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// I Hate Sand 
// Story: Surviving Sand Island 
// by The 24th Pegasus 
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Rarity crept toward the pirate camp as stealthily as she could, forcing herself to make the agonizing trade of speed for stealth so as not to give away her position. Though she wanted to go straight to the lean-tos and check them out, she forced herself to detour around the perimeter of the camp. First, she had to incapacitate Squall in some way. Only then could she actually move on Rainbow and free her before the other pirates returned.

But navigating around the edge of the pirate camp was taking much longer than Rarity had originally anticipated given how slow her progress was. She could still hear the patrol out in front of her, and they were already taking their sweet time in walking around the camp, probably trying to linger beneath the canopies of the trees as much as possible to shield themselves from the rain. If Rarity went any faster, she’d end up too close to them for comfort. At the very least, she could still hear Gyro’s distraction clattering through the trees, so the other pirates wouldn’t be back at the camp for a while yet.

When she was about halfway to the other side of the pirate camp, Rarity stopped and surveyed the situation. The rain and wind provided a slight haze over the camp, doing their best to kill the fire, and causing the sand to stir in strange little patterns around the camp’s perimeter. Squall still sat in front of the fire, nearly unmoving, her weapons laid out in the sand in front of her, apparently unfazed by the rain and wind. But Rarity’s eyes immediately locked on the figures huddled under a lean-to at the other side of the camp. She caught the barest glimpse of blue coat and colorful hair behind a tarp, wiggling slightly, while next to it, a black figure lied crumpled on the sand. Rarity felt her heart skip a beat, and she leaned a little closer as if that would help her make out more detail. Rainbow she recognized easily enough, but who was the other pony next to her? Another survivor? Were they even still alive?

At the very least, the tiny motions Rainbow made did wonders to calm Rarity down. Her marefriend was still alive, though what she was doing behind that tarp, Rarity didn’t know. But she wouldn’t be moving at all if she was gravely injured, right?

The wind howled in a sudden gust. The rain began to pick up. It fell in steady sheets now, and soon tiny rivulets began to run off the roofs of some of the structures the pirates had built. Somewhere in the distance, thunder rolled, soft and very far away.

Rarity didn’t expect the pirates on patrol to stay out there too long, even if they were ordered out into the jungle by their captain; sooner or later, their misery at being wet and cold would override their fear of reprisal and they’d come crawling back to the warmth of the fire. She needed to act now, and thankfully for her, the storm would cover up the sounds of her hooves marching across the sand.

Her horn lit up, the hum hushed by the rain pattering through the trees, and she grabbed a sizable stone in her magic. Biting down on her lip and holding her breath, Rarity carefully advanced into the pirate camp, using the buildings for shelter as much as she could. When she was about fifteen feet behind Squall, she raised the stone into the air, ready to drive it into the back of the pirate’s skull and knock her out.

“You get one chance.” Squall’s voice made Rarity jump, nearly dropping the stone. The pirate calmly looked over her shoulder, water dripping from the corners of her tricorn hat, her wet mane plastered against her neck and back. She looked Rarity in the eyes and smiled. “Go on. One chance to knock me out cold. Kill me, if you want. But if you don’t, it’ll be your head on my sword.”

Rarity swallowed hard. “I just want Rainbow Dash,” she said. “I just want her back.”

Squall’s eyebrow rose. “You do, don’t you?” She turned her eyes forward again, and her ears slowly swiveled across the campsite. “Then that racket out there is your doing, somehow.”

“So what if it is?” Rarity took a hesitant step closer, but the slightest twitch of Squall’s ears made her flinch back two. “It worked, didn’t it?”

“Depends on who you ask.” Squall nonchalantly cracked her neck from side to side. “I think it worked perfectly. After all, it brought you to me, stupid, alone, and about to die.”

Rarity let her eyes drift to the lean-to, but all she could see was Rainbow’s tail, twitching back and forth. She was surprised Rainbow hadn’t said anything yet. “I’m not so sure about that.”

“Hit me,” Squall insisted. She even touched the back of her head with a hoof. “Right there. Hit me as hard as you can. I won’t even move.”

Numerous red flags went up in Rarity’s mind. There had to be something more to this. Something she wasn’t seeing. Squall wouldn’t just surrender like that, not when she had all those weapons… right?

It didn’t add up, and that worried Rarity. She took another wary step or two backwards, looking for something she missed. But there was nothing, save for the rain and the wind shifting the sand around the pirate captain’s hooves, and the smoke of the fire twirling and dissipating as the wind carried it away from the camp.

Squall’s magic appeared around one of her pistols, and a little gem on the side glowed. Rarity recognized it as a ruby from her years of hunting for gemstones, and from Twilight she knew they were particularly strong at catalyzing fire magic. She realized that even in the rain, so long as Squall’s pistols were preloaded before the powder could get wet, the gemstone would allow them to fire with ease.

Instinct overrode reason in that instant. Rarity didn’t want to wait and see what Squall was going to do with that pistol, even if it was something as simple as holstering it. Her horn surged with blue magic, and the stone in her grasp flew toward the back of Squall’s head.

That’s when the sands around her suddenly lunged out of the ground, engulfing the rock before it could connect. Rarity flinched backwards as it fell back to the ground, carrying the rock with it, burying it beneath the earth. Grinning and giggling, Squall stood up, and the sand swirled around her hooves as she did so. “You should have paid more attention,” she said, turning to face Rarity. “I’m surprised an eye for detail such as yours missed the obvious. Did you stop to wonder how I knew you were here without even seeing or hearing you? Surely you knew that the rain was too loud for me to hear, and you approached me from my blindside. Doesn’t that seem odd?”

Rarity backpedaled, suddenly fearful of the very ground she stood on. The sand rippled and coiled out from Squall like vipers of sediment, occasionally rising into the air as pale tendrils before collapsing back to the ground again. Squall laughed as she marched relentlessly on Rarity, pure malice burning in her eyes like the flames of Tartarus. “Never underestimate your opponent, Rarity. I didn’t become a captain of a band of pirates by being the most liked. I got here by being the most vicious. I can kill ponies with my mind. I won’t even need a weapon to kill you.” She stopped, and the sand rose up above her head at the beckoning of her horn. “Can you say the same?”

Swallowing hard, Rarity readied her knife. Adrenaline shot through her veins preparing her for what would come next.

And across from the camp, a scratchy voice cried out:

“Rarity, run!”