To Snuggle The Moon
Pinkie Pie power-slid through the door of Celestia’s room, depositing Rarity in a heap on the floor in front of Princess Luna. With a cocky grin, she reached for the brim of her fedora, only to discover it missing. Pinkie Pie gasped and spun around, facing the slowly closing bedroom door, and reached one hoof back into the dark room. She snatched her hoof away at the last possible second as the door shut, barely retrieving the dropped fedora, which she planted back on her candyfloss mane. She spun with a happy flounce to face the incredulous, stunned faces of her three friends and Princess Luna. “It belongs in a museum!”
“H-huh?” sputtered Rainbow Dash.
“Uh, the decor in there. Duh! Celestia’s room needs some serious redecorating. Maybe some streamers…” Pinkie muttered, her tone pensive as she toyed with the brim of her fedora.
“Where is Twilight Sparkle?” asked Luna.
“Oh, she’s still in there,” Pinkie Pie said with a wave of her hoof.
“S-shouldn’t we go get her?” said Fluttershy.
Pinkie Pie looked back towards the door, running a hoof along her chin as she considered Fluttershy’s suggestion seriously. Finally, with a happy grin, she declared, “Nope!”
“Shall we... assume there is good reason to leave Princess Sparkle in mine sister’s bedchamber?” Luna said, drawing her words out slowly.
“She’s a bit wrapped up right now. She’ll figure a way out of it. After all, she’s Twilight!”
“Verily…” Princess Luna crouched down, examining the still-sleeping form of Rarity.
“So, what d'ya reckon is wrong with Rarity, Princess Luna?” asked Applejack, eyeing her snoring friend.
Luna trotted a slow circle around Rarity, eyeing her warily. “I am uncertain, fair Applejack, but I know a few spells that may help ascertain the root of the issue.”
With that, Luna stood at Rarity’s head, her wings flaring out as her horn began to glow with arcane energies. Rarity’s whole body was enveloped with a dark blue shimmer for several moments before Luna turned away from the sleeping unicorn, breaking off the spell. The hallway stayed quiet, except for the nervous shifting sounds of the Solar Guards trying not to watch the spectacle before them, before Applejack finally spoke up. “Well?”
“Thy friend is cursed,” Luna stated quietly.
“Beg pardon?” said Applejack, ears lying flat.
Luna faced the four friends, face grim. “She bears a dark and powerful curse, one that is beyond the limit of mine powers.”
“Woah, wait, beyond your power? How is that even possible? Aren’t you, like, awesomeness and radicalness ponified?” blurted Rainbow Dash, eyes wide.
“Verily, we art… full of the radicalness,” Luna said carefully, as if uncertain of the use of the word, “yet there are magics that are beyond even the likes of Celestia and I. Old magics that are from times before even the Alicorns.”
“Before the alicorns? B-but, oh, that’s… a very, very long time ago, isn’t it?” asked Fluttershy.
“Indeed, even before mine sister and I were the regents of this land, and before Discord himself.”
“Wowie-zowie, that’s old!” Pinkie said with a giggle, before giving Luna an exaggerated wink, “Oh, but don’t worry, you don’t look a day over three hundred.”
Luna frowned at Pinkie Pie briefly, before glancing toward the rest of the group. “Your loud friend is correct; that makes this curse upon thy friend very old, indeed.”
“That’s impossible! Rarity may be the oldest one of us girls, but she ain’t ancient! She’s twenty-five, for pete’s sake!” Applejack protested, one hoof stomping the floor.
“You are correct, which is why the circumstance is so troubling. We suggest that we retire to the Royal Canterlot Archive, where we may find answers to the questions we have,” Luna said.
“Do you mean ‘we’ like ‘you’ or, ‘we’ like ‘all of us girls?’” asked Pinkie Pie, her head tilting to one side slowly.
“I mean it in the group sense, and not the Royal We.” Luna looked pensively back towards the doors to Celestia’s bedchambers. “Tis too bad that Princess Sparkle is indisposed. We’ll have to search the archive stacks and restricted sections, and her knowledge of all things library-related would have served us well.”
“We’re just going to leave Twilight?” Fluttershy asked.
Luna glanced at Pinkie Pie. “Unless Miss Pie believes she can retrieve Princess Sparkle…?”
Pinkie shook her head. “Nopey-dopey-lopey! She’s wrapped up tighter than… uh… something Applejack would say is tight.”
“Balin’ wire in a hayloft,” Applejack supplied with a curt nod.
“Yeah! That!” Pinkie Pie sighed wistfully. “How can you be so good at those down-homey farm-type similes, but I can’t think up one to save my life? We’re related for pony’s sake!”
“Your side of the family must’a gotten the… uh… bakin’ genes,” Applejack ventured slowly.
“Regardless of genetic lineage and colorful simile use, I feel it is urgent we discover the cause of Lady Rarity’s plight as soon as we can,” Luna said, gesturing towards the hall’s exit and the Royal Canterlot Archive.
Rainbow Dash swooped down and picked up Rarity, hauling her onto her back carefully so as not to wake the sleeping unicorn. “Princess Luna’s right. We gotta get Rarity back to normal. After all, her having some sorta creepy old curse is totally, uh, uncouth. And you know Rarity! She’s all about… um… couth-ness.”
“I don’t think that’s a word,” murmured Fluttershy.
“Well, it is now. Let’s mosey!”
With that, Rainbow Dash sped away, carrying Rarity towards the Archive. Princess Luna looked to the rest of the group with an arched brow. “I suppose we’re leaving Princess Sparkle here, then. Let’s, as you say, mosey!”
Luna sighed as she set aside yet another dusty tome of ancient magic theory, adding it to the growing pile of scrolls, books, and papers. Glancing up at the moon, she judged the time to be somewhere near the early morning, perhaps an hour before sunrise. The Royal Canterlot Archive was proving to be a monumental waste of time. Rainbow Dash lay on her back, holding one book up above her head in her forehooves, but Luna noticed that that she hadn’t turned a page in nearly twenty minutes. Nearby, Applejack silently mouthed words, eyes squinting as she puzzled her way through perhaps only her fourth or fifth book. Fluttershy had dutifully worked her way through a sizeable stack of books, but had come up empty. Pinkie Pie… was gone. Something about ‘brain food.’
Beneath the table, Rarity quietly snored, both forelegs wrapped around Luna’s left rear hoof, cheek resting against her fetlock. Luna had attempted to shake her off, twice, but each time had found the slumbering unicorn clutching at her hooves yet again within a matter of moments. Deciding it was better to let cursed unicorns lie, she allowed the undignified snuggling of her hoof to continue.
Shaking her head, Luna stood up from the table she had situated the group around, taking a moment to slide her rear leg out of Rarity’s grasp. She approached the towering stacks of scrolls that made up the restricted section of the archive, utilizing a silent spell to open the gate protecting the ancient manuscripts. She wandered between the rows upon rows of bronze-capped papers, pausing occasionally to peruse a section at random. Closing her eyes, Luna summoned her magic and pulled a section of a dozen scrolls loose from their holders. Her dexterous magical manipulation unrolled all the papers simultaneously, revealing the faded ink writing. She spared a quick glance at the first few lines of each manuscript, hoping to find anything useful.
“Celery?” offered Pinkie Pie from directly over Luna’s shoulder.
With an arched brow, Luna glanced away from the scrolls, gazing on the smiling pony bearing a tray of vegetables. “How did you manage to acquire chopped vegetables at this odd hour?”
“Well, I’ve got a long answer and a short one, but since you look busy let’s not worry about it! Celery?”
Luna took the offered celery stalk, crunching down on the petiole with a satisfying snap. She munched on the food pensively, looking over the scrolls with quick efficiency. Finding nothing, she carefully closed all twelve scrolls and returned them to the stack, retrieving another group for perusal.
“So, any luck?” asked Pinkie Pie, head tilting to the side.
“Unfortunately, no,” Luna said sharply, ears flattening back.
Pinkie Pie flinched back from her snappy reply, nearly stumbling over her own hooves and dropping the tray. She managed a midair pirouette that recovered the falling tray and rebalanced herself. Luna sighed. “I apologize, Miss Pie. I know that each member of this group is contributing in her own way, but we could have used another pair of eyes to search the library for tomes regarding curses.”
“Well, I found a ton of stuff earlier, but when I showed Applejack she gave me that look that ponies give me sometimes when they don’t understand me,” Pinkie Pie said, eyes downcast.
“What, pray tell, did thou discover?” Luna asked, only half paying attention as she continued to read the floating scrolls unfurled before her.
“Well, I thought about what you said, about Rarity being under a curse and stuff, and I don’t know much about magic, but I do know a lot about bedtime stories, and Granny Pie used to tell me all kinds of stuff about fair damsels in distress and old curses and sleeping for a hundred years, typical stuff, but then I thought about it and said to myself, ‘well, Rarity’s a damsel, and the boys always look at her like she’s pretty fair—if ya get my drift—and what with her being cursed and sleepy and all that, maybe there’s something in the little filly’s section that can help us!’ So I pranced over to the kiddie books and grabbed everything they had on narcoleptic ladies with a history of making scary witches angry!”
Luna looked askance at Pinkie Pie for a moment. “Did you, now?”
“Yupperooni! And wouldn’t you know it, there was a buncha stuff on how to lift nasty curses on pretty ponies who are getting too much beauty sleep!”
Luna stared at Pinkie Pie. “... There was?”
“Yeah!”
After a moment of quiet consideration, Luna gestured back towards the table where the other mares were working. “Well, show me thy discovery. Perhaps thy... unorthodox approach may be of help.”
Pinkie Pie beamed from ear to ear as she hopped her way over to a stack of books beneath the table, grabbing one at random and placing it on the table. “See, this one’s got lots of pretty pictures!”
Luna stared aghast at the gold filigree of an ancient illuminated manuscript. “Pinkie Pie, this isn’t a children’s book! This is an ancient treatise on curse breaking written by Clover the Clever!”
“Oh. Well, you could’a fooled me!”
Luna poured over the tome, her magic flipping the pages as she searched. “Sloth… slowness… ah ha! Sleep!”
Applejack peered up at Luna from her stack of books. “Ya find somethin’?”
“Miss Pie may have found what we require! A book of curse breaking, written in the time after Equestria was founded, but prior to the reign of mine sister and I.”
The group gathered close, crowding around Luna as she read, brow furrowed in concentration. “It has written here several methods of breaking the curse of magical sleep which are known to me… wait. Here!”
Luna read aloud. “There is yet another curse, one of terrible power, which was wrought upon ponykind long before the founding of our homeland of Equestria; the lineage of Princess Platinum was struck with a strange sleep that brought the second-born mares of the family from their beds in the middle of the night, transporting them across great distances to homes and cities hither and yon, with no rhyme nor reason!”
“That sounds like our curse, all right. How do we break it?” asked Rainbow Dash, leaning forward intently.
“A moment… it says here that the symptoms came and persisted for stretches of time, but always abated within the mare’s lifetime. The curse was passed from generation to generation, and no way to break it was ever found.”
“Just a moment. You said… second born mares were affected?” asked Fluttershy.
“Indeed, that is what the book says.”
Fluttershy shook her head. “That doesn’t make any sense. Rarity isn’t the second born mare of her family.”
Luna frowned, glancing at Fluttershy. “She is not?”
“No. If what you’re reading is right, and this is the curse that is affecting Rarity, then something is wrong. The second born mare in her family is…”
Sweetie Belle tossed and turned in her sleep, mumbling in a squeaky voice. “Mmmgh... n-no, Button, the creepers… are pooping diamonds…”
With a dainty gasp, she awoke, sitting up in her bed quickly and shrieking, “Ahhhhhh!”
The door to Sweetie Belle’s room opened, and Cookie Crumbles walked in, her glowing horn lighting up the room. “Honey, what have we told you about screaming!”
“Ah! M-Mom! I’m sorry, it just slipped out!” Sweetie Belle wailed, tearing up.
Cookie smiled reassuringly at her quivering daughter. “Oh, honey,” she murmured, sitting down on the edge of Sweetie Belle’s bed and holding her close. “Your father and I haven’t done all this work all these years just for you to slip up in your sleep. Self control is part of being a lady, and that includes your waking and sleeping thoughts.”
“I know, mommy,” Sweetie Belle said quietly.
“After all, we’re counting on you to be our perfect little filly,” she cooed, pinching one of Sweetie Belle’s cheeks slightly harder than was perhaps necessary.
“Ngh, I know, mommy. It’s just hard, sometimes,” Sweetie Belle said with a perfectly adorable and very well practiced pout.
“Hm, well, I’m sure you can do better,” Cookie said gently, before glancing out a nearby window at the black night sky. “For all our sakes.”
Sweetie Belle shivered.
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So... Sweetie is older than Rarity?
ooooooooooh I see a plot is thickening ! drodd.com/images8/funny-animated-gifs/funny-animated-gifs17.gif
Dafuq, this is getting weirder and weirder now..... More
5167683 What if she's Sweetie Bot? She would never age, so she could be.
Well isn't that a plot twist
5167683 Or perhaps they had a child before Rarity, and Sweetie is actually their third kid?
5167777
Unlikely.
There would be no narrative reason to briefly focus on Sweetie Belle unless the intention was to suggest that she was special, or to provide a convenient setting to suggest there was a previous child. Since the latter was already covered by the previous scene with Rarity, the Sweetie scene is either as I said or it is redundant; not to mention the scene's content didn't really point to the existence of a child before the two known sisters.
Wait, this is weird. Why are we suddenly accusing Sweetie Belle now? If Sweetie is the first born, why would the parents go all through the trouble of hiding her true form or something? She isn't affected by the curse, right?
Luna might need Tiberius for assistance.
I just watched Gametrailer's movie-length lookback on Castlevania, so my mind immediately jumped to resurrection...
Wow, I thought this was going to end with Twi left in her unsettling position
I love how you wrote Pinkie, by the way
5167793
they seem to think that something needs to be done to make sure Sweetie doesn't do something in her sleep, so my guess is that they know of the curse and have taken steps to protect Sweetie from it (probably causing it to change focus and affect the only other sibling)
5167810 Actually, I think Sweetie Belle IS the second-born, but her parents spent her entire life taking preventive measures against the curse... which caused it to shift to Rarity.
I feel ripped off by this chapter though. Barely any moon snuggling.
5168417
oh
Commence read.
Hm.
hmmm Ez?
"Well, it is now. Let’s mosey!”
^Cloud Strife would be proud. ...Not that this is necessarily referencing that, I'm just throwing that out there.
This chapter title was false advertising. And is Sweetie a vampire?
5168364
I like that theory. Plausible that I'm no longer sure which of us is right.
5169166
Rarity was hugging Luna's leg.
We're DOOOOOOOMED!
5169166 Yes.
Just goes to show, curses will be curses unless you actually break them. Attempts at suppression is apparently a fool's game.
Also, I love the idea that Rarity and family really are descended from Platinum.
Curiouser and curiouser,
s6.postimg.org/5ul2jmext/continue_Monkey.jpg
Wow. Rarity's parents are messed up.
Well, this got really weird, really quickly.
I am confooseled.
Oh, oh, oh! That chapter ending!
This just graduated from "keep reading" list to "favorites" list.
Guys, think about it. How would first-born foals of royalty be treated? How are Rarity's parents being shown to treat Sweetie Belle?
It's not about the actual order of birth. It's about the pressure put on the sibling of the "cursed princess" - and it simply had always been the eldest to suffer from that pressure. That's why no curse could be found - they were trying to un-curse the wrong pony! I'd guess that SB's uneasy slumber (hilarious Minecraft reference, btw) must somehow be triggering this effect on Rarity...
" NOOOOOOOOOOOOO"
Spikey and the curse of the butt monkey! 
"I am the one you have to kiss"
"Muffins!"
"I'm still here!"
Spikey ran to Luna and with a big smile proclaimed " I will kiss Rarity and Break the curse !"
" Don't think so Sugar cube" AJ popped "You're not the scheduled knight for tonight"
"Who is ?"
"Help?"
" I know you are!"
Ha Ha Ha Ha
Ok, what the buck is up with Rarity's Mom? She clearly knows about the curse and hasn't told Rarity. Sweetie seems to know too, and she's being groomed to be 'the perfect daughter' or whatever? Why do I have the feeling that Rarity's whole family is out to screw her over for their benefit?
Well, that just turned kinda dark.
Most excellent update.
How come I didn't get a notice about a chapter update?!
So there were three daughters? What happened to the first one? Did she not want to be a lady, so Rarity's parents Killed her?
Also, Rarity is decendant of royalty?
5190585 ... What da fuq are you talking about?
Didn't you get how the curse works? The second born are affected, there is no mention of a 3rd born.
Also, as it seems Sweetie Belle carries the real curse, Rarity may only carry part of it, maybe it's because of their special connection as sisters, or because they are 'twin sisters'.
5216784
If Rarity isn't the second born, then it makes no sense for her to be cursed.
The implication that the curse is for second borns, and Rarity is cursed, doesn't require any mention of a third born for there to be a valid guess that she is in fact the second born.
Thus does Rainbow unintentionally reveal herself as a closet Luna fanfilly. It will be a shame when she and Twilight are forced to duel to the death in the inevitable civil war that is coming.
A guess: because Sweetie is being depicted as sickeningly, indescribably adorable and impossible to dislike, the curse itself looked upon her and said "Nope, not hurting that cute little thing." Deciding that making one little slip up after a thousand years or so wouldn't do any harm, it decided to hit Rarity instead.
Alternatively, their parents found a way to move the curse to Rarity instead of Sweetie, which would be a rather cruel (but obviously amusing) play of favoritism.I guess being a fashionista wasn't 'noble and elite' enough for their parents, huh?
And, with great sadness, I send this back to my Incompletes bookshelf. I was hoping this would be another crackfic with no semblance of a consistent plot, but alas, I was wrong. Should have waited for it to be finished first...
5366633
Good news, I'm finishing this story ASAP. Get ready for the update train to completeville!
memecrunch.com/meme/13CJY/what-a-twist/image.png
...huh.
That sounds eerily familiar....
5169451
[youtube=aXU8w336oGs]
da fuq just happened?
Well, multiple explanations come to mind: a first sister before Rarity, Sweetie Belle was really the first born somehow, Sweetie Belle was the second born but the curse latched onto Rarity through some mechanism (Sweetie is protected against it, Rarity's so Generous that she unconsciously takes Sweetie's curse away from her).
The real question is why Discord fixated on Rarity's age and her not having found a stallion yet, which probably will have something to do with breaking the curse. At least Rarity can take solace in the fact that as a descendant of Princess Platinum, she is Royalty
Best line ever
Well, that's unsettling
Also, if the cuddle curse HAD affected Sweetie Belle, the amplified adorableness would have been deadly.
'Cause she's not crazier 'an a tick on a rabid honey badger, is why!