Just A Slice

Celestia woke from another restless night, the bed sheets tangled about her legs like malevolent vines trying to hold her to the bed. The moon shone in through her window, just a sliver of silver shone over the darkening horizon giving her her cue to raise her own in turn. She slid off the mattress and stood sleepily and walked out to her balcony. Her horn lit up with a golden sheen as the princess reached out and gripped the gaseous being that was her charge. She pulled at it and it resisted her, but she persisted, turning up the amount of power she thrust into it. It budged just the slightest bit and began to slide upwards. She again increased the power she pushed into it and this time, the sun burst over the edge of the world and fell into its daily drift across the sky. The golden shafts of brilliant light flooded into her room and warmed the fur on her chest, soothing her tired body and making her feel even more drowsy.

The past few nights Celestia could feel a dark presence in the palace, making her restless and giving her less than pleasant dreams. Everypony around the palace could feel it, it was obvious in how they were less patient, their tempers and attitudes were shorter. The guards were less friendly in the mess hall, recreation was always strained, the entire palace was flooded with the menacing shadow that overlaid everything in it. Celestia had looked into it, suspecting ghosts or spirits from the battle, but she found nothing in her endeavors. Yet everything that she did, casting expulsion spells, revealing spells, search spells, nothing worked, ever on the shadow plagued her and those under her.

She walked to her vanity table and applied some light make-up to cover the slight, yet noticeable, bags under her eyes from her near sleepless nights and haunted dreams of death and misery. She sighed to herself, feeling glum as today was another day of attending to her social duties, resolving disputes, settling complaints, and working to give her subjects every reason to be happy when she herself was not happy. She walked to her door and after looking longingly at her soft bed, left her room for the dreary throne room.

"Her Majesty, Princess Celestia!" called the honor guard as she entered the room. She groaned in her mind when she saw the long line of nobles streaming out the room, waiting to meet her and present their problems. She pasted a smile on her face as she sat on her throne and waved on the first pony in line. For hours on end, the endless ponies brought petty problems, bequests, and mere greetings to her until her patience felt ready to burst.

She began to notice that her patience was wearing thinner with each pony that came to her and excused herself much to the disappointment of the still trailing line. She left the room filled with disappointed ponies and wandered through the halls, brooding over the the spirit of unease that pervaded the very air.

It seemed to get stronger as she proceeded down the hall, steadily driving her deeper and deeper into her morose temperament until she felt it pull at her through a door on her right. Looking around she realized that she was standing outside of Flare's old room, the large oaken doors standing haughtily over her. She opened the door without really thinking about it and a rush of stale air greeted her through the small opening. She entered slowly, uncertain about herself as the dark presence over her lifted and was replaced by something more... soothing. She breathed better, her body felt just the slightest bit rejuvenated.

It was very dark inside, no torch or lamplight illuminated the cavern inside and the shutters were closed. Celestia opened the windows and light and air flooded into the room, illuminating the urn in which Flare's ashes rested and the flamberge she had forged after Aeroslash had gone. A cold chill ran up her spine as she caught sight of the sword.

The blade was heavily tarnished and corroded, glinting dully in the sunlight, but it was not the sword that raised her hackles. Everything, all the furniture, the armoirs, everything other than the sword and urn had vanished. The room was completely empty. The presence shifted again, an alluring tone, seductive and enticing, drawing her toward the dull blade. She edged closer, instinctively wary because of the disappearance of everything in the room. The pull she felt increased the closer she got to the strange sword. It was nothing like the one she had set here a week ago, that sword had been made of the adamant that Flare had developed, an incorruptible metal.

She gingerly picked up the sword by its handle and felt something enter her mind. Like a parasite, it sucked on her emotions, but it made her feel powerful, like she could do anything and get away with it. She felt as indestructible as adamant, heedless of any and all opposition. "With this, I could rule much more than Equestria." she mumbled to herself. She immediately dropped the sword, causing a loud clang as the metal hit the stones of the floor. She reprimanded herself for thinking such selfish and conceited thoughts before eying the blade accusingly. "Gods save us." She whispered. The presence that bounded through the palace causing so much strife and contempt was coming from the sword itself. The metal shone more brightly now, some of the corrosion had disappeared when she handled it. It had fed off her like a leech, sucking at her energy without her realizing it, too consumed by how powerful it made her feel. She left the sword where it lay on the floor and ran out of the room in a panic, slamming the door behind her. The dark shadow returned to its first song, that which made everypony on edge, driving them to the last vestiges of their patience as its home in room 306 was shut off from the world. Celestia sealed the door with magic and made it impossible to enter, the evil inside could not be handled, much less even allowed to sit in peace, driving her subject into insanity.

She had an idea to teleport it to the caverns below the palace, but decided to wait until tomorrow. She felt ill and drained at the moment. She returned to her room and sat at her desk, pulling out a quill and a sheet of parchment. She wrote Luna for the first time since she left with the army, sending the letter to her via Spike, who according to Twilight, was with her and Luna. After seeing the message on its way, Celestia headed for the library to look into the possession of the sword. She had heard of ghosts and spectres, but never had she heard of actual objects being taken as hosts for darker spirits. The familiar shelves stood all about in their perfect order. Celestia had been down here so many times that she knew the shelves by heart. Finding a book on spirits of the dead, she sat in a chair to read it, but the presence distracted her, making it exceedingly difficult to concentrate on the book. She found nothing about inanimate objects being taken as a host as they had no life-force to live on. But the sword had drunk from her. It was heavily corroded when it had nothing to feed off of except the distant ponies about the palace for a week, perhaps just barely surviving. Disappointed by her lack of answers, she returned to her room and fell asleep on her soft bed.

The dreams were worse than usual.

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“Your Majesty, we are getting complaints about the army from all over Equestria. Manehattan, Fillydelphia, everywhere ponies are protesting about the raising of the army for what seems to them, no reason. We must make a public announcement of the war on Dragonheim.” Celestia calmly corrected him, “Luna has informed me that it was not Dragonheim that made the attack, but a small faction called the Three Sisters, the cities of Geirn, Stalthion, and Angholm. The Dark Lord rules these three cities exclusively and Luna has marched on them with the assistance of a dragon. I want you to make public that I will be making an address tomorrow, it is then that I will tell everypoy that we are at war.” Andreas nodded and rushed off to make the preparations.

Luna had sent the letter last night in return to her own, informing her of the changes in their plans. She was surprised and impressed when she read that Luna had acquired the services of a dragon and felt a little proud of her younger sister. She seemed to be leading the army quite well despite her doubts of her ability to hold it together. Celestia requested for Luna to send her a letter each night to keep her up to date on what was happening beyond her borders.

True to her word, the next day she walked up to the raised platform standing in front of a huge crowd of newsponies waiting to hear what she had to say. She amplified her voice and gave her speech, “Fillies and gentlecolts, my subjects, many of you have been giving voice to your opposition to the raising of an army where there seems to be no need of one. I come before you today to give answer to these unspoken questions, a faction of cities from the south attacked the palace a month ago and we have taken this to be a declaration of war on Equestria. The army is marching on the first city as we speak and we will show the foreign powers that we are not prey to be pounced upon through victory.” She ended the speech along with the spell as she stepped from the platform. Andreas was there to meet her, “Princess, They are ready to ask you questions.”

Celestia sighed before nodding her head to the burnt orange unicorn, “Then let us not keep them waiting.

Celestia sat in a chair on a raised dias in the center of a large room stuffed to capacity with eager ponies. She gave an indication that she was ready and dozens of hooves shot into the air. She selected a pearly white pegasus, the remainder of the hooves returning to the quills and notepads of the others. “Your Highness, Do we have any knowledge as to why this ‘Dark Lord’ made an attack? Any provocation or disputes?” Celestia chose her words carefully, knowing full well how capable newsponies were at twisting words to better suit their story. “As far as we know, only a desire to rule. We do not have any intel that gives him another desire or cause for this strike.”

He tucked his tongue as he scribbled on his notes while the numerous hooves returned to the air. Selecting a purple earth pony, She answered a question that surprised even her. “There are rumors that a fell beast brought on by the Dark Lord was the reason that the we won the fight, a dragon. Are these rumors true?” “We had assistance from an unknown force. It was not the entire reason, but it helped us considerably.” The reporter asked another question, gleaning angry glares from those around her, “Why did the dragon assist us?” Celestia’s hesitation hindered her lie, making it more obvious than she would have liked. W-we do not know. We only know that he slew the entire army without mercy, there were no survivors in the opposition, all of them were dead, which indicates that he had a personal vendetta against them.” The hooves shot into the air again and Celestia answered the countless questions and inquiries directed at her from the war to things that had nothing to do with it. She settled into a steady rhythm, steadily growing weary of the ceaseless barrage of questions.