Surviving Sand Island

by The 24th Pegasus

Airborne

Rarity groggily staggered out of her murky and muddy dreams when the sun hit her in the face. She’d happened to position herself exactly where the sun could come through the doorway and strike her eyes, finding the tiniest of gaps between the trees to the east and the palm fronds hanging off of the door post. Even worse, it was doggedly persistent, remaining on Rarity’s eyes as the minutes dragged into hours. At least, that’s what it felt like to her.

Eventually, sitting up with a huff, she crossed her forelegs and growled at the sun outside. “Alright, you win! Heavens above, can’t you let a lady have some peace?!” When the sun didn’t answer, she flopped back down on the bedding and closed her eyes, collecting her breath while her face was angled away from the morning light. “Celestia, put the damn thing back down or I swear to you that I’ll stitch your next Gala dress out of itchy, scratchy wool!”

Then the hut shook, and Rarity squeaked and jumped. “Waaghaahaa!” she cried out in alarm, curling up under her forelegs. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it! Please don’t drop the sky on me! I like the sun, really, just not this early in the morning!”

She heard a laugh from outside the hut and immediately glared at the sand. “What’s going on, Rares? You having a bad morning?”

“I always have bad mornings,” Rarity grumbled. “My hair is always a mess, it’s always too early, and there’s always another crisis or issue with my business that has seemingly sprung up overnight. I don’t think I’ve had a good morning in five years.”

“Even when you wake up next to me?”

Rarity glanced at the empty space next to her on the bedding. “That didn’t happen today, now did it?”

“Sorry.” The hut creaked again—what was Rainbow doing, standing on it? “I was awake and couldn’t get back to sleep.”

“Understandable,” Rarity said. “We should’ve built this thing so the doorway wasn’t pointing to the east. Is it too late to change it?”

“Probably, unless you want to do all the work. It doesn’t bother me.” After a second, Rainbow added, “Oh, I’ve got something I need to show you out here. Check it out!”

Rarity staggered to her hooves and shook some of the sand out of her coat. “Why can’t you at least tell me what it is, darling? This better not be like the siren yesterday. I want to know if you’re going to lead me to something like that again.”

“I can’t really tell you,” Rainbow said. “I’ve gotta show you or you won’t believe it.”

“After seeing a living, breathing siren, I’m willing to believe a lot of things,” Rarity said, but she nevertheless walked out of the house and looked around. When she didn’t see Rainbow, she frowned. “Where are you?”

“Behind you, Rares,” Rainbow said. When Rarity spun around, she at first didn’t see anything… until she looked up. There, she saw Rainbow perched on the roof of their shelter, using one of the beams to support her weight instead of the flimsy palm frond mats. The pegasus seemed incredibly proud of her position, though Rarity was less amused.

“Rainbow, how did you get up there?” Rarity asked. “Get down now before you hurt yourself. Or worse, break our shelter.”

Rainbow rolled her eyes. “I’m a big girl, Rares, I know how to handle myself.”

“I’ll believe that when I see it.” Setting her jaw, Rarity went a step closer to scold the pegasus better. “Get down, Rainbow!”

“Eeesh. Fine, Rares.” She crouched low, like she was ready to pounce. Perhaps too late, Rarity realized that she actually was. “Catch me!”

“Rainbowwaitwhatareyoudoing—?!” Rarity blurted as the pegasus fell towards her. She ducked back and away before Rainbow could land on her, and too late did her horn flare too life to try and magically catch the pegasus. She was too tired to really think about using her magic at the moment.

But to her surprise, Rainbow never hit the ground. Instead, she felt a strong gust of wind, and suddenly Rainbow was falling upwards. No, not falling upwards. Flying. At first, Rarity didn’t believe it, but when she saw Rainbow giggling and laughing above her, she realized she wasn’t dreaming. “You… you’ve got your flight back?!”

“Oh man, that was great!” Rainbow said between laughs. “You totally thought I was gonna fall on you! That’s hilarious! Hah!”

“You can fly!” Rarity exclaimed, and she couldn’t help but bound about in the sand a little like Pinkie Pie. “This is amazing! This opens up so many new possibilities for us! So many new places we can get to now!”

Rainbow alighted on the sand and folded her wings back at her sides. “I know, isn’t it? It’s awesome! I’ve been grounded for so long I almost forgot what it was like to be Rainbow Dash!”

A gray figure stumbled out of the smaller hut and rubbed her eyes. “What’s going on out here?” she mumbled, still half-asleep. “Did somepony do a thing?”

“Rainbow can fly again!” Rarity exclaimed, grabbing Gyro’s hooves with her magic and sliding the startled and unwilling mare across the sand to them. “She can honestly, truly fly!”

“Not like I used to,” Rainbow interjected, holding up a hoof. “At least, not yet. My wing is still sore and my muscles are weak from not being used for a month and a half. But I’ve just gotta rehab it and exercise it, and it’ll be good as new!”

Rarity threw her forelegs around Rainbow’s shoulders and pulled the mare in for a quick kiss. When they separated, she nuzzled behind one of Rainbow’s ears. “I’m so happy for you, darling,” she practically purred. “I know how much this means to you.”

“Yeah, yeah, it’s awesome,” Rainbow said, ducking away from Rarity’s nuzzles and reestablishing a more friendly space between them. “Gimme a week and I’ll be able to reach the cloud layer. We can get some real cloud beds to sleep on instead of sand and palm leaves.”

“Oh, that would be just heavenly,” Rarity said. “A real bed after all this time would be something to die for.”

“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves on the whole dying front,” Gyro said. “Let’s just focus on staying happy and alive.”

“But of course,” Rarity said. Still, she couldn’t help but smile at this fortunate turn of events. Now they were all finally back to full strength, or at least close to it in Gyro’s case. Rarity had her magic, Rainbow could fly, and Gyro finally had some meat on her bones. All in all, their merry band of survivors was fit enough to do anything.

And if they were fit enough to do anything, then there was one thing in particular that they needed to accomplish.

“So,” Rarity said, “when do we head for the next island?”

Comments

[Sir Budginton]

Looks like it's time to hit up island number 3

[Matthewl419]

In the next chapter, most likely, Rarity.

[Aurora Dimmet]

A unicorn, pegasus, and earth pony. Yeah, they got this.

[bahatumay]

It is time!

[zaponator]

Almost time for the next adventure arc! This story hits a stride similar in a lot of ways to early Appledashery. I like it.

[bhill46]

I’m surprised they haven’t taken the statue they already got back to the cave yet.

[FridayPie]

“Oh, that would be just heavenly,” Rarity said. “A real bed after all this time would be something to die for.”

Now Raririty did that too