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// Key to the Truth 01 
// Story: The Many Destinies of Sunset Shimmer 
// by ratedoni 
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Sand. Everywhere she looked at was sand and water.

In a way, she loved sand, both because it was truly useful for many different things, among them concrete, but because sand could tell so many stories about the world and the place one was visiting or living. After many years of curiosity, she was capable of knowing so much about sand that it was reaching levels of Maud Pie and her rocks, it was truly fascinating in a way. Take for example the place she was standing on. The feeling of sand underneath her and the slight breeze moving her long garb said more to her than the buildings made out of wood or the bizarre silence on an inhabited island.

Water as far as the eye could see and even beyond, with nothing but blue from the sea and the sky making this place as paradisiacal as it could be. It was almost like a dream, ne that had no end and could be eternal. She didn’t mind the idea, but the execution was something that she could nitpick all day if she had the chance. Thankfully for everyone reading the story, the person she had been waiting for finally appeared. She didn’t have to turn around to know he had arrived, she knew his story very well, at least the only part that remained from his life.

She could feel it, change without control like waves across the sea of reality. Something that arrived to interrupt the real harmony. Lives that will change across the multiverse, starting with him. How ironic, a boy that was destined to embark on a travel across dimensions, was just trapped on a loop that will never end. Over and over he will see the battle of light and darkness just to wake up again on the island, just to repeat the same story again. It was sad? In a way. Was it interesting? Immensely, after all, so far he had been a great source of information about destiny, one that had been put to use on the battle against the true evil. The whole light and darkness battle was like Son Goku running on the palm of Buddha. Nothing but a drop of water on this sea, nothing compared to the void consuming all.

“Your home is beautiful,” She said with her usual cadence, her voice like a perfectly tuned bell. Behind her, Sora could only watch jaw-slacked the person in front of him. The woman -If the voice was a clue to the gender- seemed almost ethereal, from out of this world, almost non-existent due to her regal pose, the voice coming from behind the mask and the long silver coat that was moving with the sea breeze.

“How did you get here?”

“I’ve been here for a long time… but I suppose you are referring specifically to this beach,” She said as calm and collected as always. Sora nodded indicating that was what he meant, but he almost hit his face with his hand since the woman was still looking at the sea and not him “I… walked,” she said making Sora raise an eyebrow.

“Okay, but, we are an island, in the middle of nowhere.”

“There are other ways to walk, sometimes you walk on shadows, others under light… sometimes in dreams, isn’t it Sora?”

“Wait, hold on, how do you know my name and… what do you mean by dreams?” The woman finally turned around, but he never saw her moving, one moment she was looking at the sea, the other she had turned around. Sora knew he was supposed to be afraid or at least a little freaked out at what had just happened, at the whole situation, but he only felt curious and… captivated.

“Your name… the name of your friends… they are written everywhere, in this world and others,” she said as the breeze suddenly stopped, as if the wind had been tamed. Sora couldn’t even blink; he could only keep on looking at the woman and the bizarre design of her mask. A circle with one line crossing it horizontally. Something told him that the design was impossible to do, especially since the mask front looked carved instead of painted “Destiny Island is just but a grain of sand on the desert that is the multiverse.”

“So, Kairi was right, there ARE other worlds out there, I have to hurry! We are making a raft so we can visit those worlds!”

“It will be useless, Destiny Island is completely isolated, and the path that led to the Princesses of Heart is no more,”

“The… Princesses of Heart? Wait, I… think I saw them? It was that dark place, maybe? But, how do you know that?”

“Because I already walked that path,” she said as she took off her mask, long traces of red and blonde hair were released as the cyan eyes focused on Sora “my name is Sunset Shimmer and your story has grown bigger than just a fight between light and darkness.”