//------------------------------// // Harvest Season // Story: Surviving Sand Island // by The 24th Pegasus //------------------------------// Rainbow Dash and Rarity trekked through the interior of the island, heading south. They’d each fashioned a pair of makeshift baskets from some of their salvage, tied together and resting across their backs like saddlebags. Overhead, Chirp flew from tree to tree, shadowing the pair’s progress and letting out little squawks. Barely ten minutes of walking took the pair to the hill Rarity had found earlier. As soon as Rainbow crested it and looked around, her eyes went wide. “There’s this much fruit on this side of the island?” she asked. “This is… wow! “I was amazed, too, when I first came here,” Rarity said. She stood on her hind legs and started pulling sugar apples off a tree, carefully guiding them into one of the baskets at her sides. “To think that there’s all this delicious fruit here, and nearly nothing on the other side of this hill! It doesn’t make much sense to me, to be completely honest.” Rainbow sniffed at the ground and dug into it a little with her hoof. “I dunno, maybe the ground’s better over here? Applejack would know for sure. My guess is that it’s too sandy on the rest of the island for anything but palm trees to grow, but there’s actually dirt here, so it’s better for these trees.” “I suppose it makes sense,” Rarity admitted. When she cleared off the low-hanging fruit of one tree, she moved to the next. “But I don’t think we need be wondering or complaining about it, darling. Let’s simply collect our harvest and return triumphantly to our camp.” “We’re gonna eat like queens,” Rainbow said, dropping star apple after star apple into her basket. “This stuff is so good, I’m gonna get so friggin’ fat…” “If you get fat on a deserted island with limited nutrition, then I wouldn’t know what to say.” With one basket full of sugar apples, she started filling the other with star apples. “We should be rationing this, after all. I suppose that’s one thing good for my body while we’re here; I’ll be able to finally stick to a diet, even if it is a diet borne of necessity.” Rainbow sputtered. “A diet?” She turned around, her rose eyes wandering over Rarity’s svelte and limber form in blatant disbelief. “Rarity, you of all ponies are the last to need a diet!” Rarity found herself taken aback. “Well, I mean, darling, there’s always room for a few pounds to trim here or there…” “I mean, if you were talking about Pinkie Pie, then yeah, she’s a little pudgy, but with all the sweets she eats, I’m surprised she isn’t five hundred pounds.” Rainbow shook her head. “But you? Rarity, you’re like, the hottest. If you started losing weight, you’d start looking like a skeleton. Besides, trying to survive on an island isn’t the best time to start dieting. You need to keep your strength up, because otherwise, the sun will just suck it right out of you.” She blinked. “What?” The source of Rainbow’s confusion was Rarity’s burning cheeks. “Oh, um, nothing, darling,” she managed, abashedly ducking her head. “I just… did you mean that?” “Uh… mean what?” “Never mind, darling.” Rarity quickly turned away, trying to hide the rosy fluster building on her face. Of course Rainbow Dash wasn’t paying attention to what she said; that was just her way. Swallowing hard, Rarity forced herself to make a strangled titter and quickly retreated to a star apple plant some ways away. “I think there’s some juicy ones, here. I’m going to… to go harvest them. Yes.” Rainbow watched Rarity hurriedly trot away, one eyebrow raised. “…Okay.” Turning around, she went back to harvesting fruit again. “………friggin’ sexy, though, I swear to Celestia…” Chirp added his two cents by landing on Rainbow’s back and snatching one of the star apples out of her basket. The macaw tore through the rind with its beak before scooping out the juicy insides, dropping the remains to the ground when it was emptied out. He watched Rarity go to a tree across the hill, and when she glanced over her shoulder, it whistled at her. The unicorn ducked her head and went back to work, trying to ignore Chirp and Rainbow. Rainbow chuckled and rubbed Chrip’s head with the tip of her hoof. “Heh, you said it, little buddy.”