Surviving Sand Island

by The 24th Pegasus


Do the Creeping Thing

Rarity waited until the night settled squarely over the islands before she decided to make her move. A fresh barrage of clouds had blocked out the moon and the stars, leaving very little light for her to navigate by. But it was both a blessing and a curse, as she knew that if she could hardly see in front of her, then the pirates would have to suffer the same. And if they were anywhere near a light source, like a fire or something, then their eyes wouldn’t be accustomed to the darkness enough to notice her flitting between the shadows of the island.

But the lack of light still made Rarity’s life difficult. Crossing the beach had been a breeze, but once she reached the debris field and the forest, she had to slow down to not trip over wood sticking out of the ground or small rocks nestled in the mud. She found herself looking at her surroundings out of the corners of her eyes more than straight ahead, since they seemed to give her a better idea of the shape of the land. Even still, that didn’t mean that she was safe from stumbling over little bumps in the ground. Of those, there were many, and more than once she had to catch herself after tripping while moving too fast.

And then she was deep in the forested canopy of the island, where the tall and dense palm trees blocked out almost whatever light was left. At some points, Rarity couldn’t even tell if her eyes were open, everything was so dark. The wind whistled through the trees in waves, and occasionally Rarity had to squint just to not be blinded by the intensity of some gusts—for all the good that did. The strange way the noise of the wind reached her before the wind itself did put an eerie, worrying feeling in the air, and certainly not for the first time Rarity wondered if she’d made a mistake wandering out into the middle of nowhere on a night as dark as this. But there was no turning back now; she’d made it this far, and even if she wanted to, she probably couldn’t find her way back to her camp without a little something more to see by. The only thing to do now was to press on and follow her eyes and ears.

Which was easier said than done. Rarity certainly hadn’t expected to simply stumble across the pirate camp without any hassle, but it was turning out to be harder than she anticipated. Where she hoped to use her eyes to spot any stray flickering lights, the density of the jungle made the already difficult task of seeing more than twenty feet ahead of her almost impossible. Where she hoped to use her ears to listen for signs of laughter and other raucous noises from the pirates, the rustling of fronds in the wind, the crashing of waves on the surf, and the distant rumbling of thunder joined the efforts of the nighttime wildlife to drown out any other noises. If it wasn’t for the smell of sea and salt and the feel of mud on her hooves, Rarity would’ve felt like she was in a sensory deprivation tank or something of a similar vein.

“I can’t believe this,” she muttered, but in the stillness and solitude of the night, she felt like she’d shouted it. “You’d think it wouldn’t be this hard to find a collection of pirates in the middle of a jungle. What, did they all retire to bed early?”

Almost as if to provide her a blatant counterpoint, the ghostly echo of haggard, gruff laughter drifted through the trees. Rarity froze in place at the noise, her ears pointing left and right to try and pinpoint it, before they tentatively angled to the right. After a few moments, another bout of laughter confirmed the direction, and Rarity adjusted her course accordingly. “Speak of the hooligan and he shall appear. If only that worked for Rainbow…”

Though the pirate’s laughter disappeared into the noises of the night, Rarity at least had a direction to go in. It only took her a little bit of walking, but she finally started to see the flickering lights of a fire on the bark of some of the trees. She started to slow down the more light she noticed until she could start to make out structures through the thick island jungle. The last thing she needed to do was get caught by any pirates who happened to be on lookout or something. Carefully picking her way across the shadowy and dark floor of the jungle, Rarity managed to find a cluster of mossy rocks to use for cover and observe the pirate camp.

She immediately picked out four structures centered around a fire: the two closest to her were lean-to’s, with the open ends facing the fire, while opposite them stood a shoddy longhouse constructed out of wood and palm fronds much like her own house back on their home island. Next to that, a smaller, separate house stood, with little windows in the sides. It was obviously important enough to be separated from the longhouse, but Rarity couldn’t figure out what it was supposed to be for. A jail, perhaps? Was that where they were keeping Rainbow?

Unfortunately, she couldn’t risk it to find out. She saw five pirates sitting around the campfire, talking and laughing as the flames danced between them all. If there were others, she couldn’t tell, but she assumed at least one or two had to be in the shoddy longhouse they’d constructed. That already put her down six or seven to one, and there could still be even more she didn’t know about. And what was she going to do without her magic, especially when some of the pirates were unicorns as well and weren’t similarly handicapped?

But now she knew where the pirate camp was. Standing up, she started to back away from her hiding spot. She’d be able to retreat for the time being and plan, or at least move to a different angle to survey the camp while it was still dark out.

Then her hoof wedged in some rocks and she tripped with a startled yelp. She took the fall on her cracked ribs, and the pain immediately stole her breath away with a pained yell. Almost too late she realized what she’d done.

Her ears turned around, back toward the camp, just in time to register shouts of alarm. Scrambling to her hooves, Rarity swallowed her pain, bottled it up, and immediately broke out into a gallop in the other direction.

Couldn’t she catch a break just once today?