//------------------------------// // The Mystery Mare // Story: Surviving Sand Island // by The 24th Pegasus //------------------------------// Rainbow Dash didn’t dream. Both her mind and her body were simply too exhausted to put any effort into dreaming, instead collapsing into a catatonic state for the few hours of rest she could manage before the dawn light woke her up. After running up and down the mountain well after midnight, she simply had no energy left to hallucinate. As soon as she opened her eyes again, she knew that she’d barely caught three hours of sleep. The sky outside was little more than pale blue and yellows, and the sunlight shone through the windows at an almost perfectly parallel angle to the floor. Its light was still enough to cast patches of sun-shaped light on the far wall, shaped by the cutouts in the side of the mountain that made the windows. It looked like a bunch of little stylized suns were hanging on the stony walls of the worshipping chamber, slowly descending as the sun rose higher and higher. Then she heard a noise she didn’t recognize. It was breathing, but it wasn’t Rarity’s. As she sat up, she remembered the mare they’d rescued only a few hours ago. When she turned to the corner they’d left her in, she was surprised to see the mare sitting up, bleary eyes open, with fruit pulp staining her muzzle and the uncorked water jug at her side. Those pale blue eyes turned to Rainbow, and the mare shrank back a bit. “S-Sorry…” she managed, her voice still sounding raw and rough. “I drank most of the water… I was so thirsty…” “Hey! You’re awake!” Rainbow crawled to her hooves and arched her back, listening to her stiff spine crack. Sleeping on stone was definitely much worse than the comfort of sand and moss she’d grown used to. She crossed the distance between her and the mystery mare, eventually sitting down in front of her. “Don’t worry about the water. As long as there’s some left, right?” The mare shakily bobbed her head. “There’s enough left for today,” she said. “But after that…” “It’s a good thing we don’t plan on staying here that long,” Rainbow said. A look over her shoulder told her that Rarity was still sound asleep. Since she really didn’t want to be the one to wake Rarity after so little rest, she decided to use the time to figure out who they were dealing with here. “Were you from the Concordia?” The mare nodded. “Yeah…” she said. Her eyes shifted over to Rarity. “I saw you two once, I think. I thought you both died when the ship went down.” Rainbow looked at Rarity as well. “We thought we were the only survivors,” she said. “We found Jetstream’s body on the beach not long after. We didn’t think anypony else was alive.” She raised an eyebrow at the mare. “How did you survive? I thought the pirates kept everypony locked up in the ship!” “I was on the engine deck with the other engineers when they attacked,” the mare said. “A couple of us managed to hide away in some of the maintenance areas. I wedged myself between the outer and inner hulls at the keel of the ship so they wouldn’t find me. When they tried to fly the Concordia around the storm coming up from the south, me and three other engineers made a break for the lifeboats. We ended up here.” “What happened to the rest of them?” Rainbow asked. “Were they locked up in this temple like you?” “The minotaurs found us almost immediately,” the mare said. “Piston tried to fight them off, but they killed him. They managed to get a net on Stormy Skies before she could fly away, and they grabbed me and Steam Valve before we could run. I don’t know what they did with Stormy, but they hauled me and Steam up to this temple and locked us in those cells. They didn’t even give us anything to eat or drink for the longest time.” Rainbow swallowed. “I… think they ate Stormy. Me and Rarity found pegasus bones on the beach of our island not too long after the ship crashed.” The mare looked like she was going to be sick. “She was seventeen,” she said. “She dropped out of school when she was fourteen and joined CelestiAir as a simple mechanic. She was always so happy and funny, and she was really smart, too. She knew what she was doing. Nopony could make an engine hum quite like she could.” She hung her head, ratty black mane falling across her gray face. “That’s horrible…” “What about Steam Valve?” Rainbow asked. “We didn’t see him in the other room. It looked like somepony had been there but there wasn’t a body.” “The minotaurs came back a few nights ago,” the mare said. “They took him out of his cell. I heard him whimpering through the stone.” She shook her head from side to side. “I don’t know what they did to him. I think they killed him too.” “That’s… awful,” Rainbow said. “I’m sorry.” The mare bitterly smiled at Rainbow. “I’ve accepted that I’m going to die,” she said. “I’d been without food or water for almost this whole time, I think. The minotaurs left me a loaf of bread and a jug of water when they first locked me up, but that didn’t last very long. I haven’t eaten in forever, and I tried to catch rain falling into my cell through the skylight to stay hydrated. It’s hard to keep count of the days shining through the skylight in your little cell when you’re so thirsty you’re delirious. I didn’t even think you two were real when you opened my cell.” “We weren’t expecting to find a pony inside of one of these little rooms, that’s for sure,” Rainbow said. “Me and Rarity washed up on an island to the east of here. We built a raft to go exploring these other islands. We made landfall here only a few days ago.” “I was going to say, I didn’t know how you two survived for this long on this island with all these minotaurs.” She grunted and shifted positions, a hoof clutching at her chest as she grimaced. “I’m sorry, I just haven’t had food for so long that it hurts to eat again.” “Just take your time,” Rainbow said. “At least you’re alive, right? Together, we’ll get off of this island.” “How?” the mare asked. “Even if we get out of this temple, there’s minotaurs all over the place. They’ll catch us for sure!” She blinked. “And why are you even in this temple in the first place? I didn’t think anypony could get in. None of the doors open.” “That’s where you’re wrong,” Rainbow said with a grin. “We stole the medallion thingy the minotaur chief uses to open all the doors. That’s how we were able to get inside and let you out of your cell. As for the why, we’re looking for something here that’ll help us get home. It’s a long story, but we think there’s a little figurine of a pegasus in this temple, and we need that if we’re ever going to make it back to Equestria.” After a second, she added, “I don’t suppose you’ve seen one here, have you?” “No, I haven’t,” the mare said with a shake of her head. “I’ve been locked up the whole time. But how is a pegasus figurine going to help us get home?” “Just trust me on this one, girl,” Rainbow said. “I can explain later.” She abruptly stopped like somepony had slapped her in the face, and she chuckled. “Oh, wow. I can’t believe I didn’t ask you what your name was. I didn’t think about it because obviously you knew who we were.” “Oh, uh, yeah, I guess I forgot to say that, didn’t I?” The mare smiled and stuck a bony hoof out for Rainbow to shake. “Gyro,” she said. “My name’s Gyro.” “Gyro,” Rainbow repeated, and then she scoffed and shook her head. “Wow, that one should’ve been easy to figure out with your cutie mark and everything.” Grinning, she shook Gyro’s hoof. “Welcome aboard the Survival Express, Gyro. We’re on a one-way ticket back to Equestria!”