Artist’s notes:

“Pay-whatever commission for EcliptorCalrissian. Apparently Wysteria is destined to be princess and the other ponies follow her. She doesn’t really like this since she is just a gardener, but fate has more for her!

“(So I’m told anyway, don’t know anything about G3 myself.)”

Commissioner’s notes:

“Points sent!

“And you’ve got the basic idea. It’s the three leaders of the three races (Star Catcher of the pegasi, Mayor Flitter Flutter of the earth ponies, Cheerilee of the unicorns) and Wysteria, who discovered the flower that, as foretold, means you’re destined princess. Wysteria really doesn’t feel like she belongs here – alongside these three ponies who’ve led and defended their people for years, here she is, just some gardener. As seen in “The Princess Promenade,” she came up with a loophole that allowed her to return to her normal life. She thought it was all over at the end of that story, but now it would turn out that fate isn’t letting her off the hook that easily! If anything, the fact that she was that clever, and humble enough to not want the role at first, proves all the more that she’s the right pony for the job. Spike tells her this, and that if she wasn’t the best suited, she wouldn’t have been the one to find the flower; it’s destiny and all that! (How much you wanna bet she’ll really hate the word “destiny” before it’s over? Like, really, really hate it.)

“So, here they are, facing down your basic horrible terror what threatens all ponykind and stuff.

“And I didn’t try to come up with a 1:1 connection to the FIM ones; don’t ask which one’s generosity and which one’s loyalty, or where the other two are, etc. It’s not like that. This is how I figure it’d work if G3 was like FIM; with the three races only newly starting to integrate, new threats lead to their discovery of the ultimate power that comes when the three races unite in friendship and harmony and all that good stuff. I imagine the holder of the Big Crown Thingy is sort of like the Avatar; different race each generation. Someday long after these four, when the Elements are about to be needed again, it’ll start in Unicornia when somepony who doesn’t think of herself as princess or heroine material will find a certain flower, connected to a certain dragon, and so it begins again.”