The Book of Friendship

by BillyColt

Chapter 8

Chapter 8

Barrel had walked into the mission a few days ago, suspicious, like many a pony. He saw the two missionaries sitting down at a table, White with a book in front of him, and Scroll and the little pegasus colt sitting across from him.

“So, what is the most important thing that we learn from the story of the Sonic Rainboom?” asked Brother White.

“That you should always be there for a friend when they need support, and that you shouldn’t be so self-centered you forget it,” answered Scroll, who probably knew the book better than White.

“Good!” said White, flipping through pages. “Now, Clip, your turn - what is the most important thing we learn from Trixie and Twilight Sparkle’s encounter with the Ursa Minor?”

“Umm...” said Clip, trying to think, “that unicorns shouldn’t show off their magic?”

“Nooooo,” said White, “the thing is, Clip, that all of us ponies are special, and we shouldn’t be ashamed of the things that make us who we are. The important thing to remember is that we mustn’t think that these things make us better than the ponies around us.”

“Ohhh,” said Clip, nodding.

“Okay, Scroll, now your turn to quiz me,” said White, floating the book over to the blue earth pony.

“Okay...” said Scroll, flipping through the pages, “how about this one - what is it we learn from the story of Fluttershy and the phoenix?”

“That we should ask permission before taking things into our own hooves!” said White, beaming. “That right?”

“Uh-huh,” said Scroll.

Clip, however, seemed confused. “Then... what about me?”

White’s smile twitched a little. Scroll also found Clip’s question troubling. The silence allowed Barrel a chance to speak up.

“Hi,” said Barrel, nervously. The other three ponies looked at him.

“Oh, hi!” said White.

“You’re the pony from the tavern, right?” asked Scroll.

“Yeah,” said Barrel, “I’m Barrel, and I’m Tap’s brother.”

“Oh...” said Scroll, starting to fidget with his glasses for some reason.

“Well, Barrel, why don’t you come on in?” asked White, “pull up a seat?”

“Alright...” said Barrel, taking a chair from the room and dragging it over to the table, sitting next to Scroll. The unicorn smiled at him. He’d never seen a unicorn smile at him like that. Not without a gun floating next to his head...

“So,” White said, “Barrel, that’s your name? What do you know of our Fraternity?”

“Umm...” said Barrel, “well, you have books...”

“Uh-huh?” said White, pressing further.

“You go around doors a lot...”

“Uh-huh?”

“You know my sister...”

Brother Scroll fidgeted with his glasses some more. Brother White didn’t let that smile falter. Barrel looked at it. It was friendly. “I don’t think of you as an idiot,” it seemed to say, “I like you and think you’d do great with us.”

“Well, that’s all I really know...”

“Well,” said White, “we are called the Fraternity of the Joyous Friends of Princess Celestia...”

So they told him about Princess Celestia and Twilight Sparkle and the Elements of Harmony. They told him about the importance of love and tolerance and sharing and caring. Barrel started to spend most of his spare time with the Fraternity, learning about the organization and their book. He was not as sardonic a pony as his sister, and he quickly found himself liking the stories. Their philosophy, their way of life... it was just so happy that he found himself swept up in it, no matter how silly it might have seemed.

At the moment, Scroll and Barrel were hauling a large chest into the wheelbarrow, while White paced back and forth excitedly.

“Oh man, you guys, this is gonna be great!” White said, “We got everything?”

“I think so...” said Scroll.

“Wonderful!” said White, “Now, Barrel, you swear you haven’t told anyone what we’re doing?”

“Yeah!” said Barrel. White and Scroll looked at him. “Yeah, uh,” Barrel stammered, “I mean, yeah, I swear I haven’t told anyone.”

“Alrighty,” said White, “tomorrow’s the big day, then.”

“I’ll see if I can get my sister to close the tavern tomorrow,” said Barrel, “we’ve been talking about doing it for a little while.”

“Sounds like a plan!”

___________

“Please?” asked Barrel. “You said we could shut down the tavern for a day this week.”

“Barrel, I’d like to, but we simply can’t afford it,” said Tap. This really was not the opportune time for such a conversation, as they were busy.

“But this is really, really important!”

“You still haven’t told me what ‘this’ is.”

“Bitch, I asked for a drink,” shouted a patron.

“Then take this bottle and shove it up your ass!”

“Well, I can’t,” said Barrel, “it’s a surprise.”

Tap rolled her eyes. “Oh, I give up... Listen, you can do it if you really want, but I’ll have to stay here.”

“But I want you to see it...”

Tap sighed. “Barrel, you can’t always get what you want. That’s just how life is.”

Barrel’s ears drooped.

“Look, Barrel,” she said, relenting, “I’d like to come see... whatever it is you’re putting on, I really would, but we have work.”

“I want a fucking beer!”

“Shut up!” shouted Tap. “Look,” she said, turning back to Barrel, “you can take the day off tomorrow, do your thing. Then you can tell me all about it. Okay?”

“Okay...”

“There. Now, could you run down to the cellar and grab a bottle of beer so this asshole will shut up?”

"Whore."

"Jackass."

___________

“Make way, everypony!” shouted Brother White, as he, Brother Scroll, Clip, and Barrel made their way through the town. Scroll was pulling the wheelbarrow, as usual, and in the wheelbarrow was the large trunk. “Alright, guys, you remember everything?” White asked.

“Yeah...” said Scroll, “I dunno why we have to do it at the...”

“It’s the only place that works for this,” said White, stopping. “All right, here we are!”

They were standing in front of the gallows - a wooden platform, high into the air. There was a wooden beam looming over the platform, some nooses still dangling from it, flapping in the wind like ghosts. There was a lever on the platform that opened the trap door, sending any hapless pony below, where they wouldn’t hit the ground until the rope was cut.

Scroll gulped.

“Stage fright?” asked Brother White.

“Among other things...”

“Well, come on, chop chop!” said Brother White, merrily trotting up to the stairs. There were other ponies around. They wondered why this unicorn seemed to be merrily heading off to his death. Of course, they used some sort of racism to explain that.

“Good afternoon, citizens of Earthquake Island!” he shouted out, and a crowd started gathering. Yes yes yes, he thought. “We have something very, very special for all of you today...”

He had to pause. Scroll and Barrel were still hauling the chest up the stairs. About a minute later, they managed to place the chest on the center of the platform.

“Ah, good,” said White when they finally got the thing where it was supposed to be. “And now...” he said, trying to make his voice sound deeper (which didn’t work because he was a tenor), “for the show!”

His horn glowed, and the lever released the trap door, sending the trunk falling. As it fell, it opened, and red cloth shot out, coming through the trap door and draping itself over the wooden beam, like a curtain. More red cloth emerged and covered the surface of the platform, billowing over the sides and covering up the area beneath. White and the others went behind the curtain.

The missionaries had turned the gallows into a stage.

___________

Tap was ready to run the tavern by herself. She expected that there would be the usual early-afternoon ponies on lunch break, a small group she could normally handle. However, they were nowhere to be seen. Well, except for that one guy passed out in the corner. He was there a lot. Occasionally she stopped by to make sure he was still breathing.

Nopony there. Her tavern was quiet. More than that, it wasn’t filled with assholes. That was the bright side. The downside was that the tavern was extraordinarily boring. She decided that maybe she’d go continue reading in the book that Brother White had given her. Then she thought. There was that thing the missionaries were doing that Barrel was helping out with. He really wanted her to see it. Maybe, just maybe, she could close up the tavern for now and go see it.

That is, if she knew where it was... of course, she reasoned that those two missionaries weren’t particularly difficult to find, what with one of them having a horn on his head.

A simple step out the door gave her the impression that there was a modest crowd of ponies heading in one particular direction. The direction in question, however, puzzled her - the gallows? That couldn’t be it. The missionaries couldn’t be looking forward to their own execution, could they-

Yes, she thought dryly, they absolutely could.

She reasoned, however, that execution probably wasn’t the case. She followed the crowd, almost dreading what their “surprise” was. She decided, too late, that it was a bad idea for her brother to be taking part in this. Her opinion was not improved when she got to the gallows - there it was, draped in gaudy red curtains that would’ve been better suited to... well, she never really thought about the uses of gaudy red curtains.

“Good afternoon, fillies and gentlecolts!” shouted the voice of Brother White (Scroll drew a comparison to Brother Emcee from the ceremony), “Today, we have something very, very special to show to all the ponies here on Earthquake Island! We would like to tell you the story of how our Fraternity began!”

The curtains drew back, and Tap stared, dumbfounded.

There, standing on the gallows, was Brother White. He was wearing fake wings, a gold tiara, fancy gold horseshoes, and he had a multicolored cloth covering his mane.

“I am Princess Celestia!” announced Brother White. “I rule over the land of Equestria, and it is my task to raise the sun each day!”

“And I!...” shouted a voice, “am her sister, Princess Luna!”

It was Brother Scroll. He, too, was in drag, also sporting fake wings, a horn, an a silver tiara and horseshoes. “I raise the moon every night!”

Scroll was not a very good actor. His lines were all delivered in either a loud monotone or were shaky, like he was nervous. “We sisters embody all three of the pony races - earth, unicorn, and pegasus.”

It was sort of fitting, in a way. You have the radiant sun-princess and the quiet moon-princess. They also conveniently had the right colors, with Scroll being blue and White being, well, white.

There was an awkward silence. The two just stood there in their ridiculous costumes, staring at the audience. After a while, Brother Scroll let out a gasp as he realized that he still had another line.

“Sister, I am jealous!” he exclaimed, turning to Brother White.

“Why is that, Luna?” asked Brother White as Princess Celestia.

“Nopony appreciates what I do! I raise the moon every night, and they all sleep through it! That makes me jealous, so I will not lower the moon!”

“But you have to!”

“Make me!”

“Ohhh, my sister, I am so sorry,” intoned Brother White in the most melodramatic way he could (which was quite melodramatic), “but I can see that evil has seeped into your heart!”

“I shall depose you and become the one true princess of Equestria! I will be the queen of the night!”

“No! I will stop you!” Shouted Brother White, his horn glowing, “Forgive me, my sister!”

Brother Scroll let out a yelp as the trap door was sprung, sending him below the platform (Tap could have sworn she saw White mouth “don’t break character” down to him).

Tap blinked. She just had to wonder - what could they possibly hope to accomplish with this? What train of logic were they following that made them think that a poorly-produced pageant would perform better than their usual door-knocking routine?

Next, Clip walked onto the stage, wearing a fake horn, just like Scroll had. Brother White looked at him, “ahh, Twilight Sparkle, my favorite student! How are you?”

“I’m just fine, Princess Celestia,” said Clip, who was not much better at acting than Scroll had been.

“And yet I sense that something troubles you.”

“It’s Nightmare Moon, your majesty,” said Clip, “the prophecies have clearly foretold that the stars will aid in her escape this year at the Summer Sun Celebration. We have to stop her!”

“Twilight Sparkle,” said White, “thank you for bringing this to my attention. I decree that you go to Ponyville and make some friends!”

With that, Brother White left the stage, leaving Clip alone.

Please don’t start singing... thought Tap. Mercifully, she got her wish.

Brother Scroll walked on-stage, pink paint slapped onto his face. He looked at Clip, and then delivered in a flat, quiet voice, “My name is Pinkie Pie and I don’t know you so I will throw a party for you.” He then walked off the stage in exactly the same manner as he had walked on.

“Howdy!” shouted Brother White, prancing onto stage wearing a cowboy hat and orange paint smeared all over his face, “I’m Applejack! I run Sweet Apple Acres, where we prize good, hard, honest work! And food! We have lots and lots of food!”

Brother Scroll walked back on stage with the same fake wings, except this time he had several different colors of paint splashed in his mane. “I’M RAINBOW DASH!” he shouted, “I’M FAST AND BOLD! I CAN CLEAR THE CLOUDS IN EXACTLY ONE-SIXTH OF A MINUTE!”

All this time, Clip had no lines and just sort of walked from one side of the stage to the other, as White and Scroll alternated between overacting and underacting. Tap was extraordinarily glad that Barrel had not appeared on stage yet.

It became abundantly apparent that it was Brother White who was the real star of the show, which was probably for the best, given that he was the only pony who could act his way out of a paper bag. White’s insistence on being the center of attention became even clearer when he strutted out wearing a purple wig, walking towards the center of the stage.

“Helloooooo, Earthquake Island!” he said in the most flamboyant sing-song voice imaginable. “I am Rarity, the most glamorous pony in all of Ponyville! But I’m more than just that! I am very generous!”

Brother Scroll popped onto stage with purple paint on his face. “I find you very attractive,” he said, much more convincingly than anything else he’d acted so far.

“And today, I have something very special!” White’s horn glowed, and the trap door opened. Up through the trap door came various food items - two salt licks, two cartons of eggs, two bushels of apples, and two straw bales. “I am giving away two weeks worth of rations!”

“We are?” asked Scroll. “Oh yeah, she is...” he said, upon a reprimanding glance from White.

White walked down off of the gallows, passing out the food to the various ponies. Tap caught on - this was more than just their usual door-to-door attempt. They were trying to be a bit more blatant with reaching out, and one couldn’t be more blatant than giving away rations. She did have to wonder, though, how they planned on continuing to feed themselves if they gave away their own food.

She reasoned that they were well-intentioned idiots who simply hadn’t planned that far ahead.

It ended up that each individual pony didn’t really get a whole lot of rations, and Brother White quickly ran out of food. White found this disappointing, so much that he nearly broke character. The show must go on, he decided, and mounted the stair again, just as Brother Scroll walked on with a pink wig and yellow paint. He mumbled something - Tap could piece together “I like animals” before Scroll walked off the stage again.

Finally, after all that business, it was Clip’s turn to speak. “Now that I’ve made so many friends, it’s time for me to stop Nightmare Moon from...” he struggled with the word, “plunging Equestria into...” he struggled again, “eternal night!”

There was an awkward silence. Scroll stumbled onto the stage in the earlier Luna costume. “You are too late! I have stolen Princess Celestia, and now the night shall last forever!”

“No!” said Clip, “my friends and I have the Elements of Harmony!”

“What?” asked Scroll in the most flatly anti-climactic way possible. A cardboard rainbow (the audience gasped) swung across the stage, hanging by a rope. The trap door opened, and he fell down. Brother White emerged, wearing the Celestia costume again.

“My sister, I...” he reached down through the trap door. They hadn’t quite rehearsed this bit, as White struggled to try to pull Scroll up from the ground. Scroll was a bit heavier than White, and since White was a unicorn, his physical strength was not the best. After about three minutes of the audience watching them awkwardly try to pull Scroll up the trap door, Brother White let out a gasp for air, and finished, “...I forgive you.”

White turned to Clip, “And you,” he announced, “my prized student, Twilight Sparkle, what have you learned?”

“I learned about the magic of friendship!” said Clip excitedly (or at least the little guy was trying to say it excitedly).

“And you will stay here, in Ponyville, and learn more about the magic of friendship,” said Brother White, as he and Scroll walked behind the curtain, “and you will write letters to me, telling me what you have learned.”

A flag bearing the same symbol as the book unfurled, hanging over the stage. Brother White continued with his speech.

“And then I will take those letters, and we will put them into a book, and then the Fraternity of the Joyous Friends of Princess Celestia will take that book and go throughout Equestria and beyond, teaching ponies everywhere about the magic of friendship! Everywhere, from the city of Canterlot, to Apple-oosa, to little Earthquake Island, where the Fraternity will send... US!”

Brother White and Brother Scroll, now dressed as the nice little missionaries they were, burst from behind the curtains, Scroll with a book in his mouth and White with a book floating above his head. “And we are here to teach all of you about the magic of friendship, and what it can do for your lives!”

The three looked out at the audience expectantly. They were completely silent, just staring at the Brothers. Scroll looked at White, wondering what to do. He sat down and took the book out of his mouth, holding it in his hooves, before smiling at the audience like White (except less confident). After about twenty seconds of awkward silence, the crowd began to lose interest and walk away.

“Aren’t they supposed to applaud at this point?” whispered Scroll nervously.

“I knew we should’ve added a musical number...” said White.

The crowd cleared the area almost as quickly as it had formed, leaving only a few curious stragglers. “Yep,” said Brother White, “we definitely should’ve added a musical number.”

Barrel poked his head out from behind the curtain. “So...” he said, “we done?”

“Yep. That’s everything. Time to strike the set and all that. Thanks for the help,” said White.

“You guys...” called Tap, who hadn’t moved from where she was standing for the entire show, “I swear, you guys are completely crazy.”

“Funny," said White, "Twilight Sparkle said something like that."

Tap shook her head and walked towards the stairs. “I mean...” she stammered. There were no words for what she had just witnessed.

“Well, did you like our show?” asked Barrel.

“I, uhh...” said Tap. She decided that the only polite honest answer was “I’d never seen a play before.”

This, however, provoked a horrified reaction from Brother White. His jaw dropped. Oh brother... thought Tap.

“Naw-oh,” said Brother White, “you know something, once our mission is over, the five of us are all going to Equestria and we’re gonna see a musical. Got that?”

“Maybe,” said Tap, “c’mon, Barrel. We’ve got a tavern to run.”

“Oh, okay,” said Barrel, following his sister down the stairs, “I’ll see ya tomorrow, alright?” he asked, looking at the missionaries.

“Sure thing,” said White, before turning to Scroll, “c’mon, let’s get this all packed up.”

“They won’t want it in the way for their executions tomorrow,” said Scroll, in an uncharacteristically sarcastic tone.

White discovered the problem with trunks - just because stuff fits into them one time doesn’t mean it’s always easy to pack in. Sometimes they need to go in the correct order or else it doesn’t close properly.

“How?” he asked out loud, trying to get the curtains folded, “how did we fit them in the first time?”

The curtains were by far the most bulky part.

“I think they were rolled up a certain way,” said Scroll, taking one end and trying to fold it in half. “Maybe we should’ve written this down.”

“Can I help?” asked Clip.

“No, you just head back to the mission house,” said White, stuffing the fake wings into the trunk. “This might... take a while.”

“Oh, okay,” said Clip, leaving. He’d be safe, they figured. He knew his way around.

“I feel embarrassed...” said Scroll, when they were alone. “I don’t think I did very well...”

“Oh, pah,” said White, smiling, “you’re fine. You just need to be more confident. Tell ya what, when we get back to the mission house, I’ll give you a few pointers on improvising musical numbers. Sound good?”

“Yeah...” said Scroll, nodding, “that sounds really good.”

“Good, now if we can just... URGH!” he grunted, finally closing the door on the trunk, “now we can go.”

They pulled the wagon back along the road to the mission house. The sky was grey and the roads were completely empty. White looked around, feeling somewhat depressed.

“Overcast,” he said, “never gives the best feeling...” he looked at Scroll. Scroll had stopped walking, his feet frozen to the ground. “Scroll?”

“Overcast,” said Scroll, “you just said it’s overcast.”

“...yeah?”

“This island consists entirely of earth ponies,” said Scroll. “How is it overcast?”

Comments

[blizzardicefox]

shoot!!!!!!!!!!

[Ponyman]

SNAP!!!!!!!!!!

[Ponyman]

But seriously, great stuff so far. I sense the pegasi are coming in for a raid, and their friendship will be put to the true test.

[Draco Dei]

well, she never really thought about the uses of gaudy red curtains.
-As a prostitute, I would have THOUGHT she would have vaguely heard of putting them around a bed, which, if you have a good enough bed, and a nice enough room, and building and such, you can charge more... but that might just be me.

“So did Twilight Sparkle when she first arrived in Ponyville,” said White.
-Try the following? :
"That is what Twilight Sparkle thought about the residents of Ponyville when she first arrived," said White.

“Oh, okay,” said Clip, leaving. He’d be safe, they figured. He knew his way around.
-Oh dear, do I smell "repossession" coming up?

“This island consists entirely of earth ponies,” said Scroll. “How is it overcast?”
-I would have thought that in the absence of pegasi, "default" weather would prevail, just as it does in the Everfree Forest. Or is that what is happening? More fuel for my idea that the pegasi raid the earth-ponies because otherwise there would be NO reason not to just let them die of thirst... I mean unless they have a coalmine somewhere (trees probably take more water to grow than you can distill by burning the wood) and are distilling all their drinking and crop water...

Wow, this is really good.
Quite frankly, when I read the description, I thought that is would suck, but I gave it a shot anyway.
And then it turned out to be one of my favorite fics. I come back to check for updates often.
Keep up the good work!

Also, love the hinting at a dynamic between White and Scroll. Cant wait to see how that turns out.

[Aqua Bolt]

I can't believe I put off reading such a great fic for so long. And if you do something awful to Clip in the next chapter I will never forgive you.

[Chip Unicorn]

You converted me!

This story is wonderful. Scroll and White are adorkable. Someone needs to tell them to listen first, solve problems later... But not yet.

The humor in this one chapter alone had me going the whole time with fits of laughter and smiles. Well done

[Blue Thrush]

The play was hilarious (also good point that they do actually match in colors).

I really hope nothing bad happens to Clip. I hate it when I see the NPCs wander away from the main group in a story. It always spells trouble.

Never thought I'd see an overcast day cause so much foreshadowing.