Surviving Sand Island

by The 24th Pegasus

...But It's Home

The sun was beginning to set by the time they were finished.

Rarity took a step back and wiped her brow. How long had she been working on this? Ten hours? It had to be something like that. The only breaks she’d taken today since she started were for lunch and an early dinner. Now, with the sun completely out of sight, hidden by the trees of the island, Rarity could finally say that they were finished.

Rainbow Dash took her hooves off of the wall she was working on and cut the end of a coconut fiber rope with a knife. “How’s it look?” she asked, stepping back a few paces to end up at Rarity’s side. She wiped some sweat off her brow and licked dry and salty lips as her eyes wandered over their work.

“It’s not much,” Rarity said, but a smile nevertheless appeared on her muzzle. “But it’s home.”

‘Home’ was certainly one way of putting it. Unlike their previous hut, which was barely more than a glorified and squat lean-to, this one actually looked like a place ponies could live in. It had a sloped roof for washing the rain off and solid walls made from palm fronds woven into mats. They’d even left gaps in the walls to serve as windows, which would be easy enough to shutter with spare palm mats Rarity had mounted in a frame of sticks for support. Though they didn’t have a working door owing to their inability to make hinges, they’d attached loose-hanging palm fronds to the top of the frame that provided enough shelter and privacy to the inside of the structure. For the moment, the interior was nothing more than one big room, but it wouldn’t take much effort to weave more palm mats and partition it into separate spaces.

“Hopefully we won’t have to rebuild this one,” Rainbow said. “This one took a lot more work.”

“I intend to preserve it,” Rarity said. She started picking up some of the leftover fronds and arranged them into a bundle. “And so long as we take care of it, it should last us a long time.”

“Yeah.” Cracking her neck, Rainbow looked over her shoulder. “Hey, G, wanna check it out?”

Gyro’s ears perked. “You two finally finish it?” she asked, turning around to get a good look behind her.

“Yeah! It only took forever and a half, but it’s done.” Rainbow beckoned with her head. “Take a look.”

The mechanic rolled her eyes and stood up, shaking sand off of her thin underside. “And I was just enjoying the beach,” she said, walking away from the waves and navigating the thin tree line. “Why do you have to make the poor starved mare do so much walking?”

“You’ve hardly moved like ten feet all day today,” Rainbow said. “Exercise builds muscle, remember?”

“Not when there’s no spare energy to go around.” Gyro immediately sat down as soon as she reached the two other mares; Rarity could tell at a glance that the poor earth pony was still easily tired. That likely wasn’t going to go away anytime soon. The engineer’s pale blue eyes wandered over the building and she smiled. “Well, it’s not collapsing on itself, so that’s a good start.”

Rainbow lightly shoved Gyro. “Shut up.”

“Seriously, though, that’s pretty neat,” she said. “It actually looks like someplace you could live. I’m no civil engineer, but it looks like it should hold in a storm.”

“I certainly hope so, if it’s going to rain tomorrow,” Rarity said. “It will certainly be put through the test then. I doubt that we managed to make the roof entirely leak free on our first try.”

“We’ve got extra palms and crap to fix it,” Rainbow said. Smirking, she moved to the house and leaned against one of the beams holding it up. “And it’s sturdy, too. We got this thing wedged deep into the sand. It’ll take a huge storm to rip it up.”

Gyro chuckled. “Now you’ve gone and done it. It’s over now.”

Rarity playfully swatted Rainbow over the back of her head with a frond. “Why do you insist on jinxing us in all the worst ways, Rainbow?”

“Eh, life’s more fun that way,” she said. “Otherwise it’d be too easy. We’re too good at surviving out here.”

“Maybe you should write a survival guide when we get back to Equestria,” Rarity said. “I’m sure it’d sell well. We just need to have Twilight edit it before you try and publish it.”

Rainbow groaned. “Every time I try to take something I write to Twilight for help, she leaves more pages of notes in red ink than I have in the thing I actually wrote.”

Rarity giggled and covered her muzzle. “Do you ever try reading her notes and seeing what you did wrong?”

“Nope.”

“That would explain a few things.” Shaking her head, Rarity stood up. “If only we had something to christen our new house with. Unfortunately, we have a terrible shortage in things to drink.”

“We can have a feast, though,” Rainbow said. “A little extra food won’t hurt. Besides, there’s still plenty here on the island. We’ve only ever touched, like, a corner of the south hill.”

Gyro winced and rubbed her stomach. “Holy crap. I didn’t think it was possible, but the thought of even more food is making me feel sick.”

“That’s only because your stomach’s the size of, like, a pea or something now. You just gotta stretch it out.”

“A little at a time,” Rarity cautioned. “Eating too much after severe starvation can be fatal. Still, Gyro’s been pacing herself, so I don’t feel like we have to worry about that too much.”

“Yeah, yeah. But like, food.” Rainbow immediately started trotting over to the other hut, where all their food stores were kept. “Let’s do it.”

Rarity blinked. “But we already had an early dinner,” she said.

“And now we can have another one! Come on!”

Chuckling, Gyro started walking off after Rainbow with a shake of her head. “Does this mean I get the old hut all to myself?”

“If you want it, darling,” Rarity said. “I’m not sure I could use it again after you stunk the place up last night.”

“I was just laying claim to it.”

“Consider your claim recognized.”

Comments

[Fluttercheer]

Something about this fic idea makes me wonder..... Particularly, what's your reasoning behind choosing Rainbow Dash and Rarity as the mane characters who strand on the island?
WIthout having read the fic and going purely by the description, the plot seems mainly to be about two ponies stranding on an island, having to survive there and falling in love with each other or, perhaps, discovering their love for each other.
This is a very basic plot that would fit to everypony and work with everypony, even with background ponies.
So, my question is, why did you choose Rarity and Rainbow Dash for this fic? Or, why two Mane Six members and not two background ponies instead, since the story would probably still work out the same way and not much would change?
This isn't a criticism, I'm just curious why the decision fell on these two ponies in particular.

[The 24th Pegasus]

8572341
Because I'm shipping trash and this is my cocaine

[Neece]

8572551
Fluff for the fluffy God
Ships for the shipping throne

[PonySage86]

8572551
I don't think I've ever agreed with a statement so much before.

[zaponator]

But food!

[FridayPie]

8572341
That would work with seemingly different ponies... but then the beeginning would need much more character building chapters!