“Twists and turns are my master plan...then find the Elements, back where you began!” Discord said, before disappearing in a flash.
Twilight's head was whirring. She repeated the riddle to herself mentally a few times, making sure to remember every little detail before getting to work analyzing. She'd of course prefer to have a scroll, quill, desk, and a couple hours, but considering the fate of Equestria was lying in her hooves, Twilight settled for solving it mentally.
First of all, analyzing the truth of the riddle as a whole. Celestia hadn't interrupted Discord or tried to warn Twilight and her friends in any way that Discord's riddles weren't true. Considering the princess presumably had hundreds of years of experience dealing with Discord, she had probably caught on to the Spirit's tricks by now. (Or at least most of them—how did Discord manage to get the Elements through that protective spell anyway?) Also, Twilight figured that if Discord was just going to lie to them, he would have taken less care to hide the truth via riddle. Unless he had assumed she would realize this and thus assume he was telling the truth, even though the riddle was actually a complete lie? Or if he'd assume that she'd assume that he was pretending to be pretending to tell the truth, and...? Twilight's head started to hurt. She'd go by Celestia's silence and Discord's strange appreciation for drama as reason enough for the riddle to be correct.
Now...for the actual words. “Twists and turns” could possibly refer to the Canterlot labyrinth, unless it was only in a metaphorical sense, in which case it could refer to any sort of twisty plan of his. Considering the next words were “are my master plan”, the latter seemed more likely—but she couldn't be sure.
“Twists and turns! look y'all, out the window there! Maybe Discord hid the Elements in the labyrinth!” Applejack cried suddenly, breaking the silence. And then between “oh I get it”'s and “ah that makes sense”'s from her friends, it hit her.
Discord wanted them to think rashly. He knew they would be unsettled by Celestia's suddenly non-tranquil disposition. He knew they would panic over not having the Elements anymore, knew they were already excited for an epic adventure, knew that Rainbow Dash, Applejack, and Pinkie Pie—even Rarity and Fluttershy, should events so play out—were ready to do anything if only to preserve their friendship and get rid of Discord.
That little word, that little “then” kept ringing in her head. “Then find the elements” was next. The usage word “then” was quite strange and oddly precise, like on a checklist. First, go through the twists and turns, then, go find the elements.
“then”...was a funny little word. It could be part of a conditional, but Discord hadn't mentioned an “if” at all. So it had to be temporal, like she'd first assumed. But there didn't have to be causation involved. “A, then B” and “if A, then B” were two very different things, as it had been drilled into Twilight's head hundreds of times.
Twilight smirked.
It was a trap.
This wasn't some lame adventure story where the main character finds themselves overcoming all sort of obstacles to reach the final treasure. Just because she and her friends were adventure-ready didn't mean it had to come to that. Just because they had saved Equestria once before didn't mean they were generic heroes, who, given vague instructions for a quest, immediately start following them, without bothering to think for themselves if their quest was really in their best interests, or if it was, if the provided way of completing the quest would really be the best way.
She was the hero of her story, and having banged her head on her desk quite often at the actions of the heroes in some adventure stories, she knew better than to mess it up.
And in the end, it all came down to this. The riddle.
The riddle was really just a list. First, get screwed by Discord's marvelously evilly constructed trap, then, get the elements. But what was there to say she couldn't just...skip over the first step?
Twilight focused her attention on the second step. What were his exact words again? “then find the Elements, back where you began...”
Twilight's attention immediately turned to the ambiguous “you”. Discord had been reciting the riddle in a room where he, her friends, and Celestia were present. But the “you”...could also be referring to something else. The Elements. As an object in the sentence, it was perfectly entitled to a pronoun too...So the “you” could be referring to Twilight and her friends, the Elements, Celestia, or any combination of the three.
“Back where you began”...began when? In terms of a pony this probably meant birth, but she and her friends were all born in different places, so it couldn't be that. It could however refer to Celestia's birthplace, wherever that was, so Twilight mentally noted Celestia's birthplace as a weak possibility. There was also a weak possibility that Discord was referring to any one of the individual birthplaces of she or her friends—however, she mentally noted that this was a very unlikely possibility as Discord appeared to lump them together as one.
And in terms of the Elements...then came the question about what the elements actually were. The physical necklaces and crown were what Twilight and her friends were after, seeing as they already embodied the Elements in spirit, but jewelry wasn't the only form the elements took: as Celestia wielded them against Luna and banished her to the moon, they were solid jewels. Where did the Elements come from, anyway? From a friendship? But which friendship? Twilight and her friends certainly weren't the first to wield the Elements, nor were they the first friends. Celestia herself had told Twilight once that the Elements were a deep power, as old as Magic. Discord couldn't possibly be powerful enough to know where the Source of Magic was...otherwise he would have broken out of his stone prison long ago, right? Or otherwise he would be strong enough to battle Twilight and her friends, even with the Elements, and wouldn't have to go to the trouble of hiding them.
So the possible combinations left were the Elements and Celestia, the Elements, Twilight and her friends and all three.
Twilight had no idea when the Elements and Celestia began. The likelihood of Discord referring to those two as the “you” was certainly higher than all of the other possibilities she had considered thus far. She mentally noted down the possibility.
As for the case where the “you” referred to all three of them...Celestia knew about the Elements long before Twilight and her friends were even born. Thus, there was no single point in time where Celestia, Twilight and her friends and the Elements “began”. So Twilight could safely rule out the possibility of the “you” referring to the three of them, unless the “began” was simply referring to the first point in time in which Twilight, her friends, Celestia and the Elements all shared a connection. Then the case would be identical to the case that the “you” referred to Twilight, her friends and the Elements.
Where did her and her friends' bond with the Elements begin?
The old castle of the two sisters first popped into her mind, but the more Twilight thought about it, it began sooner than that. (It was a possibility, though, so Twilight included it in her list.) The Elements of Harmony were her friendships with Applejack, Pinkie Pie, Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy, and Rarity. Not just one of those friendships, but all of those friendships.
Rainbow Dash's first Sonic Rainboom was a possibility, though since that wasn't really a physical hiding spot (and Twilight didn't know of any time travel spells), that probably wasn't it. Where did our common bond really begin? Why, back in the library, after Nightmare Moon had showed up, after her five friends were the only ones to notice her absence and place their trust in her and her book on the Elements of Harmony and eventually care about her not to make her go through the Everfree Forest alone and--
That was it. It all fit perfectly—it would be the last place rash protagonists would look, it was easy to retrieve and hide somewhere else and it was—most importantly--thoroughly spiced with dramatic irony.
Just in case, Twilight mentally assessed what she had come up with thus far.
Weak likelihood
- Celestia's birthplace (???)
- My or my friends' birthplaces (individual)
Medium likelihood
- Celestia + Elements (???)
- Old castle
Strong likelihood
- Library
They would search the library first, where the Elements would most likely be. If the Elements would not be there, Twilight would ask Celestia about her past whilst her friends would check their birthplaces (and Rainbow Dash would Twilight's birthplace as well as the old castle, as the fastest flier in the group). After Twilight would be done collecting the information, the six would check the “beginning” of Celestia and the Elements. If this would fail as well, it would be back to the drawing board.
“That's it! I have a plan, girls!”