Over the next few days, Rainbow and Rarity worked on making their new hut feel like home. They gathered as much fresh bedding as they could find and laid it out in the middle of the larger structure. They allowed it to sprawl some, considering they had more space than the previous shelter. Rarity certainly didn’t mind the extra space; while she enjoyed cuddling with Rainbow, sometimes a mare needed a little room to stretch. At least now she could roll in her sleep and not end up with her face pressed against the palm walls or buried in sand.
Gyro slowly settled into the routine as well. It seemed like she grew a little stronger with each passing day. Rest and food did wonders for the mechanic, and it didn’t take long for Rarity to notice that she wasn’t huffing or panting after walking from the spring to the beach. Though she still looked gaunt and thin, it was obvious she was getting her strength back. Hopefully it wouldn’t take too much longer before she was back to her usual self.
For her part, Rarity simply enjoyed the lazy days and the comfort they afforded. Not having to worry about walking the knife’s edge to survive almost let her relax like she was simply on vacation—almost. As far as Rarity was concerned, it wasn’t a vacation without a spa, and their current situation found her dreadfully lacking one. Though she could occasionally pry a massage out of Rainbow, the pegasus’ hooves simply didn’t have that practiced, refined touch that all good masseuses have. Hopefully she’d learn a thing or two by the time they finally got back home.
It was during one of these barebones, amateur massages that Rarity noticed something. Lying on the sand, stretched in front of the old hut, her eyes wandered to their calendar plank. Out of curiosity, she counted the tick marks in groups of five that they’d scratched out so far since they’d been here. It came to her as a bit of a shock when she counted thirty of them—and they hadn’t even added today’s to the board yet.
“Thirty-one days?” she murmured aloud, her voice rich with disbelief.
Rainbow stopped working on her shoulders and quirked an eyebrow. “Huh?”
“We’ve been on these islands for thirty-one days,” Rarity said. “We’ve been here a month!”
“A month?” Rainbow blinked and shifted her ruby eyes to the plank. “Wow. Time flies, I guess.”
“We’ve been so busy I’d completely forgotten about it.” She abandoned her massage for the time being to inspect the board and add today’s mark to it. “Who would’ve thought we’d be here this long?”
“Who would’ve thought we’d be here in the first place?” Rainbow frowned and rolled her shoulders. “The wreck feels like a lifetime ago.”
Rarity nodded. “We’ve certainly matured much since then, Remember when we thought rescue would find us in a week?”
Rainbow blew air out the side of her mouth and shook her head in disbelief. “To be fair, we didn’t know just what we’d gotten ourselves into. We didn’t know there was any spooky magic stuff going on here that’d make it impossible for rescue to find us. We just figured Twilight would have the whole navy combing the seas looking for us.”
“Which she very well might have done, but that wouldn’t help us anyway.”
She took a step back to survey their camp. Two huts, a pile of scrap and salvage, baskets full of food and jugs full of water, stone tools and steel knives. A tiny pegasus figurine carefully wrapped in cloth and hidden away inside of the larger hut. A third set of hoofprints that wandered between the spring and the beach. On the other side of the island, a raft made from trees they felled with tools they made was tucked safely within the trees. All of it was a far cry from that first night spent huddling under a lean-to as the rains pummeled them and the wind tried to blow them off the island.
“We’ve come so far in a month,” Rarity said. “Accomplished so much.”
Rainbow nodded. “We did what we had to do,” she said. “And then some.”
“Imagine where we’ll be in another month.”
“Hopefully, we’ll be back in Ponyville, having cider with the girls.” Rainbow sighed and her mind’s eye wandered off somewhere else. “What a story we’ll have to tell. You think they’ll believe it?”
Rarity smirked. “I know they’ll believe it. Even if some of our little adventure thus far seems unbelievable.”
“We gonna tell them about the urchins and our first kiss?” Rainbow asked, winking.
Rarity’s cheeks warmed; she still felt a little embarrassed about that whole ordeal. “Maybe not the specifics,” she said. “A first kiss born out of utility doesn’t have quite the same romantic charm to it.”
“Eh, that’s just what you think,” Rainbow countered. “That’s what started everything though.”
“Hmmm. I suppose.” She turned to the side and meandered her way to their shelter, Rainbow trailing at her tail. “When did you first know you liked me?”
“Me?” Rainbow thought for a moment. “Uh… the tennis game,” she said. “You were looking pretty sexy with the sweat and your hair tied back and stuff like that. And you’d just barely beat me, so you were pretty athletic too, which was awesome. And I mean, I always thought you looked pretty.”
Rarity chuckled. “I remember that game being quite the throttling, not a close contest.”
“Yeah, well, you’re remembering wrong or something.”
“Quite.” Rarity shook her head. “For me, it was when you were poisoned,” she said. “I didn’t realize how much you meant to me until I was in danger of losing you. The thought of losing you scared me more than I’m willing to admit, but it got me to realize how much I cared.”
She ducked into the shelter and Rainbow followed her, brushing some of the loose fronds aside. “Pssh. You weren’t in danger of losing me. I’m Rainbow Dash! Nothing stops me!”
“I’m sure if you’d been stuck with eight or nine spines instead of just seven, I don’t think you’d be standing here right now.” Rarity’s eyes lowered. “You probably don’t remember much of that, but I do. I was there for the whole thing. Every time your heart fluttered and twitched, I was afraid it’d be your last. You were so weak you could hardly breathe. Imagine what the poison from just one more spine would’ve done to you.”
Rainbow’s eyes fell. “I… guess…”
Turning in place, Rarity put her hoof on the side of Rainbow’s muzzle. “It’s nothing to be upset about, Rainbow,” she said. “The important thing is that you survived. You don’t have to do it with glory and bravado. You just need to live. We just need to live.” After a second of chewing on her lip, Rarity leaned in and kissed the other mare. When they split again, Rarity offered her a smile. “I don’t care what else you do, Rainbow Dash. Just promise me you’ll live and we’ll both be very happy mares.”
Rainbow smirked back at Rarity. “Sounds like an easy enough promise to keep,” she said. “I will, Rares. You can count on that.”
“Good.” Rarity looked over her shoulder to their bedding and a mischievous grin crept onto her muzzle. “What do you think Gyro’s doing right now?”
“Sleeping, probably,” Rainbow said. “That mare’s always asleep.”
“Mmmm.” Rarity turned around and started sashaying over to the bedding. “Maybe we can use a moment to ourselves?” The end of her tail teased Rainbow’s nose.
Rainbow grinned stupidly back. “A moment or two. Or three.”
“Don’t get ahead of yourself, darling.”
“When would I ever do that?”