"Are you sure it's going to work?" The question was reverberated by the hard wooden boards of the clubhouse, midday light falling on the three fillies crowded together on the floor, one of each race. The one who had spoken, Sweetie Belle, had a concerned look on her face as she let her eyes drift over the faces of her two friends, Applebloom and Scootaloo. Out of the three, only she was truly nervous. Applebloom was simply skeptical, nodding at Sweetie Belle's complaint, her bow bobbing slightly as she turned her head to listen to Scootaloo's response. The pegasus, on the other hoof, had a wide grin on her face, her small wings held outwards in her excitement.
"Well, duh! Isn't it obvious? I'm a pegasus, so I'm supposed to be high. Applebloom, you help out on the farm with your sister and brother, right?" The pegasus had turned her large eyes from the unicorn to the earth pony, who gave a small nod, her head tilted slightly in confusion as to where her friend's reasoning was going. "Then you've had to have helped to fix stuff! A roof can't be all that different. And Sweetie, you're a unicorn! I'm sure you could fix anything as easy as easy is!" Scootaloo beamed at the other two, her seemingly impeccable logic slowly convincing the others to agree with her, with Applebloom being the first to speak up.
"Well... Ah am kinda good at fixin' things... Maybe we should give it a go!" She grinned, Sweetie Belle giving a slightly worried nod in response. "But... where are we gonna get the stuff? Ah mean, not many ponies sell roof supplies, do they?"
Scootaloo waved a hoof in response. "Nah, don't worry about that! I got us covered." Nopony in the room bothered to ask how, knowing that she would somehow manage to scrape together the supplies they needed for their project. "Now... give me about three days, and I'll have everything for us." The pegasus fluttered her wings, emphasizing her confidence for the upcoming try for their cutie marks. "Meet here tomorrow at the usual time to discuss it further, girls?"
"Yep!" The response was simultaneous, although Sweetie Belle did blink as she remembered something.
"Oh! We were going to try for the painting cutie marks again! I got us the paints, but I couldn't find the blue... or the yellow... or the green..." Her ears fell slightly as she shifted, the other two noticing the paint cans in the corner of the room for the first time that day. "I managed to get a yellow-green, though, and a violet... will that do?"
"It'll do great! Thanks for the reminder, Sweetie." Scootaloo rushed over to the paint cans, poking at it with a hoof before turning to the other two fillies, the smile on her muzzle reflecting her confidence not for the roofing job, but now for their attempt at redecoration. "You two ready?"
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"Well that was a total and absolute failure." Scootaloo complained as they returned to the clubhouse. All three were covered in a mismatch of their two paints, reflecting their performance at the task itself. Sweetie Belle trotted in first, the filly opening the door with a garish, yellowish-green hoof, and soon she came back out with a large bucket, leading the way to the nearest water source: the farm.
"Well, Ah'm glad we didn't make it too bad. Ah reckon that it'll be cleaned up by the end of the week." Applebloom had managed to remain somewhat optimistic, mostly due to the fact she had hardly done any of the painting, helping only by holding up the ladders the other two were using.
Scootaloo simply groaned in response, shooting a glare at her friend. "Why did we try this again, exactly? It didn't work the first time, you know."
"'Cuz we were asked, Scootaloo. Well, not asked, but you know what Ah mean." The earth pony shifted uneasily, knowing how much she had pleaded Carrot Top to repaint her house, and only succeeded on the account of a few exaggerations. "Besides, at least we know that these colors don't go together, right?"
"Well... all right, then." Scootaloo mumbled, conceding defeat. After that came a long silence, none of the ponies wanting to speak up after their latest failed attempt, and even after the farm had come into view, the three remained pensive, wanting to get washed up and go their separate ways. Applebloom took the lead, trotting past Sweetie Belle as they reached the farmhouse, moving to the side of the building while the other two waited for her to bring back the hose.
When she had come back, and all had rid themselves of the clashing colors, they laid down in the grass, letting the sun dry them off and return them to their normal, hyperactive state. This state would come soon, Scootaloo finally groaning and rolling onto her back, bored. "This is taking too long. Where can we go to get this finished up?"
"Unless ya'll want to get cleaned up by mah sister, right here's the perfect spot." Applebloom giggled, smirking at her friend's inability to remain still. Scootaloo, on the other hoof, mulled that over in her mind, working through the idea before finally deciding that being outside on the grass was a much better, if much slower, way to dry herself off. She managed to lay there for an entire minute before finally rolling over once more and standing up, frowning at the other two.
"Sorry girls, I'm going to have to go. I can't lay here all day, after all. Don't forget tomorrow!" She stayed to share a wave with the other two, before leaving them and disappearing from view. The other two stayed where they were a while longer, before Sweetie Belle found a reason to leave herself, the yellow filly remaining outside for a few hours. Afterwards, she entered her house for the rest of her day, her mind filled with thoughts of getting her cutie mark.
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"That'll never work!" Scootaloo was scrunched up in between Sweetie Belle and Applebloom, her face contorted into an expression of irritated concentration. Her hoof was pointed directly at the crudely done plans that lay before the three. She finally brought her head back up to face the other two. "How're we supposed to fix the roof on a tree? It's all leaves!"
"No, not the library! Ah'm talkin' about that one." Applebloom shoved Scootaloo's hoof aside, pointing at a house a few streets away from the center of their map, where they had decided to put down the library as a point of reference. "Somepony did somethin' to it and now's our chance to prove our stuff and get our cutie marks!" That seemed to appease Scootaloo, who nodded at Applebloom's reasoning, a thoughtful look on the pegasus' face.
"Okay, I get it now... It'll work! I'll check it out after we all head out, so I know what we need. Sweetie Belle?" The unicorn nodded. "I need you to find a way up there."
"Me?!" Sweetie Belle nearly jumped back. "B-but I can hardly even climb! How am I supposed to find a way to a roof?" Her voice had begun to crack, her unease showing quite clearly in both her speech and her eyes.
"Oh, come on, Sweetie Belle! It isn't that hard to get up to a roof. Just find a place that looks like steps." Scootaloo rolled her eyes as she spoke, annoyed at her friend's inexperience. "Tell you what. I'll be with you to check out the damage. I'll help you find the way up, got it?" Sweetie Belle nodded, her eyes still worried, but at least she wasn't vocally complaining. "Applebloom? I need you to find excuses. We won't get our cutie marks if somepony decides to stop us before we start." Applebloom nodded, the information locking itself in her mind. "We all know what we'll be doing?" The other two gave a nod, and Scootaloo smirked. "Then come on, laying around in here won't help us with anything!"
They packed up their stuff, Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle parting with Applebloom as they went their separate ways. The trip to their destination would only take a few minutes, the streets clear as usual, with the ponies around sticking to the sides. Every so often one would wave to the fillies, and Sweetie Belle would give an enthusiastic wave in return, the pegasus controlling their transport too concentrated on not crashing to notice.
As they reached the building, both fillies winced. The damage was quite apparent, the thatched roof having crumpled, almost to the point of vanishing from sight completely. After a few moments, however, Scootaloo smirked. "This'll be easy! We just need to push some stuff around, cut off a few things, and put things back on!" The unicorn that had ridden with her, however, was not so certain.
"But... it'd take a whole bunch of ponies to push that back up! How are three fillies gonna fix this?" As they exited, Scootaloo gave a snort in response.
"Leave that to me, Sweetie. You have to take care of getting us up there, is all." With that, the pegasus turned her attention away from Sweetie Belle's concern, focusing instead on the building itself. She moved around considerably, trying to act professionally, and managing to do a halfway convincing job of it. Soon, she had pulled out spare paper and a quill, and had begun taking short notes on it.
Sweetie Belle gulped, turning away from Scootaloo to work on her own task, her mind flitting from concern to concern as she searched. She trotted to the other side of the building to inspect a wall she thought would work, only to find that there was no way up the wall at all. A thorough check revealed the same case on the opposite side of the structure, causing the unicorn sigh, half out of irritation and half out of relief. When she returned and reported to Scootaloo her findings, however, the pegasus had a very different opinion on the matter.
"Awesome! We can use one wall to get up ourselves and the other to get stuff from the roof up and down!" Scootaloo looked up from her notes, grinning at Sweetie Belle. "Great find! Good thing we have you in this group, huh?"
Sweetie Belle shook her head, feeling far from proud of her findings. "But we can't even get up the walls! They're way to high even for one of the adults to get up." Scootaloo chuckled at her complaint, scribbling something down before spitting out the writing instrument and turning once more to Sweetie.
"Just stack some stuff up. There's a wagon attached to my scooter, after all." With that problem solved, Sweetie Belle sighed, and nodded.
"All right then... um, with my part done, can I go now?" She turned her head back to the building. She did not want to be here any longer than she had to. Something felt off about what they were going to do, and she didn't like the feeling. Fortunately for her, the pegasus gave a grunt in return and waved a hoof. With that, Sweetie Belle was off, trotting with a frown back to the Carousel Boutique and leaving Scootaloo to her work.
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Author's Notes
Well, here it is. My first multi-chapter story! With an actual story line! I had quite a bit of fun writing it, aside from a period where I simply could not pick back up on continuing it. However, it's finished, and has been edited by someone besides myself this time. And so, I give a huge thanks to Kuviare, a great friend of mine, for helping to edit this thing.