//------------------------------// // Contingency Plans // Story: Surviving Sand Island // by The 24th Pegasus //------------------------------// Rainbow Dash frowned into the fire while Ruse worked on dinner. After placing the figurines had failed to lower the barrier or change the situation around the islands in any perceptible way, her hopes for getting home in the next few days had vanished. Until they figured out what they needed to do with the figurines to finally lower the barrier, they were trapped on the islands. And if they didn’t do it fast enough, then the tomb on the archipelago would open, and the moon god and its avatar would murder them all. Or worse. A shiver ran down her spine. Being sacrificed to some evil and dark god on an altar, her blood dripping from her veins on obsidian stone… She would’ve said she’d been reading too many Daring Do novels, but, well, there weren’t exactly many Daring Do books to read out in the middle of nowhere. A pony bumped Rainbow’s shoulder, and she looked to the side to see Champagne leaning over. The Prench mare’s face was twisted with concern, and her teeth nervously flashed for a moment. “Are you alright, Rainbow?” “No, but thanks for asking.” Champagne pursed her lips. “Quand on a touché le fond, on ne peut que remonter.” Rainbow blinked. “Is that some kind of Prench wisdom?” “It is,” Champagne said with a little smile. “It means, ‘When we’ve sunk to the bottom, the only way to go is up’.” “Huh.” Rainbow stared into the flames for a few seconds. “Kinda fitting.” “Indeed. And it certainly feels like we’ve hit the bottom.” She looked up as Ruse offered her a coconut shell halved into a bowl with some admittedly thin stew in it and flashed him a smile with her perfect teeth. Rainbow wondered for a moment if CelestiAir had hired her for her teeth alone. Cradling the bowl against her chest, the Prench mare shrugged. “Sure, this complication took the wind out of our sails, but we’ll get over it. We’ll pull through it. I’m confident in that.” “I’m glad at least you are,” Rainbow said. She barely acknowledged the ventriloquist when he gave her a bowl of stew as well. “I feel like I’ve run out of the ability to hope anymore.” “Giving up so easily?” Ruse asked her, his magic setting aside a bowl for himself. All around the camp, ponies were still chatting, leaving the three alone to talk around the fire before they decided to get dinner themselves. “I never would have imagined such despair from you, Rainbow Dash.” Rainbow frowned at her half shell of soup. “I’m not giving up,” she said. “I’m just… reconsidering.” “Reconsidering what?” Ruse asked, sliding closer to the two mares. “Trying to go home? Wondering if you should just put a bullet in your brain now and end it?” Rainbow glared at him, and all he bothered to offer her was a nonchalant shrug in response. “I thought about it,” he said. “I thought about that a lot. Once we managed to get our first pistols from the pirates, back when we were still fighting Squall’s crew, it was so very, very tempting to just end it all. I’ve struggled with depression in the past. When I was fighting with Champagne and all the others, I hit my low.” Champagne slowly nodded. ‘Yes, it was… not pretty. We were all worried about you.” “And Ratchet had a talk with me,” Ruse said, “and that helped to sort things out. But I realized that eating that bullet would’ve been the quitter’s way out. And I’m nothing if not a stubborn bastard who doesn’t know when to give up.” Rainbow felt her wings tremble. She wanted to say that she’d never entertained those thoughts… but that’d be a lie. Had she ended up on the island alone, had Rarity died in the crash or the pirate attack… she didn’t know if she would’ve made it this long. Not only because Rarity had a logical mind and knew how to pull her own weight, but because the loneliness and hopelessness of the situation might have been too much for her. It was a terrifying thing to think about, so she swallowed her worries and tried to push them somewhere else. “I’m just… I’ve been on this island for fifty days,” Rainbow said, glancing at the updated calendar plank sticking out of the sand not too far away. “Almost two months. I had hoped that we’d be gone before two months ticked over, but now it’s not looking likely.” “Celestia, has it really been two months?” Champagne asked, astonished. “It feels like it’s both been much longer and much shorter than that.” Ruse nodded. “I know what you mean. It feels like I’ve been here for forever, and also like I’ve only been here for a few days. There’s just been so much that has been happening constantly with very little downtime in between. Relaxed days like these were very hard to come by on the archipelago when Squall’s pirates were hunting us down like dogs.” Rainbow sighed and stuck her muzzle in the soup, staking several gulps directly from the source without any utensils or fine cutlery to eat from. It was pretty good soup for an empty stomach, despite the fact that it’d been watered down some to make the rations last. She didn’t know how much longer the rations salvaged from the Concordia’s galley would last, but hopefully they’d last long enough for them all to get home and enjoy real food again. “You’re not really helping,” she said, broth dripping from the hairs of her muzzle. “Then allow us to be more helpful,” Ruse said, resting a hoof on Rainbow’s shoulder. “Don’t give up now. Sure, be frustrated about it, but at the end of the day, we’re going to need to get back to it. We’ll get a nice day off now to think about it, and then we can think about it for the next twenty-seven days. That’s how long we have until the full moon comes back and whatever’s in that tomb maybe escape. And if we can do something like pile clouds or brush in front of the door so the moonlight can’t hit it, we’ll be able to go on indefinitely! We’ll have all the time in the world!” Rainbow blinked. “Wait… why didn’t I think of that?” “Think of what?” “Covering the tomb!” Rainbow stood up, nearly spilling her half shell of soup. “If I take some pegasi and fly back to the archipelago, we can probably get the thing covered up and everything! That way, when the full moon comes around, we can just stop this moon god from getting outside! It’ll be perfect!” “What if it doesn’t work that way?” Champagne asked. “What if it’s not that simple?” “It won’t hurt to try,” Rainbow said. “We don’t lose anything if it doesn’t, other than some time and energy. It’s getting out next full moon if we don’t do anything, but it might not if we do something. Isn’t that worth it?” “I’d say it is,” Ruse said. “Buy us more time.” “Great! Then that’s settled!” Rainbow sat back down on the sand and punched Champagne’s shoulder. “You’re getting drafted again, girl!” Champagne sighed and stared down at her bowl. “Merde.” “Yeah! That’s right, get excited!” Rainbow wiggled her tail some and dived back into her meal with renewed frenzy. “I can grab Stargazer and maybe that asshole pirate, and the four of us could fix that up very quickly. It’ll be perfect!” Ruse blinked. “You actually want to take the pirate with you?” Rainbow shrugged. “I could always use another set of hooves. And if I’m taking all of our pegasi with me, I might as well split up the dynamic dumbass duo. That’ll stop them from trying anything.” “It’s worth a shot, then,” Champagne said. Frowning at her meal, she quickly wolfed it down and stood up, her eyes settling on the stockpile of fruits sitting near one of the huts. “I might as well eat up and try to get some rest for another long flight tomorrow.” “Hey, it’s not so bad!” Rainbow tried to assure her. “Think of all the exercise you’re getting! Your wings will be in great shape by the time we get back home!” All Champagne shared with her was a dirty look and something muttered in Prench under her breath. Rainbow giggled to herself and polished off her meal. “She likes me. I can already tell.” Ruse chuckled and shook his head. “Oh, I’m sure…”