Rainbow Dash was yawning heavily by the time she started her descent to the home island. After last night’s long flight, the little sleep she’d caught before daybreak, and then spending two rides in a siren’s mouth with some passionate sex with her marefriend in between, Rainbow was amazed she could even keep her eyes open any longer. A nap was in very short order upon landing back at the island.
She felt a nudge against her underbelly, and she blinked and looked to the side to see Champagne withdrawing her hoof. “Your descent’s a little steep,” the Prench mare warned her. “You’re going to land in the ocean.”
Rainbow looked down to see Champagne was right—the ocean was getting awfully close, awfully quick. Grunting, Rainbow flapped her wings several times to pick up some more altitude and then continued her glide now that she was on a better course for the island. “Mmrrff… sorry, I can barely keep my eyes open and my wings out. I haven’t had a good nap in forever. I really need to recharge.”
“You’ll have ample opportunity for that when we land,” Champagne said. “Just please don’t make me have to carry you the last few miles. I’m already struggling to carry our supplies, too!”
“We should’ve left them for the sirens,” Rainbow grumbled again. “Oh well, can’t really help it. At least we’ll be down in a few minutes.”
“We won’t really have time to rest and relax right away,” Champagne reminded her. “We have to explain what happened and try to get the pirate brothers to not lose their minds.”
“Their skulls are already full of nothing but rum and bad ideas, but it’s at least worth a shot.” Rainbow shook her head and flapped her wings a few more times when she realized her trajectory was falling short again. “At least they can’t hurt sirens. They’ve only got, what, swords and pistols? I think a siren’s armor is more than strong enough to resist a pistol ball.”
“We aren’t,” Champagne said.
Rainbow sighed. “Yeah, you’re right about that. But if they really want to mess with us after we show up with two sirens, that’s their problem if they want to die so badly. Still, I’ll talk to them when we land. I’ll let everypony know what’s going on.”
Champagne nodded. “At least the prospect of getting the final statuette and leaving this place behind should get everypony to cooperate, right?”
“It should,” Rainbow said, “so long as we can convince the pirates they aren’t going to hang when Equestria rescues us. That was the biggest thing Squall used to keep them in line out there, and if they’re worried we’re going to hand them over to the gallows when this is all said and done, they’re going to try to fight us, no matter how suicidal the odds. ‘Cuz the way they see it, they’re gonna die either way, so they might as well try to take us down with them. Which is why we have to convince them that they’re not going to meet that fate when we get out of here.”
“I’d hate to see them escape justice,” Champagne said. “After everything they did, they deserve it.”
“I mean, yeah, I feel that,” Rainbow said. “They should be punished. But can we afford to? I don’t think we can. We have to make sure we secure their cooperation by pardoning them for all this horrible crap.”
“Why not just lie to them?”
Rainbow was silent for a few flaps of her wings. “Because I’m not gonna be a pony like that,” she ultimately answered. “I’m not gonna lie through my teeth promising ponies they’ll be okay if they do what I want and then just kill them anyways.”
“You wouldn’t be the one killing them,” Champagne said. “That’s for the courts to decide.”
“I’d be the one turning them in,” Rainbow said. “It’s basically the same thing.”
Champagne shook her head. “They don’t value our lives. We shouldn’t concern ourselves too much with the value of theirs. What comes around, goes around, and they’ll reap what they’ve sown.”
“We’ll reap it too,” Rainbow warned her. “Somepony’s gotta break and offer their hoof in friendship. I’m willing to be the first, but it’s not gonna work unless everypony else is with me.”
Sighing, Champagne turned her attention back to the island. “I suffered through their attacks for a long time, Rainbow Dash. We all did. Not all of us are going to be so eager and content to try and work with these pirates as friends as you are. As it stands, your leadership is the only thing keeping the fighting at bay.”
Rainbow blinked and glanced askance at Champagne. “Did a month of the worst crap a pony could experience really break everypony that easily? I get that you’re all upset and bitter about what’s happened, but I don’t want to believe for a second that you all would murder these ponies without a second thought because they’d done it to you. Real strength comes from forgiving and forgetting, not holding grudges and stooping down to their level.” She pursed her lips together and glared at the sands and trees beginning to fill her vision. “Murdering murderers still doesn’t make it not murder. And I friggin’ sure as crap want to believe that the only murderers on my island are the two pirates, and not the rest of you as well. Some food for thought.”
The blue pegasus flapped her wings a few more times, pointedly pulling away from Champagne and accelerating her descent to the home island. She knew that the two sides hated each other, and she knew the pirates had to be aware that attacking the survivors was nothing short of a suicide mission. They were so badly outnumbered they’d be cut down in a flash, but they’d still manage to take a few ponies with them. Of that, Rainbow was sure. But it wasn’t helping that the hostility amongst the survivors, like in Champagne and even Gyro, wasn’t exactly proving them wrong. The pirates were worried the survivors would cut them down whenever they wanted to. Rainbow Dash was worried they were right. The survivors weren’t completely blame-free in the situation developing on the island, and until they tried to forgive and befriend the pirates, she knew the pirates would never let their guard down around them. And if the two groups couldn’t trust each other, even if one of those groups was only two ponies…
Well, in short, there’d be nothing but disaster waiting for the survivors. They couldn’t afford a betrayal or a backstab, not now. But Rainbow worried that was exactly what they were heading for.
Hopefully she could stop the situation before it got too far out of hoof. She needed to, because she knew she was the only one who could. And if she didn’t, then there would be more blood on the sand before too long.
How much of that blood would stick to her hooves, she didn’t know, but it would be too much no matter how little.