Honey |h.s|

Prologue

Honey.

The pure effort going into making each and every comb to hold the sweet substance almost always goes unnoticed, but of course, she notices. She always notices.

She appreciates every type of bee from her mother's array of different apiaries. Each one has a specific job in their hive that plays a part in the production of the raw sweetener. Every worker bee, drone, and of course, the queen.

Each bit of nectar from the flowers the worker bees pollinate, every individual comb made by the bees who spend the entirety of their short lives working, the chewing of the collected nectar as it's passed from one bee to the next, the constant fanning of said bees' wings that makes evaporation take place to dehydrate the nectar and turn it to honey, and the capping of the created honeycombs with newly-made beeswax to store the sweet elixir to remain fresh until it's time to be eaten.

Many people don't realize just how much work goes into making something as simple as honey.

The simple and sugary flavor of the natural sweetener has much more work put into it that's only seen behind closed doors. The effort of those taking part in the process of making it remains unseen. The ups and downs, the number of different aspects that have to play out a certain way for success, and the things that can go wrong with each attempt and skew the entire process, requiring them to start again.

She appreciates the art form that is making honey for more of a reason than her uncontrollable levels of empathy, though. She's realized over time that despite her relations to the substance through her name, her mother's occupation, and the time she spent in her backyard watching the it be made firsthand, there was a deep-rooted reason behind her care for it that she hadn't previously noticed.

Her sweet and subtle aura upon first meeting her, the simplicity her life seems to have from an outside perspective, the smooth flow of her calming voice that dribbles like honey from her soft lips, the relentless stick each thing someone says in her direction has to her subconscious to forever be remembered and repeated internally a countless number of times, the gears constantly working overtime to turn in her brain and medication working its way through her veins to ensure that everything inside of her is running smoothly, and above all else, the way the majority of the effort that goes into getting by each day remains unseen.

The eye of an outsider remains blinded by her saccharinity, the smooth sugar of her voice and demeanor satisfying their sweet tooth just for them to leave everything else behind before taking a closer look.

There's much more in common between her and honey than what meets the eye, and he knows that better than anybody else.