Surviving Sand Island

by The 24th Pegasus

One Ship, Two Days, Three Bottles

Once more, Rainbow Dash unlocked the door to her suite and led Rarity inside. With dinner finished, the two had said goodbye to Pearl and Ferry and gone their separate ways. After a brief stop at Rarity’s room for the fashionista to grab her designing supplies, they finally found themselves back inside Rainbow’s luxury suite, and Rainbow immediately flew to the back door and opened it, letting the warm night air inside.

“It’s such a great night to go flying,” Rainbow sighed. She rested her fetlocks on the railing at the back of the ship and rocked her hooves back and forth, wings loose as she stared into the night sky with envy. “Stupid airship rules.”

“They’re for the best, Rainbow,” Rarity said, trotting up behind her. Her ears twitched as the thrumming of the engines suddenly became much louder once she stepped onto the balcony. “You said it yourself, getting whacked by the props of this ship would kill you.”

“Yeah, but I’m me,” Rainbow protested with a grumble. “I’m a Wonderbolt, I know what I’m doing.”

Rarity shook her head and sat down in a chair on the balcony, wine glass and bottle in her magic. She popped the cork with a thought and poured some of the blood red drink into her glass. “Yes, well, please do me a favor, darling, and don’t lose the rights to your room. Come morning, I plan to make some very splendid dress designs on this balcony.” She took a sip of her wine, and the white hair around her lips became stained with red. “Of course, assuming I don’t repeat last night. This is the third bottle of wine I’ve opened in two days!”

Rainbow raised an eyebrow. “Jeez, Rares, even some of the Bolts don’t drink as much as you do.”

“Oh, well, normally I don’t drink this much; I can’t afford to be hungover or seen drinking too much, otherwise the tabloids would destroy me.” She swirled the wine in her glass and watched the fingers form on the sides. “But out here, there’s no cameras or reporters or anything. Just you and me and the ocean! It’s so liberating!”

“Heh, yeah, I guess I know that feeling, too.” She stepped inside and pulled a wine glass off of the shelf before sitting down next to Rarity. After pouring some wine into the glass, she took a sip from it and set it down. “We’ve always got photographers camping outside of the academy during show season. Sometimes I buzz them when they aren’t paying attention to make them scram.”

Rarity giggled, and her eyes wandered out over the sea behind the Concordia. The sun had set, but a dim orange glow still clung to the west like a candle forgotten. Equestria was gone, and in its place, the ocean stretched into infinity, scattering what feeble light remained in the sky as night set on. It was a beautiful, breathtaking sight, and Rarity suddenly felt so alone in the empty void of the sky and the sea.

“We’ll only have tomorrow night to see this again,” Rarity murmured, suddenly feeling hollow and sad. “A four-day flight doesn’t feel very long at all. We’ll be in the Confederacy in fewer than forty-eight hours.”

Rainbow shrugged. “I mean, there’s the return trip, too,” she said, her eyes fixed on the endless sea as well. “We can watch the sunrises then.”

“When is your flight back?” Rarity asked.

“Uhh… like, a week after we land? I’m not spending all that much time in the Confederacy before coming back.”

Rarity let slip a disappointed sigh. “My business in the Confederacy is going to take me much longer. I’ll be there for two whole weeks before I return. I’ve got so much to do, so much to discuss with my potential partners and clients…”

Her voice trailed off. “Celestia, when did I become so busy?” she asked nopony in particular. “It feels like I’m hardly ever in Ponyville anymore. I spend so much time in Manehattan and Canterlot and Fillydelphia and Celestia knows where else…” Sighing, she took two big sips from her glass. “I… well, I feel so guilty for saying it, much less even thinking about it, but I nearly sold the boutique in Ponyville last month.”

Rainbow blinked, and when she turned to Rarity, her face was painted in the colors of disbelief. “Wait, really? I never heard about that!”

“Because I didn’t mention it to anypony,” Rarity said, looking down like a guilty filly caught stealing from the cookie jar. “I just couldn’t bring myself to admit that I was even considering that possibility. I know I said that I always intended to run my boutiques from Ponyville, but it’s hard. It’s so Celestia-damned hard to keep up with everything from a small and sleepy town like ours. I’m at the point where I need to hire other ponies to do the paperwork and branch managing for me, but I can’t. Not while I’m still in Ponyville. I spend as much time running numbers as I do actually designing dresses, and that leaves precious little time for anything else—sleep included.”

She glanced at Rainbow Dash, who just watched her with a neutral, if somewhat confused, expression. “I’m starting to realize that I just can’t follow my dreams anymore from Ponyville. I need a true headquarters, an office for employees, a studio for designers, even a board for shareholders! But I can’t bear the thought of leaving you all behind! We promised we’d always stay close, but what can we do when life starts pulling us in different directions?”

Rainbow Dash fidgeted in her seat; she hated having to be the consoling voice, and she could tell that Rarity was starting to break down. “I mean… it’s not like we won’t be friends anymore, right?” she asked. “It’s just that we’ll have to try harder to meet up.” She swallowed, then added, “And I think our friendships, you, me, and the girls, I think they’re all worth that extra effort, you know?”

Rarity smiled faintly. “Yes, yes, you’re right, Rainbow,” she said. “I just… I don’t like to think about moving away from them. Fluttershy, Applejack, Pinkie Pie… they’re all going to live in Ponyville the rest of their lives. Twilight can go wherever she pleases; she’s a princess, after all, so she carries that sort of authority with her. But you and me?” She shook her head. “Our lives are calling us elsewhere. It’s my dream to one day have the largest fashion empire in Equestria, and I won’t be able to do that all from Ponyville. And it’s your dream to be with the Wonderbolts, even captain them one day. I don’t think you can stay in Ponyville that much once that happens, right?”

“Well, technically I could move the team’s headquarters to Ponyville,” Rainbow said with a chuckle and mock enthusiasm. But she too slouched and shook her head. “But realistically though… yeah. I’d have to spend a ton of time in Cloudsdale and at the academy. I’d just be too busy to keep living in Ponyville like I am now.”

Rarity twirled her glass in her magic. “We’re the only two of our friends who really have to worry about growing apart from them, aren’t we?” she asked in a quiet voice.

Rainbow nodded. “Yeah… I guess you’re right.” She sighed and rubbed her forehead with her wingtip. “I just try not to think about it. I can’t imagine a world where we aren’t super tight and all that. It’s just… too painful to think about.”

“Mmm.” Rarity mustered up a smile to share with Rainbow. “We’ll just have to do our best to not let go. Like you said, our friendships are worth that extra effort.”

“Yeah.”

Rarity emptied her wine glass and set the empty chalice on the table. “I’m glad that you’re here with me, then.”

Rainbow raised her eyebrow. “Eh?”

“On this flight,” Rarity said. “It makes me feel like I’m still doing things with my friends, not traveling the world because business demands it. And, well… truth be told, darling, I feel like you and I can relate very well.”

“Uh, relate? I mean, c’mon, Rares, you know how I feel about dresses and fashion and all that other not-awesome stuff,” Rainbow protested.

“It’s not about that,” Rarity insisted. “It’s about where our lives are taking us. You with the Wonderbolts, me with my business. We’re inching further and further into the spotlight every day, and we’re leaving Ponyville further and further behind us by the same margin. Our friends back in Ponyville wouldn’t be able to understand the sort of lives we’re looking at. And even if we aren’t facing them together per se, I feel like we can still appreciate the common struggles that we’re both going through and having to adapt to, right?”

Rainbow thought for a moment. “Yeah, I guess you’re right. Funny, I never thought about it that way before.”

Rarity giggled. “You’ve always been more focused on the superficial, darling. Introspection was never your strong suit.”

“I, uh, I guess I’ll take that as a compliment, then?”

Chuckling again, Rarity shook her head. “Sure, sure, darling.” She poured herself some more wine and held the glass into the air. “We should do one of these cruises with our friends, sometime.”

“Heh. That’d be sweet.”

“Indeed.” She held her glass up to Rainbow, and Rainbow toasted hers against Rarity’s. They each took a sip, and then quietly watched the daylight fade behind them as night fell on the ocean.

“I’m going to miss the view,” Rarity murmured.

“Eh, buy your own airship and you won’t have to. Better yet, have Twilight turn you into a pegasus. Life’s better a mile high.”

Rarity rolled her eyes. “If only I could be so carefree.”

Rainbow shrugged. “Isn’t that what this right here’s for?”

“Mmmmm. You make a good point.”

“I always do.”

“Right…”

Comments

[PonySage86]

Aaaaaahhhhh!!!! I love these two!

[AstraPony]

8429745
Yeah, like, when are then gonna kiss already??

[Zac9087]

this is an amazing story so far! every interaction between rainbow and rarity, the views you describe, even their actions, they all sound so realistic and plausible. everything these two do and say sound like something they'd actually say or do! it's amazing