Surviving Sand Island

by The 24th Pegasus


Cleaning Camp

Rainbow stirred from her fitful sleep to commotion around the pirates’ fire. Where before, the pirates had simply told each other raucous jokes and traded insults to pass the time, now they’d fallen to muttering and hasty looks to something behind Rainbow’s lean-to. Whatever had happened to stir them in such a manner, Rainbow suddenly wanted to know.

“You heard that, right?” one of the pirates said to the stallion sitting next to him, rising to his hooves as he did so. “That wasn’t Matchlock, was it?”

“Too feminine,” the other pirate grunted back. “That ain’t her.”

“Matchlock’s a mare, though.”

“Yeah, but not a girly mare, and she smokes. That wasn’t her.” A blue mare grabbed a cutlass and a dagger. “We need to catch that cunt, whoever she is.”

Some of the other pirates shot the small hut next to the longhouse a worried look. “Should we wake the captain?”

“I’m not doing it, I like my head firmly attached to my neck. You know she’s a fucking diva when it comes to getting her sleep.”

“Yeah, a fucking diva with too many swords and guns for her own good.”

“Then we’ll take care of it ourselves.” One of the pirates, who Rainbow gathered was an officer or a first mate or something, picked out three other ponies. “Scabbard, Jolly, Float, with me. Hayseed, bring the lookouts in and let them know what’s happening. And don’t wake our crazy bitch of a captain.”

With little more than that, the four pirates hastily armed themselves and took off in the direction they’d been watching earlier. Rainbow gulped as they tore out of camp, their hooves muted by the soft ground beneath them. She only knew of two ponies that could’ve possibly made an effeminate yell that would’ve riled up the pirates, and one seemed much more likely and proficient in those noises than the other. She immediately felt her gut sink at the revelation of the only possible explanation.

Her absence had gotten Rarity looking for her. And now Rarity had stumbled onto the pirate camp and had somehow given herself away. If the night ended with Rarity’s capture, then Rainbow knew that they were as good as dead. And here she was, tied up in the middle of the pirate camp, unable to do anything to help.

The mare who remained when her comrades scattered, Hayseed, lingered by the fire for a few seconds longer before she too reluctantly climbed to her hooves. Rainbow watched her stretch each one out in turn, adjust the blouse she wore with a pinch of magic, even though the thing had nearly been reduced to rags, and tuck a pair of knives under her belt. The pirate shot Rainbow a look and sneered. “If those bindings are loose when I get back, you’re gonna be sorry.”

“Like I’m not already sorry,” Rainbow muttered as the pirate left, noticing a slight slur to her words. Her missing teeth made her mouth feel strange when she talked, and every time she ran her tongue over a broken tooth she winced in pain. It was like somepony had buried a tiny knife in her gums. She’d have to have the roots taken out before they got infected, but she certainly wasn’t willing to trust the pirates with her dentistry. Squall had already proven herself to be quite the unqualified practitioner.

Squall… Rainbow shivered. Come morning, she knew she was going to have another unpleasant conversation with the pirate captain. It was the absolute last thing she was looking forward to, and the fear of once more finding herself at the mercy of the erratic mare’s hooves overwhelmed her fear of retaliation if she tried to escape while the pirates were all gone. As far as she could tell, it was now or never.

But how? She leered at the bindings around her limbs. She couldn’t do more than wiggle her hooves, and her wing was incredibly stiff, sore, and pained after being twisted around and tied to the bindings around her legs. She could only reasonably move one wing, and though she could try dragging herself around by digging the crest into the ground, she knew that wasn’t going to get her safely out of the camp before the pirates returned in a few minutes. So what could she do?

Perhaps her best bet was to look around the supplies the pirates had thrown her among. She figured if she found something useful now, she might be able to use it to escape later. So, throwing her weight around and using her wing to reposition herself, Rainbow dragged herself closer to the supplies the pirates had gathered and started looking.

At first, she had eyes only for a knife, or a sword, or something sharp to help her cut her bindings and escape. But unfortunately for her, it looked like the pirates kept any salvaged tools and weapons in the other lean-to. All she could find was scrap wood, vines, rope, and metal panels that had come from the Concordia’s hull. But there were no tools and no conveniently sharp pieces of steel to use; even the metal plates had been stacked flat and were too cumbersome for Rainbow to really use against her bindings, given how immobile they had rendered her.

But then she saw a splintered plank with nails sticking out of it. They were thick, sturdy nails, only beginning to develop a layer of rust from the elements. Though screws would have worked better, given that the threads would have worked as makeshift saw teeth, the points of the nails were still sharp. With a little work, she could probably cut her bindings on the nails. The only question now was how? The bindings around her legs meant she couldn’t move them very easily, and her wing was stretched and twisted taut, so she couldn’t move that. Maybe if she positioned herself on her side…

But she didn’t have the time for that now, and wisely returned to her original position, doing her best to conceal the plank and its exposed nails in the shadows of the other supplies. That plank would be her ticket out of this camp, she could tell. Now, it came down to her to determine the best time to use it. Though she couldn’t hear any pirates around the camp for the moment, she knew that moment wouldn’t last long enough for her to escape.

So she huddled down in the sand and nervously waited for the pirates to return, hoping and praying that they didn’t drag a white unicorn back with them.