Surviving Sand Island

by The 24th Pegasus

Quiet Landing

There was still no sign of Rainbow by the time Rarity reached the breaking point of the waves. By now, she could hear the first noises of wildlife over the crashing water, but there wasn’t a cracking voice to be heard over the calls of birds. To Rarity, it felt like her and Gyro were all alone on the island… and that had her worried and nervous.

Gyro hopped off of the raft once it got close enough to the shore that she could stand and grabbed onto one of the corner ropes to help Rarity guide it onto the beach. Rarity stepped off as well and let magic build on her horn. The familiar feeling of carrying hundreds of pounds of wood in her magic settled on Rarity’s horn and neck like so much leaden weight, and she grunted and puffed her cheeks out as she lifted the raft out of the water and levitated it up the beach. At Gyro’s all-clear, she released her magic, panting lightly for a few seconds after the heavy wooden raft slammed onto the sand.

“That definitely won’t catch anypony’s attention,” Gyro said, her eyes flitting to the sky as a dozen or so birds of paradise took wing with alarmed squawks. “You couldn’t have put it down any quieter?”

Rarity glared at the engineer and rubbed her sore horn. “You might be smart, Gyro, but you will never be able to lift something with your mind. Don’t lecture me on it.” She winced as a spark of pang shot into her skull. “Especially not when all this magical exertion is giving me migraines.”

Gyro’s ears fell a bit. “Sorry, Rarity, I was just joking around.” She lifted her head and scanned up and down the beach. “You need a minute? I don’t see anypony or anything right now, so we should be good.”

“Just a few moments to catch my breath,” Rarity said. “If you’d be a dear and start unloading the raft in the meanwhile, I would greatly appreciate it.”

“Sure.” Gyro hopped onto the raft and started gathering their supplies, undoing the knots holding them to the center with her teeth. “Where do you want them?”

Rarity waved her hoof in a vague direction for a few seconds while she squeezed her eyes shut and dealt with her pounding headache. “Somewhere under the trees will be fine. I’ll move the raft later when my horn isn’t burnt out, but for now we should at least unpack and make a camp.”

“On it.” Using her supernatural balance that all earth ponies seemed to be gifted with, Gyro arranged the raft’s supplies on her back and grabbed the spears in her mouth, then waddled over to the trees. Rarity cracked an eye open and watched her go, suppressing an amused snicker when she saw how ridiculous the engineer looked with everything on her back.

Flaring her nostrils, Rarity managed to push away the worst of her headache for the time being. She still wasn’t planning on moving the raft right then, so she just left it at the edge of the swash zone. Trotting over to Gyro, she watched as the gray mare carefully laid out their supplies and reached for one of the jugs of water. When she saw Rarity watching, Gyro pointed to the jug. “You want a drink? You probably need it.”

Rarity licked parched lips and nodded, walking over to the jug and using her hooves to lift it instead of her magic. Once she quenched her thirst, she let Gyro have a turn and wiped her lips on the back of her fetlock. Her eyes fell on the basket of fruit, and she helped herself to a couple star apples to replenish her energy. She felt absolutely drained after powering the raft across all that water, and she needed a few minutes of downtime before she started moving again—and she knew it wouldn’t be too long before they did that.

Gyro must’ve had the same idea, because she started helping herself to the food as well. “So, where do you think our little bluebird flew off to?”

“I don’t know,” Rarity said. “She could’ve gone anywhere after visiting the shipwreck. There’s apparently more islands behind this one, and I have no idea what the rest of the topography looks like on the other side of this mountain. If she disappeared into the jungle, it’d be almost impossible to find her.”

“So what should we do?” Gyro licked some dribbling juices off her chin and tossed an empty rind aside. “Wait for her or go looking?”

Rarity frowned in thought. What would be the best thing to do when it came to Rainbow? If Rainbow was just off exploring, then eventually she would come back this way and see their raft in the sand. That would lead her right to them if they stayed put. But if something bad had happened to the pegasus, then they needed to find her. Waiting by the shore for her when she’d never show up wouldn’t solve any problems.

“We need to go looking for her,” Rarity said. “At least around the shipwreck. Maybe we’ll find out where she went from there.”

“And what if she doubles back this way and finds our raft but no sign of us?” Gyro asked. “Then we could all get lost on this island chain.”

“We’ll leave her a message,” Rarity said. “We’ll only go and investigate the shipwreck today. If we don’t find her there, we’ll go back to the raft and wait. She has to turn up eventually, right?”

Gyro shrugged. “I hope so. I don’t want to do this without our eyes in the sky. We’ll be at a serious disadvantage without her.”

“I just hope the dear’s okay,” Rarity said. But, with all their supplies safely nestled under a tree, Rarity grabbed one of the spears and trotted out onto the sand. Wielding it in her magic, she drew a large arrow in the sand pointing to the north, in the direction of the shipwreck. Gyro trotted out to join her, and Rarity etched a little ‘R + G’ in the sand beneath it. “There. That should do.”

Gyro raised an eyebrow at it. “What, are we dating now?” she asked, pointing to the subscript Rarity had added to the arrow.

Rarity rolled her eyes. “It’s just to let Rainbow know that we’re going that way,” she said, pointing the spear in the direction of the shipwreck. “And that we’re the ones who drew the arrow.”

“Who else could’ve drawn it?” The gray mare looked left and right. “I mean, there’s nopony else around here.”

“Hush,” Rarity said, resting the spear against her shoulder. “Sometimes you have to be… overt with Rainbow. She prides herself on speed, but she’s only fast when she’s using her wings.”

Gyro snickered. “Too many concussions?”

“Honestly, I wouldn’t be surprised if she has irreparable brain damage,” Rarity said with a teasing chuckle. Then, sighing, she picked up the spear and set her sights on the shipwreck to the north. “Might as well start looking for her. The longer we wait, the more likely she is to get into trouble.”

Comments

[Aurora Dimmet]

“Honestly, I wouldn’t be surprised if she has irreparable brain damage,”

Well, maybe NOW, sure.

[Matthewl419]

8612063
Yeah, pretty much my thoughts.

[CV12Hornet]

And this after getting around to reading Curiosity Killed the Pegasus' evil, evil cliffhanger... good thing this is a daily fic, or I'd be tempted to grab my pitchfork.

[Simbul]

So Rainbow is hurt again?

You aren't leading us to them finding Rainbow on top of some unconscious pirates, having already won?

[zaponator]

+1 concussions.