Surviving Sand Island

by The 24th Pegasus


The Gift of Wheels

Assembling Gyro’s walker had taken Rarity much longer than she expected, if only because her hooves and teeth weren’t as fine manipulators as her horn. Even though she felt the temptation to let her magic take over now that the small split in her horn had mostly fused back together, she had to remind herself that she didn’t have any magic to spare until later that night. It wouldn’t do to set her healing back another day by stressing her horn too early when she needed her magic once the sun went down.

But at least she wasn’t working on it alone. Gyro happily helped with the project, her excitement to get her mobility back clearly showing with the effort and thought she put into the work. What had originally been conceived as a nice gesture from Rarity turned into an engineering project with Gyro redesigning and changing some of Rarity’s plans to make the walker function better. Together, they were making something much better than Rarity knew she could’ve put together on her own.

Rarity clipped off another stretch of steel wire with the wire cutters she’d salvaged from the wreck and started wrapping them around a joint to lock it in place. “I hope this doesn’t sound rude, but I’m amazed at how knowledgeable about this you are,” she said, watching Gyro use a careful combination of her hooves and mouth to tightly tie together another joint on the other side of the frame. “I thought you only knew how to run steam engines, not design something like this from scratch.”

“Statics was a required course for me,” Gyro said. “Knowing at least basic physics about how parts and materials interact with each other is much more important to my job than you’d think. The guts of an airship are really complicated machines, and knowing a little bit about loads and the moduli of parts really helps when you’ve gotta make a patchwork repair out of whatever scrap metal you have lying around. I’m actually pretty good at math, I just don’t really like to do it.”

“I wouldn’t doubt it,” Rarity said. “You’re much better at this than Rainbow or myself. I never learned much about complicated mathematics in my schooling. After high school, I attended a technical school for three years where I learned everything I would need to know to become a successful fashion designer, along with the other things a unicorn in high society needs to function and fit in, like history, legislature, the pedigrees of the nobility and royalty, and etiquette. Though I strive to maintain an air of sophistication and intelligence, my formal schooling ends far earlier than one would otherwise think.”

“I’ll say. I figured you went to college for… something. Not just a technical school.” Smirking, she added, “And I certainly never learned any of that high society etiquette and stuff. Grease and coal dust were my perfumes of choice.”

Rarity couldn’t help but grimace at that. “Though my tolerance for filth and grime on my person has risen considerably since ending up here, even I cannot stomach that level of… uncleanliness.”

Gyro snickered and started fastening gears to the bottom of the frame to make the wheels. “My coat used to be white as snow. Then I decided I wanted to be an engineer on an airship.”

“I don’t believe that in the slightest.” Rarity stood up and put her hooves on the top of the walker frame, then rocked it backwards a bit so Gyro could place the wheels on it easier. “It would’ve come off when I flung you into the ocean.”

“Nah, it’s just too stained in. I’m a being of thirty percent coal dust now.”

“So you’re extra flammable, then?” Rarity allowed herself a teasing smile. “I guess we can use your mane in a pinch if we ever need a torch.”

“I’d prefer if you didn’t, but whatever helps the team, I guess.” Gyro finished fastening the gears to the walker and looked it over with an approving nod. “Flip it around, I gotta do the other side.”

Rarity obliged, pivoting the walker around with her hooves and leaning it back once more to allow Gyro to fasten the gears to it. “I suppose now would be a good time to mention that I don’t believe we’re alone on this island.”

Gyro blinked. “Uh, Rarity, weren’t you chased by pirates halfway across the island literally last night?”

“No, no, I didn’t mean in that sense.” Rarity shook her head and pointed off to the southwest. “I meant that we may have allies on these islands. It’s not just us and the pirates.”

“Really? You think other ponies from the Concordia survived?” Gyro’s eyes momentarily drifted to the sand as she thought. “But how do you know?”

“I don’t, and that’s the thing,” Rarity said. “But I have a good suspicion. I found hoofprints coming from a direction that didn’t lead to the pirate camp. And whoever they were, they had been using the shallow channels to move between the islands without being tracked. Why would the pirates do that? They would have no reason to if they were the only ones on the island.”

“Yeah, but like, that doesn’t prove anything. It could have just been a patrol returning from scouting some other islands or something.” Gyro waved her hoof, and Rarity lowered the walker once more. “Anyways, I think this thing is done. Help me get into it so I can try it out.”

Rarity lowered the walker onto its side and stretched out the loose rope harness she’d tied to the end. The walker, now that it was finished, was barely more than a couple of planks tied together with steel wire in lieu of nails with gears affixed to shafts jammed into notches at the bottom. Though they were large gears, Rarity feared they’d be too narrow to work effectively in the sand, and Gyro would have to more or less drag herself across the sand as the walker tried to bury itself behind her. If she could’ve found actual wheels, then she knew the walker would’ve worked much better, but there was only so much she could do with what she’d been given.

Once she managed to get Gyro strapped into the walker, Rarity lent a shoulder to help the earth pony stand. With a little bit of work, she managed to prop Gyro up, and she grimaced as she wiped at some of the sweat on her face. “Celestia, I didn’t realize you’d put back on that much weight since we rescued you. You used to be light as a feather!”

Gyro teasingly rolled her eyes. “Great, I lost my legs, and now you’re calling me fat. I feel so loved here, Rarity.”

Rarity merely responded to the banter in kind. “I wouldn’t go that far, darling. I’m sorry, but my heart yearns for Rainbow alone.”

“I’d say I’d be your stand in, but I can’t feel my marehood anyway anymore.”

“Oh, don’t fret, I much rather prefer to be on the receiving end than the giving end, anyway.”

Gyro snickered. “Generosity, my flank.”

“Not at all, sometimes the most generous thing you can do is to receive something. If it’s a tongue into my nethers, I don’t quite mind.” Blushing a bit, Rarity shook her head and took a step back. “Oh, I think that’s enough raunchy talk for one day. How does it feel?”

Gyro frowned. “You’re asking the mare who hasn’t gotten laid in years.”

“The walker, darling, not your sexual encounters.”

“Oh, yeah, that.” Gyro flexed her forelegs a little bit, raising and lowering her front half while the walker supported her rear. “I mean, I can stand and everything, so that’s a good start. My legs aren’t too low though, right?”

“They’re about four or five inches off the ground,” Rarity said. “That should hopefully be enough clearance for the worst of obstacles.”

“I’m sure if I could feel my ass right about now, it’d feel like it was behind my head.” Swallowing, Gyro stared out at the sand ahead of her. “Well, here goes nothing…”

Her first few steps were small, tentative, nervous even. Gyro bit her lip as she began to pull herself across the ground, one step at a time. Rarity even noticed her stopping to adjust her gait a few times now that she didn’t have her rear legs to propel her forward anymore. But as she built up momentum, Rarity let out a breath she didn’t know she’d been holding as the makeshift wheels turned and the whole thing didn’t just immediately fall apart.

“Hey, yeah, this kinda works,” Gyro said, smiling as she moved across the sand. “It feels weird, and it’s not as fast as actually trotting, but I can move.” A bigger grin broke out across her muzzle. “I can move! Ha, that’s awesome! Fuck you, stupid spine, I have technology!”

Rarity merely grinned as she watched Gyro prance across the sand, now finally able to move again after more than a full day. Now that Gyro could move again, she knew that things would start looking up for them. They overcame one challenge; now they just had to face the next one.

Hopefully it wouldn’t beat them back down to square one.