//------------------------------// // Wild Goose Chase // Story: Surviving Sand Island // by The 24th Pegasus //------------------------------// Hooves galloped through the jungle. Twenty hooves, five sets in all, thrummed across the soft ground in pursuit of phantom noises clattering through the trees. The glow of torches illuminated tree trunks on that moonless night, but there was nothing to be seen. There was only noise, noise, noise. Black Flag stopped his hunting party after about a minute of galloping away from camp. Just when the pirates had thought they’d arrived at the scene of the noise and clatter, it started up from somewhere else. The metallic ringing and clanging echoed through the jungle, the source difficult to pinpoint through the dense foliage surrounding them. To make matters worse, the birds started squawking and the little monkeys began howling, creating a cacophony of noise and chaos that was positively painful to even listen to. “What the fuck is this shit?” one of the pirate mares shouted into the darkness, but even her gruff and hoarse voice couldn’t mask the edge of worry seeping into it. “What the fuck is going on?” The metal banged and banged and banged. To top it all off, the wind began to pick up. Suddenly, the entire jungle came alive with a faint ringing and tinkling from all directions. Try as they might, the pirates couldn’t pinpoint the noise. Whatever it was, it was everywhere. Black Flag swallowed hard. “Keep your weapons ready,” he ordered his crew. “It could be those other survivors.” “It’s a curse!” one of his stallions wailed. “We shouldn’t have tried to open that tomb!” “A curse!” “We’re doomed!” “Celestia, forgive me!” Irritation and frustration swiftly overrode Black Flag’s fears. Unholstering his pistol, he fired it into the air, the bang swiftly silencing the other pirates. “Calm your fucking selves down!” he growled at them, “or the next one’s going through a skull!” Little by little, the pirates slowly gathered their wits about them, but the discomforting air of the jungle prevented them from truly settling down. Still, once Flag had their focus again, he turned back to the jungle. Once more, metallic clanging rang out from somewhere ahead of them, and with a determined frown on his face, he began to march toward the noise. “Eyes peeled. We’ll find whoever’s making all this racket and gut them like a fish…” ----- Rarity’s mane stood on end as a cold wind blew through it. With the onset of night and the arrival of storm clouds, the temperature had dropped to uncharacteristically cool levels. She’d become so used to the perpetual heat and warmth that she found herself nearly shivering now. But whether or not it was merely just the cold making her uncomfortable or her racing heart, she couldn’t really be sure. Before she approached the camp, however, she made a quick detour to the channels between the islands. There, she found what she was looking for: a large, soggy stretch of mud and silt. She hesitated on the edge for several seconds, unwilling to take the next step, until she closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “It’s nothing, Rarity, darling,” she assured herself. “This is for Rainbow’s sake. It’s just like sand. You’ve been covered in sand and salt for weeks now and you haven’t complained. Too much.” With a resigned sigh, Rarity simply leaned forward until she fell into the mud. She immediately had to stifle a disgusted shriek as she felt it work its cool fingers into her coat, sucking up to her skin. Whimpering and whining, she started to roll herself back and forth, back and forth, until the brown and gray mud covered every inch of her nearly luminous white coat. Sniffling and suppressing a sob of revulsion, Rarity slowly climbed her way out of the muck and back onto dry land, where she shook some of the excess off her body so it wouldn’t slow her down too much. “Thank heavens there isn’t a mirror anywhere around here,” Rarity moaned. “I’d have nightmares about this for a week otherwise!” But the mud clinging to her mane weighed it down so much it started plastering it over her eyes. Grumbling, Rarity liberated a palm tree of one of its fronds, stripped off the vanes, and weaved them together into a makeshift bandana. She wrapped it around her head just beneath her horn, and the stiffness of the fronds kept her heavy mane propped up and out of her eyes. Smiling, she wiped a little excess muck off of the hair around her lips. “On second thought, perhaps a mirror wouldn’t be too bad. If there’s anypony who could completely own a palm bandana, it would be moi.” Moments later, she groaned and slapped a hoof to her head. “What am I saying, earthy colors were last season. Or are they back in vogue again? Oh, curses, I’ve been so removed from the fashion scene on these stupid islands that I won’t even know what’s trendy when I return! I’ll be behind for seasons!”’ The clattering and clanging of the noisemakers ringing through the darkness of the island snapped Rarity out of her fashion designer woes. “Right, I have a job to do, don’t I?” she murmured to herself. Using the sounds of the noisemakers to orient herself, Rarity began to creep back through the jungle toward the pirate camp, almost perfectly backtracking the maddened dash for her life she’d made the night prior. “Luna, please keep me safe under the darkness of your night. I could really use a favor right now…” ----- Rainbow Dash frantically tried to maneuver her legs and the nailed board into useful positions to cut her bindings. With only one blood-soaked wing free to help maneuver herself around, she struggled to even get the leverage she needed to start working on her bindings. The rain slowly started to patter down onto the camp. Rainbow heard every drop smack against the top of the lean-to with frightening clarity. The palm trees rustled, moaned, and waved as the wind continued to pick up at a steady rate. For the moment, it was directed away from the opening of her lean-to, keeping her and Coals safe from the rain. But Rainbow knew winds like this could change in an instant, and in an instant she could be soaked to the bone. She couldn’t see Squall anymore from the position she’d worked herself into, and that worried her. Her heart pounded harder and harder with each passing second, knowing that she only had a short window of time to free herself before the pirate captain decided to see what she was up to. And even then, Rainbow didn’t know what she was going to do once she broke free. Could she fight Squall off and escape the camp with Coals? She didn’t know if she could. If Squall saw her coming, she’d merely grab the pegasus with her magic and stop her before she could get in close, like she’d already done once before on the airship. And even still, Squall was armed and Rainbow wasn’t. The pirates certainly hadn’t left much in the way of weapons inside of her lean-to. And she simply knew that she wasn’t going to have the time to search through the other when she escaped. But for the moment, her first priority was severing the ropes tying her hooves and wing together. If she could just slice through one of the coils, the rest would come apart. So she worked and worked, chipping away at the hemp fibers with the tips of the rusty nails, praying that she could finish her work before she was discovered. And around the edges of the campsite, the sand stirred and shifted….