Rainbow’s eyes flicked back and forth. Every shadow was a minotaur hiding in the bushes, every noise a tribal warrior ready to throw a net on her and Rarity. Her paranoia kept her on edge and had started to fray her nerves.
Her and Rarity had left their raft behind them, as safely hidden away as Rarity could move it without splitting her horn open again. They’d left half of it sticking out on the sand, but hopefully it wouldn’t be too noticeable from the sea. Rainbow doubted that anyone would find it coming from the island; so far, her and Rarity had found nothing to commend the east side of this new island except slippery slopes covered with sand and stone. The only trees that grew here were great trees that could wedge deep roots into the cracks between rocks. The palm trees with their shallower roots were either clustered closer to the shore or further up on flatter plateaus where sediment could accumulate.
But other than the noise of the birds, the island was eerily quiet. Rainbow didn’t know what she’d been expecting. An entire village full of minotaurs just past the trees, perhaps? Wherever they were, they certainly weren’t near the east. The harsh topography probably excluded that area from settlement anyway.
“We need to find a vantage point,” she said when they paused at a tree to catch their breath. “I want to see what we’re dealing with.”
Rarity turned her gaze further up the hill. “I don’t think we’ll have any problem with that when we finally crest this slope,” she panted. “We’re not climbing the mountain, are we?”
Rainbow turned to her left. Through the branches and fronds, she could see a large monolith of stone and trees rising above them. “No, but it certainly feels like it,” she said. “We landed on the spine of the island. I bet the rest of this place is flat and a lot less steep than here.”
“A good thing for us, I suppose,” Rarity said. “There haven’t been any minotaurs to spot us yet.”
“Yet,” Rainbow reiterated. “We just gotta keep our eyes peeled for anything. The last thing we need to do is run into one.”
“And what happens if we do?”
Rainbow fidgeted with the spear tucked under her wing. “We’ll… figure something out,” she said. Hopefully it wouldn’t have to come to that, but if it did…
Well, it was either them or the minotaurs. Rainbow wasn’t going to settle for the latter.
Rarity must have had similar thoughts, but after a few moments she simply nodded. “Okay,” she said. “We’ll just try to be quiet and invisible, then.”
“That’ll certainly be the easiest way to go about this,” Rainbow said. She licked her lips; she was already starting to get thirsty, but with Rarity’s horn on the verge of burnout, they didn’t have any way to transport their water, and they’d left the pot down at the raft with some of their other supplies. Hopefully they’d find a safe watering hole soon. “C’mon, let’s keep moving before the sun and the heat fry us anymore.”
Rarity nodded, pausing only briefly enough to wipe the sweat off of her face. “Yes, that sounds like a lovely idea.”
They forced their way onwards. After a few minutes, Rainbow could tell that they were starting to get near the top of the ridge as the ground began to flatten, bit by bit. With perhaps another ten minutes of climbing, the two exhausted ponies finally found themselves on a flat stretch of rock overlooking the rest of the island. Or, at least as much as they could see through the trees.
The island was shaped roughly like a crescent, and the two ponies were perched right at the midsection. Both prongs reached out toward the west, with one dominated by the tall mountain to their south and the other thinning out into a sandy spike jutting into the ocean. The whole thing was big enough to fit roughly four of their island inside with a little room to spare; one at each prong and two side-by-side in the center. The interior of the crescent was greener, lusher, and much more vibrant and alive than the scraggly eastern side that Rainbow and Rarity had just ascended. Even through the trees and undergrowth, Rainbow thought she spied a lake a little further down from the ridge.
“Look,” Rarity said, pointing toward the northwest. “Smoke.”
Rainbow shifted slightly so she could get a better vantage through the trees. Sure enough, a few clouds of smoke rose from beneath the jungle. Peering even harder through the vegetation, Rainbow thought she could make out the shadowy shapes of sheltered huts and dark figures moving to and fro. A row of outrigger canoes rested on the beach just outside, tied up and kept out of reach of the hungry tides. Rainbow counted ten of them sitting in the sand, but she had no idea how many more the minotaurs had, and how many were currently out at sea. She thought she could make out a few canoes grouped together in the sea just beyond the crescent, likely searching for fish.
“Well,” she said, frowning at the sight, “we found them.”
“Now we should take care that they don’t find us,” Rarity said. Her sapphiric eyes scanned the terrain around them. “Now, if I was a forgotten pony civilization, where would I hide my sacred temples and figurines?”
“I think that’s pretty obvious, Rares,” Rainbow said. Her gaze wandered up the mountain to the south. “Where else would you put it other than the highest point of the island?”
Rarity nodded. “I suppose that would make sense.”
“Good, because I was just pulling that out of my ass.” Rainbow pulled a few fruits out of her pack and offered some to Rarity. “Let’s eat up and get a drink by the lake down there, and then we can take a look. Maybe we’ll find something.”
Rarity hummed her agreement and floated a few star apples out of Rainbow’s hoof. “I think that sounds like a good idea. I just pray that we don’t get caught.”
“We’ll just have to be careful. Same and simple,” Rainbow said. “After all, I doubt that every minotaur is just sitting in their huts with their thumbs up their butts…”
“Rainbow…” Rarity muttered. “Must you?”
Rainbow shrugged. “Somepony’s gotta say it.”