Gyro’s dreams were uneasy that night. She woke up no fewer than three times, convinced something bad had happened to Rainbow or Rarity. Each time, it took her several seconds to remember where she was and what was happening. Each time, the feeling of palm fronds under her belly and cool sands by her hooves reminded her that she was home, or as much as Rainbow’s and Rarity’s sandy island had become home for her. If she looked around the camp, she could spot calm activity and watchful eyes. Nothing bad had happened—not yet at least.
That all changed by the time morning rolled around. Gyro didn’t notice it at first, because nopony talked about it, but it became increasingly clear as the sun continued to rise that something unfortunate had taken place. There was a subdued silence that gripped the camp, spreading from pony to pony without anypony saying a word. It wasn’t until Gyro noted that Gauze had disappeared from the camp to take a walk and a small knot of ponies had assembled outside of his hut that Gyro finally got an idea of what was happening.
“What’s going on, Ratchet?” she asked from a ways across the sand. “It’s not Coals, is it?”
To her relief, Ratchet shook his head, albeit slowly. “No,” he said, moving over to her. “Linens died last night. The doc said he’s amazed she even made it that long.”
“She’s… dead?” Gyro craned her neck to the side, where some of the survivors had started carrying the mare’s body out of the hut. Gyro averted her eyes when she caught sight of pale skin beneath the mare’s coat; she didn’t want to look at that. “I thought she was going to make it after she clung on this long.”
“I thought so, too,” Ratchet admitted. “But Gauze said that there wasn’t much he could do. She hung on remarkably long for a unicorn; maybe an earth pony like us would’ve been able to take it. But he didn’t have any of the tools he needed to keep her alive. He couldn’t feed her and could hardly get her to drink. Eventually she just… gave out.”
Gyro sadly pawed at the sand in front of her. “That’s another pony who won’t make it back home to see their family,” she said. Her eyes wandered to Ratchet’s, looking for an answer in her boss. “Who else is gonna die before we get home?”
“I don’t know.” Ratchet sighed and sat down next to Gyro. “I just know that we’re probably not done with it yet. We’re going to lose more before this is all over, as much as I wish that we wouldn’t.”
Gyro nodded. “Think we can bait the mummies and the minotaurs into fighting each other?” she asked. “Maybe they’d thin things out a bit for us.”
“Doubt we’ll be that lucky.” Sighing, Ratchet lifted his eyes skyward and stared off into the blue for several seconds. “We can only hope that Rainbow and Champagne come back with Rarity. Once they do that, then we can figure out what our next course of action is going to be. Because I know that just sitting around here waiting for the end isn’t going to get us home.”
“Yeah,” Gyro said. “If help was going to find us, it would’ve come across these islands by now. We’re on our own, and until we find some way to let the outside world know where we are, we aren’t getting out of here.”
“At this point, we might as well start throwing messages in bottles into the ocean,” Ratchet said. “Maybe somepony would find those and figure out we’re still alive.”
“We don’t have any bottles, paper, or corks,” Gyro said. “At least, not that I’m aware of.”
“The pirates had some rum on them. We moved that over.”
Gyro’s ears shot up. “Somepony should’ve told me about this earlier,” she said, now eying the crates around the camp with sudden interest. “I haven’t had a drop of booze to drink in well over a month now and I need something to drink.”
Chuckling, Ratchet stood up and patted her on the shoulder. “I’ll go fetch a bottle for you,” he said. “Just remember that it’s not even past eight yet.”
Gyro smirked back at him. “Professionals don’t wait, Ratchet. Gotta get started early.”
-----
Rarity finally began to stir from her rest, the last notes of a lullaby still bouncing around the inside of her skull. They were nothing but soft echoes now, but every reverberating note carried with it a dash of peace and bliss. It was difficult to even try to wake up, but by now, her body felt strangely itchy and ready to go, like she’d spent the last month in bed and now needed to run ten miles just to use some of her excess energy.
Groaning, Rarity tried to feel around herself, her vision too blurry to make sense of any of her surroundings. She was lying on something soft—that much she could tell. Next to it was something that felt like polished stone, cut at a perfectly even and flat plane. There was light around, but it was dim and flickering, likely cast by a torch. And whenever she moved, she felt sick and nauseous.
It took her some time to realize that she could still hear music, and it wasn’t coming from inside of her head. It was a slowly moving melody, gradually rising and falling with perfect pitch, not a single note out of tune. But it was faint and far away, seemingly echoing through wherever Rarity had ended up.
Bit by bit, she opened her eyes and let her vision sharpen until she could see clearly. It didn’t take her long to realize she was definitely not on the beach anymore. There wasn’t even a trace of sand on her; somehow, between passing out and waking up, she’d gotten a bath in fresh water that’d cleansed all the salt and sand off of her body. Her wounds had even been tended to, with dried seaweed and kelp covering her flank and several of the other injuries on her body. Out of curiosity, she pulled one of the pieces off of her chest, noting that it only covered a fresh scar. The remains of her ear were in a similar state; what had once been ragged and damaged tissue had been healed into smooth scar, with some of the excess skin pruned back to flatten it out. And she could already feel that the wound in her flank, the gaping gash that had nearly killed her, was much more solid. It had to have been stitched back together somehow—but who had done it? Who had cared for her?
Rarity grunted and sat upright, though it took almost all of her effort just to do so. She was both thirsty and hungry; whoever had taken care of her wounds hadn’t addressed either of those issues very much. Or maybe it was just a side effect of her recovering from near death. She figured she would need a lot of calories and nutrients to make up for all she lost through her blood. Water especially would be vital in helping her feel better… but there was none to be seen.
Rarity’s eyes wandered around the room. She’d been placed in a makeshift bed in a small chamber of polished stone. There wasn’t much in the way of decorations, but the entire place just looked nice with the expert craftsmareship that had gone into shaping it. The wavy bands of color in the rock reminded her of some kind of marble, and the room had been lit with torches that gave off a white flame. Rarity also noted that there weren’t any windows in the chamber, and there was only one door.
A door that was cracked open, with the gentle notes of music flowing through it. It didn’t take long for Rarity’s mind to put the pieces together. Whoever had saved her, whoever had cared for her, was through that door. And right now, she was lost and confused. If she wanted answers, then they were the pony to talk to.
Hissing, Rarity rolled out of her bed and stood up. Her whole body was stiff and sore, and her first few steps were little more than limping, toddling stumbles. But she pushed through it with gritted teeth, and soon she was at the door, her hoofsteps echoing across the smooth walls of the chamber. Her magic sparkled and popped to life with a thought, and apart from the wince of pain it gave her, it seemed to work perfectly. That was good, at the very least. She’d been resting for long enough that her horn had recovered from all the stress she put it through.
Her telekinetic grip opened the door, which was a lot heavier than she thought it would be. It revealed a short hallway down the side, barely long enough to even be called a hallway, that opened into an enormous chamber. Eyebrows furrowed, Rarity slowly advanced down the hallway, noting that the music seemed to be coming from the chamber. The song was beautiful, even if it carried no words. Just the notes and melody alone seemed to move her hooves, and soon Rarity found herself standing in the chamber, staring at the sights before her.
The chamber was not natural… yet there didn’t seem to be a way that it was forged by ponykind. A huge, vaulted dome greeted Rarity, with a ceiling maybe a hundred feet above the floor, and the walls and ceiling carefully carved with a level of precision and engineering know-how that seemed to be completely at odds with what tribal ponies would be capable of. The floor of the chamber, what little there was, only stretched in a circle around the edge of the dome. The center was filled with water, vibrating slightly with the music that filled the entire dome. But none of that mattered to Rarity—she didn’t even check to see if there was another door or a way out—because her eyes fell on the source of the noise, lying on its side by the edge of the water.
Emerald, fish-like scales, translucent green fins, a powerful tail, and a mouth full of razor sharp teeth as large as Rarity’s hooves—if Rarity hadn’t known what she was looking at, she would have screamed and fled in a hurry. But even though she knew she was looking at a siren, indeed the same siren that had visited her island before, she did not feel any safer. The creature was enormous and frightfully powerful; standing this close to her made Rarity feel miniscule by comparison. The haunting music that softly billowed from the siren’s great lungs seemed to pierce every fiber of Rarity’s being, and she could only stand at the edge of the domed chamber, frozen in place, the melody preventing her from escaping.
A draconian eye opened in Rarity’s direction, and the music abruptly stopped. Rarity squeaked in fear and fell to the ground, futilely cowering behind her outstretched hooves, for all the good they would do her against a creature of such power and might. The siren’s scaly eyebrows rose, and she turned in place, lowering her head to look at Rarity from her own eye level. When she breathed, Rarity felt like a torrent of warm, damp air was trying to blow her away, and she tensed against the ground to try and anchor herself in place.
And then the siren smiled, revealing all of her dozens of lethally sharp teeth. “You’re awake?” she asked, her melodious voice nearly deafening yet holding a colorful alto despite the creature’s sheer size. “I thought you would still be recovering!”
When Rarity realized she still wasn’t dead, she lowered her hooves and looked up at the siren’s enormous head. It took her several tries but she finally found her voice. “You… did you… did you save me?”
The siren grinned, but between her scaly lips and her fangs, it had the exact opposite of its intended effect on Rarity. “I did.”
Though still frightened by being in the mere presence of such a powerful and dangerous creature, Rarity slowly lowered her guard, though she made sure she had an emergency teleport ready in case she needed it. Swallowing hard, she tried to smile at the creature, but it came across as more of a grimace. “Then… t-thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” the siren proudly sung, and she put her cloven hooves on either side of the short doorway. “When I found you, I didn’t know if you would make it. It took a lot of magic to patch you back together. But I did, and you’re here!” She leaned in closer, her scaly nose nearly filling up the short hallway as Rarity stumbled back into it. “I’m Melody. Melody Glow, if you want the full thing, but I prefer Melody.” Melody’s lips continued to part as she widened her excited smile. “Who are you?”
“Ra… Rarity,” Rarity managed, still trembling a bit in fright. “And I… I have to be dreaming…”