The straps of Luna's saddlebag chaffed against Rainbow Dash's flank. Nevertheless, for the twentieth minute in a row, she struggled and strained to shove the raft forward. The pegasus wasn't using her bare hooves, but instead was utilizing a splintery wooden pole that she had wedged directly between the sand and the bottom of the refurbished dinghy. Grunting, sweating up a storm, she continued inching the raft forward and down the sloped dune. This task was made all the more difficult by the complete absence of sunlight. The moon had slipped away into darkness, and the stars weren't bright enough to illuminate what she was doing. So, every and then, Rainbow would stroke her hoof across her ruby pendant and produce a five-second glow to see her progress—if there was any.
The tide was lapping up against the crest of the sand dune. This much she knew. She could hear the frothing waters in between each heavy heartbeat. Gradually, the splashes became more pronounced, crashing against the wooden corners of the precariously leaning raft. She was getting closer to her objective; what she needed was a little more strength.
So, fighting soreness and exhaustion, Rainbow decided to fall back into the sand. She stuck her wings out at the last second, propping her body up by the featherips. Relying on her back muscles, she anchored her body in place while she used all four limbs in the act of prying the raft out of place.
To her surprise, that did the trick. She heard a flurry of collapsing sand, and the pole dug freely through the shore. Gasping, Rainbow flung a hoof up to her pendant—just as she heard a splashing sound. She saw the raft and all its contents gliding away on the shallow surf.
With a grunt, Rainbow jumped to her hooves, galloped forward, and leapt blindly off the edge of the dune. Her hooves struck a water-stained deck—then slipped. She rolled over and stopped herself from plunging off the side of the raft. Muscles aching, she nevertheless stood up, grabbed another pole she had positioned atop the deck, and pressed it deep into the surf. It made contact with the wet sand beneath the tide, and she shoved against it, pushing the raft outward, forward, and deeper into the lapping waves.
“Come on... come on, ya stupid piece of plywood,” Rainbow grunted.
The surf grew louder and louder around her. The tell-tale rocking motions of the sea consumed the craft. Within five minutes, she could no longer make contact with the sandy bed beneath the waves.
“Okay... yes... that's it...” She dropped the pole, trotted around the mast, and made for the “stern” of the tiny raft. However, as she reached the end, the dinghy hit its first swell. “Gaah!” Rainbow tripped, rolled over, and slipped off the craft's edge. Her lower body was soaked while her upper body still clung to the craft's edge. There, she struggled amidst the darkness not to drown as the raft dragged her through another swell, splashing her all over with cold salt water.
Gnashing her teeth, Rainbow Dash nevertheless found the strength to pull herself on board. She kept one leg submerged in the waters, kicking it left and right until she was able to paddle the vessel around.
At last, two waves later, she had aligned herself with the Yaerfaerda symbol. The lavender emblem bobbed up and down dramatically—to a frightening degree.
Rainbow nevertheless faced the swelling ocean with great zeal.
“Okay... now then...”
Fwiff! She spread her wings wide, her flank to the stern of the ship.
“The magic is gone... but not physics...” Rainbow snarled. She gave her pendant one final stroke, and in the ruby strobe she saw rolling waves of angry water churning straight for her. “...you can't take everything from me, ya stupid drink.” Spitting, she began buzzing her wings at a rapid pace. “I've faced bigger, uglier bullies than you and lived to eat pancakes and syrup!”
Another swell came. Rainbow Dash was ready for it. She beat her wings harder and harder until they were a dark blue blur in starlight.
“Grrrnnnngh...” She gripped the raft hard, angling her flank so that her buzzing wings gradually propelled the craft forward. “Five hundred points to you, Scoots. Friggin' little scamp. You taught me well—” She clenched every muscle as she hit the oncoming swell.
Water exploded over the front of the craft, spraying over and between the wooden planks Rainbow had so carefully tightened together. The pegasus was thoroughly doused, and she could sense troughs splattering on both the starboard and port side. She let loose a slight shriek, but swiftly regained composure, flapping her wings harder and shifting her weight. Within seconds, she had cleared the swell, and the raft glided smoothly into darkness.
“Come on...” Rainbow panted and panted, her mane and face thoroughly soaked. The organs in her body shifted as Yaerfaerda flew up, then shot back down. “Just a few more—”
Another splash doused her before she was done saying that. She felt a heavy wall of water coalescing to her left. Grunting, she angled her flank towards starboard, flapping her wings with renewed vigor. The craft rolled towards the port, rolled off the rising wave, and went right—evening out.
Rainbow wheezed, sputtering for breath as moisture dripped off her nose. Suddenly, gravity shifted, and she felt the entire craft plummeting. Just as soon as the fall ended, she rose. Yaerfaerda sank—to the point that she had to look at it through the wooden deck. Rainbow clenched her teeth as she felt her body tugging back. She had to cling to the splintery craft in order to keep from falling off. At one point, she swore that she was ascending at a forty-five degree angle—the crest was so huge.
“This is it... this is it!” She sped her wings up, flapping her feathers with the same kind of strength she had once used to outfly a chaos dragon. “Rrrr-gggraaaaugh!”
And that was when she hit it.
The splash of water sounded like a gunshot. Starlight glittered through a murderous field of droplets cascading all around her. But soon Rainbow Dash cleared it—overshooting gravity itself. She gasped, then flailed—briefly airborne—as the entire craft fell from where it had scaled the swell's crest.
Whump! “Ooof!” Rainbow Dash gasped as she landed and rolled across the deck of the raft. She came to a stop against the mast, hissing in pain. As her senses recollected, she was remarkably alarmed at how... calm everything felt. She stood up—shivering—and pivoted about.
At last, she saw the Yaerfaerda symbol, and—to her relief—it was staying relatively even with the horizon. A thin veil of undulating darkness marked where the sea separated itself from the sky. After all of Rainbow's work, she had escaped the swelling shore, and was now making her way out onto open waters.
She shuddered, falling back on her haunches for a brief respite. It didn't last long, for soon she had situated herself at the stern of the craft, using her wings to continually push the craft forward. She found that she could flap her feathers in alternating bursts and still keep the vessel appropriately accelerated. Somehow the pony knew that this technique couldn't help her forever, but it was a good start.
Rainbow hadn't realized just how much time had passed when—all of the sudden—a thin sliver of golden light appeared along the vanishing point. The light bled into a platinum sheen, eventually bringing with it dawn's blinding beacon. The sensation was very crisp, clean, and warming. Rainbow couldn't remember the last time she actually felt like basking in a sunrise, so she rested by the mast, taking a brief yet blissful opportunity to relax.
By the time the entire sun was visible above the ocean waves, Rainbow figured it was time. She licked her hoof and raised it in the air. Blinking, she got a fix on the wind's direction, then dashed over towards the mast. She tugged at a simple rope system and—in swift order—had unfurled her patchwork sail. The mare trotted around the edge of the raft, feeling for the tug of wind against the sail. Once it had caught fully, she tied a length of rope attached to the corner of the sail around one of several rusted pegs hammered into the edge of the craft. Then she rushed towards the stern, careful to grab a long, distended wooden plank she had carved out of a Val Roan wagonpiece.
She affixed this to a wooden notch and stuck the long end of the “rudder” into the waves. Using sheer hoofpower, she guided the raft along. She found that the craft didn't match the same speed she was able to achieve by flapping her wings, but at least this way she was capable of traveling long distances without wearing herself out. It was an awkward task, and Rainbow Dash found herself messing up more than once. The first day was filled with rushing back to the edges of the craft and re-tying the sail-and-rope to various parts, all the while getting a feel for how Rainbow's imperfect vessel wanted to operate. But, for better or for worse, Rainbow had a functioning means of transportation, and she scaled so many waves that she figured she could take on the rest with her eyes closed.
With a calm breath, Rainbow Dash turned and looked over her shoulder. The terrestrial Grand Choke was now a thick brown line with rust-red peaks growing further and further in the distance. Everything else was blue and nebulous. If Rainbow Dash closed her eyes and relished in the wind, it almost felt like flying.
Eventually, exhaustion set over. Once Rainbow Dash was comfortable with the direction she had pointed the raft in, she trotted over to mid-deck, erected a wooden lean-to with a pole, and took an hour or two to collapse under a blissful shade.