It was almost like looking into a mirror and seeing something other than your own reflection staring back at you. That's how Diamond Tiara felt after the events that had transpired not even twenty four hours ago. She truly did feel like she was an entirely new pony. This was who she was always meant to be, yet never realized it until now.
"And to think, I used to resent those... well, I guess 'ex-blank flanks' now considering they have their cutie marks," Diamond thought to herself when the celebration was over. "In fact, I probably shouldn't even be calling them that. They're the Cutie Mark Crusaders, now and forever. At least, I hope so. If not for them, I don't think I would've ever had the courage to stand up for myself. It kind of feels nice not to have to boss other ponies around all the time, or do what someponies expect of me." Briefly she shuddered at the memories of always doing what her mom had told her to do. Boy was she glad those days were over.
Naturally, upon further reflection of herself, the headgear wearing filly realized that with her change of heart would come the need to apologize. There were lots of ponies she had wronged in the past one way or another, whether she'd realized it at the time or just now. Either way, apologies were owed.
"Let's see now," Tiara pondered as she made her way home that night (the cute-ceañera for the CMC had been a blast. How could it not be when Pinkie Pie was the one planning and hosting it?). "Obviously, I owe those Crusaders an apology for picking on them so much. Scootaloo especially for making fun of her wings or the fact that she couldn't fly yet, definitely went too far that time. Then there's Miss. Cheerilee. I know I haven't exactly been the best student, even if I've tried to keep my grades up so Mother and Father won't get upset."
Then, suddenly, a memory that the young heir to the Rich family fortune (and legacy) had almost forgotten came back to her in an instant! She froze right on the spot as it played out in her mind. The memory from just the day prior when she'd lost what she'd believed at the time was her only true friend: Silver Spoon.
At the time, it had felt like a betrayal to Diamond. Her best friend, the one pony who always had her back no matter what and the one pony she'd always felt comfortable sharing her delicate family situation with, and Silver Spoon had not only berated Diamond in front of everypony but had also dissolved their friendship. They hadn't spoken since. Even just them working together to build the new playground at school had occurred without them saying a word to each other.
But now Diamond Tiara had a clearer head. Now she realized just how badly she had treated Silver, not only in that instance but on so many occasions before. It was clear to the filly who she needed to apologize to the most: Silver Spoon. And so she made a silent vow to do just that the first thing next morning. Or at least, the first thing after she'd left for school.
Next morning came sooner than the filly with a lovely magenta coat would've liked, but it came just the same. She hadn't forgotten her earlier promise to herself. Said vow kept nagging at her like an annoying fly, one that just wouldn't stop buzzing around her no matter how hard she tried to swat it away.
Diamond barely paid attention to her mother or even her father that morning, so fixated was she on her desire to make amends with Silver. It was going to take everything she had to convince her former friend to come back to her, and Tiara knew that it was out of her hooves. For once in her life she was facing something that no amount of bits or pleading faces could solve. Of all the things to screw up so badly, she just had to pick the one thing that would be the hardest to fix.
Soon, the headgear wearing filly was off to school. And soon afterward she found herself standing where she often did on days like this: On the path leading to the schoolhouse, waiting for the bell to ring to signal the start of class. She was certain that Silver Spoon would cross this path eventually. No other road in Ponyville led to the schoolhouse and it wasn't like Silver to miss school unannounced. So now, all that Tiara could do was wait.
How long the nervous filly just stood there by the side of the road she couldn't say. But eventually, her cornflower blue eyes spotted the familiar form of Silver Spoon as she came up over the horizon. If her spectacled friend saw Diamond from afar at all, she gave off no signs that she was aware of her ex-bestie's presence.
Not wanting to be ignored, Diamond not-so-secretly cleared her throat when she was certain she was within earshot of her fellow filly.
Silver stopped right in her tracks and spun around, soon locking eyes with Diamond for only the second time since ending their friendship. What could her ex-friend possibly want from her now?
For a moment or so, neither filly spoke a word. They just stood there and stared into each other's eyes as if daring the other to speak first. The silence hung in the air. Only the sound of the wind as it blew past in a gentle breeze did anything to even remotely dispel the awkward and uncomfortable silence.
Ultimately, it was Tiara who broke the silence even as she struggled to find the words she wanted to say. "Hello... Silver..." She croaked, looking down at the ground, as if suddenly ashamed to look at her fellow filly. "Nice to see you again."
"Nice to see you too, I guess." Was all Silver Spoon said in reply. It sounded like she wanted to say more but either couldn't or wouldn't do so.
After another minute of deathly silence, Diamond Tiara gulped and swallowed hard. This was it, this was the moment she'd been dreading. "Look, Silver..." The words were right there on her tongue, but for some reason they didn't want to come out. "I... I want to... you know..."
The glasses wearing youngster swished her tail as her face seemed to contort itself ever so slightly into a frown. "You want me back, right? That's what you're trying to say?"
Diamond nodded ever so slowly whilst holding back the urge to start tearing up. She knew if she cried now it would look shallow, like all of those crocodile tears she'd shed on too many occasions before to get her way.
Silver adjusted her glasses with a hoof while she kept her eyes fixated on Diamond's. "I see." Her tone of voice gave no indication as to what her emotions were and how she felt about such a thing.
Again, it was up to Tiara to take the initiative and keep the conversation going. Why was this so hard? Why couldn't she come right out and say what needed to be say? Heck, why couldn't she pay somepony to do this for her (or at least help her do it in a better way than this)? The anger at herself welled up inside her, causing her to growl, grit her teeth and kick the ground with a hoof. "Ugh, this is so annoying!" She complained, a bit louder than she intended to. "I hate the way things are between us now, Silver Spoon! Really, I do! I want us to be friends again!"
Now it was Silver Spoon's turn to look conflicted and uncertain. And was it Diamond Tiara's imagination, or was Silver actually about to cry?
But Silver only again repeated her earlier words in a vague tone of voice. "I see." It did nothing to alleviate Diamond's tempestuous mood.
"Is that all you have to say?!" Diamond bitterly protested. "You don't have any comments or complaints? I... I want some kind of acknowledgement. What I did to you was wrong, okay? Is that what you wanted to hear?!"
The glasses wearing filly finally managed to say an actual sentence as she replied. "Yes, but it's more than that, Diamond," She let out a sigh. "I know I can't stay mad at you forever. But I want to stay mad at you. Not for forever, but just for a little while. That wasn't the first time you treated me like I meant nothing to you, like our friendship didn't matter. You've taken advantage of my friendship before, and you've always pleaded with me to give you another chance. Yet it seems like every time I do, you just keep making the same mistakes over and over again."
"But I've changed now, I swear!" Diamond desperately protested as she again fought back the tears. "I'm a different pony now! You can see that, right?!"
"Just let me stay mad at you!" Silver loudly complained! "I hate that I can't stay mad at you no matter what you do! I hate that I always end up crawling back to you no matter how bad you treat me!" And then she ran off at a speed that could've rivaled Rainbow Dash on cider day!
The magenta coated earth pony could hardly believe her eyes. She had expected Silver Spoon to be upset, maybe even a little hostile. But to hear her former friend complain about the inability to stay mad with Diamond no matter what she said or did, shocked Tiara to her very core. It wasn't supposed to be like this. She expected to have to all but beg for Silver's forgiveness, to be told that they could never be friends again.
Yet whereas the old her would've just thrown in the towel and gone on to ignore Silver Spoon until she apologized later, the new and improved Diamond Tiara wasn't ready to give up on her former friend so easily. "The Cutie Mark Crusaders didn't give up on me the first time I proved difficult," She thought to herself as she remembered that fateful hang-out with them the day before. If not for their desire to show her a better way, Diamond doubted she would've found the strength needed to change herself and turn over that new leaf. "I owe it to those Crusaders to keep trying! Silver Spoon needs me!"
And it was with that thought in mind that Diamond summoned a courage she had never known before. Even standing up to her mom was nothing compared to what she was about to do. For the first time in her life, Tiara was going to sincerely apologize regardless of whether it would be accepted or not. She didn't even care that she might not win back Silver Spoon's trust. She'd come here to make amends and that was just what she was going to do.
The apprehensive earth pony followed Silver's hoofsteps until she spotted the filly a ways ahead, overlooking the schoolhouse grounds and the new playground equipment that Diamond's father had so generously agreed to donate the money for (even though it was coming out of his wife's salary).
Silver Spoon could hear her fellow filly approaching from afar. She didn't run away again (even though Diamond half expected it). She just sighed, yet refused to turn around and look Diamond Tiara in the eyes. "Figured you'd come after me. You really do want to be friends again, don't you?"
"No, Silver Spoon," Tiara somberly stated, much to Silver's surprise. "I'm not asking for that anymore. All I want is for you to forgive me. Nothing hurt me more than losing you as a friend. And now I know why. It's because I took our friendship for granted. I took you for granted. You saw something in me before anypony else did and tried to get me to let it out. But all I did was yell at you and treat you like a pest. It's no wonder you didn't vote for me after that, I wasn't acting like somepony who deserved your friendship."
"That's the thing though," Silver willingly admitted. "I almost did end up voting for you anyway even though I was sure you were going to lose. It was only because I felt you wouldn't listen to me any other way that I did what I did. Yet even after all that, I was expecting you to show up the next day and start pleading with me to be friends again. And a part of me would've said yes. That's why I want to stay mad with you. I don't like that you can do just about anything to me, and yet somehow I'll always come back."
Diamond put a forehoof around her troubled fellow filly. "I'm glad you didn't vote for me, Silver. You may not have known it at the time, but it was the best thing you could've ever done for me. Because of that, I finally had nopony to turn to when I lost. I couldn't lean on you to make myself feel better. I hit rock bottom: I had no friends, Mother was furious that I'd lost at something and cost her a lot of money, and in that moment I felt lost. Yet it was because of that the Cutie Mark Crusaders were able to help me see the light," A smile formed on her face as she recalled their act of kindness toward her. "That's something that couldn't have happened if I'd still had you around."
The glasses wearing filly finally turned around. "I guess there's something different about the way you carry yourself. This doesn't feel like all the other times you've apologized to me and asked to start over."
Tiara nodded as her smile grew brighter. "For the first time since I can remember, I'm finally free to be the pony I was always meant to be. I know I made a lot of mistakes. I know I hurt a lot of ponies, intentionally and unintentionally. I did things that I regret now, and I can't take them back. There's a lot I'm gonna have to own up to. All I can do is be honest with myself and put myself out there," She paused as she suddenly realized that tears were forming in her eyes, and she wiped them away with a hoof. "Sorry. I promised myself I wouldn't cry."
Yet it seemed that Silver had moisture in her eyes as well as she suddenly threw her hooves around Diamond. "Oh, Diamond! I'm sorry I didn't believe you sooner! I shouldn't have let my anger at myself cause me to be angry with you."
"It's okay, Silver Spoon," Diamond continued to smile as she accepted the embrace. "You were right not to trust me. I couldn't be sure myself if I'd truly changed until now. But now I know that I have changed. And it's a change for the better. I can finally be the pony I wanna be. A pony who doesn't live her life according to what others want."
It was then that Silver Spoon asked a question that Diamond Tiara had previously been dreading but now had secretly been hopeful for. "Does this mean we're friends again? True friends?"
The headgear wearing filly firmly nodded as she ended the hug and dried her eyes. "Yes, Silver Spoon. And from now on, no matter what, I promise I'll always listen to you. I'll treat you as an equal instead of just somepony to lean on to make myself feel better. And if I ever get out of line again, don't hesitate to do what you did during the election for student pony president."
"I don't think I'll ever have to worry about that," The filly with a lovely grayish coat commented in reply. "You're a whole different pony now, Diamond. Inside and out."
Author's Note
Think of this as a sort of extended epilogue for "Crusaders of the Lost Mark". Yes, we did see Diamond helping Silver during the reprise of "The Pony I Wanna Be". But I feel like everyone would've loved to see a scene like this in the show before Diamond and Silver were unceremoniously discarded.
