//------------------------------// // The Blind Reading the Blind // Story: Surviving Sand Island // by The 24th Pegasus //------------------------------// Once the mobile ponies (and sirens) of the survivors had left, Gyro found herself lying in the sand as a whole lot of nothing happened around her. With the island’s de facto leaders both gone, leadership of the remaining crew fell to Ratchet, who took some time to cautiously and carefully plan out his next moves. Gyro wasn’t too irked that it took her boss some time to get things rolling, as the other two teams had to travel to their islands first. They wouldn’t be doing anything except moving for the next hour or two, and so it wouldn’t hurt them all that much if they took a few seconds to stop and think before they acted. But that still wasn’t something Gyro could easily get behind. She was always an impatient mare, and she recognized that about herself. She was almost as bad as Rainbow herself and, considering how she lived her life at the glacial pace her hooves could move her when compared to the buzzing wings of a Wonderbolt, she thought that was quite impressive. Still, she’d demanded (and received) Uncharted Lands’ journal from Rainbow before she flew off, and now she pinned the book to the sand and leafed through it, voraciously devouring the late explorer’s notes. Sure, there hadn’t been anything interesting so far, but she resisted the urge to simply flip through the book until she found something good. There might be something, anything hiding in the pages of this journal, and she had an entire day to read it over. The journal wasn’t really that thick; she knew she could get through it before sundown, even if she meticulously worked her way through it one page at a time. Hot Coals sat by her side, his body supporting hers as she leaned against it, his eyes helping to scan through the text as well. Gyro was happy that he’d be with her while Ratchet led a team down beneath the island. Call it selfish, but she wanted the stallion all to herself, and besides, she could still argue that he was too weak and still recovering from his blood loss to go down into the shrine with the others. That kept him by her side, and his pleasant company was more than enough to put aside her boredom at staying behind and reading—especially when she decided that this was how she was going to help contribute to going back home in some way. While her legs were slowly coming back to her and the muscles in her spine started to move and pull with some confidence, she could at least help by doing the time consuming and tedious work so others didn’t have to. In the center of the camp, Ratchet finally assembled everypony again, moving close to Gyro and Coals so that they could be included in it as well. “There’s only six of us left here,” he said, “so we don’t have a lot of ponypower to split up. Therefore, while the tide is still up, Ruse, Gauze, Flag, and myself will comb over the island, and then head down beneath it when the tide goes out. Gyro and Coals, you two can stay here at the camp and focus on rest and recovery. If we find anything interesting, we’ll bring it back to you two to get a good look at.” Gyro reluctantly nodded; again, she wished that she could be on her hooves and doing things with the rest of the team, but if she did, she’d likely aggravate her back and only be down even longer than if she took her time and rested it. She could already sit up on her own, which meant she was getting close to full recovery. No sense in setting that back another week. “Don’t try to check back too often,” she quipped, glancing at Coals. “The two of us might want some personal time.” “You haven’t left each other’s side since Hot Coals woke up,” Ruse flatly observed. “I feel like you’ve had more than ample opportunity for personal time.” “Well, we are trying to make up for five years…” Coals said with a small smirk, and Gyro giggled with pure delight. Black Flag cut their good-natured chuckling short by going straight back to business. “What are we even hoping to find?” he asked. “From what I’ve heard, Rainbow Dash and Rarity picked this island clean a month ago.” “I’d hardly say they picked it clean,” Ratchet said. “They’ve admitted as much themselves. They were busily swept along from one thing to the other and didn’t exactly give the island a complete shakedown. There’s a lot of sand on this small island, and they definitely did not comb through all of it.” Flag frowned at that answer. “Something tells me that sifting through the sand here won’t give us what we’re looking for.” “It’s all we can do until the tide goes down some.” Ratchet flicked an ear in the general direction of the hidden entrance to the underground shrine. “Rainbow said that the shrine’s hallways completely fill with water when the tide comes in. It’s going out now, but it will take some time until it’s done.” “Then I suppose we should get started,” Gauze said, already meandering off toward the north end of the island. “There’s a lot of sand to go through. That will take all day.” “There was a campsite somewhere in the north that they had found before,” Gyro said as the rest of the crew began to move out. “It was left by the ponies who left this journal. There might be something around there to check out, if you can find it.” Ratchet nodded. “We’ll give it our best look. At any rate, we’ll be back in an hour or two.” And then they all began to leave, slipping off through the trees, leaving Gyro and Hot Coals alone in the middle of the camp. Well, not totally alone—she spied the familiar red body of Chirp sitting in one of the trees not too far away, looking disappointed and sad. The poor macaw must have been missing his best friend, flown back to the archipelago after barely a day home. Chuckling, she murmured ‘poor Chirp’ to herself, and then squinted at the journal in front of her. Growling, she pushed it away with her hooves, setting it in front of Hot Coals. “Hold this,” she said. “Hold it out in front of you.” Coals blinked, but nevertheless did what he was told. “Why?” “So I can read it,” Gyro said, leaning her head back a bit. “I’m farsighted, remember? My glasses didn’t survive the crash.” Gyro chuckled to herself as Coals repositioned the book for her to read it better. Of course the farsighted mare was trying to do the reading. Of course. But, if it meant getting them all home, then she’d do it. “Do you want me to read it?” Coals asked her. “No,” Gyro said, huffing. “I can do it.” “You sure?” “I’m too stubborn to say no. You can read it with me if you want.” Coals smirked and nuzzled Gyro’s ear. “Sounds good to me.”