A Star Pony Tale

by BlondeSky

Running Performance

Chapter 32

Running Performance

It had been a few months since Astro's completion of her mural and her getting her cutie mark. Since then she hadn't had any other works that came close to the mural in terms of personal significance. She walked through the town trying to find anything that might inspire her but nothing seemed to. Her muse had left her and she could only hope that it wasn't for good. For the past while she had simply been working with technique. All of her attempts at concept sketches ended up in the trash. Her work had gone essentially nowhere since she had received her cutie mark. While she was proud of having gotten it and her mural after it was finished she had no further plans. Her lack of something to do with her paints frustrated her greatly.

She noticed the sun dipping ever closer towards the horizon and sighed sadly. It was time that she returned to the base. She trudged towards her destination with her head hung and her eyes on her hooves, because of this she didn't notice the pony that was hurrying in her direction. Unfortunately for the two of them he was too busy looking over his shoulder to notice her. The two collided with each other and fell back on their rumps. Astro looked up in surprise to meet the silver eyes of the colt who had just run into her. He didn't look to be any older than she was which confused her, but she said nothing as she was too shocked to. The young orange pegasus looked a little scruffy as he rose quickly back up to his hooves. Both his mane and tail were a yellow color and spikey in appearance. He looked to be rather annoyed by the fact that they'd bumped into each other. "Hey! Watch where you're going next time!" he yelled at her before taking off once more. She hadn't even had a chance to stand up. When she did eventually rise to her hooves he was long gone down the street and around the corner still running towards his unknown destination. She shook off the dirt and looked behind her where he'd run. She gave a slight snort of annoyance before continuing on her way back. She felt no need to bother herself with him and went on her way.

Her life went on as per usual as she went to school the next day. She was still the only one of her friends to have their cutie mark, but she was sure that the others were well on their way to theirs as the majority of them had some sort of activity that they were excelling in. Ink continued to be devoted to her schoolwork and did well in all of her classes. She was always willing to help to tutor the others who might not have been doing as well. Kara had continued with her work in martial arts branching out from her start in tae kwon do. There however she had earned her red senior belt which was the last one before she would earn her black. It was Spot and Diplo who, at least from her point of view, had yet to display a particular affinity for something that she recognized. Both of them continued to be rather reserved, quiet, and levelheaded as per usual. Diplo had, in a way, become the designated peacekeeper in the group whenever arguments, which were few and far between, arose. She supposed that was something, but that did leave one pony that she had no clue what to think of.

Her complete cluelessness as to what he might get his cutie mark for upset her as the two had been friends for so long. She considered approaching him about the subject, but was concerned that she might be bringing up a sore point if he didn't have any idea either and was worried about it as well. She didn't touch the subject when she spoke to him and instead tried to figure it out for herself. Using some of what she'd learned in the sorting room she tried to calculate what he might end up talented in, but she came up short as he had never really talked about things he enjoyed doing on his own time. He had never come up to them with anything new he'd started working with either. She felt bad about the fact that she knew so little about his personal interests. Still, she didn't interrogate and did her best to try and leave the subject be.

It wasn't until very late in the school year that she got an indication of what Spot might have a talent for. She had gotten to school when she normally did and as usual both Spot and Ink were already there. The two were talking as she approached and they interrupted their conversation to greet her. The others arrived and the group was hurried inside and to their respective classes as the bell ring. That particular year she shared a class with him and was lucky enough to sit next to him. It was apparent to her that he might've been downtrodden about something. The fact that he wasn't talking wasn't a big deal as he wasn't particularly talkative, but on the rare occasions when he did speak to her that day he seemed rather disinterested which was unusual.

"Are you okay?" she asked eventually wanting to know if her hunch about his mood was correct. At first he simply seemed confused about the question and he took a moment before responding.

"Yeah, I'm fine." he promised dismissively.

"Are you sure? You seem upset about something." she argued still worried.

"I don't know. There was thing that I was working on. It kind of didn't work out. A little bummed to be honest." he admitted.

"What were you working on?" she inquired excitedly.

"Just a thing." he responded with a nonchalant shrug.

"But, what kind of thing?" she inquired pushing for more information from him. As this was the first indication that she'd gotten that he might be working on anything, and she wasn't going to give up that quickly without an answer.

"It's just a thing. It's not that important." he replied still trying to act disinterested in it.

"Then why do you seem so upset about it." she retorted unconvinced

"I'm just trying to figure out why it didn't work out. That's all." he explained still refusing to elaborate.

"Maybe I could help." she offered excitedly more than happy to be of assistance.

"I'm working it out. I'll let you know if I need some help with it. I promise." he told her.

"Okay, but you've got to let me know." she responded not wanting to be left out of the development.

"I will. I just want to try and work this out for myself." he promised her.

"That's fine. I hope it does." she informed him with sincerity.

"Thanks, me too." he told her gratefully.

After their exchange the subject wasn't brought up for a while. Astro continued to stew over it however as he didn't bring it up. Is everything going okay, she wondered. Did it work out and he never told me, the thought came. He seemed fairly normal during the days following and gave no indication towards success or failure in his quest for whatever it was. She continued to wonder what it might even be that he was working on. She didn't ask as she expected an exchange that was rather similar to the first, but she never stopped wondering what it might be. If it was going to be spoken of again it was going to be because he brought it up. The waiting for this however was agonizing for her. She wanted to help, but knew that at that point her help wasn't needed nor wanted. In her mind she compared it to her wanting the mural to be her achievement alone. She wouldn't have liked it if help had been forced upon her in that instance. She kept that in mind as she continued to hold her silence on the subject.

When he did finally bring it up to her once more it was a huge relief. It was only around two weeks later, but for her it felt like half an eternity. Her slight concern had by that point had enough time to build up. Just like the first time the conversation began in class before lunch. "So, you remember the thing I told you about?" he began awkwardly looking anxious.

"Course!" she promised immediately devoting her full attention to him.

"Well, I was thinking that I…" he paused as he looked to be considering what he would say next, "I might want to show it to you, and everypony else too."

"Really!?" she inquired excitedly.

"Well, um, yeah, I guess. Maybe you guys can all help out a bit. You know, give opinions and things." he answered.

"Yeah, maybe." she agreed. She would've been lying if she said she wasn't upset that he wasn't just going to her.

"I thought I'd run it by you first. Not gonna lie I'm a little nervous about the whole thing." he admitted as he looked over at her for reassurance.

"I'm sure whatever it is will be great." she promised her mood slightly heightened by the fact that he had thought to run it by her before the others.

"Thanks. I appreciate it." he told her sincerely.

"No problem." she finished as the both of them turned back to the teacher at the front of the room.

When they did get to lunch his anxiety seemed to practically double and this didn't go unnoticed by the others. For a normally calm and collected pony he was rather nervous. "What's up? You're sweating bullets." Kara commented as the both of them showed up to lunch.

"You know you could be a little more sensitive than that." he replied in annoyance.

"What? I'm curious." she retorted defensively.

"Whatever." he said dismissively as he started picking at his food.

"So?" she prompted him at the lack of response.

"Give me a minute okay?" he told her still slightly irritated.

"Alright." she responded as she put up her hooves in surrender.

It was a little bit before their other two friends arrived at the table so that he could make his announcement to them. It was clear that he was still quite nervous and Astro noticed him look over at her for reassurance. She smiled encouragingly at him and he smiled gratefully back before turning to the rest of the table. "R-right. So, uh, there's this thing that I've been working on and I kind of wanted to show it to you guys. I, um, I was wondering if you all were interested. If not, you know, that's cool to. So, uh, yeah." he finally said looking more at the table than at them.

"Of course we wanna see!" Ink replied instantly.

"Yeah!" Kara agreed jumping on board.

"Count me in." Diplo added.

"I think you already know my answer." Astro said simply after everypony else had their say.

"Cool." he said sounding less excited than she had hoped he would. He promptly informed them of the details before their lunch period came to an end.

-/|\-

Astro walked up to the location that Spot had asked the group to come to. It was for the most part just an empty field outside of the city, but she noticed that several yards away a cloud home hung in the sky not too far up from the ground. A mailbox stood on the ground in its shadow. A gramophone stood in the field with Spot leaning up against it looking exhausted. He was the only one there which made her the first of their friends to arrive. She expected this as she had arrived early on purpose. A record was leaned up against the side of the music player. He noticed her walking up and waved happily, but even from that distance she could tell that he was anxious.

She sat down next to him in the grass as neither of them said anything. In the end it was her who broke the silence asking, "How are you feeling?"

"Like I might just throw up." he replied honestly.

"What!?" she cried in alarm.

"Look, I'll be fine. I'm just really nervous okay." he told her as he crossed his arms, "It's just nerves."

"Okay." she said looking at him in worry. She wasn't entirely convinced that he was going to be alright.

As they began to fall into an awkward silence she changed the subject. "Where'd this come from?" she asked tapping the gramophone they were sitting next to.

"I got it for my birthday a couple years back. Birthday present since I like music. It took a bit to get it down here, but I managed it. You'll see what it's for later." he explained.

"I didn't know that you lived in a cloud home." she commented looking over at it wondering how he got the machine out.

"Yeah, it's not really my favorite thing in the world. It's not like it's horrible just sometimes a little hard to get to and from for me. Normally they're higher off of the ground than that, but after the first couple of times I fell to the ground it was moved down." he informed her.

"You fell?" she asked worriedly.

"It doesn't hurt that bad, just unpleasant is all. It was only the first time that it was really bad. Broke a leg actually, but it's all fixed now." he promised her as he moved his right hind leg around a bit, "You learn quick how to at least slow yourself down. Plus, I can fly a lot better now so it's probably going to be moved back up soon. Not excited, but I can at least make the trip now." Their conversation however was cut off as the others started to arrive. It wasn't long before all five of them were there.

The four that had been invited sat down next to each other in the grass as Spot stood facing them with the gramophone and record on his right, their left. "Right, so, um, welcome, I guess." he began awkwardly, "I should probably show you all what you came to see."

"Yeah! On with the show!" Kara agreed enthusiastically.

"Um, yeah, that." he said as he walked over towards the nearby musical machine. He placed the record on the turntable and placed the stylus on the record. The music started to play and they all looked on in confusion as he moved back to stand in the center.

His audience watched in captivation as he started to move to the music that was playing. He had all of their rapt attention, but all of his nerves seemed to have faded away as soon as the music had started. At first they were too surprised to really enjoy the show that was being put on, but soon they got into it as well and were cheering as he continued to move to the beat of the melody. Astro couldn't say she wasn't shocked as her friend who she'd never thought of as agile moved quickly and accurately through the beats, but that didn't dampen her enjoyment of it. He was practically laughing as he performed for them. Up in front of them all the anxiety faded away into an enjoyment of the music. The track was purely instrumental and fast paced with an energetic feel to it. He was matching that with his own enthusiastic and spirited performance. The audience of four couldn't help feeling joyful as they watched him dance. As the show reached its inevitable end they were all sitting forward in captivation. He struck a final pose and the entirety of his audience erupted into cheers. He started to laugh happily as he stood before them breathing heavily from his efforts. There was a small flash of light as a golden five pointed star appeared on his flank.