Halloween trick-or-treating together and staying up watching that new horror movie she insists upon.” She reached up and patted Fence on the shoulder. “I’ve got big sister duty, so enjoy the dance twice as much for the both of us.”
Picket Fence scoffed, as though the very thought of being told ‘no’ was an insult. “Sorry, after everything I’ve done for you, you’re just gonna turn me down like that?”
Rarity was entirely unphased, having dealt with plenty of aggressive customers and clingy boys before, this was nothing new. “Why yes I am darling, I’m afraid family comes first even if I miss the chance to debut my Princess Bubblegum costume.”
“Hey, c’mon. Don’t be like that.” Fence snarled, fire flashing in his eyes as he snatched Rarity’s wrist, “Just one dance, that’s all I ask. It wouldn’t even exist without us, so you owe it to the class to at least show up. And to me too, since I put so much effort in.”
“I don’t owe you a thing, Fence.” Rarity struggled against his strength, quickly turning a glance around the gym to find nothing and no one there to help. “This was both of our efforts, and I think it’s a success. Now let go, you’re starting to frighten me.” 
“You’re coming with me.” The ferocity in his eyes was enough to paralyze anyone with terror. That look that Diamond Tiara had years ago when she’d punched Sweetie Belle on the playground, like she was owed everything she wanted, and denying her that was a great crime. “I’m not letting you go until the end of the ni—”
Rarity used her free hand to slap Picket Fence. It was a quick gesture, barely any more thought put into it than a reflex, but just as soon as it happened, Rarity regretted it. Like every other time she’d smacked some boy, she'd expected that she could slip away in the shock she caused. But Fence was not moved, if anything, it only further enraged him.
“I wouldn’t have done that if I were you.” He remarked coldly, his free hand lunging for Rarity’s neck, but oddly did not apply any force. “One last chance.” 
“Go to hell.” Rarity hissed, the venom in her words was enough to corrode the feminine veneer she’d spent years training to put on her voice. If anyone had heard it aside from Picket Fence, they would’ve thought it came from a masculine, albeit dainty, source, but to Fence it sounded as though it came from a demon.
“Just my luck.” The corner of his mouth turned up like he’d just smelled something foul and his gaze darkened away from rage and more towards disgust as though he’d just stepped in something. “Of course, you had to be a faggot.”
Fence released her wrist and reared back to deliver a devastating blow, Rarity squeezed her eyes shut and silently prayed that she’d make it out of this alive. 
Pain exploded from her mouth like a cannon had been fired into it. She felt a tooth dislodge from her jaw, and many more chip from the impact. Rarity’s head bounced against the ground with a crude thud that echoed in the empty gym as her body crumpled against the wood. 
The world spun and doubled as Rarity opened her eyes, only to see Picket Fence run a hand through his hair and get low to the ground, putting one leg over Rarity’s waist while the other clung tightly to her other side. He leered down from on top of her as Rarity writhed and sobbed beneath him, which only served to make him more frustrated. 
Ever since Rarity put on her first dress in her freshman year, she feared this exact moment happening. She’d spent every possible amount of effort at every possible time in order to prevent anyone from even so much as doubting her femininity, but here was her nightmare taking the shape of a friend. The edges of her vision darkened, her heartbeat in her ears, and her stomach fell well below her feet.
Rarity opened her mouth to gurgle up some words, to beg for him to get off of her, only for the blood flowing from her gums and the fragments of teeth embedding themselves into her throat to stay her voice. The tears that escaped from her eyes were her only unanswered plea against her assailant.
“Shut.” He brought his face mere inches from Rarity’s. “The fuck up. You’ve given me an out for self-defense and I intend to—”
BINK!
Just as soon as the flames in his eyes had reached a fever pitch, his arm cocked back to deliver another strike, Picket Fence hit the ground like a felled oak tree, the fire extinguished with one swift blow from an aluminum baseball bat. Rarity scrambled back away from his unconscious body and snapped her head to face whoever did that. 
There, standing in the fog of the smoke machines against the spotlights above, flanked on either side by dinky spiders, beamed Sunset Shimmer in a dirty baseball uniform with a bat resting against her shoulder. “‘Sup, babe.” She jerked her head up and crouched down. The calm and cool demeanor she’d carefully built shattered when she opened her mouth again, “Was that cool? Man, I’ve always wanted to beat some creep up and say some sick line like that.”
Relief washed over Rarity like she was baptized in it upon seeing her girlfriend, “I— bleagh!” She opened her mouth to say a line of her own, only to find blood on her tongue. Rarity turned her head and spat out the contents of her throat, splattering it against the wood and staining her dress. Rarity’s mouth hung open as she glanced between the puddle and her lover. “Well, it was certainly better than what I said.” She sputtered, offering up a sheepish grin.
“Oh shit. Come here, babe, you need some help.” Sunset reached a hand down and pulled her girlfriend up to her feet, only for her to stumble back down to the floor and take Sunset down with her. Rarity let a laugh slip from her lips, but when she looked over to Sunset, her expression was much more grim. The look in her eyes could’ve set Picket Fence on fire, and if he’d done this a couple of months ago when she was a she-demon, Sunset very well could have. “He… Hurt you pretty bad, didn’t he? You can’t even stand.”
“He did,” Rarity’s smile shrank back, but didn’t fully retreat, “but you did a number on him, darling. I think some poor fellow is going to have to scrape him off the ground. I’m just happy to see you, that I survived.”
“Yeah, but…” Sunset shook her head almost imperceptibly. “Knowing how things are, he might just get away with it.”
“Oh, that won’t be a problem dear.” Rarity mused, grabbing onto her partner’s shoulder. “The yearbook club put a camera in one of the spiders to record it for the end-of-the-year presentation. His time at Canterlot High is through.”
“Ha! That takes care of that, you really do think of everything, babe.” Sunset chuckled, tossing her bat aside and slinging an arm around her beloved. The two strained to stand up, but eventually got their footing and began shambling off towards one of the exit doors in the corners of the gym. “Let’s get you to Coach Double Down, he can patch you up I think.”
“Hey, Sunset?” Rarity mused as they pushed through the doors and limped along the sidewalk wearing warm smiles. 
“Yes, my love?” Sunset grunted, still facing forward toward the empty school courtyard. 
“I thought of something you could have said.” Laughter threatened to seep out of her voice. 
“Lay it on me.” Sunset rolled her eyes and grinned. 
“You could’ve said, ‘batter up!’”




Present




The taste of skin was never one that Rarity was particularly partial to, but as she paced in a tight circle around her room, that distaste was clarified. The taste was not helped by the scarce remnants of the moisturizer and products she’d spread with her fingers earlier in the day, so when her index finger rested between her teeth, the taste of salt and chemicals flooded her senses.
The blemish on her face had festered into a papery growth stretching from the side of her chin directly into the center of her cheek. Oddly, since it took the form of a cruel impersonation of a wasp’s nest, the pain had largely subsided. Rarity took the opportunity to talk out a plan of action for herself, speaking at full volume since her mother left for work and her sister for school.
“How hard could it be to just text me back!?” Rarity asked no one in particular as she passed her boudoir for the twentieth time, emphasizing her words with a bite of her finger. “I mean, if my affliction is nothing, then it should be easy to say so! If it happens to be serious, goodness, just tell me!” 
As if on cue, the phone on her pillow vibrated and gave the singsong tune she’d set as a ringtone. Much to her dismay, the text was from ‘Shimmie’, and not Twilight.
Hey babe! Where are u? I’m jonesning for a kiss rn :( 
 	“Hmph! You’re not helping, dear, but I could not ignore you if I tried.” Rarity ceased her pacing to quickly type a response. 
At home sick :( I do believe a kiss could cure me <3
Within the same instant it was received, a bubble popped up in response. Rarity couldn’t help but grin upon seeing it.
Aww, get better soon! I’ll swing by after band practice w a care package. It’ll be so hard to get through practice without u tho! <3 <3
Rarity returned the phone to its slumber, hugging it close to her chest before setting it down on the dresser. As though she never stopped, she resumed pacing around the room. Then a thought struck her mind: If this was just some kind of acne, surely she could just take care of it herself. “I mean, could it be that bad to just take care of it myself?” She brought the thoughts aloud, “Why, the worst possible thing that could happen is just a scar.” 
“A truly brilliant idea Rarity,” She congratulated herself, stealing a glance at herself in the mirror and recoiling, “And I assume that if this egregious, hideous, revolting thing is not acne, you can simply perform the surgery yourself?”
“Ha ha. Honestly, though, what other choice do we have? It’s spread so much in a couple of hours, and Twilight hasn’t gotten back to us. It’s quite possible that by the time she gets back to us, we’ll completely mutate into whatever-this-thing-is!” Rarity ceased her laps around her room, just as she reached the boudoir and leaned into the mirror. 
The reflection that stood in the mirror looked far worse than the one that was there in the morning. Rarity’s skin was practically translucent, her eyes were wide and bloodshot as though she’d used lemon juice for eye drops, and she could’ve sworn that the growth, and each one of its uneven hexagons, twitched on its own.
“Gah! Did you see that!?” Rarity blanched, stumbling back from the sight. “Ew! And you wanna keep that thing around?”
“Oh heavens no, darling. I just think we should wait. Not to hurt ourselves.” Rarity scolded herself, “Who knows she could send us a text… now!”
The phone did not respond to the attempt to conjure a message. 
“Now!”
Still, nothing.
“Alright, all options are clearly exhausted, I believe the best course of action is to try our hand at this operation.” Rarity grumbled to herself, pulling up a barely-used stool beneath the dresser and sitting atop it. “But do not let this go to your ego, who knows what that would do to your sanity.”
The silence that followed as Rarity went to retrieve a pair of tweezers from one of the drawers was palpable. It felt as though the very air was judging her. 
The growth itself felt warm to the touch, and when Rarity poked it, a blinding pain lanced through her entire face and disappeared as soon as it manifested, like somehow by touching it, she’d summoned a serrated blade under her skin and banished it within the same instant. Her mouth hung agape, shock muting any scream that she could muster as tears began to cling to her eyes. 
“Ok Rarity, change of plan.” The look in her eyes shifted, from one of fear to one of certainty. “Waxing is painful, but it’s ultimately for the better. So were getting those dental implants, but they were necessary. Beauty is pain, and this is going to make us beautiful but it’s really going to hur-r-rt!” 
Returning her gaze back to the mirror, Rarity drew in a breath and steeled her nerves, only to wince again when she looked at the nest. Oddly, it reminded her of whenever Apple Bloom would sleep over with Sweetie Belle, and how she’d skin her knee but refuse to bandage it. Later in the day, the blood would dry and leave a shell around the scrape. Apple Bloom, of course, couldn’t let it rest and constantly picked and peeled at it, and Rarity could never understand why until this very moment. 
This hive would be like a scraped knee, and like waxing… And like dental implants. Rarity breathed until she counted to four, held it for another four seconds, and then released it. 
In one fluid motion, Rarity gripped the tweezers on the left-most side of the blemish and clamped down. She winced, expecting a lance of pain to spear through her face only for the brittle, papery substance to crumble at her touch. Undeterred, Rarity instead moved the metal to the very spot where the nest and her skin connected, closed her eyes as she felt cold metal connect, and yanked with all the strength she could manage.
Agony flashed through Rarity’s entire being like water being added to a hot pan, and just like water, fizzled and bubbled underneath her skin. It was an entirely new dimension to suffering that she never thought imaginable, nothing like a sucker punch to the teeth, or waxing every hair on her leg in one go, it was more like something had snatched up every one of her nerves and used them to play a brutal ballad.
And just as soon as it came, the pain vanished without a trace, leaving Rarity stunned into total silence. In one… Two… Three… Four… Out Rarity opened her eyes, and there on her cheek where the nest made its stolen home, was a black, oozing crater that seemed to swallow all light that entered it. Unnatural, murky ichor dripped down her cheek like a mockery of tears only to pool and drop off of her chin.
Rarity had gotten the entire hive off in one fell swoop, but the deed was not done. For a few moments, she sat dazed, looking on at the thick, vile sludge leaking from her cheek. After setting the tweezers down on the dresser, along with the limp, fetid nest, her hand involuntarily drifted towards the liquid, touching it just enough to dab some on her finger before retreating. 
It felt warm and clung to her fingers like honey as she twirled her thumb against the small drop of it on her index finger, pulling them apart to see a string of the substance connect her two digits. 
Then the smell hit. 
A foul, sour smell, halfway between rotting fruit and bile wafted from the wound with such intensity that Rarity could taste it, prompting her body to convulse in a set of heaving gags. As though she were a puppet on strings, she went to bolt to the bathroom to puke only for her foot to hook under one of the stool’s legs and send her reeling to the floor. The sudden pressure on her stomach as she impacted with the tile was almost enough to make her vomit, but by some miracle, she managed to keep it in. 
The black ichor coming from her face, however, would not be contained. As Rarity hit the ground with a dry heave, the dark bile splattered across the floor as though she had thrown up. Rarity ground her teeth and exhaled a breath through them, in an unsuccessful attempt to control her breathing. Breathing through her mouth didn’t seem to make the scent any more bearable, if anything, it magnified the already foul taste in her mouth. 
Tears pooled in her eyes from the stench, which fell down the side of her face as she squeezed her eyes shut, put her hands to the floor, and pushed herself up. “Ew, ew, ew!” Rarity squirmed as she yanked one drawer after another open trying to find a clothespin, holding her breath all the while, before finally laying her hands on one and frantically attaching it to her nose. 
Paahh! The breath Rarity was holding forced itself out the instant the pin was clamped to her nose, and promptly replaced with another large gulp of air. Thankfully, she couldn’t taste anything putrid, leading her to let out a sigh of relief. 
The bile splattered across her face like someone had thrown a rotten, black tomato at her cheek, and just as soon as Rarity calmed down, she locked eyes with the wound again and let out a shrill scream. 
“This is the. Worst. Possible. Thing!” Rarity started the motion to put her head down on the boudoir and pout only to stop herself when she realized that’d spill the black ooze all over her high-end makeup. So instead, she simply sat in place and knocked her legs into one another anxiously and weighed the merits of screaming again before deciding against it.
“Alright Rarity, compose yourself,” she clutched her hand in front of her face as though she could grab poise from thin air, “while it would be nice to scream, I doubt it will accomplish anything.”
“I have to agree darling. It also wasn’t the greatest idea in the world to forsake waiting.”
“Oh, you think?” Rarity chided herself.
“In my defense!” she countered, embarking on yet another expedition into the dresser drawers to find some tissues. “The dance is on Friday night, and that’s the day after tomorrow! You cannot blame me for panicking and wanting to look my best. For all we know, Twilight’s answer would’ve taken days to work, had she responded at all!”
“I suppose I can’t fault you for that, dear, but now we’ve got a wound instead of a… Lousy-ugly-thing! A vile wound, mind you.” Rarity pressed herself as she pulled a few tissues from one of the several purse packs of them she stashed in every drawer and dabbed them against the blackness. 
The thick, dark substance coming from her face would not be moved, and when Rarity tried to clean it up, it refused to be taken onto the fabric, like syrup being pushed with a spoon. Rarity, however, would not be defeated and pressed harder into the maw in her face and through careful pressure, managed to scoop some out.
“But like I said earlier darling, scars are in!” Rarity reassured herself as she found considerable success in her cleaning process. 
“Are ingrown diseases also in this season? Sooner or later, we’re going to have to let someone qualified look at this. After the dance of course.” Rarity tossed another couple of tissues into the corner under the dresser before fetching another round. 
“Oh, of course after the dance.” Rarity concurred, scraping another bit of the slime out of her wound. “I suppose we can put a bandage over it and then work our magic with the concealeEEE—” The tip of the cloth going into the wound struck something that sent a cacophony of pain ravaging through the tailor, as though she’d collided with a razor. 
Just like before, Rarity couldn’t even muster a scream before all traces of pain purged themselves from her senses. She closed her eyes and rocked herself back and forth while taking in breaths. “What,” She said, opening her eyes and leaning into the mirror, “was that?”
Staring into the gaping maw that was the blemish was similar to staring into a void, it was impossibly dark, and despite this, something poked out from the puddles of filth that pooled in the injury like a stick in a pool of tar. Rarity fumbled her hand along the dresser, trying to find her phone without looking away at the strange shape she saw, before grabbing hold of it and quickly switching the flashlight setting on.
The light didn’t really help to identify exactly what was it was, but it certainly revealed that it was somehow darker than the rest of its surroundings, and seemingly the source of her suffering. Rarity glanced down and quickly snatched up the stained pair of tweezers, her breathing picked up and she made no attempts to slow it. 
“Just like waxing.” Rarity lied, gently putting the tweezers in position, just hovering over either side of the object, “Just like—”
Rarity was a tailor and dressmaker that was all too familiar with needles and pins, and just as much when it came to pricking herself with them on accident. However, if she stuck herself with every single needle in Canterlot, it would measure less than half of the wretched agony that took control of her entire being at that moment.
Rarity could feel the object slide out from underneath her skin like a splinter, but in practice, it was closer to pulling out millions of glass shards with an instrument coated in salt and alcohol, lacerating her flesh the more she drew it out. The world felt as though it were falling away the more the infernal object was drawn out, as though it were the only thing connecting her to reality, but within an instant, Rarity was returned to the world.
Truly, it felt like splitting an atom inside her cheek, and within an instant most of the pain left, its only remnants being a dull, aching throb that pulsated like a wicked heartbeat.
Rarity’s heart thumped in her ears and everything spun as she struggled to catch up to her breathing. Where she wasn’t weak, she was numb, and it took nearly all of her strength and will to not collapse on the spot. Gently, she set the blackened thing on a clean tissue in front of the mirror, and as though it were waiting to be set down, the instant it was placed down, it writhed like a maggot in a pile of trash.
BzZbzz
The unmistakable sound of buzzing barely gurgled up from this creature, but it thundered in Rarity’s ears. 
“What…?” She stared on dumbfounded as the small insect struggled to crawl out of the black pool as though it were trying to emerge from a baneful cocoon. The buzzing went on, muffled by the substance it was born in, getting quieter and quieter as it writhed like it was dying the more it squirmed for its life. 
This pathetic creature that couldn’t escape from the ooze that spawned it was the source of all of Rarity’s misery, and as she stared at it, frenzy rushed to the forefront of her mind and consumed the pain, the ache, and the weakness out of her and tinged the world in a deep shade of red. 
She pinched the tweezers shut in her hands and thrust them down into the bug with the same ferocity that an executioner would use for their axe. The buzzing grew louder for only an instant before petering out in a final, solemn note of distress. 
The tweezers clamored to the ground as Rarity stumbled back from the dresser, refusing to stomach the sight any longer, and used the last of her fleeting strength to shamble to the side of her bed before collapsing on her back and waiting for the numbness to take over.
She drifted off to sleep hoping that when she awoke, she’d find that the events of today were all a nightmare. A smile came across her face when she thought of how Sunset would react to such a tale before finally, she fell under.