Time to Shove Off This Earth
In the early dawnlight, Rainbow's hooves made tiny tracks in the sand. Eventually, she came to a stop.
Rainbow stood higher on the shore, just above the dark layer of wetness that showed where the tied had dragged the ocean's surf overnight. Before her was a square-shaped patch of disturbed sediment, with bits of wood and fabric sticking out.
Face scrunched, Rainbow squatted low and poked her hoof at the mess. She poked at it again, this time reaching forward and lifting. Sand shifted and rolled aside as she pulled up a corner of burlap, beneath which were several gnarled planks of wood lying side by side. As she lifted the burlap even more, she exposed thick bands of rope fastening the planks together. Some of the cords were threadbare, and there were several ugly notches in the planks that had expanded due to the pressure of time, but there was no denying it...
It was a raft.
Rainbow pivoted about, staring back at the location of the cave several meters away. Her two satchels lay in the sand between her, along with the pegasus-shaped impression where she had collapsed overnight.
A brisk morning wind blew at her bangs.
She closed her eyes, taking several deep breaths, spreading her wings into the salty air.
When her eyes reopened, she bore a daring frown. She trotted—then galloped forward, scooping up her satchels and heading straight for the cave.
Cl-Clunk!
Rainbow kicked a table over, spilling all of its old, rusted tools across the floor. She rummaged through the Val Roan mess, picking blades that still looked sturdy enough to be useful and tossing away decrepit items. She managed to find two hammers, several pegs, a mostly intact saw, and a set of shears that could still open and shut.
With glaring eyes, she turned and looked across the domain. She spotted another table with a wooden crate. Fibrous cords were spilling out of the container, and they looked thin enough for the sheers to cut through. She rushed over and threw the crate to the floor. As it crashed open, she pulled at the rope, looping as much as she could around one of her fetlocks.
Rainbow squatted immediately outside the cave. She had severed a tabletop from its legs and was using it as a base, upon which she laid out all the tools she could find, along with a spool of old rope. At this point, she was rummaging through her own packs. Out of Luna's satchel, she removed her trusty hatchet and her hammer. Out of Arcanista's bag, she pulled out the tent, her blankets, and a small shiny object.
The mare froze in place, pausing to stare at the slender dagger in her grasp. King Lunarius' ornate gift glittered in the sunlight. Rainbow Dash imagined that it was very sharp when unsheathed, and it could invariably help her with the task at hoof.
Nevertheless, with a shuddering breath, she slid the heirloom into Luna's saddlebag, and resumed her task. Once she had everything in place, she strapped Scootaloo's goggles to her head, grabbed a hatchet, and trotted firmly towards the cave's entrance.
Thud!
Yet another worn log of wood fell to the sand.
Rainbow dropped the hatchet, panting and wheezing for breath. Once her aching muscles had calmed, she bundled the rope and tied it around the former wagon-piece that the Val Roans had erected before the mouth of the cave. Like half-a-dozen logs before it, she fastened the rope to its middle, bit around the other end of the cord, and began pulling with all her might.
“Rrrghh... nnnngh...!”
With her hooves making hard trenches through the sand, she finally dragged the log away from the entrance. Slowly, she tugged it downhill and southward, pulling it so that it rested alongside the bundle of other logs she had gathered besides the partially-finished raft.
The sun had gone down, bathing the shore in darkness.
Rainbow had grabbed an ancient torch from the Val Roans' cave. Utilizing torn bed fabric and scraps of dead vegetation from the ill-fated deer's burrow, she had fueled a fire that burned at the end of the stick planted into the sand beside her.
Operating by the firelight, Rainbow clenched an old rusted saw in her teeth and continued slicing off ends of the wooden planks, making them even enough to match the logs that had been fastened together. Working through the night, she arranged these planks so that they made a smooth hull that hugged the belly of the raft, producing something sturdy and buoyant.
When all the parts were in place, she fastened them tighter with the surviving spools of rope. She didn't pause to inhale Nebulum, much less sleep. Rainbow's exhaustion only spurred her on, and she toiled with wild abandon.
The next morning afforded her some rest, but she still wasn't wasting any time. Rainbow squatted on the edge of a sand-dune, not far from the raft. Using a needle and thread that Arcanista had given her, she worked hard at crafting a sail out of various materials. The Val Roans' bed fabric, her own blankets, and even the material of Arcanista's saddlebag—Rainbow Dash had utilized everything. She had even skeletonized the tent the Duchess had given her, for its tough fabric formed the very center of the sail.
This left Rainbow Dash with her necklace, her goggles, and the contents of Luna's saddlebag as her only possessions. In a way, it felt almost like going back in time, which was a sensation that came the closest to making the pegasus smile.
Dutifully, she continued her work, sewing one piece of fabric to another, making whole that which had been abandoned to despair eons ago.
Limbs sore, Rainbow Dash lay back in the sand, eyeing the mast and rudder she had just finished constructing before sundown.
Night fell, bringing along with it the bitter chill that infected every breath of the salty sea air. Rainbow Dash exhaled softly, gazing up at the stars.
She wasn't resting. She was waiting. Rest would come later, when there was nothing else to do—she imagined—other than surrender herself to the whim of the elements.
The only thing that ended the Val Roan expedition was fear, and Rainbow Dash was beyond that. If she was going to die, then it was going to be a death that she would be proud of.
The crashing waves grew closer and closer, yet softer in their undulating pitch. Rainbow knew that the tide was rising, and that meant that soon... very, very soon...
She would be leaving the miserable earth behind.
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So, now Dashie can MacGuyver raft? Eh, why not?
Forty crunches, ):(. Knock 'em out!
So...by what name shall we christen this new craft? Raft, dinghy, or otherwise, a ship's gotta have a name.
(Inb4 "Harmony")
5741480 An excellent question... maybe The Noble Jurist, now that she's traveling alone? (Or maybe just Applejack...)
Gonna buy myself a dingy, and call her, Dignity.
She's going to be in trouble if she hits doldrums like the expedition from the east did.
yeah, usually you don't get much sleep if you're the only crew member on a ship/raft. Don't want stuff going to shit while you're asleep.
I'm sailing away set an open course for the virgin sea
I've got to be free free to face the life that's ahead of me
5741480
5741525
The Roarkbow?
Why am I just expecting her to either be caught in a freak storm, be becalmed, or hit an island or iceberg and shatter the raft?
I guess in lieu of a proper ship, a raft can work too. Go get 'em, Dash.
The sea is going to be hard on her, hopefully it doesn't take her long to get to the other side of the world. She doesn't have much left (basically nothing at this point) to survive on really.
Alright! Let's leave the damn choke behind!
How did she even come up with how to create that raft? Well, I suppose she's smarter than you might take her for at first blush.
-Spirit
5741480
5741525
5741614
We shall call it the Swan Song. It is a ship after all.
And so finally the crossing to the Other side will begin. I can't wait.
5741479 Exactly what I was thinking, heh. Survivor Dash for the win.
5741717 A ship would be pretty hard to use with only one crew member. Sturdier and safer to cross the ocean, but it would be impossible for only Dash to man it. So heh.
Besides, a raft makes it look more awesome.
5741930 :P I actually really like that name. One last venture into the beyond...
5741931 Yeah, but a raft doesn't do nearly as much to cure me of my shipping sickness.
Seriously, I'm having withdrawals here.
I hope Dash took one of those dessicated antlers along with her.
philosophers-stone.co.uk/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/htbm.jpg
Nuhhh Dash don't do it sea monsters are spooky!
5741480 Intrepid.
For her journey is such.
5741525 Lets compromise and call it the Appleraft.
5741479 And Chuck Norris.
Rainbow Dash doesn't sleep: she waits.
Raft it is. Nifty.
I don't know what to expect from this voyage. I still feel that this isn't a normal ocean. On top of which, there are only sixteen chapters left. I'm working on the assumption that she's gonna reach the location marked by the Yaerfaerda symbol before the end. I'm starting to wonder if it's simply marking the far shore (and therefore, her arrival at the Dark Side of the world). If so, I have this fanciful notion that the birth/rebirth implied by the word "Yaerfaerda" might be symbolically paralleled by her emerging from the sea, like a child from the womb.
But I guess I shouldn't get ahead of myself. There's no telling what's in store for Rainbow (and, by extension, us).
I was about to say that doing away with her tent seems... pretty stupid. I guess she's not going to need it but maybe having a little retreat on the deck of the raft would have been nice, somewhere she could sleep without being pelted by rain and freezing to death.
-Treachery and deceit, kingdom of conceit Yaerfaerda.
Tide
Shears
"Screw This Gay Earth", said Rainbow Dash as she sailed into the sunrise
I'm confused a bit here. Didn't Rainbow throw away the Nebulum canister thing into a canyon not too far back after it didn't work anymore?
5741525
5741509
Let's hope Rainbow's Raft fares better than AJ's did; it was a damn shame with all those wasted coconuts.
5742030
Maybe Dash will meet the sirens! Then we'll have had three Pinkies in this series, the original, Propsy, and then Sonata! Let's have all the pinkies!
the death/rebirth parallels are getting less obscure and uncertain, and more on the nose
5742742 she had more than one canister
5742764
Or maybe Carthaginian or Roman trimenes, if my map is anything like reality.
I felt like I should have been listening to some kind of heroic inspirational music when reading this.
5742764
You'v jinxed it.
Seaponies?
Find out
Neither this time or the time after or any time for awhile, most likely!
5742963
I did want to mention she might try calling upon the seaponies two chapters back, since, you know, she did go a little shoo-be-do back then. But she seems to have gotten better and has a raft, so that is off the table, at least for now.
Not foreboding at all.
5741480 Nautilus.
I bet as she crosses she will see ghosts of that expedition that tried to go west...along with some supplies that are hopefully still good like hardtack et,al. After all her food and hydration is running low, though if I remember correctly, magic should return to her as she crosses the sea.
5742284
5741930
Tis a raft. Ergo, "Rustbucket" would suffice...
IC wins
gagmin.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/confession-bear-grylls.jpg
And she named her sailboat "Liberty"
And in the sky she discovered seeaagulls
And she painted wakes on the sea.
I just thought of a name for the raft. "Tomorrow".
)
(And it's not just to spite the cosmic voice. Really.
5741937
eeeeeeewww...
5741937 Swan, for the love of the princesses, please stop that.
5741937
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You need to stop bruh
5741937 Heheh. She'd better call it Winsthorn, if it's the case.
The Noble Jury, Mark II is now complete. Let the journey continue.
Welp. Grand Choke was remarkably uneventful. Depressing. But uneventful.
Oh goody!
Hope she isn't sea-sick.
Let's get some epic pirate themed music and pretend to ignore the inevitable Cast Away ripoff
5745783 We all know that the last parcel contained a waterproof, solar-powered satellite phone.
Quick! Somepony call upon the seaponies!
RD x rusted saw bring it on.