The flight went on and on. Rainbow hadn’t nearly appreciated enough just how long the trip would be with Champagne accompanying her; she was used to the speed her own wings could carry her, and that was considerably faster than the progress she was making. But at the very least, she was making progress, even if it felt like the island was never getting closer. The south island, isolated from the other three by a stretch of open ocean and sheer distance, would be within her reach before too much longer.
If nothing else, the flight gave her time to get to know Champagne better. The more she talked with the Prench mare, the more Champagne’s Equiish impressed her. Champagne was more than just a friendly face aboard an airliner; she was a mare with her own hopes and dreams just like Rainbow. It was a reminder to Rainbow that surviving this whole ordeal wasn’t just about her and Rarity; it was about everypony else who also found themselves stuck on the ride with no end in sight.
At the moment, the Prench mare had ended up on the topic of her family. Rainbow had learned that she was from the city of Lion, notable for its large griffon population, and pegasi were practically a miniscule minority in the town. Her family managed all the weather for the town with two other pegasus families, though they at least had griffons to help them, even if the griffons considered weather management beneath them. A life spent managing weather wasn’t for Champagne, however, and she had soon decided she wanted to see the world beyond her town. A flyer in the paper and a few months in Mareis had earned her her ticket aboard the airliner Titan, and then to the Concordia three years later.
“I wonder if my mother has even heard about my disappearance yet,” Champagne said, continuing an earlier train of thought. “Lion is not the most connected town. It’s a rural village a three day’s walk from the nearest city. News takes some time to reach it.”
“But wouldn’t CelestiAir inform your family?” Rainbow asked. “They’d be a pretty heartless company if they didn’t.”
“I suppose you’re right.” Champagne shook her head and shrugged. “They’d have to ask around a bit before they found my family, though. My father likes to move the house all the time. Sometimes it’s hovering right on the edge of town, and sometimes he puts it over the forest when he feels like some isolation from the town would be good.”
“Heh. I like to do that with my home, too.” Rainbow smirked at the thought. “Sometimes I like to put it right over Sweet Apple Acres and mess with AJ. If I put it just right, it stops the sunlight from hitting her window, and then she wakes up late, and then she’s grumpy the rest of the day. It’s kinda funny.”
“I would imagine. Not all of my family likes it when my father moves the house on a whim. It irritates my coltfriend to no end.”
“You have a coltfriend?” Rainbow asked. “How do you manage that when you’re gone so much?”
“We keep in touch,” Champagne said. “I send him a postcard and a trinket at every port we stop in. It’s one way to let him know I’m still thinking about him.” Her eyes fell to the seas below. “If he’s heard the news by now, he’s probably worried sick. I don’t imagine anypony back home has any idea what happened to our ship.”
“Yeah,” Rainbow said, nodding in agreement. “They probably think it was lost in the storm. They wouldn’t know about the pirate attack or anything. They couldn’t.”
“Then we just have to survive to tell them all about it, right?”
Rainbow chuckled tapped her wingtip against Champagne’s. “I like the way you think, girl. That’s the spirit.”
Her eyes once more wandered to the sea below them, and finally, she noted, they were nearly upon the south island. With the small tailwind at their backs, they had finally made up for some of the time they’d lost while flying at a slower pace. Now, the next step was finding a good place to land and make camp.
A thought that Champagne immediately voiced. “We should start descending now,” the Prench mare said. “My wings feel like they’re going to fall off.”
Rainbow nodded, but she didn’t tilt her wings down. Not yet, at any rate. “Land on the beach if you need to,” she told her. “I wanna get a feel for the island first. Maybe find some obvious place to start looking for Rares.”
Champagne nodded, and she adjusted her wings so she began to slowly descend. “I’ll wait for you on the beach, then,” she said. “Find me when you’re ready.”
“Yeah.” And then, instead of gliding to the ground, Rainbow began to flap her wings more vigorously, picking up altitude and speed that would allow her to better survey the island.
It didn’t take her very long to note that the island seemed completely different from the other three she’d been to. Whereas the other islands were largely solid masses of land with mountains or some elevation to them, the south island was not. In truth, it was an atoll more than an island, with a rough, ring-shaped mass of sand, silt, and vegetation around a body of water. Some stones rose up out of the center of the atoll, but there was little to be seen there except for the largely still and sheltered waters within. The trees lining the ring of the atoll were thin enough that Rainbow could mostly see right through them, and she could tell with the moonlight she had that they weren’t hiding anything. Unless there was only a tiny, concealed entrance to a subterranean structure, there wasn’t any temple or shrine hidden on the island.
So where could Rarity be?
It wasn’t the first time that Rainbow wondered if she was mistaken in jumping to the conclusion that something had taken Rarity to the south island. But she knew that this island was important because it was on the Ponynesians’ map. Where else could Rarity have gone if not here? The seamstress was around here somewhere, she just knew it. What she didn’t know was where that somewhere was.
And she knew she wasn’t going to find out while it was this dark out. Her best bet laid in searching when the sun came up the next morning. With some more light and time to search the island, she was certain she’d find some clue leading to Rarity’s whereabouts. But while it was this dark out, even with the light of the moon and the stars to help her, she knew she wasn’t going to find anything useful out here. The best course of action, as much as she hated to admit it, was to make camp and wait.
But she was at the island. She’d accomplished that much. For the time being, she started to descend to the beach, already spotting Champagne sitting on the white strip, waiting for her return. With luck, it wouldn’t be too long before she found out where Rarity was come morning.
So long as she was right in assuming Rarity had been taken here. If she wasn’t… she didn’t know how she would ever find the seamstress again.
She hoped it wouldn’t come to that.