Surviving Sand Island

by The 24th Pegasus

Planning is Indispensable

The following few hours were spent in a confused flurry of activity. It was like organized chaos, in a sense, or at least that’s how Rainbow would put it. Her, Rarity, and Gyro all started trying to gather supplies and prepare things for the trip to the next island, but they were too excited now that they were ready to travel that there wasn’t any order or reason in how they started putting things together. The point at which Rarity had collected a basketful of coconuts was the moment they realized they probably needed to plan out exactly what their plan of attack would be.

So they used lunch to sit down and start to plan things out. Even though Rainbow hated thinking before acting instead of just doing something, she forced herself to slow down and sit with Rarity and Gyro. This wasn’t a game or a competition like she was used to back in Equestria; this was a matter of survival, of life and death. A mistake or poorly thought-out move could get them all killed.

Thankfully, she didn’t have to lead the discussion. Rarity, ever neat and organized, had taken that mantle upon herself. “I suppose our first order of business should be making sure we have enough food and water for the trip. We don’t know what we’ll find on the other two islands in terms of either.”

“We’ve certainly got that mostly covered,” Rainbow said, eyeing the scattered collections of fruit in baskets in the sand. “I think you got us enough coconuts to last a week, Rares.”

“Yes, well, I was simply trying to make sure that we had what we needed to survive,” Rarity said. “Though I suppose we don’t have room to carry that many coconuts with us over the sea.”

“Water’s more important,” Gyro said. “Like you said, we don’t know if there’s a source of water on the other islands. And coconut water will only get us so far.”

“Yeah,” Rainbow said. “We’ve got two jugs though, so we can fill each of those up and tie cloth around the ends so it doesn’t evaporate. Too bad there aren’t any corks.”

“Unfortunately, cork trees don’t grow in this climate,” Rarity said. “Otherwise, we could make some easily.”

Rainbow blinked. “Corks come from trees?”

“Yes they… you didn’t know that?” Rarity raised an eyebrow. “Where did you think they came from?”

“I don’t know!” Rainbow crossed her forelegs. “The cork store or something.”

The sound of Rarity’s hoof striking her horn was surprisingly audible. Sighing, she shook her head and dragged her hoof down her face. “Rainbow, darling, sometimes I just can’t…”

Gyro snickered but cleared her throat after a moment. “Rainbow being dumb aside, maybe we should get back to this,” she said. “We gotta figure this stuff out.”

“Right.” Rarity looked over what they’d collected so far. “So, both our jugs of water, but we’ll leave the pot here just in case. We don’t want to take everything with us. I can easily weave more baskets from palm fronds, so we don’t have to worry about those. Maybe one each of star apples and sugar apples?”

“Sounds fine to me,” Rainbow said. “If we’re gonna take coconuts, we should at least remove the husks before we do. I don’t want to have to wrestle with that later. Plus, coconuts are hard under the husk. They’d make great emergency throwing weapons.”

“The point at which we’re bucking coconuts at things trying to hurt us is the point where I give up,” Gyro said. “I’d be better just using my own hooves. I was never good at horseshoes.”

“Really?” Rainbow furrowed her brow. “But it’s an earth pony sport.”

Gyro opened her mouth to say something, closed it, then frowned at Rainbow. “That’s like saying all pegasi are good at stunt flying because they have wings. Or unicorns are good at… whatever bourgeoise sport you play.”

“Tennis,” Rainbow grumbled, shooting Rarity a dirty look.

Rarity, meanwhile, let out an exasperated sigh and subconsciously reached for glasses that weren’t there. “Ladies, we’re getting distracted,” she sung in a voice that clearly meant she was beginning to grow frustrated with the two of them.

“Sorry,” Rainbow grumbled. Gyro simply shrugged and dipped her head in submission.

“Quite,” Rarity said in a stern voice. Then, clearing her throat, she returned to the task at hand. “Anyways, that’s the food and water situation mostly taken care of. What about tools? What should we bring with us?”

Rainbow looked over their figurative toolbox she’d dragged out of the hut earlier. “We’ve got a steel knife and a steel cleaver, a stone axe, and a bunch of crappy seashell knives. And our spears and some wooden swords that probably work better as clubs.”

“I suppose like last time we won’t want to take our actual valuable steel,” Rarity said. We can’t afford to lose that.”

“I would take it and just be careful,” Gyro said. “At least it’s reliable and definitely better quality than your improvised stuff. I’d rather trust my life to that than rocks tied to sticks.”

“The good thing is that we have two steel things,” Rainbow said. “We don’t have to take both, so I’d just take the knife with us. You can do a lot of stuff with a knife.”

Gyro nodded in agreement. “I’m with Rainbow. Let’s just take the good knife and then a bunch of the other makeshift stuff. And the spears, in case we find more minotaurs.”

“I just hope that we won’t have to use them,” Rarity said. “We’re much better moving quickly and quietly instead of trying to fight for our lives.”

“Agreed,” Rainbow said. “As much as I like to kick butt, it’s better if we don’t have to kick that many butts. Eventually, one of them will kick back.”

Rarity rolled her eyes and shook her head. “Yes, right, of course, darling,” She whipped her neck from side to side, cracking stiff vertebrae, and stood up. “I’m not sure if I can think of anything else at the moment. The raft is still in good condition and we don’t have much to take over in terms of supplies. We’re set to sail once we have everything together.”

“Yeah, but like, to where?” Rainbow asked. “We haven’t decided on an island yet. We’ve got the south one and the other west one. We should probably figure that out.”

The seamstress slapped herself on the head. “Of course! I can’t believe I forgot the most important part.” Lowering her hoof back to the sand, she looked in the general direction of the two islands, even though they weren’t visible through the trees. “Does it matter? I think they’re about the same distance away, aren’t they?”

“The south island’s a little closer,” Rainbow said. “But the water’s deeper out there, choppier. It’d probably be as much of a pain to get there as it would to go to the southwest one.”

“Then from what it sounds like, it doesn’t matter,” Gyro said. “Do we want to deal with the rough water or the longer trip first?”

“If anything, I think we should go to the southwest island first,” Rarity said. “It’s closer to the western one where we destroyed the minotaurs’ canoes. If we go there later, they might have new canoes in the waters surrounding their home island. I think it would be safer to do it that way and save the south island for later.”

Rainbow shrugged. “Sounds good to me. I don’t care either way. I was planning on flying most of it either way, now that we’ve got a better method of sailing around figured out.”

“That’s an idea,” Gyro said. “If you can fly, you can scout things out before we get there. Do a little reconnaissance!”

“Hey, yeah, you’re right, G!” Rainbow beamed and sat up straighter. “I can put my wings to good use! Find us a good landing site when we get close!”

Rarity’s purple mane bounced as she nodded along. “That definitely would be advantageous for us,” she said. “Help steer us clear of trouble as well. Do you think you can stay aloft that long? Your wing just healed.”

“I heal fast,” Rainbow said. “Trust me, I know my limits. Besides, most of it will just be riding thermals. There’s a ton of them with weather like this. I hardly have to do any work!”

“That’s good,” Rarity said. Looking at her friends, she smiled. “Then I believe we’ve determined our plan of action. All that remains now is loading up the raft and setting sail in the morning. The less time we waste, the better.”

“Yeah, we’ve already spent a bunch of time doing nothing,” Rainbow said. Her wings fluttered at her sides. “I’ve been itching to go for like, forever!”

Comments

[eL VeeJay]

Nice new chapter.

I wonder why they don't send in Rainbow at night for some recon. She could check out the islands from a relatively high altitude and maybe spot things like campfires.

[RoboRed]

8596230
Considering the time it took them to sail to the other one and the fact that Rainbow hasn't regained her full flight ability back yet, I'd think it would a bad idea to send her on a distance flight.

[Aurora Dimmet]

8596230

Many birds have poor night vision. Rainbow's just a big blue birb.

[ayh]

They have a map of all the islands in the cave under the south hill. Why aren't they using it?

[AstraPony]

8596566
Nooo... a big blue PONY birb!

[zaponator]

So... corks don't just come from the cork store?

[FridayPie]

8640278
she is not thestral though

[Maskweaver]

8644844
Corks are just a type of bark. And fun facts, (yay) cinnamon is also tree bark. Rubber is also tapped and collected from rubber trees like you would with maple syrup

[Circut Breaker]

8947105
Oh rubber tree, oh rubber tree...
We need to harvest carefully