Surviving Sand Island

by The 24th Pegasus


A Bountiful Harvest

There was only one thing that could tear Rarity’s eyes away from beauty, and that was beauty born from necessity. And right now, the only thing more beautiful than the lagoon on the south end of the island was the bounty of fruit hanging from the trees all around the south side of the hill. Much of it was as-yet unripe, but there were a few early fruits almost ready to fall off of their trees and bushes. The mere sight of it all made Rarity’s mouth water.

The fruits weren’t exactly what she’d expect from an island; there certainly weren’t any bananas, but she recognized a surprising number of the other fruits from high profile social events. On her left, she saw a collection of star apples hanging from the heavily laden branches of the host tree, and on her right, she found several clusters of sugar apples on their own trees. She stopped for a moment and chuckled to herself; even this far from Ponyville, there were apples everywhere, if not in the fruit itself then in the names of the native fruits, at least. And as luck would have it, Rarity spied several that were ripe or near-ripe. Her stomach growled in anticipation of a tasty meal.

She stopped next to a sugar apple tree and plucked one of the clustered green fruits off of it. It certainly wasn’t deseeded like she was used to, but it didn’t take much effort to work apart with her hooves. The thing came apart like cloves of garlic, and she greedily bit into them. It was sweet but not tart; it reminded Rarity of custard more than anything. She had to spit out a few of the shiny, hard seeds, but the sensation of flavor that she’d been missing for so long was nearly overwhelming. After all, she’d always heard that good food could be an aphrodisiac in its own right…

The rest of the sugar apple disappeared over the next several minutes. Sure, Rarity had swallowed several hard seeds, but she didn’t mind, and she idly stomped the ones she’d spat out into the ground. Maybe one day they’d grow to give more trees and their delectable fruit.

Next, she turned her gaze to a nearby star apple tree, staking it out as her next prey. The star apple fruits were smaller than her hoof, though much larger than grapes, which they resembled both in shape and color. She plucked one off of a branch and bit into it, using her teeth to open a gash in the inedible rind and squeezing out the juice and flesh. Sure, they weren’t as enjoyable as when she’d have them for dessert, cleaned, sliced, and removed from their skin, but they were still unimaginably sweet. It wasn’t hard to imagine herself eating these all day… but of course, just because she was stranded on an island, it didn’t mean that she could afford to let herself go. Rarity was determined to be the best-looking survivor she could possibly be when help came, no matter how long it took.

As she worked on stuffing her gullet with fresh fruit, however, she heard small wings flap above her. She looked up to see a familiar scarlet macaw looking down at her with angled head and curious eye. Smiling, she stood up and waved to it. “Oh, there you are! At least, I assume that you’re you, you birds all look so terribly alike.”

The macaw let out an excited squawk and began bouncing up and down on the tree branch. That left little doubt in Rarity’s mind that she was dealing with the same friendly bird as before. “Well, I found where you get your fruit from, and I did it no thanks to you,” she muttered. But she could see the macaw watching her closely, so she pulled a sugar apple off the tree and began to break up the individual pieces of fruit. When she had three or four, she held them in her hoof and outstretched her foreleg. “Would you like some? I’m sure you’re more than capable of getting them on your own, but it’s the thought that counts, right?”

The macaw squawked again, and with a fluttering of its colorful wings, it alighted on Rarity’s foreleg. The mare gasped in surprise as she felt the weight of the bird resting on her leg and its talons poking her flesh. It regarded the offered fruit in Rarity’s hoof with caution, but after a moment it shimmied down to her hoof and picked one up in its foot. Balancing on one leg, the macaw began to dig into the fruit with its massive beak, pulling apart the juicy, creamy flesh and cracking the seeds with ease.

When it finished, its beak was covered in the remains of the fruit, and it turned to Rarity and bobbed its head. Rarity giggled and bobbed hers back, and the bird shimmied back up her leg and stopped at her shoulder. The unfamiliar sensation of talons on her back made Rarity’s spine prickle, but when she looked at the bird, it playfully nibbled at her ear. “That was good, wasn’t it?” she asked it, though when she tried to rub her cheek against the bird’s downy chest, it shuffled back and out of reach. Now perched squarely on her hindquarters, the macaw opened a wing and began to preen.

“You’re remarkably comfortable with ponies for a wild parrot who’s likely never seen one before,” Rarity mused. “Or maybe you have?” She squinted at the macaw, which paused its preening momentarily to stare back. But, laughing, Rarity waved a hoof. “Oh, who am I kidding? If there had been other ponies before us, then sure we would’ve seen something of them by now. And it would’ve had to have been recent; I mean, you birds can live several decades, but just how old are you, exactly?”

The macaw fluffed up its wings and began poking at Rarity’s tail hairs, running them through its beak.

Rarity shook her head and started to walk around, gathering more fruit. “Some conversation partner you are,” she muttered under her breath. Rolling her eyes, she added, “Come now, Rarity, darling, you’re talking to animals now like you’re Fluttershy.” A beat. “And now you’re talking to yourself, too. My, this isolation must be really getting to you… me. Us?” Groaning, she slapped a hoof to her skull. “I am falling apart without gossip and somepony to share it with! Isolation is the cruelest form of torture for a mare like me!”

The macaw plucked one of Rarity’s tail hairs out of her dock, making her yip and jump. When she landed on her hooves again, she shot the macaw an irritated but thankful smile. “I suppose I needed that.”

She looked at the fruit scattered around and sighted a particularly large sugar apple hanging off of a branch. “I’ll have to revisit this place with a bucket or something later; without my magic, I can only bring one of you juicy fruits back at a time.” Then, plucking the sugar apple with her teeth, she set back off to the north, toward home. “Away!”

The macaw gleefully chirped and went back to preening its wings and its tail.