A Ballad of Kindness and Pink Hair

by Bronyboy115

Chapter 1: Lucky Me

Author's Note:

Okay, I know I said I would have regular updates, but this weekend was hell for me. The Saint Patrick's Day parade, coupled with the family dinner, and me getting sick did not do too well on the story. I'm also still looking for an editor too, so if any readers are willing to volunteer, I would greatly appreciate the help. Enjoy the chapter! :)

"Good morning Mr. Giddens."

I looked up from bursting through the door, only to be met with a roomful of snickers and disinterested glances, as well as a disapproving glare from Mr. Fraley did nothing but give me a sense of unease in my stomach. Being my first tardy, there weren't any repercussions that mattered any: Only a warning and a brisk indication to sit down. Gladly, I took the invitation so I would cease to be the center of attention, hopefully for the rest of the class. I sit at the back of the class most days, so as to avoid being picked and to have a wonderful view of all that was going on outside. Today apparently though, a mist had started to form and move as quick as the wind would take it. Weather, mostly the bad, was of great interest to me, so it was no wonder I didn't hear my teacher clear his throat when I started to stare outside.

"Ahem! Mr. Giddens I believe it is in your best interest to pay attention. I have an announcement to make after all." Mr. Fraley said snootily. He waited until he had what he thought was my complete attention.

"Oh uh... Yes Sir." "Prick." Apparently satisfied with my response, he turned his attention to the rest of the class to inform us of this supposedly important announcement.

"Students, we have a new student with us here today in our Geometry class." At his indication, we all looked to the door to see "Well, Guess who it is." Katherine peek her head through the door. Uncertainly, she walked through the door and into the classroom all the way, glimpsing at her schedule every few seconds to make sure she was in the right place. Some of the boys looked to each other and started snickering about something I'm sure isn't appropriate. At Mr. Fraley's glare however, they stopped after a few more chuckles. "About time you do something other than act haughty and be a complete pain in everyone's ass."

"Um... am I in the right place...?" She looked to the teacher, and he nodded, waving his arm across the classroom in a pseudo- elegant manner.

"Yes, Ms. Grace, you are. Welcome to Geometry." He then looked to us. "Students, this is Ms. Katherine Grace. She will remain here with us for the remainder of the year. Say hello."

The class responded with a series of unintelligible grunts with only a few "Hey"s and "Sup"s scattered here and there throughout the classroom. Of course, the snickering from the pervs began again apparently noticing in more detail Katherine's more notable features. She didn't look to welcomed at this it seemed, based off of the way she hid behind her hair and stood awkwardly in the center of the room. Rolling his eyes, Mr. Fraley walked back to his desk, muttering stuff like "unmannered imbeciles" and "I don't even know why I try."

"How about you sit over there, in the seat next to him?' He spoke, in exasperation towards the class, while pointing at the desk to my left. She looked over to the desk, then at me, seeming to notice just then that I was actually in the room. At this she smiled, and hurried over towards the desk that would be her seat for the rest of the year.

"Well look who it is?" I smiled. "What are the chances you'd end up in my class, of all the others?" Setting down her things, she glanced at me, and looked to me with her small smile.

"I would guess pretty slim...." At this, she took out a sheet of paper and began to focus on taking the notes that had apparently been there the whole time. "What the...? How did...?" I thought, mimicking Katherine's action, except with a little bit more tempo and silent cursing towards my inability to pay attention during important moments.

As the class wore on, I was growing increasingly bored, especially since Katherine didn't pay a lick of attention to me during class, seeming very engrossed in the subject, and my work was done well before the end of class as always. I decided daydreaming was pretty much my best bet in this little hellhole, so I did just that. Instead of daydreaming about regular things for me though, such as Video Games or Random scenarios on just as random topics, my mind drifted towards Katherine. "Who would've known she would have a class of mine? I thought. "I suppose I'm glad she does... I definitely wouldn't feel comfortable with her anywhere near any of the perverts widespread across the school...

My thoughts were cut short though as Katherine gently shook my arm. "Are you done?" She asked.

"Of course. I usually get all my work done by the 30 minute mark." I lifted the completed worksheet as proof, and she looked to me in what was almost awe.

"Oh my... I usually can't finish that quickly..." She beckoned to her own worksheet, with notes and work speckled across the paper, yet was still only about half done."Guess that's why she was paying so much attention."

"Need any help?" I offered. She shook her head gratefully, and slid her worksheet over between the two of us. We worked hard, and the class ended with Katherine and I finishing up her worksheet, as well as a lengthy conversation on angle tangents, which is what she was struggling with in the first place. As we packed our things and stepped out into the hallway, something came to my mind as we began walking towards a currently unknown destination for her.

"Hey, can I see your schedule?" She responded by handing the lime green paper to me, and I studied it closely. Out of her 8 classes, it looked like she had me in about 3 of them. Health and P.E., Geometry, and Honors Biology "Guess that's where we're apparently going." were the classes she took with me, but she was also apparently taking Honors World Studies, Honors Spanish, Honors English, Drawing and Painting, and Choir. "Choir huh? Can you sing well?" I asked, genuinely curious.

"Oh, well of course. I wouldn't want to embarrass myself otherwise..." She looked to the ground, apparently now very interested in how the floors were tiled, leaving me to look back at her schedule.

"What about Drawing and Painting? What's you're favorite thing to draw or paint about?"

She looked up from the ground at this and turned to me with a large smile. "Why, my animals of course! I sketch my bunny Angel, many different types of birds, and sometimes even squirrels when they decide to come and eat the nuts I place for them." "Wow, she really seems to be into animals..."

"Let me guess, you want a veterinary degree? You seem to really like animals." I looked over to her staring wistfully into space, that large smile still plastered onto her adorable face.

"I certainly hope so... " She replied, "I want to be able to help as many animals as I can. It's what I love to do." She turned to me. "What about you? What would you like to do?" Feeling like I probably had better keep it a little bit secret because of the implications of violence that came with the job, I gave a simple answer.

"Military." I said.

"Um...what job in the military... might I ask?" She asked a little uncertainly, letting me know I was right in not telling her.

I lied and said "I don't know yet. Probably some type of engineer." Okay, that wasn't EXACTLY a lie, but it was a little deceiving. Aeronautical Engineering was my fallback plan after all.

By now, we had approached the Biology classroom, and walked in. I introduced Katherine to Mrs. Whitehurst, the biology, teacher, Katherine giving a timid hello and the biology teacher responding in kind with a curt "Nice to meet you.". She gave her another seat next to me, much to my pleasure. "Lucky me." The class began with more notes, a lecture, a quiz, and more work. Awfully repetitive for this class, but whatever.

As it turns out, due to Katherine's love for animals, she is EXTREMELY good at Biology. Like, impossibly good at it. She blew through the notes, the lecture, the work, and even taught the teacher a few things. When the quiz was handed out, I almost started laughing at the face Mrs. Whitehurst made when she finished. I timed in about 17 seconds for the quiz to be done for her. Honestly, I was a little jealous at how fast everything was getting done by her hand, but I reasoned that I can't be the best at everything anyway.

By the time Biology had ended, the rest of the class was in complete awe and jealousy at Katherine's expertise. "Too bad for them" I thought, and chuckled a little bit. It was funny to see the preppy IB kids to get shown up by the "mere" honors student. Serves them right for thinking they're above everyone else anyway. I guess I'm one of the few nicer ones. I waited for Katherine to finish packing, and we left the classroom together. Even though we had different classes this time, we still made it as far as downstairs and at the door to the JROTC room door before I had to say goodbye. I had offered to walk her to class, but she politely refused, saying she didn't want me to be late. I smiled and waved as she walked off, all the while peering at her schedule to find the Choir room.

I walked into my JROTC class and fell in to my squad. Beyond this though, I didn't remember too much of the class, as my mind was occupied with thoughts of the days occurrences. "Wow. Two classes with her today." Considering the circumstances, I was starting to think maybe I'm a little bit more lucky than I originally perceived myself to be, which is not at all. "Maybe I have lunch with her too...? That certainly would be welcome."

When I was dismissed from class to lunch, I sat down at my usual out of the way table and waited for the lines to die down. Quicker than usual, much to my delight, the lines shortened out and I was able to get my usual delicious turkey and roast beef sandwich. Just as I was about to take a giant bite of my mouthwatering delicacy though, I felt a gentle tap at my shoulder. I turned around, and there she was. Katherine stood there with a small looking bag that I assumed contained her lunch, and smiled, for what seemed like the hundredth time that day. Not that I was complaining, mind you.

"Do you mind if I sit here with you?" She asked "That is, if it's okay with you." With this she hid behind her bangs, which I noticed she seemed to do in situations like this that could be uncomfortable for her. "Whatever cosmic force is causing this to happen, I thank you." I thought with glee, and I tried my best to make her feel a bit more at ease.

"Of course. Make yourself as comfortable as these plastic seats will let you." I joked. She sat down and set the small bag on the table. The mystery of the contents of the bag was solved as she pulled out a small salad and a miniature thermos full of steaming red liquid that I assumed to be soup. "Or blood." I joked to myself.

"So... how has your day been so far Connor?" She said rather conversationally, chewing on a forest green spinach leaf, actually holding a bit of eye contact now, leaving me to wonder what the change in attitude was about. "She must be getting comfortable with me pretty fast..."

"I suppose it's been okay," I replied, "I don't really enjoy school though so...."

"Well, not everyone can like the same thing as anyone else." She stated rather philosophically.

I chuckled a bit. "Huh. Guess you're right." I nodded to her salad. "Not much to eat there... want me to go get you some more?"

She shook her head at this. "Oh, no thank you. This is just fine for me." Looking down with a small grimace at the remains of my desecrated sandwich that I had taken care of during pauses in the conversation, she added "I also don't like meat..."

"Oh..." The implications caught up to me just then. "OH. You're a vegetarian aren't you?" When she nodded her confirmation, I felt slightly guilty for offering meat to her. When she noticed the look on my face however, she quickly reassured me that no harm was done. "Still, it was kinda dense of me not to at least ask if you're a vegetarian first."

She sighed at this. "Connor, I said no harm was done and I meant it. It's ok." When she finished, she gave her infamous small smile that I was quickly growing to enjoy.

When lunch had ended, we said our goodbyes again and went to our respective classes. Walking to English however, I quickly realized how absolutely BORED I was about to be. I knew something had to go wrong today.

"Ugh.... Lucky me..."

Comments

[Maromar]

Congrats on getting the chapter out, your progressing well but you may want to keep on the lookout for redundant language, grammar slights, and vague dialogue tags such as:

"So... how has your day been so far Connor? She said conversationally, chewing on a forest green spinach leaf, leaving me to wonder what the change in attitude was about."

In cases where our narrator is in the "3rd person", after long paragraphs, or when the paragraph in question is inordinately lengthy without hope of being broken into smaller paragraphs this may be easily passed over, given that the following text will more thoroughly paint the scene. However, when words like "frustratingly", "conversationally", and even something with more solid connotations like "timidly" are used alone to describe someone's message you get a sort of gray slate with just a dash of color at the center in your mind when reading it.

Reason being, everyone expresses emotion in different ways.

Take the extrovert for example; "conversationally" for them may mean closing the distance between them and their listener, smiling unabashedly, increasing volume and emphasizing points with casual touches like a high-five for excitement.

"Conversationally" for a dictionary-definition (shy) introvert on the other hand, would be expected to be more subtle; holding eye-contact for longer periods, their brows raised in interest, maintaining steady/composed body language, their feet pointed at their audience rather than nervously towards the nearest exit and genuine smiles rather than artificially pleasant ones, and for those with the tendency to do so, not recoiling from situation appropriate touches.

And that's before you take into account the many non-generic mannerisms that are unique to each and every person, like Fluttershy's proclivity for hiding behind her hair, which you did pull off nicely.

A few vague dialogue tags may go unnoticed and might even be necessary to prevent reader exhaustion with too many finely detailed, long paragraphs, but too many leaves your story bland.

You must find a balance.

That aside, well done, and keep the good chapters coming! (if you don't mind, that is )

[Bronyboy115]

4110771 Thank you again for your advice. I believe finding an editor that catches mistakes like this however should increase the quality dramatically. Still on the lookout though.

[that_one_guy -]

Beware of self inert story's

[Discord Kantus]

Not bad. However, I am a bit surprised this got on the site at all, being both meta and not technically having any pony characters in it, what with Fluttershy being renamed. I like the plot so far, although that might just be because it reminds me of me. I'll keep an eye on this. I can give you a full review of the story if you'd like as well.

[MythrilMoth]

Hmm...

I'll bear with this a little longer since I have a soft spot for this type of wish-fulfillment story, but a couple of things.

1. Although I get the renaming of characters, it's...a little offputting.

2. If your self-insert OC is a brony, shouldn't everything about this girl be SCREAMING "FLUTTERSHY!!" at him?

3. The pace is very slow.

4. You do need a proofreader or editor. There are a few problems with this, such as random word capitalization.

So again, sticking with it a bit longer, but...it needs to get interesting fast.

[TheKitten]

Keep going!!
Doing a good job so far, keeping an eye on this story.

[decp]

Where is the new chapter? Please continue, so much time has passed from last episode.