Schooling the Ending

"Anonymous? You can come in now!"

"Welcome Anonymous, please take a seat."

"No need for that, Anonymous, just call me Twilight for now."

"So Anon, I understand from your application you had a lot of questions about friendships?

"You're on the fence about attending then? Fire away Anon, we here at the School of Friendship are an open learning environment. I can assure you, there are no wrong questions!"

"Well, Tempest rejected friendship when it failed her in the past.That led her down a dark path. When I attempted to show her the error of her ways, she showed remorse for her actions and made a serious effort to make up for it. I'm being very honest when I say that if it weren't for Tempest, my friends and I wouldn't be here right now."

"It's about forgiveness. Giving others a second chance to be a better pony. Their best self that they can be. Tempest is not the first I've had to forgive, and she's not the first enemy to since become a true friend."

"I told Discord once that friendship isn't easy. But it's always worth fighting for. I will never put power above my friendships, and on that day, I chose my friends."

"Yes, what Discord did that day betrayed our trust. But we gave him a chance before, and we stand by it now.”

“Well, why not? At the time, we knew from Princess Luna that sometimes you just need to reach out and let others know you’re willing to take that first step in hearing them out. It encourages them to do the same for others they meet.”

The Changelings! Spike was the one who reached out to Thorax to begin with and gave him a chance at friendship. Even when no one else would, he stuck up for his friend.

…even you hadn’t been on board with that at first. It shouldn’t have been surprising, Spike was always around when you learned about friendship. Some days you thought that maybe your friends understood just a bit more about friendship than you did.

“Giving others a second chance lets you spread the Magic of Friendship to them, and they in turn spread friendship with others who haven’t had a second chance before. The magic of friendship isn’t supposed to be limited to any creature for any reason, after all. It’s why I founded this School. Because at the end of the day, everyone deserves friendship.”

“Just like that.”

“Yes. However, I can’t say that everyone willingly accepts that offer, not at first.” Again, Starlight came to mind. She had first rejected that offer of friendship back at Our Town, then again during the time travel until finally accepting friendship at the very end. When Starlight attempted to offer friendship to Chrysalis after defeating her, however…

“You can only hope they’re as willing to accept redemption as you are, but even when it doesn’t work out, I can proudly say that it’s always worth taking that first step. All you need is someone willing to do it.”

“Headmare Twilight. You’re in, Anonymous.”

"You can still just call me Twilight, though."

"The honor is all mine, Anonymous. Counselor Starlight should have your schedule and dorm arrangements for the rest of the semester."

"Okay, next applicant! The Headmare will see you now!"

 

 

"Golly, thanks Princess!" You fluttered your cute little Pegasus wings into Twilight's office

 

"Oh, hello there! Feel free to come in! You must be one of the new students!"

"Well, let me be the first to say congratulations Anonymous! You're going to go far in learning the Magic of Friendship, I just know it! If you ever have any questions or concerns over it, my door is always open! Surely you must some questions over what becoming a Student of Friendship means?"

"I'd say it was a pretty good question to ask. Knowing Twilight, you two had a good talk about it, didn't you?

"I see. I suppose you weren't fully comfortable with that idea?"

"You might want to sit down Anonymous, this is going to be one heck of an explanation."

"Empathy Cocoa?"

"Yup, Empathy Cocoa. Sharing's a way of showing you care. It's a way of showing empathy for others."

"Right, empathy. That means you put yourself in somepony else's horseshoes, so to speak."

"Not quite, no. What that means is trying to see things from somepony else's point of view."

"Everycreature in the world thinks about things a little differently from each other. Some may think those differences can tear friendships apart."

"But sometimes, those same differences can bring those very friendships closer together instead. Everypony has something different that they can do that others can't, and there's things they can't do that others can. That means those ponies will see the same things a little differently from each other, and that's okay. It just means you can do so much more together than apart."

"Sorry, I'm talking a lot here. You following along so far?"

"Some ponies aren't okay with doing things differently than they're used to, however. They might try to force things to stay the same. Some changes may be too much for those ponies to handle right away, and they don't want friendship at that moment."

"You wondered what to do when others don't accept friendship, right? Well, some ponies don't accept friendship because they don't want things to change at all. They don't want to look at things from somepony else's point of view. And when you don't care at all what others think, you'd be willing to do some really bad stuff."

"That's why it's so important to see what things are like in somepony else's life. You never really know what they're going through unless you're willing to reach out to them. To have more empathy for others. Maybe once those ponies understand someone else a little bit better, they'll really get the chance to grow into a happier pony. All you can really do, sometimes, is continue to reach out, and hope things will work out better than before. Does that answer your question?"

"Something like that. Anything else you want to ask?

"Oh, just one an old friend of mine gave me. Hold on, I'll write down a copy and put it with the rest of your things, okay?"

"If you'll just follow me to the dorms, you can get better acquainted with some of the students already attending! Won't that be fun?”