"Years ago, when I ruled Equestria alone, a day such as this was something I only ever dreamed of." A small smile came to Celestia after she sighed, looking down to the ground. "Yet here we are. Because of what my apprentice has done, for all the goodwill she has fostered, we now have a chance." Slowly, she nodded. "A chance for peoples to come together. For rulers to unite and make choices for the benefit of all, not just their own. A chance for the world to enter a new era of peace and harmony. A time of cooperation that, only a few short years ago, would not have been possible." She placed her hoof upon her chest. "Twilight gave us this chance...we must not waste it."
Sitting beside her, Luna looked to her with at least a little incredulity. "Celestia, I realise that this meeting is important, but we're not talking about anything earth-shattering today. We're just doing a, what was it you said, a meet-and-greet?"
Cadance giggle as she placed her hoof upon her aunt's shoulder. "Luna's right. All the big 'new era' stuff can come later. Right now it's just leaders setting down some ground rules."
Taking a moment to relax, Celestia smiled to her fellow alicorns. "Yes...yes, you're right. I suppose I just get worked up about these things sometimes."
Luna looked to her with softness. "No bad thing, Tia. To care is good. But you need not fret. Leaders such as these have gathered without incident before after all." This time it was Luna's turn to be looked at with incredulity, and after a pause to consider her own words, she blushed slightly. "Well...maybe 'without' incident would be a touch inaccurate."
Celestia frowned as she looked ahead to the end of the chamber, where her guards were awaiting the command to open the door and let in their guests. "That's all in the past, Lulu. With luck, today won't be anywhere near as difficult."
Cadance smirked as she kept her voice to a whisper. "Well, given that they threatened war, I'd be surprised if it was that bad."
Celestia, who had no doubt heard her niece, simply ignored the words and gave a silent nod to her guards, who promptly opened the chamber doors as instructed. And the timing was perfect, as there, right on the other side and already in-motion, were the assembled leaders of all their allied nations, as well as their various entourages, whom Celestia now smiled to. "Welcome to Canterlot. I trust your journeys were pleasant?"
To her delight, the one at the head of the approaching group was Thorax, the one whom Equestria arguably had the friendliest relationship with. He gave a bow of his head as soon as he was close enough. "It was a steady flight over. No trouble, thankfully. Though I will have to brace myself for Ocellus asking me a thousand questions about my visit when I get back."
Celestia smiled to that, remembering well the days when Twilight too would be by her side asking curious questions on a minute-by-minute basis. But for now she said nothing, instead turning her gaze to the rest of her visitors, which included Dragon Lord Ember, Prince Rutherford and Seaspray, the representative of Queen Novo of the Hippogriffs. The arrival of this latter figure piqued Celestia's interest. "Will your Queen not be joining us?"
Seaspray shook his head. "Alas no. My Queen has scheduled some quality time with her family. Her duties have kept her from doing so for some time now, so now that she has some time for it..."
But Celestia simply raised her hoof and smiled. "Say no more. I know as well as any how hard it can be to get away sometimes." She gave a mild bow to him. "I'd be honoured to have you here in her stead, Seaspray." The Hippogriff stallion returned the bow, but unfortunately the professional mood was rather spoiled by the one who spoke next. Well, perhaps speaking would be too strong a term, as it was instead more of an annoyed grunt. Of course, all eyes turned to see the shambling figure of Grandpa Gruff, making his way ahead of all the others to look around the chamber, looking utterly disdainful at all of it. Celestia, remembering her lessons of diplomacy well, maintained her smile. "Mr Gruff. A pleasure to have you with us once more."
The elder Griffon waved in her general direction, not even bothering to look at her, and instead just tried to give himself a stretch. "I've been walkin' and flyin' for who knows how long now. My bones are aching like nobody's business!"
Celestia cast a quick aside look to Luna, who seemed to share her disapproval with his attitude. But let it never be said that Celestia did not attend to the needs of her guest. "I can arrange for you to be assigned one of our more comfortable rooms while you're here."
"Pah!" the frail visitor replied.
Celestia, giving pause in case he decided he was going to say anything else, soon realised that was going to be her only response. So, after looking left and right to her fellow Equestrian princesses, stepped forward and cleared her throat. "As I said, welcome all. Today we begin the march towards our nations coming together in cooperation and friendship. We have each stood alone in our long histories, isolated from one another or interacting only in unhappy instances. But now, with this new age upon us, a chance is given to us to forge a new path for those who follow. So that those of Equestria, Mount Aris, Yakyakistan and all other places can see each other not as outsiders, but as neighbours."
Thorax smiled. "Hear, hear!" Realising he was being looked at by the others, he blushed slightly before shrugging. "What? It was a good speech."
Turning, Celestia gestured to the large, round table that had been set up for them all. "Now, please, take your seats so we may begin our discussions."
Now, while most of the leaders were fine with just going over and finding a seat for themselves, there was one horned prince who stood there for a time before speaking up in his usual loud manner. "Wait! Where is head of table?"
Cadance elected to answer this one. "Well, Prince Rutherford, it's a round table. So there is no 'head' to it." She smiled as she gestured to it. "This gathering is not for any one of us to stand above the others, but to sit together as equals."
Rutherford tapped his chin a few times before walking over to his chair, which had been graciously made twice as large as the others in order to accommodate him. "Rutherford no used to...equals."
"You'll get used to it, I suspect," Luna remarked as she and the other alicorns took their places.
Once all were seated, Celestia looked around the room, then took a deep breath before finally getting the meeting started. "Now then. To start things off, I believe it's best if we get any grievances we have off our chests. Would there, by any chance, be any matters you wish to discuss one another that have been of concern to you?"
Now, the expectation with that opening was that nobody here had any real issue with one another. That things were good and that they could all move onto to other, more productive discussions. Unfortunately, as the old saying goes, no plan survives contact with the enemy, and Celestia's hopes for an amicable start to these talks were quickly dashed when, who else, Grandpa Gruff slammed his claw onto the table. "Yeah! I got me a grievance alright!" Getting up from his chair, he pointed an accusing claw straight at Ember. "I want this dragoness to return the gem deposits her kind took from us Griffons along the coast of the Celestial Sea!"
His tone and attitude were clearly far more aggressive than what Celestia had wanted to hear at this meeting, but before she had the chance to calm him down, Ember herself got up from her chair and glared at him angrily. "Are you kidding me?! Those deposits are ours, old-timer!"
"Bah! Everyone here knows you dragons only have them because you swooped on in and took em!" Gruff countered.
"Sure! But that was ten thousand years ago! You really think you guys have a claim to it now?! Besides, all the gems are long gone by now anyway!" Ember answered.
"That's beside the point!" Gruff angrily snapped back. "You took em! So now we want em back! I hate to hate to say this, Missy, but we Griffons don't exactly have much going for us!"
Ember looked to him with fury. "Did you, a senile old coot, just refer to the lord of all dragons as...Missy?!"
Gruff rolled his eyes. "Hey, I call it like I see it. Besides, why should the representative of the great nation of Griffonstone lower himself to talking to some kid as though she were some big-shot?"
"Because I am 'some big shot' in case you hadn't noticed! And what's all this about your nation being great? Last I checked it was not much better than a ruin." She chortled drily. "And as for you being their representative, word on the grapevine is that you just screamed so loudly about wanting the job that all the other Griffons just gave it to you so you'd shut up!"
"I deserved the spot and they knew it!" Gruff bellowed.
Celestia, who had long since started rubbing her temples, looked over to Cadance briefly. "I don't suppose your magic could calm them down?"
Her younger cohort looked to her with the mother of all scepticism. "At this point? Not likely."
Luna stifled the need to laugh. "For the record, this is the most entertainment I've had all week," she remarked, making doubly sure to keep her voice as quiet as possible.
After almost a full minute of hearing the delegates bicker like children, as well as seeing impotent attempts from Thorax and Seaspray to get them to calm down, Celestia had had enough. She stood from her chair, looked straight at the rest of them and opened her mouth to speak in the infamous Royal Canterlot Voice. But, to the surprise of all of them, it was not her to spoke up, but Rutherford. And his voice was no less subtle. "Dragon-Lord and old Griffon quiet now! This place for friendship and talk! Not fight like angry snow-cats! We allies now, not enemies! SO SIT DOWN!!!"
The words did their job well, and after a while of everyone looking to him with shock and awe, Ember and Gruff, though clearly still irritated with one another, slowly got back down into their chairs. Celestia, for her part, looked as taken aback as it was possible to be, but after a moment to recover, she cleared her throat. "Ahem...yes...well...thank you, Rutherford."
The Yak leader smiled to her and nodded. "Rutherford do what Rutherford do."
Not quite sure what he meant by that, Celestia instead turned her attention to the rest of them. "Now then, since we appear to have finally settled down..." She took a deep breath before continuing. "Look, I realise that none of this cooperation is going to be easy. This is unexplored territory for all of us. Nations working with nations en masse? That's something the world at large has never really seen before. Everything we do here will be treading new ground." She looked to Ember and Gruff in particular. "And I recognise that our peoples will have had more that a few spats over the years. Perhaps it was simple naivete on my part to assume this first meeting would go flawlessly. But even so, even knowing there will be bumps along the way, I know, and so do all of you, that this is worth it." Turning, she pointed to the closest window and the horizon beyond. "We owe it to all who follow us to ensure that the troubles of the past won't continue forever, and that we can talk things out instead of resorting to all the unsavoury means we might have employed before."
Cadance stood up here. "Because if your children can come together in friendship, then what possible excuse is there for any of you to not do so?" Seeing Celestia look to her with surprise, the Princess of Love simply shrugged. "Hey, even I get tired of not getting to the point every once in a while."
Silence fell, and after the leaders had simply sat there quietly for a while, Gruff folded his arms and let out an irritated huff. "Hmph! I suppose...I can wait until later before asking for territory to change claws."
Ember grimaced. "And maybe I can try and talk to my people about saying sorry for the bad stuff we've done to others over the years."
Luna smiled to her older sister. "Well, it's a start."
Nodding in agreement to her, Celestia again regarded the gathered leaders as a whole. "Alright then...let's try this one more time."
Author's Note
I like to think that, at least until Twilight took over, Celestia tried a meeting like this at least once a week, to mixed success 
