A Star Pony Tale

by BlondeSky

Playing Nice

Chapter 34

Playing Nice

Kara arrived at the lunch room before all of the rest of her friends which she didn't particularly appreciate. The past two days she had sat by herself until more of them had arrived, but that day she took her seat across from the new member of her group. He looked up at her in irritation, but said nothing and instead kept eating his food. "You actually did it." she commented.

"Did what?" he asked confused.

"Apologized." she explained.

"Yeah." he answered simply.

"Did you really think I was going to beat the crap out of you?" she inquired confused.

"Not really. She's nice though so why not? Didn't really expect to be here, but I am so…" he said trailing off at the end and shrugging.

"If you thought she was nice then why tell her to go away?" she questioned not understanding why he'd do that.

"I didn't ask her to be nice to me." he informed her curtly.

"So being nice is a crime now?" she snapped.

"I didn't say that. You might not get it, but sometimes ponies enjoy being by themselves. Gee! Who would've thought it!?" he retorted irritated.

"You don't need to be a jerk about it." she snapped.

"Yeah well apparently you do." he countered her.

"So I'm the bad guy for being concerned about my friend." she argued.

"Again, I didn't say that. I just don't understand why wanting some privacy makes me a villain." he replied in annoyance. She just glared in response. "What? All out of smart comments?"

"Shut up." she retorted.

"Never heard that one before." he said with mock surprise.

They both fell into silence and simply glared at each other over their food. The tense silence was still in place when Diplo arrived at the table next to them. "Hey." he greeted them only to receive two steely glares. "Right, so what's the issue here?"

"She can't respect the fact that not everypony needs attention to survive." Zone began.

"Yeah well you can't respect anypony period!" Kara retorted.

"Respect is a two way street." he replied simply.

"I didn't even know that you know what it looked like!" she shouted back.

"Don't talk about yourself like that. It's not heathy." he told her.

"You-

"How about we just calm down." Diplo interrupted the both of them.

"So it's safe to say that the issue here is respect?" he said carefully hoping the two wouldn't start going at each other again. The both continued to glare at each other and nodded. "Okay. I think he was right in that respect is a two way street." This earned him an angry look from Kara. "But we aren't getting respect from either side of this street. Now how about I finish before anypony says anything. I think you're being a little harsh as I have yet to see Zone saying anything disrespectful aside from right now. However right now you're saying a lot of things to Kara that are rather unkind. I don't know how it started, but right now both of you are waiting to get respect from the other pony. That's not going to happen unless you give it first. So why don't you just try to have a decent conversation, a short decent conversation is all. Then it might be a little easier to move from there. Astro's going to be here in a minute and I'm going to go sit somewhere else with her. You two should try to work it out by yourselves, but if it ends up you need a referee here the whole time then so be it. I'm leaving and I really hope that I don't have to walk back over here." he finished before walking away from the pair.

Following his exit silence dominated the area for a couple of moments before Zone broke it. "Honestly, I think it's pretty cool that you can be extroverted the way you are." he said awkwardly.

"Really?" Kara asked confused.

"Yeah." he promised as he picked at his food slightly.

"Why don't you like being around other ponies?" she inquired.

"Ponies are confusing. Sometimes I just need a break from trying to figure out how to deal with them. I just need some space sometimes." he answered simply.

"That's fine, but when you want your space though don't mess with my friend." she replied.

"I didn't want to hurt her feelings alright. I didn't want to talk to anypony and she happened to be the one talking. It's not like it was personal." he retorted.

"Good because she counts you as a friend now and that means a lot to her." she told him.

"I figured as much." he said simply.

"You don't have to like me and I don't have to like you, but we are going to have to tolerate each other alright. Right now our common ground is her so just have to be nice around her." she responded.

"Sounds like a plan." he agreed.

"And also," she paused as she tried to decide what to say next, "thanks for doing more than just apologizing."

She quickly left the table to go sit where Astro and Diplo were sitting opposite each other and took a seat next to the filly. Zone was quick to follow and took the seat opposite her. It was silent for a moment as the two ponies who hadn't moved waited for any possible fireworks to start. They were both relieved as none did. The two weren't looking at each other, but even that was an improvement from the constant glaring of the previous day. There was still a slight air of tension around them, but it had lessened greatly. They were done taking shots at each other, at least for the moment.

"We worked it out. Happy now?" Kara asked Diplo in a slightly annoyed tone.

"Yes." he replied with a nod and a grin.

"Good." she responded simply.

"So you two are cool with each other then?" Astro asked for confirmation.

"Yeah." they agreed as they exchanged glances before returning their eyes to their food.

"That's good. I told you he wasn't so bad." she said happily as she nudged Kara with an elbow.

"I know." she responded begrudgingly still staring down her lunch.

"I guess she isn't so bad either." Zone admitted in a similar demeanor.

"Great!" Astro replied gladly.

"I'm glad you're happy." she told her with sincerity.

"Me too." he agreed. Again the two made eye contact before quickly looking away from each other.

"How's everything over here then?" Ink asked as she took her seat at the table next to her friends.

"Alright." Zone contributed with a shrug.

"Don't be such a downer. Great, thanks for asking." Kara told her as she amended the previous statement.

"Good." she giggled.

"What about you?" Astro inquired.

"Pretty amazing honestly. This year I'm going to be allowed to work with some of the younger kids in class. It's really exciting!" she informed them obviously having to do her utmost to withhold her enthusiasm.

"That's great!" she cried in congratulations to her friend.

"I know!" she exclaimed in a squeak.

"You like kids then?" Zone asked as he attempted to join the conversation.

"Well, yeah. I think tutoring them is going to be pretty fun." she told him.

"That's nice." he replied feeling awkward as all eyes turned to him.

"Thanks." she said gratefully as she smiled at him.

"No problem." he promised returning her grin with a nervous one.

"How about you?" Kara asked doing her best to uphold their peace offering.

"How about me what?" he questioned.

"What do you like to do?" she prompted him.

"Oh, um, I don't know." he answered nervously.

"Oh c'mon you've gotta have something that you like to do!" she retorted exasperatedly.

He shrugged, "Air currents, weather patterns, some aerodynamic stuff."

"That's cool!" Ink chimed in.

"Um, thanks." he mumbled awkwardly in reply.

"So you like flying then too?" Astro inquired wanting to join the conversation.

"Yeah. I, uh, used to live in a cloud city so it kind of comes with the environment. There it's pretty essential to learn to fly quickly. It's not the end of the world if you don't, but…" he finished the sentence with an offhand shrug.

"When'd you move here?" Diplo asked curiously.

"Recently." he informed them nonchalantly. Astro noticed him look over at her quickly before looking away again.

"Hey." Spot greeted them all as he sat at the table with them.

"How has you're day been?" Ink queried not missing a beat.

"Alright." he responded

"Both of you? Really? C'mon be a little more excited please!" Kara said dramatically rolling her eyes.

"Did I miss something?" he asked the rest of the table in confusion.

"Him too." she began as she pointed at Zone. "'How are you?' 'Alright I guess.' I mean is it really that dull around here?" she retorted as she gave him an accusing look and hamming it up for the audience of four at their table.

"Is being alright bad?" he questioned returning the look.

"It's boring." she explained.

"So in your opinion it is bad then." he concluded.

"Never said that." she argued.

"It's not hard to assume." he informed her.

"Let's not jump to conclusions." she scolded him.

"Is my conclusion right?" he asked simply.

"Maybe a little bit." she replied with a smirk and a shrug.

Their conversation was halted as Kara noticed the group of students leaving the lunch room. She sighed before standing, "That's me. See you guys later." Noticing the large number of students leaving the lunch room Zone got up as well.

"I think my class is going too. See you," he paused for a moment as he thought, "well, tomorrow I guess. Bye."

"She still hate him?" Spot asked after the two had departed.

"They're not friendly with each other, but they aren't hostile towards each other at least." Diplo explained.

"That's good. Why was she so mad at him in the first place?" he inquired.

"I don't know the whole reason. I do know that she thought he was disrespectful, but she never said why." he informed him.

"Well, that would be me actually. On the first day of school I talked to him and he sent me off which made her rather unhappy." Astro told them.

"So why is he being nice to you now then?" Spot asked wondering what changed.

"He apologized the next day. He apparently felt really bad about it. Everypony gets cranky sometimes." she answered simply.

"Yeah, that's true." he agreed while feeling there might have been another factor to the apology. The conversation started to slow and dissipate as more of the ponies were drawn away from the table to go back to class until the table was left behind completely empty.

At the end of the day Spot managed to catch Kara on her way out. He grabbed her arm and pulled her over as she started out the door. "Oh, hey!" she greeted him smiling awkwardly as she wondered why he had grabbed her.

"Hey." he said back.

"So, why are you here exactly?" she asked frowning.

"What, is it bad to want to talk to my friend?" he asked sarcastically as he smirked.

"No, but that's not why you grabbed me." she deadpanned.

"I've got a feeling that somepony just might've been encouraged to give an apology." he told her simply.

"He might've gotten a nudge." she said with mock innocence.

"Did he also get a nudge to be her friend?" he questioned growing serious.

"No. I only told him to apologize to her. I said nothing about becoming her friend. I talked to him about the whole friend business earlier alright." she defended herself.

"And what did you say?" he inquired.

"What, is this an interrogation now?" she retorted in annoyance.

"Yeah well she still believes he apologized of his own accord." he shot back.

"And she doesn't need to know he didn't." she said simply.

"Fine, it doesn't matter if the apology wasn't honest, but what about him being her friend?" he questioned.

"I told you already! I talked to him and he actually thinks she's nice and stuff." she answered.

"So he isn't going to just not come to the table one of these days?" he queried.

"Don't think so. Plus if he didn't-

"You can't just bully ponies into being nice to her. As much as all of us don't want anypony being mean to anypony in the group you can't just force them to be nice alright." he told her earnestly.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah. Whatever." she replied dismissively. He gave her a questioning look asking if she understood. "I got it alright. Can I go now?" she said exasperatedly.

"Yeah, I guess." he finished uncertainly as he released her and she took off for home.

Author's Note:

Sorry about this being late. I'm still a little behind on writing for this.

^_^ Thanks for your understanding, BlondeSky