“Festus?”

The griffon lifted his head from his work and looked up at the lunar pegasus addressing him. Coronach was getting better. Slowly but surely. The moonlight had done wonders.

“Festus, what do you know about oaths?” Coronach asked.

“I know enough to know that you should never swear one,” Festus replied, setting down his quill and his notebook so he could turn his full attention to Coronach. Coronach was interesting when he was in the mood to talk.

“I think I made a mistake Festus,” Coronach said, his voice sounding much better, the past week had seen much progress.

“How so?” Festus asked, genuinely curious.

“I swore an oath of duty as a guard and I changed the words around a bit. Each guard has the option to write his own vows,” Coronach answered.

“Ugh,” the griffon grunted, seeing where this might be going. “You big dumb lummox, what did your oath promise?”

“I swore to defend both Princesses with my life for as long as I drew breath. The standard oath states that you serve until death claims you. Princess Luna sliced me open and I made the blood oath of service before her and Princess Celestia,” Coronach explained thoughtfully.

The griffon flinched and clutched his own beak in disgust.

“I cannot seem to stop breathing,” Coronach said sadly.

“The griffons believe that oaths have their own magic, created by the fervent belief of those who swear them. There are stories, bad stories, of griffons bound by oaths, forced to keep going until the conditions of their oath are met,” Festus said, his beak clacking together a few times as he spoke.

“Do you actually believe that?” Coronach asked.

“I live in a world with magic. Magic that can break the natural laws. I am required to believe in almost anything because of this factor,” Festus replied, now studying one of his talons.

“I never understood most magic much. I have my own, but I am not particularly gifted. I can shadow dive, and shadow wink, and that is about it. I am not very good at either,” Coronach stated. “The only thing I really know is to go for the unicorns first and crush them. Or whatever the magical threat might be.”

“Yeeaaargh, barbaric. Violence,” Festus said, wincing.

“You and Threnody both feel the same way,” Coronach said.

“I like Threnody. A lot. She is a most interesting pony. I suppose she gets some of that from her father,” Festus said, now studying Coronach once again.

“I am very thankful that she is still alive,” Coronach confessed.

Papers and scrolls were piled everywhere. Celestia sat in study, trying to determine what she had left. The Unicorn Range was currently breaking away, slowly, one piece at a time. The Everfree county was gone, consumed by the wood and the devastation to the palace.

Canterhorn was not a good place to grow food, and a shortage was looming. The mountain fortress, perhaps the final resting place of Equestria, was not a self sufficient location.

Food was badly needed. The Unicorn Range had food. The unicorn nobles had plenty of earth ponies working for them and the Unicorn Range had some of the best farmland available.

Celestia needed leverage, some way to keep the Unicorn Range loyal. She had none. There was nothing to work with. The delegation of unicorns here at Canterhorn Fortress were making increasingly difficult commands, and Celestia was tempted to simply crush them all with an impressive display of force. Just obliterate them all and be done with it.

She understood that such an action would make her no better than Nightmare Moon. She had to find another way. And she was at a loss for what to do. She needed some way to set the nobles against one another.

Celestia needed some way to make the ponies follow her because they wanted to, not because they were forced to. Equestria had to survive through consensus, and Celestia did not wish to become a despot.

The entire empire hung by a thread.

Feeling disgusted with the situation and lacking ideas, Celestia went to the one of the few ponies that she felt that she could truly trust in these trying times.

“Coronach, could I speak to you?” Celestia asked.

“You need not ask. It is my place to serve,” Coronach replied.

“Then take food you stubborn brute!” Celestia snapped, already feeling very frustrated and angry.

“No,” Coronach replied.

“I do not understand you,” Celestia said.

Coronach did not reply.

“I need your advice,” Celestia said.

“I am not qualified to be your advisor,” Coronach protested.

“I have seen your service record. You are clever when the need arises and I trust you,” Celestia replied, settling onto a cushion and looking at the lunar pegasus suspended in a sling.

Once again, Coronach did not reply.

“I need a way to bring the Unicorn Range in line, without force. I need them to want to follow me. We need food. I must begin to rebuild my empire,” Celestia stated, looking at Coronach’s battered face.

Something about his withered and grizzled muzzle… she found it attractive. And somewhat distracting. He was horribly scared, but he had survived and endured. Celestia liked solid things. Much like she liked Canterhorn Fortress.

She shooed the distracting thoughts from her mind an focused on the task at hoof, the impossible task of rebuilding Equestria.

“What you need is an enemy they cannot defeat,” Coronach suggested.

“What?” Celestia said, looking very startled.

“A boogeypony. Something dark and horrible. Something they know is there, but intangible and out of reach. Something threatening and dangerous enough to make them want to seek your help, but not enough to hurt them. Just make them think that harm is coming,” Coronach said.

“That’s…”

“Devious?” Coronach interrupted.

“Do… do… do you have ideas?” Celestia stammered hesitantly.

“Of course I have some great ideas. I have done this for Princess Luna,” Coronach confessed.

“You have?” Celestia said in surprise.

“What you need are a small troupe of lunar pegasi, the dark of night, and superstitious peasants. Make the peasants believe that the shadows hunt them. They’re easy to spook. Scare them, and keep scaring them, offer some proof of something horrible lurking, and let the fear creep in. When the peasants revolt, the unicorn nobles will come running to you,” Coronach explained. “Worked for Princess Luna in the outer territories.”

“That’s terrible,” Celestia hissed. “I cannot believe my sister would do that!”

“I am no position to do this for you, but you do have the surviving lunar pegasi young and Threnody,” Coronach suggested.

“This is monstrous!” Celestia protested.

“You haven’t said no,” Coronach pointed out.

“What you are suggesting is…”

“What you need to do if you want to save what is left?” Coronach blurted out.

Celestia fell silent and considered the big shaggy brute. Everything he suggested was an awful idea, abusive, manipulative, and wrong. And possibly, completely necessary. She hated him a little bit for saying it, hated him a little more for making her consider it, and really hated him for how quiet and smug he had seemed to become at the moment, allowing her to stew.

“What do I need to do exactly?” Celestia said in a low defeated whisper.

She listened in horror as Coronach explained everything that would need to be done to begin a good campaign of terror to bring the wayward ponies running home. Word after awful word come out his mouth, and he suggested things she could do with her magic. Wilted crops, spoiled grain, wells turned into bitter water, all things considered ill omens and caused by the shadowy terrors.

Worst of all, Celestia began to make her own plans that would make this a truly horrifying gambit.

Dark magic. Forbidden. Taboo. The spellbook before her was bound in leather. Real leather. From some poor creature’s skin. It sickened Celestia to look at it. It had Sombra’s sigul on it, a curved red horn and a black crescent.

Was she willing to sink this low?

She supposed that she was, otherwise she wouldn’t even be considering it. She would do anything to save her empire. She pulled open the cover of the book with her magic, feeling sick and disgusted by the feeling of the leather as her will touched it. She could feel the wrongness of it through her magic. The ink was made from blood and who knows what else, and the book stank of awful things long dead. She flipped through several pages.

“Fear fog,” she read out loud, her brow furrowed. “Hmm, this creates a mist that travels over the land and gives sleepers dreadful night terrors.”

She turned a few more pages, her ears splayed out sideways on her head.

“Lurking horrors,” she muttered. “Creates an atmosphere of terror, with small terrifying figures that always lurk in the corners of your vision,” Celestia summarised, reading through the long description.

“Lake demons, ooh, this sounds awful,” Celestia murmured to herself. “Causes viewers who look into bodies of water to see horrifying images peering back at them.”

Celestia paused, considering what it was she was about to do. There would be no turning back from this course of action. She would not place the lunar pegasi survivors at risk, so this meant shouldering the burden of this grim task on her own shoulders, and potentially living with the consequences. She believed she had the willpower to use dark magic and resist its consuming call. She could succeed where others had failed. She was Celestia, Princess of the Sun, now sole Monarch of Equestria.

Which was a fortress perched on top of a tall mountain and little else.

“Terror’s torment,” she read to herself, “causes a unicorn to have terrible visions every time magic is used, leading to eventual madness.”

Inside of this book were spells that could rip apart the stability of the Unicorn Range. Once she brought them back into line, she could put this book away and never use it again. Once she had the Unicorn Range again, she would have food and a working resource base to rebuild the army, and then she could push forward through good old fashioned conquest.

She peered at the book.

Dark magic could offer conquest with no more soldiers dying.

Celestia gnawed her lip and flipped backwards a couple of times.

“Phantasmic hunters,” Celestia whispered. “Creates an illusionary army of headless ponies that radiate fear… oh this sounds promising. An army that doesn’t need food and cannot be hurt.”

Celestia began to carefully study the spidery words of magic, taking note of the many pronunciation guides helpfully scribbled in the margins. The spell didn’t seem all that complicated, summoning the dark magic was the real trick.

Just a little dark magic.

Just enough to get through the rough patch and see her through until she could build another standing army, something she could use to push her borders from one coast to another, and drive north and south.

It would have to be her sacrifice. Others had already sacrificed so much. And this could save so many lives she reasoned. She could live with herself, or so she believed.

And then, she realised the Unicorn Range wouldn’t be enough. No, this wouldn’t do at all. Cloudsdale was drifting away and she needed pegasi. They were the backbone of the army.

So, the Unicorn Range and Cloudsdale. Secure food and a working tax base, and then a place to gather conscripts. And then, no more dark magic, the book and others like it could be secured away and victory could be achieved the hard way. The hard way that always took so many lives.

Celestia pondered the book.

How many lives could be saved?

So many.

She was strong enough. She was above such petty concerns. She wasn’t weak like the others who had fallen before. She was the conqueror. She had once led an army into Tartarus, destroyed a demon lord, and then battled her way back out after most of her army had been killed in battle.

She had nothing to fear. She had unbreakable will.

With renewed interest, she began to study Sombra’s spellbook.

Author's Note

I used my own experiences with heroin to draw inspiration for Celestia's new struggle with dark magic.

I mean, we've seen it in the show. She learned it somewhere, right?