//------------------------------// // Sun and Bones // Story: Surviving Sand Island // by The 24th Pegasus //------------------------------// Once more Rarity found herself staring up at the islanders’ sun god. He was an impressive figure to say the least. Broad shoulders, a sharp jawline, and massive and muscular wings all stood to make him look strong and attractive. She could only imagine the kinds of stories the villagers once told about him and their other deities. Certainly, many of them were carved into the stone walls of the temple, but Rarity doubted there was anypony alive today who could read the forgotten language of Ponynesia. Maybe Daring Do could, but she always seemed more concerned with the temples in the jungles and deserts of Equestria’s south, not the cultures of islands lost in the middle of the sea. Rainbow Dash watched from the door as Rarity investigated the statue. “What are you doing with that?” she asked. “I don’t know how a stupid statue is going to help us open this door.” “It’s actually very simple,” Rarity said. “How else are we going to get sunlight on the door if not with a mirror?” Her horn lit and engulfed the surface of the disk held between the statue’s outstretched wings. As soon as she had realized that the disk was connected to each wing with an iron peg, she realized she could rotate it as well. The rusty pegs screeched as she applied force to the disk, but soon she managed to turn it so it would direct light to the sun door. Holding her breath, Rarity turned around to watch the door magically open and grant them entry. Only it didn’t. Rainbow looked on in confusion between Rarity’s crestfallen face and the impassive door. “Are you sure that’s what you’re supposed to do?” Rarity frowned at the door. She knew she’d aimed the disk right; there was even a little golden circle of reflected light on the center of the door! What did she do wrong? She found the answer when she looked up… and saw only blue sky. This was a sun temple, and the oculus had been put in the roof for a reason. It was simply too early in the day. “We need to wait for the sun to shine directly down on us,” she said. “And I have no idea how long that will take.” “Uhhh…” Rainbow screwed her face as she thought. “Like, an hour, I think. Maybe less. It was pretty late in the morning by the time you woke up.” “So we have time to kill,” Rarity said. “Maybe we should put it to good use and do some exploring.” “There’s certainly a lot of places to explore,” Rainbow agreed. “And I also want to know what happened to the other pony that was here.” “Did Gyro tell you there was another pony here?” Rainbow nodded. “Yeah, stallion named Steam Valve. She said that they took him away a few nights ago. Probably that night when they came up here to throw that festival thing that we almost got caught in.” Rarity shuddered. “I don’t want to think about how they may have killed a pony inside of this temple while we were just outside.” “Well, there’s no body and no blood, so we really can’t say what they did with him.” She started walking clockwise around the first floor, and Rarity intercepted her on her way to the next door. “Maybe he’s inside one of these rooms.” “Maybe.” Floating the medallion off of her neck, Rarity started working on the doors around them. It seemed like all the rooms on the first floor were living quarters for ancient priests and disciples. Simple bed frames were tucked away in the corners, recognizable only from a few splintered timbers that hadn’t completely rotted away with the passage of time. Tattered garments made from coconut thread hung from pegs in the walls, and the odd bit of tarnished silver or dull gold on scattered jewelry pieces spoke a little of the wealth of the clerics that once controlled this temple. But there wasn’t anything that could help them survive out here for an indeterminate time, and there was certainly no little pegasus figurine. But, to be fair, Rarity figured she knew exactly which door the figurine was hiding behind. “How many priests do you think they had here?” Rainbow asked when they finally finished clearing out the first floor rooms. “Probably around eight,” Rarity guessed. “That’s the number of large rooms we came across, at least. They probably had twice as many lesser disciples, judging by the size of the other rooms.” “This place must’ve been amazing to see in its prime,” Rainbow said. “Imagine this huge temple just filled with ponies, all praising their sun god. It must’ve been a sight to behold.” “Everything about this island feels that way.” Rarity shook her head. “That city outside once held thousands of ponies. The seas between all these islands were probably full of canoes. This was a kingdom of four islands, once…” Then her ears fell. “Now there’s just minotaurs that want to kill us, and they’re desecrating the ruins of an equine legacy. I don’t know what’s more sad: that the Ponynesians are gone, or that the minotaurs are here.” “Who knows what happened to them.” Sighing, Rainbow turned her attention to the nearest flight of stairs. “I guess we should keep on looking. The shadows are really starting to move, though, so it shouldn’t be too long before the sun gets overhead.” Rarity nodded and followed Rainbow over to the stairs. The stairs were a little farther apart than she was used to back in Equestria. Maybe the Ponynesians were bigger than the average Equestrian? She felt like she was stretching a little bit to climb the next step, but she was tall enough that it wasn’t much of a problem. Rainbow, on the other hoof, had to lift her legs in exaggerated motions to keep climbing upwards. It took a lot of effort on Rarity’s part to keep her giggling suppressed, and even then, she knew Rainbow knew by the time they made it to the top. Rainbow only shot Rarity a sharp glare when they stopped for breath at the top of the stairs. “I’m aerodynamic,” she grumbled, preempting any comment from Rarity. “Yes, yes, I’m sure.” Rarity shot Rainbow a wink and walked to the edge of the balcony. She was surprised by how small things looked down below. It hadn’t looked like the second floor was that high up, but they were already well above the statue’s head. And yet the third floor still towered far above them, almost within reach of the skylight above. Of course, not like that was very helpful. If Rainbow couldn’t fly, then there wasn’t any way they could use it to escape. On the bright side, that meant the minotaurs couldn’t use it to get inside without a lot of rope. Rarity just hoped they didn’t have that much rope… There were fewer doors up here on the second floor. In fact, there were only three, one on each wall save the wall directly over the entrance to the temple’s heart. A quick peak in the nearest door revealed a large gallery with more sun-shaped portholes overlooking the mountain slopes. Based on the orientation of the temple, Rarity figured they had to be looking out over the south side of the island. In fact, she could see a tiny smudge of green in the distance that was probably the other western island she could see from their home island. But again, this room didn’t offer much in the way of escape. She doubted that the mirroring room would, provided it was another gallery like this one. “Seriously, where’s the fire escape in this stupid temple?” Rainbow grumbled when she saw there wasn’t any way out through that room. “This is against regulation.” Rarity rolled her eyes at Rainbow’s quip. “Maybe we should call the Ponynesian building commissioners and get them to look this place over,” she said, brushing past Rainbow and returning to the balcony. “They’ll certainly mandate some changes to fit within regulations.” She moved to her left, toward the middle door. This one was bigger than the other two, so she figured it had to be important. And thankfully, unlike the sun door down below, this one had a familiar locking mechanism in its face. She slotted the medallion in without a second thought and turned it, causing the doors to split and open. What she saw inside made her scream. “Rares?!” Rainbow, who had been trailing a bit behind, immediately galloped to Rarity’s side. Blue hooves wrapped around Rarity’s shoulders to comfort her. “What did you see?” Rainbow asked moments before finding out for herself. Rarity felt Rainbow’s legs stiffen in shock as she flinched backwards. “Holy…!” There were bones. Hundreds of them. Maybe thousands. Incomplete and scattered equine skeletons lied across the floor in pieces, like they’d been thrown inside this dark room without a second thought. Countless faceless skulls stared at Rarity through the open door, some with horns. Whatever this room had once been used for, now it was nothing more than a mass grave. The bones still covered in blood and flies scared her the most. Rainbow pulled Rarity away from the door and shut it. Trembling, Rarity merely slumped down against the stone balcony, her shaking forelegs crossed over her chest. “There… there were so many…” she murmured, in shock of what she’d seen behind that door. “So many!” “Most of those bones were ancient,” Rainbow said. “Most of them. Those must’ve been Ponynesian skeletons behind that door. Who knows how they ended up there.” “There’s no question about it!” Rarity laughed, but it was shrill and borderline hysterical. “The minotaurs did that! This is all their fault! All those dead ponies! And Gyro’s friend is one of them too! And… and when they get us, we’ll join them! They’ll throw our bones inside once they eat our flesh! Do you think they’ll keep our skeletons intact? Maybe I’ll be spread out across the room, mingling with other dead ponies who were unfortunate enough to have lived on this damnable island while the minotaurs were here!” “Rares…” Rainbow kneeled down in front of Rarity and tried to calm her. “It’s not gonna happen, okay? I promise, it’s not. We’re leaving here in one piece.” “But what if we’re trapped in here forever? What if we can’t find another way out?!” Rarity started hyperventilating. “We’re going to be skin and bones like Gyro! Celestia, I want to stay thin, but not that thin! Maybe I’ll just curl up with a skull when we run out of water and wait for the end! At least I’ll be in a grave then!” She started laughing and rocking back and forth. “I’ll be burying myself while I’m still alive!” A sharp pain kicked Rarity out of her hysteria. Tears poured from her eyes as stinging pain began to throb in her left cheek. In front of her, Rainbow Dash idly rubbed her hoof, her face halfway between something worried and something apologetic. “You feel better?” she asked when Rarity sat upright and rubbed her smarting cheek. Rarity shook her head. “No… but thank you anyways.” She winced with each touch of her hoof; she doubted Rainbow meant to hit her as hard as she did, but the side of her muzzle was probably going to bruise come morning. Chewing on the inside of her lip, she closed her eyes and tilted her head back. “Should we tell Gyro?” Rainbow nodded after a second. “We should,” she said. “But not now. She just needs to focus on resting and gathering strength. And we’ve gotta focus on getting through that door.” She stood up and helped Rarity to her hooves. “Let’s just ignore what’s behind this door, okay?” “I’m in agreement with that.” Rarity closed her eyes once more. “We have more important things to focus on.” “Yeah…” Turning around, Rarity hung her hooves over the balcony and watched the shadows on the ground. “I think I’ve done enough exploring for today,” she said. “Let’s just wait until the sun gets overhead. What do you think?” Rainbow shrugged. “Works for me.”