“Actually,” Twilight interrupted the hug, “I’ve changed my mind.”
“WHAT!?” everypony else screamed out, looking at Twilight as if she was crazy.
“Oh, come on! We just went through this!” Rainbow Dash called out from above, expressing herself as she always does.
“Not about ruling Equestria,” Twilight continued with a chuckle, “about leaving Ponyville. It’s a new era, with a new ruler. I was thinking of moving the capital to a new location as well…”
Everypony was shocked, nearly speechless. Luna’s face was the most expressive, mouth wide open looking at Twilight, then Celestia, then Twilight, gesturing with her hoof frozen in such a way that spoke a thousand words, all of them being ‘what’.
“Twilight, are you sure?” Celestia was the first to respond, sitting down in surprise, “I know you want to stay near your friends but…”
“Oh, that’s only part of it,” Twilight smiled, trotting away to the table and carefully climbing on top of it, “I was looking through my castle and I realised something. Something valuable. The castle was always far too big for just myself and Spike, even Starlight barely started filling the space…”
Twilight magicked up an illusion of the group inside her castle, transforming the courtyard into an interior space. The various cleaners were shocked when the tables and chairs disappeared and they were inside.
“In my triple-final check of the castle, I noticed how many rooms I left empty,” Twilight continued, taking everypony on a tour of all the unused space, “each one of these felt empty, like something was missing…”
“You also found that Power Ponies comic!” Spike interjected.
The illusion took the group to the final room, the map room. The chairs were emblazoned with their cutie marks, with the great friendship map between them all. The Elements all jumped onto their chairs, or onto the coronation stools in their place.
“This is my castle, my home,” Twilight smiled, “it was created for me, for a reason. For years I didn’t know what that reason was, but on the train ride here I figured it out. This is going to be the new seat of Equestria.”
Everypony was still stunned, though less frozen in shock and disbelief and more trying to work out what Twilight was doing and how everything would work.
“So… That Council of Friendship thing just now? Are we still doing that?” Applejack was the first to question, raising her hoof up as if she was in a class.
“Hehe, of course,” Twilight giggled, “once a moon, we make sure to meet up as the Council of Friendship. All the rest of the time will be for us to just be friends, you know?”
“I will admit,” Luna seemed surprised, “this is definitely not what we were expecting…”
“Actually, I did think of this,” Celestia recalled, transforming the illusion to the castle of the two sisters.
It was on that fateful day in the Everfree Forest. Celestia had just used the elements to banish Luna to the moon. She sat there in the ruins of the throne room, crying her eyes out. She couldn’t bear the thought of ruling without her sister, and the castle was always built for two. Two thrones, two seats… The real Celestia was also crying.
“I moved my capital to get away from the memories of Luna, of that painful experience,” Celestia continued, “it was a long process, but I made my way to Canterlot. To that cave where the founders used the fire of friendship to unite ponykind. I needed a change of location.”
“Sister…” Luna found herself close to tears as well, “I never realised how much that…”
“I put on a brave face, of course, but your return was the happiest moment of my life, dear sister…”
Celestia and Luna gave each other a big hug as the illusion wore off, everypony back in that messy courtyard where the disaster happened.
“It’s a big change, I know that,” Twilight continued, “it’s a change for the entire country. Not just me, not just you, but for all of Equestria. New maps will need to be made; new laws will need to be written…”
“I’m not sure Ponyville has everything you might need…” Rainbow Dash flew back up, thinking to herself, “I mean, we have grown since you arrived and we’ve got a stadium, a sanctuary…”
“And Sweet Apple Acres is going to be supplying apples all across Equestria, let alone for a royal entourage…” Applejack added.
“And honestly, there’s quite a few good things here in Canterlot,” Rarity piped up, “we fixed up Restaurant Row and it’ll be a shame for all the new cuisine to lose that certain… Royal blessing.”
“I know you’ve been doing Mayor Mare’s job for the past few years Twi,” Applejack tapped her hoof, “but I’m not sure she’ll be happy making it more official.”
“I know,” Twilight held her hoof to her chest and looked down solemnly, “and you’re all making a really good point. I’ll also be uprooting everypony here’s life instead of just mine…”
“And Spike’s!” Spike added, “I’ve come to love Ponyville but I’m always happy to live anywhere where you go.”
“I’m just…” Twilight searched for the word, looking around at her friends and giving out a sigh.
Everypony was quiet. Even the birds stopped tweeting, possibly at Fluttershy’s request. The courtyard had no sound other than a few shuffling of hooves and a small breath of wind. Twilight’s heart was dropping, maybe she was unsure after all.
“I’m just not sure, actually. It sounded so good in my head, but maybe you’re right.”
“Oh, dearie me,” a very familiar voice materialised, along with a portal and a face, “is this some sort of pity party? Because it looks to me like there’s more pity than party going on and that’s just not good.”
“Discord!” Fluttershy called out.
“Discord…” Everypony else groaned.
“What?” Discord was smiling, filing away at his… Fur? “Oh, I have to say that that coronation was just absolutely chaotic. A nice coronation present for me!”
“I hope you’re not just here to be annoying,” Twilight confronted, “I’m making a very difficult decision here.”
“Oh, would I do that?” Discord asked, a halo appearing above his head as if he was some sort of angel, “I mean yes I would, but I’m not.”
With a snap of his fingers, he turned the courtyard into… Something. Something chaotic, something where nothing was right. It was in many ways still the castle, just with all the trees walking about and all the clouds reading books and all sorts of crazy little differences.
“I’m far too fond of messing with you guys to let you all drift apart. Far too fond. I was going to wait until Celestia and Luna got to their retirement home before I started to meddle with them, but I guess that’ll have to wait.”
“Get. To the point.” Celestia demanded through bared teeth, fuming at how Discord was acting so nonchalant.
“Fine, fine…” Discord snapped the courtyard back to normal, then snapped so everyone landed in Twilight’s real map room, “it’s this map. I know that that illusionist was somehow able to move it with her magic, but I can’t move it at all!”
“We’re not here to redecorate!” Rainbow Dash proclaimed, “we’re here to rule Equestria.”
“Exactly!” Discord said, “I was going to find someplace in Canterlot Castle to hide it. Maybe on one of the walls in the royal kitchens. But I couldn’t relocate it for more than a few seconds.”
“Well,” Twilight looked at the map, remembering all the adventures they went on, “well it was connected to the tree of harmony. Maybe it just didn’t like being too far away from it?”
“No, no, no. I know Harmonia. She’s always getting in my way, what with embodying order and all…”
“…There’s actually a Harmonia?” Celestia raised her eyebrows.
“Oh yes of course, she lives just on the opposite side of my dimension,” Discord produced the craziest looking map of all time, “right here, where things start to actually make… Urgh… Sense.”
“So…” Twilight wondered, “Harmonia controls the map?”
“Harmonia does a lot of things. All of them far too subtle for my tastes. I prefer my chaos to be nice and bombastic. She likes to do things subtly. She’s very much one for plans and some of them take hundreds of moons to unfold…”
“…And this map’s part of her plan.” Twilight finished, “Harmonia is subtly telling us that this IS my castle…”
“Mhmm, you get the gist of it,” Discord snapped his fingers and painted the entire room purple like Twilight, “Harmonia’s saying that you should stay here.”
“But… We just went through this. It’ll be chaotic and uproot so many ponies…”
“Bah, barely even a blip on the chaosometer,” Discord produced a graph, “Pinkie Pie alone causes more chaos than just some measly legal stuff.”
“Hey!” Pinkie scowled at Discord, “I think I kept some of that chaos magic, you know.”
“Um… Girls?” Fluttershy finally found herself speaking, “our cutie marks are glowing.”
“Well, I didn’t notice. You should give it back, anyway.” Discord continued, oblivious.
“Not if you’re just going to mess around like this!”
“No really the map’s trying to tell us somethi…”
“Look Discord, this isn’t the time for your silly games! It’s time for us to have a real, honest, adult conversation!” Rainbow Dash confronted, her face barely ten centimetres from Discord.
“EVERYPONY LISTEN TO ME!” Fluttershy yelled, causing the fracas to halt, “our cutie marks are glowing and the map’s right here so…”
Everypony in the room looked at the map, watching the symbols. The room glowed with a beautiful shine as it took all of the marks and placed them in one spot. When they stopped, the entire room turned to Twilight.
“Well, I guess that question’s been answered,” Twilight stepped up on her chair, raising her hoof, “for Equestria!”
“For Equestria!” echoed everypony in the room.