//------------------------------// // Blessings of the Sun // Story: Surviving Sand Island // by The 24th Pegasus //------------------------------// Gyro stared in awe at the side of the south hill. Rarity’s music had carved a deep gash through the structure, inadvertently triggering a minor landslide as brush and trees toppled off the gaping stone. A cavernous structure loomed beneath the dirt and stone, only a dozen feet beneath the hill’s crest at best. Gyro had no idea that the hill was that hollow. How the Ponynesians managed a feat of engineering that impressive was beyond her, but then again, she’d seen the mountain temple to their sun god. They had a way of doing the impossible. But even as Rarity’s song tore the rocks apart, magic from within began to patch them up. The stones enlarged in strange ways, forming crossing projections that slowly knitted themselves into a solid whole. Soft Step had to be trying to undo the damage Rarity was inflicting to the shrine. She didn’t know how well the alicorn could multitask, but hopefully it was keeping her magic preoccupied and unable to complete her ritual. If it wasn’t, then Rarity needed to sing harder, and fast. But where was Rainbow? Surely she would have either flown out through the gap in the shrine or started doing something to Soft to interfere with her attempts to repair the shrine. But neither of those happened. Either Rainbow was preoccupied with something else, or… Were they really too late? Gyro looked at Rarity, who had squeezed her eyes shut as she tried to sustain the song. Her entire body quivered as she forced out the notes without any pause for breath. Gyro knew that Rarity’s lungs were probably as big as she was, but she couldn’t go on forever. Eventually, she’d have to stop to breathe, and Soft would be able to significantly close the gap. She had to do something. If she didn’t, then Rarity’s plan would fail. She didn’t know what she could do exactly, but she’d find a way to help. Her hooves splashed through the shallow water as she began to gallop toward the hill, moving as fast as her weakened back would let her and then some. “Don’t stop singing!” she called out to Rarity as she ran past the siren. “Keep it up! I’m going to find out what’s going on!” One of Rarity’s slit eyes tracked Gyro for a few seconds, but it closed again as the siren nodded. With her shoulders tightening, Rarity raised her head to the heavens and began to sing louder, putting enough magic behind the spell to fight back against Soft’s counterspell and widen the gash once more. But before Gyro could even get close to the hole in the hill, however, she heard a squawk from the skies above. Craning her head back, she saw Chirp silhouetted against the eastern horizon, glowing faintly red in the light of the pre-dawn sky. Just the mere sight of the macaw comforted her and gave her hope. Chirp had saved her before. And if the macaw could survive the island when it was infested with mummies, then he could survive anything. Yet her heart skipped a beat when the macaw let out a valiant cry and folded his wings, diving through the gap in the hill like a falcon hunting prey. ---- Pain had become a worryingly common part of Rainbow’s life lately. She thought she’d gotten her worst treatment at the hooves of Squall and the pirates, but the furious sadism of Soft Step’s corrupted self had easily dwarfed that. Maybe not in terms of creativity—it took a truly sick and twisted mind like Squall to invent some of the torture she inflicted on Rainbow with her knives—but easily through sheer agony. She’d shattered her wings beyond all belief. There probably wasn’t a single sliver of bone still connected to another fragment. Soft’s terrible magic had crumpled them like a sheet of paper, paying no mind to the feverish screams of pain that had worn Rainbow’s throat ragged. But miraculously she had remained conscious through the ordeal, even if the torture had left her dazed and confused as a side effect. She could still feel the cool kiss of the dais under her back and against her cheek. It gave her something to focus on other than the pain shooting through her sides like she was on the receiving end of a hug from a cactus made out of knives. It reminded her that she was somehow still very much alive, and the beautiful singing she heard in the background gave lucidity to her hurt mind and body. Rarity’s music. She cracked bleary eyes open and looked across the shrine. Soft Step stood near her, her wings outstretched as she forced arcing lightning out of her horn. It took a little more effort to see what she was focusing it on, but the glow of the outside seeping into the shrine was unmistakable. Rainbow smiled a little bit and would have chuckled if it wouldn’t have been so painful. Morning was coming. Morning was coming, and she’d nearly survived to see it. Definitely not bad for a reckless pegasus trying to take on a god with only her bare hooves and her words. But the longer she watched, the more she realized that Rarity wasn’t succeeding in bringing down the house, so to speak. She’d only opened a chunk of the ceiling and wall facing east and nothing else. Soft Step’s magic slowly forced her back, closing up the hole inches at a time. At the far end of the room, Champagne still struggled against her magical binds, and nopony else stirred or moved. Rainbow had done her job and done it well, but now she worried that it wouldn’t be enough to seal the deal. What could she do? In her current state, even moving pushed her to her limits. The only thing she could possibly do was strangle Soft Step with her hooves, and she knew the moment she even got close to the alicorn the twisted mare would just swat her down like an insect. There had to be something else she could do... Black Flag’s gun! It glinted in the light cast by Soft’s magic, and her eyes locked on it as soon as she realized what it was. The gem in the side still glowed faintly, so Rainbow knew it was loaded. If she could just make her way to it and shoot Soft while she wasn’t paying attention… Yet when she tried to drag herself off the table, she had to stop and stifle a scream of pain. She couldn’t even get to it; assuming she managed to roll off the dais, she’d hit the ground hard and that would likely be the end of her willpower. And Champagne couldn’t get to it either, rooted in place as she was by Soft’s magic. What did she do? She heard a chirp make its way over the cacophony of magic and singing around her, and her eyes widened in surprise when Chirp landed on her chest. “C-Chirp?” she wheezed, staring at the macaw in disbelief. “What are you… you gotta go, little dude!” But the macaw didn’t leave. Instead, he looked at Rainbow’s wings and hopped over to one. Rainbow hissed as the bird’s talons touched tender flesh, but she didn’t jump or recoil. Instead, she watched as the bird extended his own wing, pulled out one of his feathers, and tucked it among Rainbow’s own. “What… what are you…” she asked, watching the bird as he hopped across her chest and repeated the process with the other wing. Almost as soon as he tucked the feather into her own, she gasped as a sensation of cool water ran over her injured wings. The feather Chirp had planted in each enlarged to match the length of the blue feathers around it, and her wings snapped and popped as the bones began to fuse back together. In a few seconds, her mangled wings had returned to their former glory, each accentuated by a red stripe of feathers running from the very tip to near the blue crests of each one. Jaw hanging agape, Rainbow stared in disbelief at the macaw sitting on her chest. “You… you’re not just a macaw, are you?” she asked him. Chirp angled his head to the side and fluffed his wings. “Rainbow!” he proudly cried, and Rainbow didn’t know if he winked at her or if that was just her imagination. But now she was free of pain and could move normally again. Chirp’s feathers had done more than just repair her wings; they’d reinvigorated her body. She felt as refreshed as if she’d slept for twelve hours straight. There was so much energy coursing through her body, begging to be released. Chirp flew off of Rainbow and to a safe distance on the other side of the shrine. Soft Step heard the commotion behind her, and she turned around just in time to see Rainbow stand up. Her eyes widened in surprise, and she momentarily forgot the spell she was casting to seal up the entrance. “No…” she murmured, taking a step back. Her eyes fell on Rainbow’s wings and the stripe of crimson running through them. “No!” Her horn began to charge magic, but she couldn’t ready a spell fast enough. Instead, Rainbow opened her wings and did the one thing she knew how to do. Rainbow Dash flew.