Author's Note
The prologue’s here because I don’t want to start with their relationship already a few months in. I want to give a few snapshots of its beginning. As such, it isn’t at all important for the plot, and some of you might find it pretty slow reading. ~~Feel free to jump straight to Chapter One at any point, you won’t miss anything important.~~ There is no Chapter One yet! (Well, there is a half-written one, but you can't see it.) I decided to post the prologue early because of reasons. So, yeah...
Chapter One may be out over the next couple of days, but that'd be a bad thing because I have many, many essays due in. By Wednesday the last deadline will have passed, however, for better or worse, so it won't take more than a week to update even if I do start doing my real work. 
/ramble
Prologue
Sweetie came trotting into the Boutique, having finally tired of the day’s crusading. She dumped her saddlebags unceremoniously by the door and went on a search for Rarity, full of questions about shoe-fitting.
She eventually found her sitting with a guest. He was a rather dashing looking blue earth pony (as with so many of her sister’s words, Sweetie wasn’t entirely sure what “dashing” meant, but decided that he was definitely it), whose cutie mark identified him as one of the musicians who Rarity liked to socialise with whenever she went to Canterlot. Sweetie frowned. She had a strong suspicion that Rarity was trying to get him as a coltfriend, and that she’d have to sit through hours of gross sappiness and then hours of screaming and crying when Rarity decided that she’d changed her mind.
The stallion glanced her way and flashed her a small smile before turning back to his conversation. With that slight smirk, just a twitch of one corner of his mouth, Sweetie knew that she was doomed. There would be more pining and more tears than ever over this one.
“Oh, Sweetie Belle, I didn’t hear you come in,” Rarity called over. Given the bell over the Boutique’s door, Sweetie suspected that she had actually just ignored her, hoping that she would go straight to her room. “Did you have a fun time at school today?”
“Yeah, it was pretty good,” came the standard response to the standard question.
“Maybe she could help us,” the visitor almost purred. Soft, moderately deep, and with an upper-class Canterlot accent, his voice sounded more like an impression than like an actual modern pony. “Sweetie, your sister and I can’t agree, so I’d like you to judge. Is it more important that the government does what ponies want, or that it lets ponies do what they want?”
Sweetie was blindsided. First off, she was stunned that he wanted her to take part in their adult conversation. Most adults just asked her about kid stuff, like school or playing games, when they decided that they had to talk to her at all; they certainly never wanted her to join a serious discussion. Secondly, she didn’t really understand the question.
“But, the ponies want to do what they want. Aren’t they the same thing?”
“Well, they are if there’s only one pony. If there are more ponies, though, then one might want to do something that most of them don’t want her to do.”
Sweetie considered for a moment. She didn’t reach an answer in that moment.
“She might want to play loud music all night,” he expanded on his claim, “and they want the night to be quiet, so they don’t want her to be able to do what she wants.”
“Well, then,” Sweetie finally answered, “she shouldn’t be allowed to. She’s upsetting a lot more ponies so that she can play her music.” Rarity let out a satisfied little hum.
“Yes, true,” the stallion nodded, “but what if, say, she lived far away from those ponies? What if she lived the other side of a hill, and the only people who could hear her music liked it? The other ponies still think that the night should be quiet, but they’re not close enough to be disturbed.”
“Then it’s none of their business,” Sweetie frowned slightly, wondering at what the disagreement could be. “If they aren’t being kept up by it, they can’t tell her not to have fun for no reason.”
“So, only the opinions of the ponies involved should matter?”
“Yeah.” Sweetie suspected that there was more to come, but was confident of her position.
The stallion, however, didn’t question her further. Instead, he turned to Rarity and said, “You see? Your sister agrees with me.”
“Uuurgh,” Rarity rolled her eyes in a most unladylike way, “but to go as far as allowing colt-cuddling… It’s unnatural. You can’t reproduce like that, and the whole point of it is to make babies. You have to be sick in the head to want to do it. It’s defective. Besides, Sweetie’s just a child.” Her little sister hunched almost imperceptibly.
“Nonsense. She may be young, but you can’t dismiss what she said just because of that. It made sense and she obviously thought about it.” Sweetie smiled to herself a little. He talked about her like an adult, and obviously thought that what she had said was sensible enough to have come from one. She went and sat down on the empty sofa. She wanted to listen to the rest of the conversation. Maybe he’d want her opinion again.
+++++
Sweetie’s head nodded forwards, then her eyes flashed wide as she jerked it back. She was dog tired, but she certainly didn’t want to be sent to bed. She shot a nervous look at Noteworthy, sitting across from her on the sofa, but he just smiled at her. She was safe, as long as she could keep herself from nearly falling asleep again.
He was staying at their house again, as he did every few months. He found Ponyville a welcome relief from the busy, noisy, frantic streets of Canterlot, and when he took a holiday Rarity always proposed that he stay with them. Sweetie approved of the arrangement; Noteworthy was always interesting to be around, and treated her like someone really important, and they also got to go and stay with him in Canterlot sometimes. It was strange, though, that he always used a different room to Rarity. In Sweetie’s memory, her sister had never had a colt friend who wasn’t a coltfriend. She suspected that it was because he was a coltcuddler – and that that was why he had been defending them when she first met him – but it would be rude to pry.
Her head pulled up again. Being distracted by her thoughts, she’d forgotten that she was trying to stay awake. With Rarity having gone up early, and Noteworthy being so lax, she could probably stay up later than she ever had before, but she wouldn’t get away with it if she started falling asleep right in front of him.
“You alright?” Damn it. The game was up, but she had to try, at least.
“Don’t worry, aba … ab … ah, aaaah….” she desperately tried to force the yawn down, but her face was pulling back so hard that she was showing all her teeth. “I’m fine,” she said when she had regained control, “I’m tired, but I’m not sleepy. Like, my body feels tired, but it doesn’t feel like it would be able to sleep.” It was worth a shot. She found herself slowly grinding a hoof against one side of her face. Oh, for Celestia’s sake, it was like her body was trying to get her sent to bed.
She felt a leg on her shoulder, and Noteworthy toppled her over onto himself. “Well, no point sending you up, then, is there? But, if you’re tired, then resting against something should help.” It was kind of weird that he was being so close with her -- she’d never usually be cuddling up to someone who wasn’t her family or one of the other Crusaders -- but he was nice and, perhaps more importantly right now, warm and soft. She pushed into his coat and nodded slightly. It was only when he lightly nuzzled the top of her head that she realised something.
Sweetie fell asleep smiling, and woke up hugging her teddy tight the next morning, having been tucked away in her bed.
