Another week passed without much change. The minotaurs never showed up, the food didn’t run out, and the shelter didn’t fall down. It rained on occasion, usually for a day or two, but the last three days were sunny and pleasant. Rarity enjoyed the sun after having to deal with so much rain and shivering wetness. Perhaps even more than that, she simply enjoyed watching Gyro grow stronger by the day as she settled into the island’s routine.
She couldn’t believe that they’d been here for this long. Six weeks? It’d been a month and a half since her and Rainbow (and Gyro) had washed up on the islands. A month and a half of struggling to survive in the absence of civilization, of fending for themselves. A month and a half since Equestria likely first heard of the airship’s mysterious disappearance. How long had everypony considered them dead for? A month? A few weeks? It depended on how stubborn those ponies were, but it’d been long enough that Equestria had to have given up on them. That in itself was a scary idea: that help wasn’t coming for them and there wasn’t any way around it now. Whatever hope Rarity had harbored about being suddenly rescued one day was dashed. They were well and truly on their own.
But even still, she could look around their campsite and feel a sense of pride. They’d done so much, just three mares lost in the middle of nowhere. A lot more than she would’ve imagined they’d be able to when they first washed up and saw just how bleak their prospects were. They had a hut and a house, plenty of food, and all they needed to live. At the very least, if they never made it back to Equestria, maybe somepony would find this island and find their bones within one of the huts and realized just how much they fought and struggled to survive, and how much they were able to accomplish before they ultimately fell.
She heard a mare grunt off to the side, and she angled her head to see Gyro pulling a crude sledge of wood and other scrap across the sand. The mechanic leaned against the vines she held in her mouth, dragging the heavy weight they were attached to through the grit. Sweat glistened on her body, but her coat seemed tighter and her legs a little thicker. Her barrel had filled out nicely in the couple of weeks she’d been on their island, and she recently started hauling weight across the sand to try and rebuild some of her muscle. Rarity already knew that Gyro could pull more than she could, and the mare was still half-starved and not yet fully recovered. The sledge of wood had to be about three hundred pounds, easily.
Rarity watched Gyro reach the end of the clearing, catch her breath, and turn the sledge around. When they made eye contact, the seamstress shook her head from side to side. “Must you make me feel inadequate?” she asked, pointing to the wooden sledge. “I feel fat and lazy just from watching you do that.”
Gyro smirked and dragged the sledge over to Rarity. Spitting out the vine, she rolled her shoulders and hopped up and down on the sand a few times. “You said the F word.”
“What ‘F word?’” Rarity blinked. “You mean ‘fat?’”
“Yeah, that one,” Gyro said. “I don’t have any and you’re triggering me.”
Rarity rolled her eyes and turned aside. “You should be happier,” she said. “So many mares would kill to cut down on their fat.”
“Yeah, but like, to healthy amounts, not like me.” Gyro coughed once and kicked the sledge. “A little fat’s good for you, but it’s kinda hard to build it up on fruits and stuff without any hearty grains to really munch on. At least I’m getting my muscle back. Soon I’ll be at full speed again.”
“What is your full speed?” Rarity asked. “I’m somewhat curious.”
“Well, on the sledge, I could do eight hundred,” Gyro said. When Rarity’s eyes widened, Gyro chuckled and held up a hoof. “Dragging a sledge isn’t as hard as it looks. I bet you could pull three hundred. We’re ponies, we’re good at stuff like that. I know some big stallions with Clydesdale blood, they could probably pull half a ton. Earth ponies, of course,” she amended. “But I think that goes without saying.”
“I’ll say.” Rarity sat down in the sand and floated over a jug of water, offering it to Gyro. While Gyro took several gulps, Rarity smiled. “I’ve never seen a pegasus that could pull that much weight. Unicorns, yes, but always through magic. How much you can lift is more tied to your concentration and your horn’s natural spiraling. Sharper spirals have an easier time leveraging magical power than more shallow ones.”
Gyro set the jug down and wiped her lips. “What’s the tradeoff? I’m an engineer, and one of the first things they teach you is that everything has a tradeoff.”
Rarity nodded along. “Control,” she said. “You trade power for precision. Princess Twilight has a very sharply coiled horn, and the same is true of her student, Starlight Glimmer. They’re very powerful unicorns and know a lot of mind-boggling spells. But they lack finesse and precision with their magic; they find it difficult to multitask and maintain several different fields and spells at the same time.” Rarity tapped her horn. “My horn has below-average spiraling, which means I’m weaker than they are, but I have much greater control over my magic. I can maintain five separate fields without breaking a sweat. I can do ten if I really focus and concentrate, which is useful for dressmaking. There’s so much that needs to be done all at once.”
The engineer whistled. “That’s something,” she said. “I can’t even imagine what it’s like to be able to just do things by thinking about them. Same sort of thing goes for pegasi. What’s it like to have two extra limbs sticking out of your back?” She frowned and glanced at her shoulders. “Like, how do you even keep track of them all? Four legs and two wings—that’s a lot.”
“They’re simply born knowing how to do it,” Rarity said with a shrug. “When Twilight first became a princess, she really didn’t know how to use her wings at all. Flying was difficult for her at first, and they’d open or flap from time to time like they had a mind of their own. It was really something.” Shaking her head, she turned her eyes toward a nearby tree where Chirp was preening and watching them. “But she got used to them. Now she can fly without even thinking about it.”
“Huh.” Gyro shook her sweaty mane out, scattering a few drops of perspiration into the sand. “Think I could become the princess of steam engines? A wing and a horn sound like they’d be pretty awesome with my earth pony strength.”
“I’ll ask Princess Celestia and see what I can do,” Rarity said with a laugh. “So long as you learn something about friendship along the way.”
The mechanic shrugged and cocked an eyebrow. “You certainly learn a lot about friendship with the other ponies you have to share an engineering bay with,” she said. “We’re all greasy and sweaty and smell awful all the time. If you don’t like who you’re working with, you’d probably end up killing them with a wrench or something after the fourth month you’ve had to work with them.”
Rarity shuddered. “I can’t possible imagine working in such conditions,” she said. “That’s far too much dirt and grime for me.”
“Eh, I’m sure you’d be fine,” Gyro said. “Like Rainbow’s been saying, you’ve been doing pretty good out here in all the sand and salt with the nearest spa thousands of miles away.”
“We make do with what we must,” Rarity said. “At the very least, the constant rainfall is good for washing it off and getting as clean as possible out here. It’s not like I’ve been caked in sand and salt for a month straight.”
“True enough.” Gyro shook her head. “I’m just not used to bathing all that often. It’s not that I don’t like bathing, it’s just that there’s no point when you’re gonna get dirty again the next day. Maintenance work isn’t a clean job, especially in a huge engine room with roaring boilers and filled with coal dust. I’ll probably have COPD be the time I’m forty.”
“I certainly hope not. That sounds awful!”
“We live with it,” Gyro said with a shrug. “Besides, I’m sure a unicorn doctor or something somewhere has a neat little spell to fix me up real good.”
“I’m not sure that’s how it—!”
“Rares! G! Where are you guys?” It was Rainbow, bursting through the trees leading to the south hill. It was obvious from her panting and sweating that she’d run back to the camp as fast as she could, and she had to take a moment to swallow and catch her breath.
“Rainbow?!” Rarity exclaimed, whipping her head in Rainbow’s direction. “What is it? Are the minotaurs back?” She felt her stomach drop; this was the last thing they needed. How did they get their boats built back up so quickly?
But to her surprise, Rainbow shook her head. “No, it’s not that. Something else!” She turned in place and pointed back the way she came. “Come on, you gotta see this! It’s amazing!”
And then she was gone, darting back into the undergrowth. Rarity and Gyro exchanged looks before they both shrugged at each other.
“What do you think she’s talking about?” Gyro asked. “If it’s not minotaurs, then what?”
“I suppose there’s only one way we’ll find out,” Rarity said, and she started off after Rainbow. “Come on, let’s see what she’s found.”