As the Princess of literal social diplomacy and maintenance of political allies, otherwise dubbed the title: Princess of Friendship, Twilight Sparkle found it was her duty to keep an open mind of all things. Threats and allies, possible threats and potential allies alike. Time ruling Equestria for the past six to almost seven years side-by-side her contemporaries had opened her eyes to many things in the workings of statecraft. The pressures both Princess Luna and Celestia faced both together and separately were admirable for she was certain that she would not have been able to handle these pressures without her friends and the support of her contemporaries. With Princess Luna back officially although not fully, things were only bound to shift and change even more in the incoming years. And while Twilight wouldn't have said "no" to the experience that she had gained in the passing time there were times she just sat down and looked back. Where the thoughts of the past would overwhelm her mind while working on paperwork hard into the night, on her third mug of keep-me-up with her trusty assistant by her side. There were times where it would wander to the previous occurring damage from ongoing conflict, and moments where she wished, hoped- wanted even, for some things to have gone different. Wished that there were different ways to have handled a situation, or better outcomes that could have prevented more harm.
There were times she also regretted meeting certain someone's. And these times, were now.
If I told you that day I brought Princess Celestia's body back, that there was a way to bring restore her after what I did...wouldn't you have tried?
The room was stunned with silence. The parchment could not see but it could sense. Emotional auras were just as good as facial expressions and this scroll knew long before the tails swung left and right, lashing, that it had just set off a timer to a ticking bomb.
Sunset was the first to respond.
"Are you saying...." she said with measured calm, "that you knew a way to bring the Princess back all along and you didn't tell us? That you've known since day one how to bring her back and you never said it?!"
Somehow voicing that just seemed to make the air more stale.
The scroll sensed a fluctuation of emotions from everyone, the air was thick with bewilderment, anger, and sadness from all except Discord whom the scroll could not seem to read. Discord who sat in a armchair that was at a height more fitted for a throne than anything else, right next to Fluttershy. The draconequus looked around, brows knitting down and shaping his features into a look of concern at the way things were turning.
They had all been expecting this. A letter. A imminent reminder of his presence. Something that would appear at some point in time when somepony least expected it and it had everything to do with the changelings as both Chrysalis and Thorax's changelings had paid visits to the recipients. Ever since Princess Luna got hers, it had become something to keep an eye out for because shortly after her letter was discovered, it was reported within the same hour that Blueblood had in fact also received a letter from the departed Knight-Lord that night a intruder had broken into both his and Lady Brittle's chambers.
The letters had not stopped with just those two however. Everyone in this room had received a letter. Each offering a few words, a few sayings. Even an apology before it abruptly burnt itself into nothing. Each, all more or less repeating the same thing over and over again when asked the question why or when any question at all was asked to get some answers. A vague reply of empty platitudes that answered nothing but sounded wise or deep. Like a one dimensional villain from one of Spike's Danger Grit comic books, a feline anthropologist named Zack Grit who seemed to always find themselves falling into the schemes and acts of criminals that thought they were doing good, when in truth it was just a simple lie that the good they were doing was more for themselves.
The silence had now become sour, bitter even and Discord could smell it. If Cadence were here, perhaps she might feel it but for Discord this taste had an odor and this odor that befouled that atmosphere smelled of plot device tension. Discord knew what was coming, the scroll knew what was coming.
And when it came, neither the soul tainted scroll or the chaos lord, were surprised when Pinkie asked quietly through a curtain of straight hair:
"Why? Why didn't you tell us?"
To which the scroll replied in that usual circumventing way:
I never said I knew a way how to bring Princess Celestia back from the dead. I'm asking you a question, and you aren't answering it. If you knew how to bring the Princess back safely, would you--
"Hogwash!" Rainbow Dash snarled.
"You think we're stupid, don't you?" Applejack growled. "How many times are you gonna dodge a simple question?! If you don't have an answer, stop wasting our time!"
Then Sunset Shimmer added her own scolding which just fueled Rainbow Dash and Applejack to continue and before Twilight knew it all her friends, minus Discord, were all trying to be heard over the scroll that kept trying to shut them down with every armed remark.
In the midst of all this madness, the dam that Twilight had been carefully checking up on, ensuring it was well maintained in her list to bottle up all those pressures began to break. Twilight couldn't take it anymore. A rush of thoughts that led up to this moment just came bursting in. The mail was picked up this morning by Spike and almost instantly upon checking it she had known it was him. For the first time a letter was not hiding its signature. Twilight had waited to open it because there was a note scribbled in his signature style to gather the others or else this letter would never work if it was opened before the required guests were present. It would shut down, lock itself away for all eternity and Twilight only now realized as she sat in this shouting match, one of many she had had to endure in the last few years of a political career yet somehow so different as to ramp up her stress, that Overcast, even in possible death, had played her yet again. The voice from the scroll was just so robotic, so bereft of the the warmth she once knew it held- it was like she wasn't even talking to a living being or pony, it was like meeting Nightmare Moon all over again just a couple months back in Canterlot Castle-- it was like he wasn't even a pony at all to begin with.
Then again, they had all seen for themselves when the Elements had ripped Overcast out of the real Sunburst's body and split the two in twain, that he may as well have been a demon all along. Whatever that had been.
In her head she knew that this thing was just a copy, a clone stapled with the aspects of a personality that simply lived on because it held a piece of his soul. But in real time Twilight couldn't sit there and listen to this. For the second time since knowing him, she felt betrayed and a bile of anger exploded out as she rose.
"ENOUGH!" and the whole room echoed with her voice, silencing all. Only when all was quiet did she turn her ire to the one that truly deserved it. "I can't believe you...did we ever know you at all? OF COURSE WE WOULD HAVE DONE SOMETHING TO BRING THE PRINCESS BACK!" Twilight shouted, chest heaving, sparks flying, eyes misting over. "WHY WOULD YOU EVEN ASK THAT?!"
"Twilight--", Fluttershy began.
"NO!" She shouted, ears all around her wilting at the volume of her voice.
Wings spreading Twilight ascended into the air, horn glowing, eyes narrowed. Matching a look of cool aggression Tempest Shadow may have been proud of but would not have liked to be on the other side of. "Give me one reason why I shouldn't destroy this-this-- monster right here and now. One reason why we should waste our time and listen to anything else you have to say after what you did and are doing right now."
Because I have something to say that you need to hear.
"Twilight", eyes filled with anger Twilight turned her baleful glare on Discord who offered her a small smile of reassurance. "Please" Discord said quietly, pleading in his voice. "Let's listen to what it has to say."
It he said. Not him, even if it was a piece of him.
Every ounce of her wanted to burn the package before her with a spell. To just unleash the building rage, the anger, the confusion, the hurt at all the lies still unknown, still being learned-- no way of dishing it out on the one that deserved it. She wanted to find every letter like this he'd ever made and obliterate every one of them so at the very least she knew he was gone forever and the pain and destruction he'd caused in every life he'd ever mixed with was forever obliterated. She wanted to purge his memory and the sugar coated lies he'd ever fed them about caring. She wanted him erased, but even then, the plea in Discord's request was enough to bring back the rationality.
Floating up there, eyes aglow with magical power, Twilight realized just how much she hated Overcast. How much she didn't understand him, much like how Discord had confused and still did confuse her. Much like Pinkie was a mystery and the nature of how she could do what she did.
Twilight she heard the mimic of his voice say, please.
And for some reason, that one 'please', seemed to have more actual life in it than anything else she'd heard him say since they began this whole meeting.
Slowly Twilight descended, her mane catching adrift on ethereal breezes as she touched ground and landed. The magic coursing through her ceased and her mane and tail returned to normal, as it did, her friends gathered. Bodies pressing against each other.
"What do you want?" Rainbow Dash was the one to ask with a scowl.
Do you recall what Eudes' goal was? The whole reason we got into that fight with Prance?
"What the heck does that have to do with the question you just asked us earlier?" Applejack snapped.
"More importantly" Starlight cut in, "how could you bring the Princess back anyway? I'm sure we all get that you weren't exactly who we thought you were, but I'm really starting to get tired of the whole "I can do things you can't bit", how could you possibly do something that not only even Discord was incapable of doing but none of Equestria's most skilled magi could do with Theory?"
"We all know necromancy is a thing, anyone with the understanding could have tried to bring the Princess back" Sunset added. "Between Twilight, Trixie, Sunburst, Starlight, Brittle, and I, the most skilled unicorns of our generation, we all could have used some of the older rituals in the Forbidden section to figure out how to bring the Princess back. The reason we didn't was because necromancy as we all know from Grogar's legends is a terribly difficult form of magic to handle; horribly corrosive to the mind and soul of harmonic beings, and dabbles in forces that while we have all fought- but, don't entirely understand. Especially when dealing with departed souls and reintegrating them into sustainable bodies."
"Yeah!" Rainbow Dash shouted at the tainted item. "Why even ask the question to begin with? You know the answer, of course we would! Princess Celestia has done so much for all of Equestria, how could we say no?"
"Yeah!" was echoed all around, save for Discord who remained silent.
I asked you that question to confirm something. And yes, Starlight, I suppose to you it would be annoying if it sounds like I'm bragging. I'm aware that Luna has received her letter, as I'm sure you all have received yours also.
I told her what I told you, I don't regret my actions, the consequences had they been done differently would have been worse than what you all could handle.
Applejack snorted, a mocking sound. "We handled you pretty well didn't we?"
The comment was ignored or maybe it somehow struck a nerve because whatever the tainted scroll was going to follow with, never was voiced. Silence lapsed and the only thing that happened for a long, agonizing couple of seconds was the sourness in the air lingering from that barbed remark and seeming to weigh on everypony's ears as they calmed.
"Guess I won't apologize either." Applejack's voice pierced the silence and solemn air, "You deserve what you sowed and we can't forgive you for what you did, not now and maybe not ever- not especially when you keep refusing to tell us why." Glancing in Rainbow's direction, the pegasus and earth pony caught sight of each other and Rainbow looked away shortly after.
I am but a piece of the original. It is not my place to beg for forgiveness in his steed, only to share his words and his hopes for understanding--
"Oh come off it!" Rarity. "Really now! You- he- whatever you are! You don't want us to understand you! If you did, you wouldn't be doing all of this!"
"Yeah!"
"I'm inclined" Discord slipped in on ice skates, "to agree. I'm afraid this game of charades you've been playing isn't working. So it might be better for all of us if you simply...came clean?"
The scroll light dimmed, there was a sudden drop in energy that Twilight picked up on and wondered for just a moment if they had done something to warrant the scroll's anger. For one brief second, she thought she saw Discord raise his lion paw in a prepared motion to snap, only to see he was merely stretching the limb.
"...very well."
Ears twitched and the ponies could not help but follow instincts and glance at one another. "What?" Sunset voiced the single thought.
"Very well." The scroll answered in a voice that no longer seemed as starkly robotic. "I'll tell you why I did what I did." Then out of nowhere he added, "I suppose this will answer your question also, Discord."
Without warning or hesitation- the scroll exploded into a ball of light. "I had hoped to ease you into this. But perhaps it would be better to show, than tell."
And with a flash and a brilliant pulse, the ball let out a wave of blinding white light. And before Twilight or anypony else could do anything, they were completely swallowed up into its radiance.
As one, they all opened their eyes to a bright flash of colors that dazed the already scrambled senses.
Twilight, Pinkie, Starlight, Sunset, Rainbow Dash, Applejack, Rarity, Fluttershy, Spike and Discord opened their eyes all at the same time, all occupying one mind or space or body and when they opened their eyes they instantly became aware of the other's presence around them but not next to them. There but not there, it was a confusing feeling to experience, even more so if you didn't walk dreams or understand how to shift memories. For most but one it was odd and uncomfortable, for Discord, it was like a walk down literal memory lane.
Then that walk suddenly ceased when the world seemed to slow with the shadows and colors considerably stopping as the pony's body they were in suddenly seemed to act as if this were a game of freeze.
I see you chose the full experience, and when they blinked- or when the host of this body blinked, they saw him. Overcast, ponified, not the mass of swarming colors that had been ripped out of the real Sunburst's screaming body, but the form he had taken while still possessing it. He wore nothing but standard Royal Guard armor in this, all of which was dented and had scorch marks from magical attacks and stood with a small smile.
"I am going to show you two things" the voice of the Knight-Lord whispered in frozen time to eight occupants that only he could see where they could not see each other. "You know as well as I that a memory can be fabricated or altered, so I don't fault you for doubting what you might see and hear. But I ask you to trust me as hard and as audacious as that may sound. I ask you to trust in what you are about to see here. Because what I am showing you is more than just a memory, I am showing you what could have been. Discord will confirm all that you see, I trust he won't lie because I am also answering his own personal question or at least some of it. When this is over, you will know what would have happened had I not killed both Eudes and Princess Celestia and why I took measures to prepare as quickly as I could. This" Overcast sighed and his tall form slouched, "will be my last message to you all. And as I have said so many times before, I am sorry. I wish things could have gone differently."
His horn glowed, the freeze that had taken over the world, this fabricated reality made by neural impulses, slowly kicking back into motion.
Overcast the phantom wearing armor that was clearly a bit tight for his size, nodded solemnly, then when the host blinked next, he was gone.