It was a long trip, but Rarity expected it to be worth it. Hamilton, with the original cast! On Broadway! Surely having attended would serve her in good stead for years!
"However do you think Principal Celestia got all these tickets?" She mused to Fluttershy, sitting next to her.
"Mmm?" Fluttershy seemed not to have heard her, then shook her head. "Oh. It's a special school program. Most nearby schools have senior trips for it."
"Oh," Rarity deflated a little.
"Oh yes," Twilight piped up from behind them, "not to mention, the historical Alexander Hamilton founded Canterlot High! He even gave it that weird name. Weren't you paying attention when Principal Celestia announced the trip, Rarity?"
Rarity thought back on her deafening inner excitement at hearing she would be going to the musical of the season, perhaps of the year or even the decade! She blushed.
"I, ah, must have missed it," she said.
Pinkie, sitting next to Twilight, was uncharacteristically silent for the exchange.
"What about you, darling? Aren't you excited? I thought hip-hop was your thing!" Rarity leaned over the seat and nudged her.
"Oh yeah," Pinkie smiled for a bit, "but I'm worried about Sunny. Look." She pointed back to where Sunset was sitting alone, looking out the window distractedly.
"Hmm? What about her?"
"Don't you think she's seemed distracted? And look, she can barely sit still!"
Rarity looked over. While Sunset was looking out the window, when she looked closer, she saw their friend's hands fidgeting animatedly, as if she were rehearsing a speech. She thought about going and asking what was wrong, but thought better of it. It might draw attention that would just embarrass Sunset. And in any case, they were already in New York proper. Surely they'd be arriving soon.
"I'll talk to her on the way back," she promised instead, and they moved on to other topics.
Still, she glanced at Sunset from time to time, and Rarity had to admit she looked increasingly agitated. Even were she so crude as to talk in the theater, though, they had individually assigned seats, and she was several away from Sunset. As the lights dimmed and the first speaker opened, she spared a final glance at Sunset. Her friend's eyes were wide, and she certainly needn't have been sold the entire seat. But before she could wonder much more, the play began in earnest, and she was entranced.
Canterlot, Equestria, Late Summer, 240 Years Before the Return of Nightmare Moon
Sunset Shimmer, age thirteen, was proud her parents had let her stay alone in the house for their trip. Of course the Nebulas next door checked in on her and went shopping with her, but in the house proper, it was all her. For a whole month, while they sailed down the river to Baltimare and back! She might not have her cutie mark quite yet, but she was surely becoming a grown-up pony.
Still, maybe she wasn't ready to grow up quite yet. And so she was sitting on the couch, the book open between her forelegs purely keeping up appearances, waiting on the day they were supposed to return.
The very end of that day, now. Though it wasn't quite her namesake time, the light across her unread book was getting longer and warmer, and even though she knew nopony could predict the winds on the river perfectly, and a million things could delay ponies on a long trip, she worried, even as she told herself to be a big pony.
Still, when there was a heavy clunk outside the door, like luggage, she was on her hooves and turning the knob with her magic before she could even think about being a grown-up, calm pony. She threw the door open.
And saw Princess Celestia for the very first time.
Well, not exactly the first time, of course. She did live in Canterlot, even if it was just their first year, and they were in the unfashionable lower districts with the other ponies who didn't have a noble title. It was still Canterlot proper, not one of the hill towns, so of course they'd gone on their first day to see Celestia raise the sun. But she'd been on the palace balcony far above them, the shimmer of her mane distant enough that it might have seemed a trick of the light.
Now she was on their doorstep. Guards flanked her, one with hoof raised to knock on the door, now astonished to find it open. Sunset might have laughed at his appearance. She might have fallen in awe of the Princess, who towered over her, whose heavenly mane adorned the late-afternoon sky.
But she'd been expecting her parents. And she knew there could be no good reason she'd gotten Celestia instead. So she fell on her barrel and began to cry. The Princess lifted her gently, and put her back on the couch, then wrapped a soft wing around her.
She never knew how long she bawled before she could hear a single word of what the Princess was softly saying to her. And then the first words she did process were "so sorry", and she began sobbing again, because then she knew, really knew, that her parents were never coming home.
Somehow, she finally got all the information. There'd been a storm. The boat was lost. The ponies on it, as well. The house was hers, now, forever. But she couldn't live there, alone. So they'd changed her day student spot at the School for Gifted Unicorns to a boarding one. She should move in tomorrow. The house would be kept in trust. Here was a letter to give to the porter at the school.
They were all so sorry.
One of the guards asked if she wanted somepony to stay with her. She turned him down without really thinking. He said he'd be outside if she needed him. Then she was as alone as she'd been feeling. As she knew she'd always be, now.
She felt cried out, but didn't know what else to do. The last light of the sun was on her book, but she couldn't even view it as a possibility. She grasped for the Princess's words like timbers of a sinking ship. Then she regretted her metaphor. Still, she remembered, she was moving tomorrow. She should pack.
Mechanically she sorted out her things. There wasn't much to do. Her first semester started in just over a week. She'd been so excited, she remembered, though the memory of happiness felt now like it might as well have happened to somepony else, a character in her discarded book. She'd mostly packed it all up. All she had to add now was her small library, her smaller collection of jewelry, and her toiletries.
She wondered if she wanted to bring any keepsakes of them. Before she could reflect on whether it was a good idea, she went to their room and opened the door.
It wasn't a good idea.
Everything looked exactly the same. Of course it did. And yet it felt like a dream, or as if she'd woken up from one. It was all ready for them to come back. She even opened her saddlebag and pulled out the letter to the porter. But it was there, and she fell to the floor and sobbed again.
Finally she made her way to her mother's dressing stand. Her favorite of all the room's fixtures was there, a full-length magic mirror. Their family couldn't afford much of the kind of high magic that Canterlot nobility was famous for, but this was an exception her mother insisted on. She felt they'd never be taken seriously if she couldn't coordinate her outfit with the actual appearance of whatever room she'd be wearing it in, a task for which the mirror was invaluable.
And, of course, it could keep young Sunset entertained for hours. Her mother had a mastery of it, and used it to illustrate all of her stories to Sunset with people and places real or imagined. She nearly cried again, remembering it. Sunset herself had never really gotten the knack. Still, she stared at the apparently unremarkable mirror, hoping somehow its magic could make things better again.
"Can you show them to me, one more time?" She finally whispered at it, with no real hope, channeling magic into her horn, but with no idea of how to shape it.
Indeed, only her own face stared back. She shook her head and started to turn away.
"I'd take somepony who knows what this is like," she muttered, "but I hope nopony does."
She turned back as the mirror changed. Nopony was in evidence, but the surface now showed a curious view. There was a window on the left side, though it was broken, jagged pieces of glass filling the frame. And above it were strangely exposed wooden beams. It took a moment for Sunset to realize it must be a small personal mirror, lying on a table, and she was seeing the wall and ceiling of a damaged house. She didn't know if the mirror could also transfer sound, but she did feel a little curious.
"Hello? Anypony there?" She also hadn't realized how much the quiet of the house was weighing on her. Just saying the words made her feel a little better.
No one answered, but she heard a clattering noise from the mirror, and then a stallion's voice, "who's there? Where are you?"
"The mirror," she replied.
She thought it took the stallion a surprising amount of time to get there, and was wondering if he was outside the house and so didn't know where the mirror was. Then a very non-stallion face appeared for a moment before quickly pulling back in apparent surprise. A few moments later it came back into view and stayed there.
It wasn't a creature Sunset recognized. It had what she took to be pale fur, but then realized was bare skin. It did have a coppery-colored mane, and while its eyes were smaller than a pony's, they were a striking blue-violet and shone with intelligence.
"Do you understand me?" Sunset asked.
"Are you a talking horse?" It said, at the same time.
Since that effectively answered her question, Sunset answered.
"I'm a unicorn pony," she flashed her horn, "and horses are mythical creatures, everypony knows that."
"Well," the creature said, "I am not a pony, as you can see, but I have seen horses, and been told that unicorns are mythical creatures."
"Huh," Sunset said, "what kind of creature are you, then?"
"I am a man. Do unicorns have names?"
"My name is Sunset Shimmer. Do mans have names?"
"Men do, yes. My name is Alexander Hamilton."
"My name is Alexander Hamilton," sang the actor on the stage, and Rarity briefly surfaced.
She glanced over again at Sunset. It was hard to tell with the lowered house lights, but she thought she saw a tear on the other girl's cheek.
Of Men and Unicorns and Storms
"Where do you live? And how are you in my mirror?" Alexander barely gave Sunset time to collect a thought before launching into a sustained barrage. "Am I dead? Did the storm take me after all? Or did it take my mind? Have you been crying?"
"I'm in Canterlot," Sunset finally managed as he paused, "and I've never talked to a dead pony, err, man, on the mirror. But I've never talked to anyone real on it. It was my mother's. I don't know how to use it, really. I just was hoping it would show me...her, or...someone who understood, or...yes, I've been crying," she managed, before the tears came again.
Alexander, contrary to what she expected, was silent for along moment.
"Did you just lose her?" His voice was newly soft and slow.
Sunset nodded, then realized men might not understand the gesture. "I just heard today. My dad too. A-a storm on the river."
"Mine was four years ago. Not this storm," he gestured to the broken window, though Sunset thought most of what he was meaning to indicate wasn't visible. "She got sick." He paused again. "I still miss her."
Sunset was glad he hadn't said he was sorry. They were both silent a moment, then Sunset lifted a handkerchief with her magic and dried her eyes. Alexander's own widened, and he seemed to retreat a bit from the mirror.
"What's wrong?"
"That kerchief moved on its own!"
"No it didn't. Didn't you see my aura on it?"
"Just because something glows doesn't mean it should move! Are you saying you did that?"
"Of course, it's just unicorn magic."
Alexander laughed. "My dear lady, until today I had thought unicorns a myth, now you tell me that they are not only real, but truly magical?"
Sunset wasn't sure if it was the brief time between laughing and crying, or the absurdity of anyone calling her a 'dear lady', or Alexander's confusion, but she still couldn't quite grasp the issue.
"That's silly, everything's magical. We just channel it through our horns, but other creatures have it too - strength or speed or flight or whatever it is they do. Every foal knows that."
"Here every child of education knows that magic is a superstition for country rubes. Yet I suppose my mirror has now revealed a unicorn, so perhaps I am the fool. Where is Canterlot? Some island deep in the South Seas? If it is so magical a place, delights must await us as we chart the last corners of the world."
"Canterlot's not an island, it's a city, on the largest mountain in Equestria. And Equestria's not on an island either." She thought about her father's globe. "Except that all the continents are. It's certainly not in the South Seas! It takes up a good bit of the Northern Hemisphere, and we put it in the west on our maps, though of course that's not real, like north is."
"You do mean north by the compass, yes? The way the needle points?"
"Of course."
Alexander shrugged, then laughed. "Well there is nothing for it then. We have charted our whole Northern Hemisphere, and would certainly know of a large country filled with magic and peopled with unicorns. You can only be on another world, and so my lack of belief in magic and unicorns is not without merit, but merely too local. Amazing! If only the ancients could have had such an interlocutor. But then, of all the things in all creation you could contact with your magic, why me?"
"I don't know. I don't know how to use this mirror. I just wanted to see my parents again. Or someone who might understand."
Alexander's dazzling eyes fell, and he was silent for a long moment. Then his face vanished from the mirror, the roof of the dwelling seemed to grow larger, and Sunset realized he was moving the mirror. He tipped it, and she could see a surprisingly familiar-looking house. After she got over the surprise of seeing such similar construction, though, she noticed extensive water damage even on top of the shattered windows, and several trails across the floor where she guessed furniture had been dragged, either by the storm, or by Alexander repairing it, or both. There were also no benches or sofas; instead the table was surrounded by backed stools that, to Sunset's eye, did not look very comfortable. She briefly wondered what the rest of Alexander looked like, then he moved the mirror to the window, and she was distracted.
Before her lay a scene both beautiful and heartbreaking. The sun was setting over an island paradise of the kind she'd only read about, sandy beaches over endless sea, lushly vegetated yards and verges between cobbled streets and dirt tracks. On the edge of her vision, she could see some kind of farmland. But it was clear the whole place had just been devastated. Trees lay ripped up by the roots, houses were missing roofs or walls, roads were washed out. In some places pieces of cloth or paper, or splintered wood, still lay in the streets or caught up in trees or bushes. And all in the streets people worked to clean and fix.
This was the first Sunset had seen of Alexander's world's people, and she found them strange creatures, with their bare bodies covered by what looked to her to be uncomfortably thick layers of clothing. Their two-legged stance, too, threw her off, though their apparently dexterous paws did explain how Alexander was holding the mirror so steady without magic. Their faces made her think they were 'men', like Alexander.
"I've never seen anything like that," Sunset said, quietly. "I suppose you have it even worse than I do."
"No," Alexander said, "this is not worse, just different. But I think your mirror found another sad soul. I never thought I'd be hurt again after my mother, this has made its mark as well. But please, let's not aim to outdo each other with sorrows, but take solace. We are both of us less alone than we thought."
Sunset couldn't help but smile a bit at that. "You're right. Are those men working out in the streets?"
"Men and women, yes."
"Oh, you have tribes, like earth ponies, pegasi, and unicorns, then? Which are the women?"
"Tribes? Pegasi? Nevermind, later. No, the women are the females. They wear dresses."
"Oh! So men are your stallions, and women your mares! What do you call your species, then?"
"Most call us men as well, though 'humans' is also accurate."
"That seems strange. Isn't it unfair to the women? I would be upset if someone decided to call us all stallions instead of unicorns or ponies."
There was a long pause.
"Perhaps you're right. Though I fear as we talk more you will find that man's unfairness to human is not so limited as that. I do not think we have 'tribes' as you do, but only fear of rebellion keeps the African slaves off the street today, and woman's bondage is not so severe as theirs."
"Slaves? That's uncivilized!"
"Would that other men had the wisdom of an orange unicorn," Alexander's voice was sad.
"You talk like an old book," Sunset said, sensing the difficult subject. "Are you in school?"
"Alas no, but old books were my tutors. So perhaps it's no accident I speak like this. Or I do when I'm being careful about it."
"Why are you careful? I'm not anypony special."
Alexander laughed again, for a long time.
"If you were no 'pony' special before, well, you certainly are now. You are the first unicorn I have ever heard to speak to a man, or rather a human, and indeed the first case even reported for many centuries. Even if your magic makes it commonplace to speak with other worlds, here it is unheard-of." He paused, then turned serious. "And I for one am glad to speak to you. Sunset, to be honest, I was near despair before you called to me. I have been alone in the world so many years, and slowly I've made my way to some prosperity on this island. Not greatness, that opportunity is not mine, but a life. And now I worry it all has gone. But talking to you has brightened my day. And now, who knows? If magic is in some world, perhaps it still waits for me. Perhaps I have a destiny outside this place, after all."
"Where would you rather be?"
"Philadelphia! Or New York, perhaps. Oh, of course you don't know them. On the mainland there is a great country, and those their greatest cities. I could go to university, study law. And there too great men now debate the issues of our day. I think there will be war, war for freedom. I could make a mark on the world. I was hoping, within a year or two, to get a ticket, but now my savings are gone with the storm."
"That's awful! At least I have my school. Isn't there anything you can do?"
Alexander turned the mirror back to his face, and frowned.
"I plan to write a letter to the paper about the storm. It is half-done now. Perhaps my words will be my immortality."
"You do speak well. I hope they will."
"But Sunset, perhaps this can be our immortality, the both of us! What more can you do? Can you--" a thumping noise cut him off. He moved his face close to the mirror, until his lips were almost all she could see, then whispered.
"That is the man I work for knocking. I must go. Can you contact me again?"
"I can try," Sunset whispered back. "I'm not sure I can control the magic, but I can try."
"Please do. I cannot tell you how much our talk has lifted my spirits and ignited my mind. I should love for us to be friends. I shall be here again at sunset tomorrow. I will watch my mirror."
Sunset felt warm at the idea. As alone in the world as she felt, the idea of having a secret friend from another world made her ache a little less.
"I hope I can. You can read me your letter."
"Until then," Alexander said. His lips became his face, then tilted up, replaced again with the timbered ceiling as he placed the mirror down and exited. Not long later, the mirror dimmed.
All right, Sunset thought, time to figure out how to do that again. And, unsure if she were truly interested in contacting Alexander again, or just in escaping her pain, she focused on her magic and the mirror, to the exclusion of all else, until the guard came, and found she had not yet packed.
At least he understood that she desperately wanted to bring the mirror.
"All right," Sunset said, halfway through the bus ride home.
Rarity wasn't sure what she meant; she'd been silent and seemingly lost in herself since they'd left the theater.
"All right," she repeated with a sigh, before anyone could ask. "It's time I told you girls the whole story. Sleep-over Friday?"
"Whee!" Pinkie said.
It was surprisingly hard to start, Sunset found.
She'd spent the whole week leading up to the sleepover thinking about how to start, building grandiose opening sentences that reminded her even more of him. Did she break it out slowly, or just spoil everything fast, to cut out questions, then fill in the details?
But when she sat, faced with her friends, it was too raw. All she could do was start, and go in order.
"....Our General has issued several very salutary and humane regulations, and both in his publick and private measures, has shewn himself the Man," Alexander said. It took Sunset a moment to realize he'd stopped speaking. She was surprised he'd gotten the draft done in such a short time - her own day had passed in a whirlwind. The mirror, which the guards had barely moved in time, was a comforting familiarity in her new room. Though it was at least as nice as her old one, the school's dorms being in the palace compound proper, it still felt slightly wrong, like the little itchy feeling when she was shedding her winter coat.
"Oh, that was the end?"
"Not long enough?"
Sunset laughed. "Oh, no, it was long enough! And beautiful too, you use the words so well. But that's a strange place to end. I don't think you need it, or maybe you should put it earlier? My tutor, Long Quill, always said you should save your best argument for last. She said you needed to avoid anticlimax."
"Well, the General is very important," Alexander said. "If I am ever to escape this island, I will need his good will. I would not want it thought my description of the disaster were a criticism of his response."
"Oh, that makes sense. Is he the Lord they were praying to earlier?"
Alexander blinked. "No, that's God."
"Oh, you have gods? I've heard some of the creatures far from Equestria have those, but I've never seen one. Long Quill said nopony has, and we think they probably aren't real. Have you seen any of yours?"
"We only have the one God. Some other humans have more, though we believe they are not real, too. He does not live on Earth, but in Heaven, and we hope to be good enough to meet him when we die. But do you believe in nothing greater than yourself? How do you try to understand the mysteries of life? How you should live, where you came from, where your world came from?"
Sunset turned her head, confused. "Princess Celestia is a lot more powerful than we are, anyway. We usually just ask her about things like how to act. Though I guess even she doesn't really know where the world came from. But the world is really small compared to all the things in the sky, she says, so we think it probably has something to do with that. We think we can maybe figure it out when we have better telescopes."
"Is this Princess Celestia your ruler? You have a monarchy?"
"She's the Princess. She does rule Equestria, with some help from her council. Though outside Canterlot it's mostly the local nobles that do the real ruling. Earth ponies and pegasi do it a bit differently, since they don't have nobles the same way."
"But if your country is large enough to have so many local nobles, why is it a principality? Why is she a Princess and not a Queen?"
"Because..." Sunset couldn't quite understand the question. "Because she's the Princess! Don't you have one? How does your sun rise and set? Does your God do it?"
"We believe God created all the world and the things in it. 'Let there be light' was his first command, when he did. But perhaps you are behind somewhat in astronomy? Here on Earth we have just settled the old debate, and learned that the sun does not move, but rather the Earth rotates around it, bringing night and day. The glory of God is not that He pushes the world, but that He has created a world that need not be pushed, that moves on like a perfect clock."
"Oh," Sunset said, "I remember this! I just did astronomy last year. It's the Solar Question, and the Royal Astronomer North Star nearly got in a duel with Inclined Plane, one of the University's senior physicists, over it a few years ago. The physicists all say that the world should be rotating around the sun, or crashing into it, because of how gravity works. But the astronomers know it only moves when the Princess is moving it, and that the sun moves and the world doesn't, because if the world moved, the stars we can see would change, and they don't. Long Quill said she thinks this is something the Princess knows, that something went wrong a long time ago. But the Princess just broke up the duel, she didn't tell anypony how to solve the question. When I studied it they were still fighting about it in the Royal Journal of Science, I read a few of the articles."
Alexander blinked rapidly, and was quiet for a moment.
"Your Princess actually moves your sun? What will you do when she dies?"
"She's the Princess. I don't think she can. She's ruled Equestria for thousands of years. But before she did, councils of unicorns did it. That's where the original nobles came from, the families who had the burden of keeping the day and night going. It takes so much power, it took a whole herd of the strongest unicorns working together, and it drained them so much they were helpless for most of the rest of the time. So the other unicorns, and some other ponies and other creatures too, gave them gifts and protected them, and finally started following them and thinking they were wise. Then when the Princess came, they already had that wealth and respect, so they became her inner circle, and ran the unicorn lands far from Canterlot."
"And...she's not like a god? She's a real creature? Have you seen her?"
Sunset was suddenly reminded of her one true meeting with the Princess. She went quiet, and couldn't stop a few tears.
"Have I said something wrong?" Alexander broke her out of her self-pity, and she drew up a kerchief to wipe her tears.
"Not your fault," she sniffed, "you didn't know. I've seen her lots of times, she raises and lowers the sun from her balcony most days. But I've only met her pony to pony once, yesterday. She brought me the letter about my parents."
"Oh." He was quiet for a while, too, and she sniffled. "I have never met a creature so much more powerful than me. What is she like?"
"She's kind, and you can't be near her without knowing she cares about you," Sunset smiled a bit through the tears. "She's very tall. Our myths about horses say they're as big as she is, more than twice my height. She's got wings like a pegasus, and a horn like us unicorns, and she's even stronger than an earth pony, so she's like all the pony tribes in one. And her mane is...incredible. It's not even made of hair, I don't think, it's like it's pure light, or pure magic, or something. It looks like a rainbow, but you can't see through it, and the colors aren't a real spectrum. And her coat is pure white. She's the most beautiful pony I've ever seen."
Alexander paused again in thought.
"She does sound rather like a god, to me. Though you said she has not always been around, and makes no claims to have created your world or any other. Still, I wonder what she would say about God and about the place of creatures like us in His creation. For that matter, do we share the same creation? I wonder if one of the stars I can see at night is your strange one, dragged about by a divine horse? Or are you somewhere stranger, steeped in magic my whole existence lacks?" Before she could respond, he laughed and tossed his head. "We are young still, and I cannot imagine we can answer such questions today. I notice you're not in the same room as yesterday. Have you moved?"
Sunset took a moment to process this changed line of inquiry.
"Oh! Yes. I couldn't stay in the old house alone," she sniffed, "it was too big. So I moved in to my school. I start classes in a few weeks, but they let me move in early, and gave me a private room. Normally you don't get that until you're at least a third-year! Of course, I'd still rather be living at home, with my p-parents." She almost kept the quaver down.
"Of course," Alexander sighed. "I wish I could hug you through this mirror, Sunset, or tell you I thought it would get better. But I do not wish to start lying to you now, even out of good will. I am happy you have a school to go to. I have learned a great deal about the world living on my own, but would trade it in a heartbeat."
"You didn't find your savings?"
Alexander laughed. "It is not a matter of finding it, my dear Sunset. It was in the bank, and investments. But the investments all failed when the storm destroyed the crops, and what I had in the bank is barely enough to replace the things I lost. I may someday be able to rebuild, but it will be several years at least, and already I am old for schooling." He sighed. "No, I fear I must now accept that I will not leave the island. I can but hope my letter will catch the notice of the General, and raise my standing here a bit, at least."
"I wish I could give you a hug, now," Sunset said. "But I'll settle for hoping you're wrong, and something you haven't thought of comes up."
Alexander smiled. "I hope so as well. But I fear now I must go. I shall be away on business for several weeks, on a trip with my bosses to assess our losses. I fear I will not be able to talk during that time, for we will all be in close quarters. I hope by the time we speak next, my letter will be published and read."
"If it's two weeks, I'll just have started classes," Sunset said, "but I'll still have the evenings free."
"Wonderful. Shall we say sunset again, two weeks from today? I am glad that our times seem somehow to match, despite the distance."
Sunset nodded. "That is lucky. I'll see you then."
Alexander smiled, and disappeared, replaced with his wooden roof as he put down the mirror.
Over the next weeks, Sunset threw herself into preparation for school. Every time her mind was quiet, images of her parents flashed, and the knowledge that her world was utterly transformed lapped around the edges of her mind like a dark and rising tide. She stove it off with study. Based on her conversation with Alexander, she began by catching up on astronomy, in which the debate still raged. While she was no more sure than Alexander that they even shared their astronomy and physics, she still felt a warmth at the secret knowledge that somewhere, there were creatures living on a world that worked as the astronomers thought.
With all the secret warmed her, she felt, though she realized it was irrational, that she could not share the existence of Alexander. But as she wandered the nearly-empty campus, without her family anchoring her, she felt more and more isolated, and missed her otherworldly friend increasingly. Her thoughts lingered on the hugs they'd been unable to exchange, and the thought of that simple comforting contact brought some solace. So after the first week, in which she refreshed herself on astronomy and the related math, she decided instead to focus on magic, specifically the magic used in the mirror. She hoped that if it were possible to see and speak with a place, it might be possible to do more, perhaps even someday to visit it.
Like many fields of magic, the mirror's was not extensively studied. Most magical researchers were prodigies, unicorns with personal power they viewed with pride. And there were so many kinds of magic to study, so many ways to manipulate and refine the power, that many were simply by numbers going to be neglected for a long time. For this reason, few studied the properties and abilities of magical artifacts. Canterlot culture saw them as uncouth affectations of those aspiring above their rightful magical power, like Sunset's parents.
Even if this attitude had not rankled her, she now had powerful evidence to the contrary. Though part of Sunset's admission to the School for Gifted Unicorns was of course based on the strength of her magic, which was showing signs of prodigy, she knew her horn alone would never have been up to the task of contacting Alexander. Even the most powerful unicorn diviners she'd found in her research could not even encompass the globe with their power - hence the large parts of the far side that ponies knew poorly or not at all. For teleportation, the prospect was even more daunting, as even the Princess could barely make more distance than the palace grounds.
And yet, there was some hope. The ponies of the ancient Roaman Empire were known for the ley-roads, networks of standing stones that were linked to allow teleportation through them at far longer ranges. The gates were for the most part safe only for inorganic matter, so used by the Roamans primarily for transport of goods, but some reports claimed the Emperors had their own private network of smaller, vastly more complicated, gates they and their personal guard could use safely. Though Sunset was not familiar with the principles, they had survived, and several books talked about them, though again the modern disdain among unicorns for "trinkets" left the details frustratingly sparse.
Still, Sunset never felt drained after using the mirror, so she felt the scrying was not taxing the mirror's own magic overmuch. So she hoped that, were she to establish an Imperial Link between her mirror and one in Hamilton's world, her power combined with the power of the mirror might allow it to function as a gateway.
In the week leading up to Hamilton's return, she worked frantically at the problem. She got two hand mirrors from a shop in Canterlot with some of her spending money, drawn from interest on her parents' money, which was being kept in trust for her. Her own magic was enough to link them for scrying, but strain as she might, she couldn't force a stable gateway between them, even just across the room, with her magic alone.
Painstakingly, working from vague accounts written as historical curiosity rather than practical theory, and combining them with her own understanding of location magic, which she was developing in parallel from the school's library, she reconstructed a theory of what the Imperial Link might be. Her first three attempts failed, leaving her madly scrubbing to remove the half-guessed runes, inscribed in uncomfortably expensive Heart's Desire Ink, from the mirrors. These attempts took five of her seven days.
Finally, running out of even plausibly related reading material in Magical Theory, she risked telling a little more to the befuddled librarian. Though she guarded her reasons carefully, she revealed she'd become interested in the Imperial Link, and asked if there were more resources on it. The librarian smiled, and brought out several books from the Equine History section, which she thought might help. Sunset thanked her, and trotted off, but the kindly old mare spoke at her as she was about to leave.
"Dear," she said with a sad smile, "I'm very sorry about your parents, but boats really are very safe."
Sunset realized with a start and a dull ache that the librarian had her own, perfectly understandable, theory on why Sunset wanted to recreate a gate network for travel. Still, another part of her cheered that the older pony suspected nothing of her secret, and she just thanked the mare, and did not correct her.
She thanked her even more profusely the next day, because one of the books, almost as an afterthought, had a sketch of the runes on one of the Imperial gates, though only the cargo ones. Reproduced from a rubbing of a triumphal arch since long fallen, the runes were rough but legible, and more importantly, they made sense. Sunset nearly dropped her ink bottle in excitement, but caught it in time not to waste the precious substance. Aura shaking slightly, she nonetheless traced the runes clearly on both mirrors, then flooded them with her magic. The surfaces of the mirrors glowed pure white. She took a deep breath, and picked up an empty ink bottle. Laying the first mirror flat on the floor and holding the second up with her magic, she carefully lowered the ink bottle towards the first mirror, where it sank into the white glow without any notable resistance. For what was likely no more than an instant but seemed to stretch forever, it was just gone. Then with what sounded to Sunset a joyous clang, it emerged through the second mirror, and fell to the floor. She whooped, and hopped around the room.
Of course, now only a day and change remained until Alexander's return, and she had no way to inscribe the runes on his mirror. She also had no idea if Heart's Desire Ink even existed in his strange, magic-free world. Still, it was a start. And she had a whole day to figure it out.
"Sunset!" Alexander's smiling face appeared in the mirror as soon as her horn faded. "I am so happy to see you, my friend. My fellows are fine folks, but I find it harder to talk to them than to you. They know nothing of being young, nor of our sorrows. But let us not dwell, I have news!"
"So do I," Sunset smiled. "And I missed you too." She was nearly brimming with the desire to try her spell, and see the result of all her hard work, but at the same time she wanted to savor Alexander's surprise. She resisted blurting it out, and instead said, "you first."
"My letter was published, to great acclaim! Many times on our trip I was approached by a total stranger moved by my words. Your few comments were well-taken as well, though I kept the closing praise of the General. One woman even thanked me for my appeal to humanity over men, a choice I think you know full-well was thanks to our first talk. But so moved were they that not only did they give me kind words, which I would have appreciated quite enough alone, they have taken a collection, to bring me to school in America, as I've dreamed! People from all over the island put in what they could spare, saying they cannot bear one of their sons, through such misfortune, to be forced to squander such a gift for words. Sunset, it is short of enough to sail this year, though not by much, but next year I should have made enough to add to it to sail. I will be a year older, and I fear events there are moving quickly and each month may matter, but still, it is more than I have ever dreamed!"
Sunset began smiling as he started, delivering his long news with breathless speed, despite his usual flowery speech. By the end she was grinning, and thinking. Her eyes turned to her mother's modest ruby necklace, one of the keepsakes she'd insisted she bring, rather than let it be kept in trust for her majority.
"But come," Alexander laughed. "I've launched into my own news long enough. What of yours?"
"Well," Sunset said, tucking the necklace away just out of sight, "I think it might end up related. I don't want to promise things I can't deliver, but I think I might have made the first step on letting us share that hug."
Alexander's jaw slackened and he blinked. "Truly?"
She nodded. "I found some old magical theory about linking objects like these mirrors here at the school. The version I have is only safe for objects, not living things, and of course your hand mirror isn't big enough for one of us to walk through anyway. But if it works, it'll be a real start, and some ponies say there was a version that worked for living things."
Alexander's smile returned. "How lucky I am to share wonderful news, and get it in return! Sunset, even if we cannot travel ourselves, think about how much we could learn from objects from another world! And of course the prospect of sitting together and chatting on an evening in person is a delight to my heart. What must be done?"
"Well," Sunset said, "it'll be tricky. Until the link is established, I can't do anything on your side, of course. I assume you don't have Heart's Desire Ink?" Alexander shook his head. "I figured, it's pretty magical. I hope for the cargo spell, any ink will be enough. If it is, I can pass the Heart's Desire through it if and when we try the next one. But you'll have to draw the runes. I made some cards to show you, but they have to be quite precise. Do you have steady hands?"
"I am told my writing is quite clear and beautiful."
"Good. Okay, here's what you need to do," she produced her hand mirror, so she could indicate locations, pulled out her first rune image, and they got to work. It took about an hour all told but finally Alexander pronounced himself pleased with his runes and their locations.
"Okay," Sunset said, "I'm going to try it. When it's working your mirror will glow white and we won't be able to talk, so I'll keep it up just long enough to send something through as a test, then swap it back."
Alexander looked unusually pale, even given his normal tone. "A-all right."
"Are you okay?"
"Enough so to go on. Remember we have no magic here at all. Talking in the mirror is strange enough, but it is easy to forget how strange with such fascinating and delightful conversation. Opening a hole between my house and another world...it's daunting. But still, I am eager to try! I have long hoped great things await me, and greatness demands risk. Still, do I need to fear if something goes wrong? Should I stand back?"
"You could if you want, I guess, but I've never heard of spells like this failing in a way that's dangerous for bystanders. If it doesn't work, it'll likely just turn it back into a normal mirror until I fix the scrying link and we can talk again. The worst that could happen if it went really wrong is that it might damage the hand mirrors I've linked, but I'm not linking my big mirror, and it finds you to talk to, then links to the nearest mirror, so I could talk to you again as soon as you got another one. Can you get one easily there?"
"Not so cheaply," he said. "but easily enough."
"It shouldn't come to that, none of my experiments damaged anything, and a lot didn't work. But if worst comes to worst, we'll say I'll try back tomorrow at sunset."
"All right." Despite her reassurances, he stepped slightly back from the mirror. "Go ahead then."
Sunset took a deep breath and channeled her magic into the hand mirror, running the power across each rune, probing out towards her mother's mirror, hoping the runic sympathy would be enough to let her magic trace the pathway and find the counterparts. For a long moment she felt her power hanging in space. Her "magic eye", as she'd read the magic books calling it, grabbed her attention, filling her mind with a sense of endless depth and nearly drowning her normal vision in a field of blackness studded with swirling mists and brilliant stars. She felt she was drifting weightless, barely aware of the floor beneath her hooves, and she felt a sense of incredible momentum. Then she felt her magic catch on something with a tug, and she focused on the runes, tracing them over in her mind. When she finished the last one, the room snapped back in to focus. On the table in front of her, the mirror swirled with light.
Nearly jumping for joy, Sunset brought up the necklace in her magic. She paused for just a moment. She could still send the ink, of course. Keep one of her favorite of her mother's items. Alexander didn't need to leave for school this year, after all, he'd said it himself. Even with those events he alluded to, surely nothing so major could happen as to keep so eager a student from his schooling.
Then she shook her head. It wasn't like she would forget her mother, ever, no matter what she kept or didn't keep. And looking at the necklace, at least for now, didn't bring the happy memories - she got those from remembering her mother's words, her father's smile, the pride they both took in her magic and her curiosity. She was their legacy. The necklace was just a thing. But for Alexander, assuming rubies had value in his world, it could be much more. And if they didn't, well, it was a test. They could send it back.
She nodded to herself, and lowered the necklace into the mirror, where it vanished without a trace. She kept the link open a bit longer, just to be sure, though it felt like forever. Finally, when she could take it no longer, she ended the spell, and refocused her big mirror on Alexander's. His grinning face sprung into view. They'd done it.
"Sunset," his normal eloquence seemed cracked as he babbled in joy, "you did it. And you sent this? Did you mean to? This is...these are rubies, right? Is this what you meant about your news being related? This would cover my trip to America and more! Or do you need it returned?"
"No," she said, "I was hoping they were valuable there too. It was my mother's, but I think she'd be happy to know it was going to help you. But if it's more than you need, do you think you'll have enough for a bigger mirror?"
Alexander laughed. "I think so."
Sunset grinned too, at this, and a feeling of pride swelled in her, overwhelming her nearly as much as the magic eye had while she searched for the link. She grinned and laughed and pranced with joy, leaping in circles in her room. She could hear Alexander laughing at the sight. Then, barely reaching her through her joy, she registered a change to concern.
"What was that?" She hadn't quite heard the content, just the tone.
"Are you all right?"
"Of course, why wouldn't I be? I'm just so happy it worked!"
"Well, you glowed quite brightly there for a moment. And well, there's no delicate way to talk about a lady's rear, but something seems to have changed along your flank."
Sunset looked back, briefly concerned herself, then grinned even larger. A two-tone sun now adorned her flanks.
"No, this is great, Alexander! I got my cutie mark!"
"Cutie mark?"
"It's a mark a pony gets to show they've found their special talent! I guess that was a groundbreaking spell. But I guess it's about, I dunno, space magic or something! I dunno why it's a sun, though..."
Alexander smiled. "They usually have something to do with what's really special about you?"
Sunset nodded.
"We first talked at sunset, and the sun is two-tone. Two suns, two worlds. You're certainly special to me, Sunset, and linking two worlds, well, that seems more than special. It's not about space magic," he gestured, in his expressively human way, at the mirror, "It's about this."
Author's Note
Sorry for the delay, all. I'm hoping I'll get the next one out with less delay, but part of the cause is that I'm in the process of preparing to start my own business, which is consuming my mind. So I can't promise, alas. But thanks for reading.
