“That it?”
Gyro frowned at the journal held aloft in Coals’ magic in front of her face. The little book had seemed to promise her so much, but she didn’t know why she trusted it. Rainbow Dash had said that it didn’t have anything useful, and after spending the day reading it cover to cover, twice, she had to reluctantly conclude that she was right. She’d even scrutinized the pages and shook the thing out just in case there was something that she missed, but there’d been nothing. It was as empty and useless as those waterproofed papers Ruse and the others had found at the campsite.
Scowling, Gyro laid her head down on her crossed forehooves. “That’s it,” she growled. “I read this thing over and over, and there’s nothing. Nothing that will help us. Couldn’t we just get fucking lucky and find something useful somewhere?” She rolled onto her back and stared up at the sky, where the stars had begun to poke tiny white holes in the expanse of black canvas stretching above them. “I’m gonna go out on a limb and say that the others have either had more luck than us or they’ve somehow had even worse.”
Hot Coals chuckled and closed the journal now that Gyro wasn’t actively reading it anymore. “Well, when you put it that way, you can’t possibly be wrong,” he said.
“Technically right is the best kind of right.”
The stallion scoffed and looked the journal over. “I suppose we were asking for too much,” he said. “The author died while investigating the shrine beneath us. It’s not like he had a lot of time to really work on it, right?”
“I guess.” Gyro blew air out of her nostrils, knocking aside a few strands of her mane that had draped themselves over her face. Idly, she wondered whether it was time to hack her mane off with a knife or not to keep it out of her face, though she cursed herself for letting her thoughts wander like that. She’d spent so long trying to glean anything from a stupid book that she felt scatterbrained and antsy to do something else, anything else, other than think and try to tease clues out of thin air. Maybe it was time that she called it for the night, or at least did something else to occupy her thoughts and cling onto her sanity—what little of it she really had left after everything she’d been through in the past month or two.
Hot Coals seemed to sense that Gyro was anything but thrilled with the outcome of her efforts into the journal, because he leaned over and nuzzled her snout. “You’ve been working hard, Gyro,” he said, smiling down at her. “Harder than anypony else, really. I’m sorry that nothing came from it.”
“You and me both.” Gyro sighed and closed her eyes, reveling in the feeling of no longer straining them to read something without her glasses. “Have we just been wasting our time?”
Coals’ ears perked, and an eyebrow climbed up his forehead. “Hmm?”
“With all this.” Gyro vaguely gestured around them. “Splitting up and searching for clues and stuff. We’re never going to figure things out. Even if there’s something that explicitly says exactly what we have to do to get the figurines to lower the barrier, nopony knows how to read it. Melody doesn’t even know how to read this stuff, and she’s been here for almost a century. We’re just… just jerking off, really.”
“We’re not ‘jerking off’,” Coals insisted, sliding over until he was lying halfway on top of Gyro. “We’re being productive together.”
A rosy heat built in Gyro’s cheeks. “I suppose when you put it like that…” She chuckled and closed her eyes again. “I’m just worried that we’re spending all our time on this stuff and we’re not going to find anything.”
“Well, what were we going to use that time for, anyway?” Coals asked. “Counting sand?”
“I might actually kill myself if it comes to that to pass the time.” Gyro fluttered her pale blue eyes and let the corner of her mouth crawl upwards. “I’ve got a much, much better idea.”
“Oh?” Coals waggled an eyebrow at her, already seeming to know where Gyro was going. “Mind letting me in on the secret?”
“Yeah, but I can’t tell you here.” Gyro pushed her muzzle forward and kissed Coals, long and sweetly, before pulling away and winking at him. “We should go somewhere more private. Like Dr. Gauze’s hut. It’s not like he needs it for anypony else, right? I mean, we’re the most injured ones here.”
Coals glanced at the hut and smirked. “Yeah, I think that sounds like a good idea,” he said. He rolled off of Gyro’s stomach and stood up, offering the mare a hoof. “But can you stand yet? I don’t want to have you break something if you’re not ready for it.”
Gyro scoffed and rolled over. Her forehooves were easy enough to position on the ground, but it took her considerably more effort to get her hind legs situated under her. Coals watched her with a worried expression on her face as she seemed to try and muster the energy to stand, and he flinched when she yelled in exertion. But her hindquarters rose on shaky legs, and even as her tail lashed out at the sand, Gyro soon stood before him, almost at her full height.
“You… I didn’t think you’d be able to stand yet,” Coals said. “I thought you’d be out another few days!”
Gyro smirked at him, though it was laced with pain. “That’s… earth pony magic for you… Gah!”
Coals immediately moved to Gyro’s side as she wobbled on her weak legs. “Earth pony magic or no, I don’t think you really should be standing. I’ll carry you to the hut.”
“No!” Gyro hissed at him. “I can… I can walk. I can do it.” Grimacing, the engineer took her first shaky steps, slowly pulling her body across the sand. “I already had to learn to walk once here… I can do it again!”
Little by little, bit by bit, Gyro muscled her way to the doctor’s hut through sheer determination and a shipload of stubbornness. Though she stumbled a few times, she always had Coals’ shoulder to support her, and she needed it more than she would have liked to admit. But soon enough, the two of them stood in front of the empty hut, and Gyro gave her coltfriend a wink. “I think I’ve deserved more than my fair share of fun after that.”
Coals smiled and nibbled on her ear. “Let’s see if we can get you properly rewarded, then.”
And the two slipped into the hut, leaving the campsite dead and still behind them.