“Ooh, take a look at this, Rarity!” Pinkie waved with one hand towards Rarity, who was standing off to one side talking to one of the curators.
“Coming, darling! Just a moment.” The seven of them had traveled up to Fillydelphia to check out a museum exhibit on Baladi, Kingdom of the Nile (or at least, that was what the posters had called it). While some of the girls had seemed more enthused about it than others (Rainbow Dash was clearly bored out of her skull, while Twilight was furiously taking notes), Sunset in particular was really getting into it. She always took any opportunity she could to learn the history of the new world she now inhabited, especially when it differed greatly from Equestria’s. Without Princess Celestia, for example, mankind had cycled through hundreds if not thousands of local governments, with Baladi being perhaps the oldest surviving nation.
“It’s all right, Rarity. I’ll check it out.” Sunset shook her head, smiling, and went over to see what Pinkie was trying to point out. Once over, she asked, “All right, so what do you have for me?”
“This...” Pinkie said, adding a pause for effect, “is a giant rock.”
“...I can see that. What’s so special about this giant rock?”
“Isn’t it really cool? Have you ever seen a rock this big before?”
“I mean... no, I guess not,” Sunset replied. “I can’t imagine the Baladi trying to move something that big all by themselves.”
“They had really advanced mining systems,” Pinkie replied. “They had to in order to get enough stone for all of their construction projects, like the pyramids and the Somnambula.”
“That’s pretty cool! Is that on the plaque?”
“Nope! I know a ton about rocks!” Pinkie puffed out her chest, clearly very proud of herself. “My family lives on a rock farm southeast of here.”
“Don’t you mean a--well, anyway. So what does the plaque say?” Sunset walked over and checked it out.
“It’s a translation of the text on the rock,” Pinkie replied. “It says it’s a commemorative record of the wedding between two major families--the Red Morning clan that ruled the northern kingdom, and the Yellow Sun clan that ruled the southern kingdom.”
“All that stuff fascinates me, you know?” Sunset replied. “Politics can be rough at times, but when progress moves forward through love and agreement, I can’t help but feel like that’s a greater win than one borne through conflict.”
“It probably wasn’t a marriage of love, Sunset,” said Rarity, who was walking over to join them. “They didn’t marry for love until long after this. It was probably an arranged marriage. Who knows if the pharaoh and his wife ever truly loved each other?”
“Aww...” Pinkie frowned, and her mane deflated a little with it. “That’s a bummer, Rarity.”
“You’re probably right. But look here--” Sunset pointed to a lower part on the rock “--there’s a whole bunch of pictures showing them together. Here’s one with their first kid, here’s one of them touring their country, and here’s one with them holding hands.”
“That means they really loved each other.” This was Fluttershy appearing now. She held up a brochure she’d picked from another part of the exhibit. “See? Right here, it says that the Baladi only showed figures physically touching in pictures if they were very close in life. So these two were probably happily in love.”
“Do ‘these two’ have names?” Sunset asked. “I feel bad not knowing their names.”
“You could try the section where Applejack is looking.” Rarity pointed over towards the front door, where Applejack was standing next to what looked like a massive family tree. Sunset briskly walked over and took a look upwards.
“Blows your mind, don’t it?” Applejack asked. “And here I thought the Apple family took good records of our lineage.”
“Can’t you trace your family back to Baladi?” Sunset asked.
“That’d be a bit more than we could muster,” Applejack said, “but wherever there’ve been apples, there have been... well, Apples, if you get me.”
“I get you!” Sunset said with a laugh. She paused and looked at the family tree again. “I’m looking for the couple that married to join the Red and Yellow Kingdoms.”
“Then you’re looking here at this generation,” Applejack said, pointing to a part towards the middle. She found a section that was labeled with a red and yellow streak. “Looks like it was... Thutmose VIII and Cleopatra I.”
“Thutmose VIII? There are eight guys in this family tree named Thutmose?” Sunset asked. “And is that... you know, Cleopatra Cleopatra?”
“I reckon not, seeing as her birthday’s seven hundred years too early.” Applejack pointed farther down. “That there’s the famous Cleopatra. Cleopatra VI.”
“That’s so confusing. How does anyone keep them apart?” Sunset asked.
“Hey, there’ve been about twelve variations on ‘Applejack’ in the Apple lineage,” Applejack replied, “and half of them were boys, too. You get used to it after a while.”
“No, wait!” Sunset pointed to a section near where they were looking at. “See, these ponies have modern style names. Looks like it says during this era, there was a lot of trade between Baladi and what would become modern Cloudsdale, so the pharaohs had both dynastic names and personal names. So here, the granddaughter of Cleopatra I was called Cleopatra II, but her personal name was ‘Akhasped Kem,’ or ‘Spirit Crow.’ Huh.”
“Huh.” Applejack scratched the back of her head. “Kind of a funny name, but I guess that would have been normal for the time.”
“Sunset!” She turned and saw Twilight waving for her next to a mummy in a glass case. Sunset headed in that direction. “Check this out. You have to see this.”
Sunset looked down into the case and felt a well of sadness drift up in her. The body in the case couldn’t be more than nine or ten. Wrapped up in layer after layer of ceremonial cloth, the body looked almost peaceful in its eternal slumber. But all Sunset could see were the years of life, cut off in the springtime of youth.
“...How’d they die?” Sunset said, almost too quiet for Twilight to hear.
Twilight, realizing Sunset’s distress, turned more somber as well. “It’s not a happy story. She was the princess of the royal family during a revolution. The nobles incited a slave revolt, and it got... ugly. Her parents and siblings were killed in front of her, and she was...” Twilight gulped. “She was mummified while still alive.”
“What?” Sunset looked again at the wrappings. “They hated her family, but they did this to her?”
“That’s not all,” Twilight said. “After they did that, they carried her body to a nearby well and threw her into it. So that’s why she’s called ‘The Drowned Princess.’ Archaeologists just found her well and managed to recover her body, so...” She looked away, somewhat embarrassed. “It’s kind of the scientific discovery of the century.”
“Oh... no, I get it.” Sunset placed a hand on Twilight’s shoulder. “You don’t have to tone down your excitement for my sake. I just get into that kind of mood, is all. My special power is empathy, after all.” She pulled off one of her gloves and moved her fingers for effect.
“Right. I suppose, in a way, I didn’t really think of her as a person, just a... mummy, you know? An object for people to find.”
“I get that. She’s all wrapped up so you can’t see her face, and she’s been dead for thousands of years.” Sunset looked down into the case again. “I just... wonder what her life would have been like, had she lived to adulthood. Does the plaque say what her name was?”
“Hmm... no. Huh. It just calls her ‘the Drowned Princess’ every time.”
“Does it have an estimate for when she might have lived?” Sunset asked. “We might be able to cross-reference it on the family tree.”
“Here. 1300 to 1200 BCE.”
“Applejack!” Sunset called across the room, provoking the ire of the other visitors. “1300 to 1200!”
“Got it!” Applejack perused the family tree, then placed a finger at the approximate spot. “There’s a gap here,” she called back. “It says... apparently they all died or somethin’, and the records were intentionally destroyed by slaves.”
“Ah, okay.” Sunset nodded. “So that’s why it doesn’t give her a name.”
“Ramasrow Wabin,” said a voice behind her.
“What?” Sunset turned around. In front of her was the curator Rarity had been talking to earlier. He was tall, with a broad smile on his normally serious-looking demeanor.
“That’s the current scientific consensus on her name. Ramasrow Wabin. It’s based off of some documents at the time that managed to survive the fire from the slave revolt. Since she was never a pharaoh, she never got a dynastic name. I call her Cleopatra four-point-five, though, just to tick off my associates.” He chuckled to himself, apparently very pleased with his in-joke.
“So what does ‘Ramasrow Wabin’ mean?” Sunset asked.
“Well, it’s a compound of a couple of words. ‘Ra,’ meaning sun, naturally, ‘masrow’ meaning evening, and ‘wabin’ meaning shine or glow.”
“So if she were born today?” Twilight asked.
“Hmm...” The curator paused and thought about it. “I suppose I’d translate it as... ‘Shimmering Sunset?’ But we Baladologists don’t use the Cloudsdale names; they’re too... miss? Are you okay?”
Sunset’s eyes grew wide, and she turned back to the mummy in shock. Behind her, Twilight was saying, “That’s so funny! Her name is Sunset Shimmer! It’s practically the same!”
“It is the same...” Sunset said. She turned back to look at Twilight, her eyes wide in terror. “Twilight, you know how we’ve told you about Princess Twilight, on the other side of the mirror? How in the other world, there are perfect copies of everyone over here? And how we’ve looked time and again for my copy, but we could never find her?”
“Yes, but... you don’t think...?” Twilight looked at the mummy as well. The rest of their friends had sensed the commotion and had come over to look at the mummy with her.
“I do.” Sunset slumped down onto the floor, her eyes brimming with tears. “That’s me. That’s the Sunset Shimmer of this world.”
“But that doesn’t make any sense,” said Fluttershy. “Everyone else that’s alive here is alive over there. So why are you the only one who’s been dead for thousands of years?”
“I think the better question is,” Sunset replied, “why am I alive?”
“There’s only one person who would know,” said Rarity.
“One pony, actually,” Rainbow Dash added.
“Right.” Sunset gulped. “Princess Celestia.”
***
Dear Sunset Shimmer,
Princess Celestia says you’re absolutely correct. You are Sunset Shimmer, the Drowned Princess. According to Princess Celestia, your family died in much the same way as the way you described in the mirror world, and you were mummified alive just like the princess over there. Centuries later, Princess Celestia rediscovered the well where you were buried and rescued your body. And then, so she said, she realized the wonders of the magic of the Baladi. For, in mummifying you alive, ancient magic had kept a ‘mystic spark’ alive inside of you--not your full consciousness, Celestia hastened to add, but a fragment of your being. Without that spark, you would have been lost, as dead as your family. Princess Celestia says that she felt a wave of sorrow, knowing you’d been tragically struck down so young, and hypothesized that you could be brought back to life. She consulted with our version of Baladologists--we call them Somnabulists, but the reason why is a long story--and learned the secrets of the magic that had kept the mystic spark from fading. And with that magic, she resurrected the dead.
Unfortunately, your spark did not keep any of the memories you’d had as a Baladian princess. Princess Celestia gave you to a family to be taken care of, and, well, the rest is history. Or rather, not history, but the present, but--you know what I mean!
As to the second part of your letter...I’m sorry, but Celestia thinks it wouldn’t be possible. Your version of Baladi didn’t have Equestrian magic, so although they mummified that world’s Sunset Shimmer, it wasn’t enough to retain the ‘mystic spark.’ Even if they had, she’s not confident her knowledge of ancient magic would translate over effectively into that world. So as far as she knows, the Sunset Shimmer in that world is gone for good. I know that’s hard to hear--I can barely imagine the sadness I’d feel if I heard your world’s Twilight had perished--but I hope you can come to terms with it and move on. She’s been dead for thousands of years, and the only people who knew her and loved her died before her in the slave revolt. If you want to do right by her, live your life to the fullest. I think she would be proud of what you’ve become.
Yours ever,
Twilight Sparkle of Equestria
Sunset sighed and fell back onto her bed. “That’s not true,” she said to herself. “Not everyone who would care about her is dead. I’m still here.”