"Tia, what did it tell you? You know as well as I that the Nightmare speaks only in lies and false promises." Luna rushed Ted and Celestia's position, placing herself between her sister and Ted. "I'll destroy you, you hear me? Never again will you sway me with your honeyed words. I'll-" Her rant was cut short by white forelegs wrapping around her, pulling her into a crushing hug as her sister wept openly for the first time in centuries. Pulled off her stride, the moon princess floundered. "Tia, what's wrong, please tell me. You did this to her, didn't you? It wasn't enough to bring me pain, you have to mmphmrg."
Celestia cut her sisters rant short, holding her muzzle shut with her hooves. "Stop it sister, he has done me no harm." Hugging Luna again, she continued. "He merely brought to light a fact that I somehow missed." At Luna's skeptical look, she clarified. "Twilight, sister, she may have been possessed. In fact I'd bet my last thaum of magic that she is. The shift in personality is so similar to what you went through, so much sharper in fact, I don't know how I didn't suspect such a thing earlier."
"But Tia!" Luna said, almost in a whine. "He's our enemy, he's the reason for our misery!"
Celestia shook her head. "I can not see it. The Nightmare never missed an opportunity to strike at me, nor did it miss a chance to stroke its own ego. Theodore has done neither." Tia nuzzled her sister. "He's also the reason we can finally talk again after so long. Besides, look deeper, sister. What does your magic tell you? Do you see his cutie mark?"
Ted blanched at the term. "Is it ok if I call it an emblem, or at least something less, I don't know, feminine?"
Celestia giggled merrily, wiping away a few stray tears, but Luna seemed less than jovial. Sensing that her younger sister was about to launch into a second rant, the white and pink alicorn pulled her sister close once again "Theodore, would you give us some time? We have much to discuss."
Ted frowned "I came here for a reason, believe it or not, Celestia. I'm not in a good way at the moment, and there's so many questions I need answered, I just..."
As the hybrid attempted to continue, the solar alicorn struck, eyes growing round and watery, her lower lip trembling as she held her sister tightly.
'Oh, god.' Ted thought. "Fine, fine. Do what you need to, I'll be over here." He mumbled, wandering off to the far side of the grassy hill. Laying down in the lush grass and feeling a wonderful breeze, Ted dozed off, barely registering the feminine chatter.
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"Theodore? Theodore, we wish to speak with you." Ted was brought from his dazed state of being by the persistent poking of the pretty pink pony princess. Sitting up and looking to them, he saw Celestia smiling mischievously, while her sister seemed more irritated than angry. Before he could say anything, the white alicorn spoke. "We have come to an agreement. Since our time is short tonight, Luna will answer some of your questions tomorrow night, though she has some question of her own before she will agree." With that, the two turned to Luna, who stared at Ted with a steady frown.
"My questions are simple. First, why did you inflict that nightmare upon a pony you claim to guard?"
Ted smiled. "Shadow Weaver is the only real die-hard cultist there, and insisted that the ponies should have been having nightmares. So I obliged him. He didn't bother me about it after that."
Luna did not seem amused, though Tia was hiding her muzzle behind a hoof at the answer. "Very well. Why did you hug my sister? She said you first entered her dream speaking in the dialect I favored upon my return, and even called her sister. Why is this?"
Ted nervously scratched his arm. "It's honestly one of the reasons I want your help. I've been having memory problems. The Nightmare, it left me with... I'm pretty sure it left me with a shredded mess of your memories when it switched places with me." He explained, uncomfortable with the reveal. How do you tell someone you remember things they did? "I managed to use some of the memories of spell-work to make an improvised barrier, but every now and again I have, uh, leaks."
Celestia giggled openly now, nudging her sister towards Ted. "Do it. Go on, Lulu, it's only proper!"
Luna turned to her, horror written across her face. "Absolutely not! I'd sooner consign myself as Discord's concubine!"
"Luna, it's not nice to leave a colt like this. Besides, it will only work if my guess is right." The alicorn said, her grin getting wider with every moment.
"There is no way in Tartarus, I refuse to-"
"Woona..."
"Tia, I won't simply-"
"Woooooooona"
"FINE!" Turning a blazing glare at Ted, Luna walked up to him and of all things, hugged him. No, it wasn't just a hug, it was like she was grabbing him, searching?
Opening her eyes, she cast one last glare at her sister while holding Ted, followed by a quiet "I will get you for this." before turning to the hybrid with a strange smile on her face. It was odd, not one he expected, and her eyes seemed to glaze over for a moment, before she spoke.
"Dark, Umbral, Aegis, Shroud, Shield..."
What was she doing? Why was she spewing these words?
"Brother, Barrier, Shadow, God, King..."
The more she spoke, the more words she added to her list, the more his heart hammered in his chest. She was doing something to him, looking for something, and he could not for the life of him break eye contact with her.
"Wraith, Justice, Father, Loving, Zeal, Lost, Son, Alien..."
After a while, and after countless words, Luna's eyes lost their glazed appearance, and she stared deeply into Ted's own eyes.
"Cimmerian" She said, before her eyes drifted shut, and she leaned into him limply. Ted held onto the insensate alicorn, casting a confused glance at Celestia, who seemed unable to contain her excitement.
"I knew it! I knew it the moment you came into my dream that you reminded me of Luna! The aura, the speech, the memories you mentioned. You even said that in this world you were an alicorn, and that your old world lacked magic. So your aura is a copy of hers." The alicorn rambled, unable to contain her glee.
"What the hell was that?" Ted almost yelled, bewildered by what had occurred. "What were all those words? What was that whole thing?"
Celestia finally calmed herself down enough to approach the confused man, and spoke softly and kindly. "All creatures on this world are linked to it in a way that is impossible to define." Planting a light kiss on his forehead, she smiled as the dream faded. "Welcome to Equis, Cimmerian. And welcome to our family, nephew."
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Ted woke as the dream fell apart, his body covered in a cold sweat. Even as he looked around his room, he swore he could see the words Luna had spoken the previous night scribbled and scratched all over the walls and furniture. Stumbling over to the sink, he washed his face in the cool water and looked into the mirror when he saw it. Instead of his reflection, all he saw was that last word. It didn't make sense, magic was a world unto itself but this was borderline hallucination. Eventually, the words faded from his sight, though the last one Luna had spoken, the one Celestia had addressed him by, seemed to hang around the longest. Eventually, he trusted himself not to start randomly hallucinating enough to make his way to the dining hall, donning his armor on the way out of the room, and grabbed a simple breakfast for his journey before heading to the entrance.
He needed time to process what he'd seen, what he'd heard the night before, and he had none of that yet. Later. He would set aside some time later, once he'd helped the ponies as much as he could and they would be fine without him for a day or two. Approaching the entrance, he found some of his ponies were already there, and Shadow Weaver had several of the satchels and bags he'd been using on the previous expeditions. It took some patience, and a lot of help from two pegasi and a unicorn to get all the bags situated with his armor, but eventually the expedition was ready to go. Looking over the ponies gathered, he took a quick headcount, pleased that Shadow had set aside the usual number. Seven individuals; two unicorns, four earth ponies and a- oh boy.
"Hello, Blur." Ted said with a tired smile. "How long did you pester Shadow to let you go with this expedition?"
"Hello F-Master, not too long, just about two hours!" The yellow pegasis replied cheerfully.
Chuckling to himself, and giving his usual commands for the expedition, the ponies went out into the jungle. No hoods, pegasus on over-watch, watch each others backs, report strange findings to him. Their destination, the small port town by the ocean. Ted knew better than to hope for an uneventful trip. Instead, he hoped for good luck, and the safety of those he took with him.
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It surprised the alicorn when his group found the old town with little trouble, and set him slightly on edge. Sure some predators were prowling their route, but none got close enough to even stall the march. Calling his ponies into a semi-circle in front of him, he ordered them to search the town for anything of use, from usable furniture to salvageable supplies to signs of inhabitance. The ponies dispersed into the town, though it barely registered as such, having only four buildings besides the storage shed by the dock. Luckily, one seemed to be a primitive smithy, and Ted immediately set about digging through the various rusted implements for anything he could use for his own building once it was built. It wasn't much, and the tools were worn, but he eventually managed to get a few hammers and tongs, shaped to fit pony hooves, oddly enough. He even found a few bits of unused metal throughout the building, and an unfinished blade that seemed to be made of iron. He took a few measured swings with it, holding it in his magic as Luna had so many times before, before sliding it into a strap near his rump. It wouldn't help offensively, but at the very least it would be usable to physically block an attack.
As he was finishing his search, which yielded a few scraps of armor as well, he was signaled by Blur, who rushed inside claiming to have found something. She led the alicorn to a small fire pit, nothing special about it except for one small fact.
The ashes were relatively fresh, and all around the fire pit were paw prints, paw prints that vastly outnumbered the hoof prints near the log that was rolled near the fire pit. And spots. Small black flecks against the log and rocks that filled the dark alicorns mind with dread. Confirming that Blur had not landed near the fire pit, and asking the same of his other gatherers, Ted pulsed his Life detection spell, mentally cursing the fact that he allowed himself to get so caught up in the salvaging that he'd stopped watching his back. The tree line lit up to his senses, revealing at least eight creatures all slinking closer to the village under the cover of the dense foliage. Pulling the cultists behind him with his aura, and flaring his own to visible levels, he challenged the stalkers.
"I know you're there, reveal yourselves or I'll set the entire forest ablaze!"
Slowly, one advancing ahead of the others, all eight came into the clearing. They were brutish looking creatures, hunched over with scraggly fur and smashed faces resembling dogs with their bared canines. Some held clubs, others crude blades, and one merely held out its curled paws, the sharp claws probably more dangerous than some of the weapons used by its fellows. They all wore a hodgepodge of armor and clothing, some with barely enough scraps to cover their vitals. Any confusion over their intention was destroyed the moment the large one opened its mouth.
"Alpha not speak big pony with little ones." Said the largest of the group in broken Eng- no, broken Equestrian. "Wonder if it taste better than others. Get tired of stringy meat after so long."
Ted's face contorted with disgust. Carnivores he could understand, but to consume sapient creatures? That was something he couldn't condone. The thought of the ambushed pony that had been here before them, screaming while tied to a spit was all the motivation he needed. Shrouding his ponies in the shadows of the nearby buildings, he drew the unfinished sword and summoned his shadow blades. Before the largest even had the time to order an attack, the blades reached their line, detonating as they reached the gnolls. Two fell to the initial strike, one nearly bisected by the now-obsidian black blades and the other losing half its arm to the detonation of the blades. With a shout, the gnolls charged, three more falling to the barrage before they reached the alicorn.
Being this close, Ted fell into her memories, leaping back with a powerful flap of her wings and igniting an arcane inferno in her previous position, boiling one attacker that was a second too slow to react. A gnoll managed to sidestep it, and swung its club, only to have the attack parried by the unfinished blade Tedacae had drawn, before striking the creature with a buck that sent it into a nearby building, shattering the wall and possibly the creature with it. Turning to hunt down the last attacker, hir world turned to burning agony, the feeling of burning stakes being dragged across his pelt tearing a scream from his throat. He stumbled, stars in his eyes, before his vision returned to see a screaming yellow pegasus furiously beating his attacker into the ground with her bare hooves.
Recollecting himself, and making certain that all of the other gnolls were dead or no longer a threat, he stumbled over to the screaming mare, pulling her away from the gory mess she was making of her foe, and wrapping her in his wings, even as her screaming anger turned to sobs. As he felt the adrenaline leaving his body and allowed himself to come to terms with what had just happened, he was stopped cold by one word he repeatedly heard in the mare's blubbering.
Father.