All The World A Stage
Sunset Shimmer awoke in a small stone room, the sun shining in through a frameless window turning the whole room yellow.
“Where am I this time?” the girl scratched at her hair as she stood up and walked to the window.
She realized she was nowhere in Canterlot that she’d seen before. Beyond the hole in the wall were plenty more stone buildings like the one she was in, packed close against each other, with stone paths in between them and a vast landscape of sand surrounding everything.
“Where am I this time…?” Sunset repeated.
The sun rays shone brightly in the sky; it was probably really hot right now, but thankfully, she couldn’t feel any of it.
Sunset returned her attention to the room she was in, only now spying a familiar face on some kind of couch by the room’s door, along with someone else in a bed close by.
Emerald Edge sat there, watching the sleeping woman. By the looks of Emerald’s worried face, it was someone she was close to.
The woman had long blue and white hair and pale blue skin.
Why did you bring me here, Sunset wondered. What did you want me to see this time?
Then the brown wooden door opened as the pink haired archer from before, Posey, if Sunset remembered, entered, her bow strung over her back.
“Emerald…” she whispered, watching the blue haired woman sleep. “Emerald, are you free?”
“What can I do for you, Posey?” Emerald asked without turning.
“It’s about this,” Posey walked in, silently closing the door behind her. “Moon Tide can’t be there to help you every time. I want to teach you some things I know, Emerald. Things that will help you improve.”
“But I can’t leave her now. She needs us. She’s weak after what she did.”
“Then I shall teach you your first skill here,” Posey nodded. “It’s something I’ve… I’ve kept a secret from everyone. A… technique, you could say...” Posey pulled at her bandana, slightly smiling. “It’s helped me out on more than one occasion.”
“A technique? What kind of technique?” Emerald asked, puzzled.
“I’ve taken to calling it ‘eagle vision’.” Posey whistled with her fingers. Soon, an eagle flew in through the window and landed on her arm. “Gabriel taught it to me.”
“Your bird taught you this technique?” Emerald was skeptical.
Sunset didn’t know what to think. It kind of sounded weird that her pet eagle would be able to teach her eagle vision. Sunset remembered what Velvet Breeze had told her about eagle vision, how it could be used for tracking or for determining which side someone was on. But hearing that it all started with an actual eagle? That was admittedly a little strange.
“Well, he didn’t tell me, if that’s what you were asking…” Posey scratched at her cheek embarrassedly. “L-Let’s just say I learnt it from observing him, hmm?”
“Well, it is as you say,” Emerald shrugged. “So how do you use it? This eagle vision?”
“You have to focus your vision,” Posey pointed at her eyes. “To see that which is normally hidden.”
“What is that supposed to mean?” Sunset asked aloud, looking at the two women.
“Well, how do you do it?” Emerald squinted her eyes and looked around. “Is this it?”
“Not exactly. You have to focus. Concentrate on what you want to see, on what you cannot see.”
“I want you to imagine the world as it is now, only you need to focus on the important aspects. Let me see…” Posey ducked out the door for a while and returned with three training mannequins. She then proceeded to drape them with a heavy cloth each, forming three ghostly shapes under the roof.
“I’m going to hide behind one of these mannequins, and you have to use your eagle vision to find me.
Sunset floated around the mannequins, trying to discern what the archer was trying to do. There she was, hiding behind the middle one. The girl looked back at Emerald Edge, watching as the First Assassin squinted and bent closer, like she was trying really hard to see something far away.
“Are you behind the left one?” Emerald said at last.
Posey peeked her head out from behind the middle one. “Not quite,” she said. “Let’s try again.”
Sunset Shimmer watched the archer move to the left one this time, waiting for her friend.
“Right?” Emerald guessed.
“Are you just guessing them?” Posey stood up from behind the left mannequin. “Focus, Emerald. Hone your senses.”
Sunset glided back over to the First Assassin, stopping beside her, trying to see what she was seeing.
Emerald Edge closed her eyes, her eyebrows twisted down, concentrating.
“You can do it, Emerald,” Sunset told her. “I know you can’t hear me, but it feels helpful to talk every now and then. I mean… Okay, now I’m just talking to myself.”
“Are you behind the middle one?” Emerald said at last.
“Unfortunately, no,” Posey said, emerging from behind the right hand side mannequin.
“This is impossible!” Emerald pronounced, throwing her hands up in the air. “How long did you take to learn this, Posey?”
“Well, umm… over a month…” she replied meekly.
“So how can I get it in a day?” Emerald paced on the spot. “I can’t just magically gain an eagle’s vision just like that.”
“I’m not asking you to get it in one day,” Posey said comfortingly. “All I’m asking is for you to try.”
“But I am trying. I’m trying my best.”
“No,” Posey said sharply. “We will know your best when it emerges. Come, Emerald. Let’s try again.”
Sunset blew at her fringe as she watched Emerald try again and again and again. She was glad that no one was getting killed in this dream, but it was starting to get boring just watching the Assassin try to figure out which mannequin the archer was hiding behind.
Finally, Posey emerged from behind the mannequins and gave Emerald a pat on the shoulder.
“Good effort today, but we’ll pick it up again tomorrow. For now, how would you like to go for a run?”
“A run?” Emerald raised an eyebrow. “How is a run going to help me fight?”
“Have you seen the city, Emerald?”
Sunset hadn’t exactly been in it, but she knew what it looked like from the window.
“The assassins that attacked you and Moon Tide,” Posey continued. “Yes, they overwhelmed you with numbers, but what if you could use the cityscape against them?”
“Use the cityscape?” Emerald tilted her head to the side.
“Come, I’ll show you,” Posey beckoned from the doorway. “I’ll send one of the others up here to look after Moon Tide in your place. Just for a short while.”
“O-Okay…” Emerald went to the bed and sat down beside the blue haired woman. “Moon Tide? I need to step out for a while. Will you be fine for the time being?”
The woman cracked open an eye and forced a smile on her face. “Y-Yes, go ahead. I’ll manage. I just need more rest…”
Emerald patted her on the arm and stood up to follow Posey. As soon as she left the room, Sunset felt the tug at her waist and was pulled along, heading down a set of stony hallways before emerging out in an open walkway, looking down into the city, at the same time, giving Sunset a view of the rest of the city behind them. There was a larger landscape of buildings leading down to the center of the city, where a large palace stood.
“Just where am I…?” the girl scratched her chin.
Looking down, she noticed they were standing on a long open walkway, looking down over rows of small buildings below, all pressed together so closely like the buildings in today’s Manehattan.
“I want you to jump down, Emerald,” Posey placed her hands behind her back and hopped up on the ledge, balancing on her toes. “From this spot.” She walked out over to a small wooden beam jutting out of the structure.
“What, are you crazy?” Emerald looked down and swallowed, then looked back up to Posey.
Sunset looked down and her stomach went on a rollercoaster ride. The drop alone scared her, but how did the archer expect Emerald Edge to survive that?
“No, I’m not. Watch me.”
Posey assumed a spreadeagled position on the beam of wood and in one smooth motion, leaped out into empty space. She hung there for a second, suspended in the air and then she was sailing downward, flipping once before landing in a haystack.
“...What?” Emerald’s jaw dropped.
Sunset had covered her eyes, but sighed with relief when Posey stuck her upper body out of the haystack, giving them a wave. She’d seen the Assassins do some crazy stunts before, but nothing like that, and she was thankful she didn’t have to. Seeing Morning Blade or Velvet Breeze do something like that would have given her a heart attack.
“Your turn, Emerald!” Posey called up and moved away from the haystack. “Just do what I did!”
Sunset watched the First Assassin as she shook her head a few times, blinking the stunt out of her head. She seemed to be processing how she could do such a thing.
“No. No way am I doing that,” Emerald was muttering to herself. She peered down at the distant haystack and at Posey, who was gesticulating at her to jump. She shook her head, but Posey only nodded more.
Finally mustering up enough courage, Emerald clambered atop the ledge, making her way down the wooden feature. She almost slipped once, but managed to right herself before she could tumble down.
You can do it, Emerald… Sunset thought out in her head, willing her confidence over to the Assassin.
“I can’t do it, Posey!” Emerald yelled down to her friend after reaching the end of the beam.
“You can, Emerald!” the archer shouted back. “You just have to take a leap of faith! You’ll be fine!”
Sunset watched as Emerald swallowed, then looked back down at the tiny haystack. It was barely the size of her palm at this height. She took a deep breath, and then she jumped.
Sunset followed Emerald’s progression down, only to be jolted and pulled along as Emerald fell, arms and legs flailing around before she landed with a heavy whump in the pile of hay. Sunset had screamed all the way down, but her body had stopped right as she was about to hit the haystack, now floating just above Emerald Edge as she popped her head out, spitting out a strand of hay.
“See, you did it,” Posey helped her out, hauling her up under the arms. “How was it?”
“Terrifying,” Sunset said, taking deep breaths to calm her nerves.
Emerald Edge placed her feet on the solid ground and dusted hay off her shoulders. “It was… exhilarating! A few more and maybe I’ll get the hang of it. What’s next?”
Posey smiled. “Well, I promised you a run, so why don’t we do that?”
“Sounds good.”
Emerald followed as Posey ran off down the streets, with Sunset being pulled along behind.
“Just do as I do!” Posey yelled back as she dodged a passerby holding a jar on her head.
Emerald spun around the same person, but Sunset simply phased through her, seeing as she wasn’t actually here.
“Hmm… It pays to be a ghost sometimes,” she smiled to herself.
The Assassin followed behind her friend, avoiding people as they appeared when Posey suddenly hopped to the right, jumping atop a basket, then a crate, before grabbing ahold of a pole, using it to swing herself up on the side of a building.
Emerald didn’t stop, following behind, doing the same exact thing, grabbing a window at the top, using it to follow Posey, who was already halfway up the first building, using grooves and ledges to get to the top.
Sunset levitated beside the First Assassin, watching the people below as they looked up at the two women like they were some crazy drunkards.
Sunset knew they were anything but. Skillfully, the two women clambered up onto the rooftops, the square buildings stretching out as far as the eye could see under the scorching hot sun. Posey broke into a sprint, vaulting over a roof garden and leaping from this rooftop to the next. Emerald followed suit as best she could, jumping over the alleys and narrow roads beneath them. The wind whipped at their hair and sweat beaded on their brows, but Posey and Emerald kept on running.
Despite everything, Sunset wished she could join them. It looked like a lot of fun, flying over the roofs of wherever this was.
“I’m getting the hang of this!” Emerald called to her friend ahead.
“Good work, Emerald!” Sunset cheered for her.
The Assassin and archer went on around the city’s stone buildings, leaping and vaulting over various obstacles, with the occasional human looking up to see their madness.
“Wish I could join you with this, Emerald…” Sunset said out loud as she floated alongside her. “Might come in useful in life too, you know? Like in school or something.”
Sunset didn’t expect a reply, but somehow, the First Assassin turned her head in Sunset’s direction, somewhat of a grin on her face.
“But Sunset Shimmer,” she said, making the girl do a double take. “You can do this. This is all my gift to you.”
“Did-did you just talk to me?” Sunset rubbed her eyes and looked again.
The Assassin wasn’t looking at her anymore, vaulting over a row of plants, nor did she say anything else to her again.
“That was odd…” Sunset scratched at her hair. “Was I dreaming in a dream?”
Her questions were left unanswered as Posey slowed down, allowing Emerald Edge to catch up.
“How are you doing? Tired?” Posey patted the First Assassin’s back as she bent down, breathing heavily.
“Just… a little… But keep going… I need to… get better…”
“Then onward ho, Emerald,” the pink haired archer chuckled and ran up a wall, kicking off the first few feet before grabbing the ledge at the top to haul herself up.
The Assassin grinned and followed suit, copying Posey to the best of her ability.
Sunset Shimmer watched the race across the city, jumping, spinning, somersaulting, climbing, swinging, even sliding along their plotted path, soon almost arriving back at the place where they’d started at, looking back down at the smaller buildings below.
“Great run, Posey…” Emerald gasped and breathed, resting her back against the wall before sliding down to a sitting position. “That sure… taught me a lot…”
“You see?” the archer stretched her arms from side to side. She didn’t seem to be out of breath like Emerald Edge was. “This city is good for things like that. In combat, use the environment to your advantage. Besides, it also helps when you need to get to places.”
“So true,” Sunset giggled, thinking about how great it would be if she could get to school like that. It would definitely help her avoid the traffic.
The fiery haired girl remembered her sword fighting with Keila and Frigid Night. If that somehow managed to seep its way into her instincts, maybe, just maybe, all this would as well. She hoped it would. Being able to do all that was certainly cool; it would even make Rainbow Dash drop her jaw.
“It’ll take more than a day to get the hang of this,” Emerald placed her hands on her back and stood up straight. “Still… This isn’t bad. I shall look forward to more runs, Posey.”
The archer took a seat on the ledge overlooking the part of the city, swinging her legs back and forth over the open space. “Certainly, Emerald. I shall do all I can to aid you in retrieving the artifacts.”
Sunset Shimmer watched the city with the two women for a few more minutes before she began to feel herself float up to the sky. Whether she saw it right or not, Emerald Edge looked up to her once last time, nodding to her with a confident face, just like at the end of her previous dream.
As everything turned white, Sunset was sure she heard a voice, almost like it was right next to her ear. “Save our worlds, Sunset Shimmer. It is your destiny…”
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Oho, so does this mean Sunset's going to learn how to parkour and use eagle vision next? Sweet!
Holy Jesus, you've been featured a lot
she said it
Would be interesting to see Sunset use parkour no doubt.
so she's getting these dreams from the time she touched the mentor's sword right? I wonder what else she'll be learning through this.
Roll credits *ding*
What's Up Danger starts playing
W H A T
10435974
I remember this chapter, I was freaking the fuck out. I was and still am unfamiliar with the assassin's creed games or whatever, so this memory flashback stuff is so cool to me.
Roll credits.
This fucking scene AAAAAAA
Gets me every time.