• Published 14th Aug 2017
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Surviving Sand Island - The 24th Pegasus



An airship wreck leaves Rainbow Dash and Rarity stranded on a deserted island. Together, they must find a way to survive until help comes—if it comes.

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Driftwood

Rarity didn’t remember falling asleep; all she could recall was the rumbling of the thunder around them and the shrill whistle of the wind through the palm fronds. The roof of their impromptu shelter was a little leaky, and occasionally the rain would get inside, but she didn’t mind too much; Rainbow’s wing was warm, soft, and surprisingly comforting.

She woke up the next morning curled into a ball. Her left side was covered in sand, and she couldn’t even brush it off with a wave of her magic. Though her horn only ached instead of shooting fiery pain into her skull, it was nowhere near usable condition. She grimaced at the grit dug into her coat and stood up, trying to shake it off.

She looked around herself. A few palm fronds lied on the ground, blown off by last night’s storm, but the shelter she’d woken up in was remarkably intact. The sand at her hooves was a mosaic of tiny craters from the rain, only marred by a set of hoofprints leading away from the shelter and toward the beach. With a crack of her neck, Rarity staggered off after Rainbow’s prints, wondering just what the early bird mare was up to.

…Right after she quickly stopped by the lake to catch a drink and nibble on some grass. She was parched and famished, and she just hoped that what she was eating and drinking was clean and disease-free.

The prints went through the shore-side treeline and banked sharply to the left, to the north. Rarity half expected Rainbow to simply be sitting at the edge of the surf like yesterday morning; maybe she still was, just near where she’d done it the first time. Curious, she followed her friend’s hoofprints across the beach, her ears twitching as the birds sang their morning songs. At least the flies weren’t biting… yet.

When she made it to the north side of the island, she found Rainbow Dash wading through the surf up to her chest. Her ruby eyes were fixated down towards the ocean, and she slowly moved from east to west along the beach. Rarity wasn’t sure what she was doing until she bent down and bit onto the corner of a plank of wood floating in the surf, then started dragging it back to a small pile she’d assembled out of reach of the waves. Rarity began to trot over as Rainbow emerged from the surf, her belly dripping with water, and she waited until Rainbow dropped the plank of wood in the pile to speak. “Collecting wood?”

“And anything else useful I can find,” Rainbow said. “We need some sturdy materials if we’re gonna make a lasting shelter. That palm canopy thingy we made last night isn’t gonna last very long when it dries out.”

Rarity nodded and looked over Rainbow’s collection so far. “Good thinking. Well, you already have a lot of planks gathered here. How much more do you need?”

Rainbow shrugged. “It’s not really how much we need but more of how much we can get. In a day or two, the ocean’s gonna gobble up anything that’s left of the Concordia, so we better grab everything we can now. Wood, metal, glass, tools… heck, a bag of potatoes would be amazing.”

“Well, I should wash all this sand off of my coat,” Rarity said, looking at her left. “I suppose a walk through the water isn’t going to be too bad.”

“Rares, I hate to break it to you, but it’s salt water, and we’re on an island. Unless you spend all your time swimming in our drinking water, you’re always gonna be sandy.”

Rarity grimaced. “Oh… I was afraid of that…”

Rainbow chuckled and patted her friend’s shoulder. “Welcome to your island getaway, Rarity. Spa not included.” Then she went bounding back into the water. “Come on! While the tide is still in! Low tide is just gonna sweep everything back out to sea!”

Sighing, Rarity set off after Rainbow. Her belly ached in protest and her throat was starting to feel dry, but Rainbow was right; they needed to grab everything they could while they still could. Laziness and a fear of getting dirty wasn’t going to help either of them survive until a rescue ship came by. At least there weren’t any hated paparazzi here, so they wouldn’t be able to catch her looking like a wreck.

The water was surprisingly cold for being in the tropics; maybe the storm that came through last night had kicked up some cold deep ocean water. Regardless, she yipped and shivered as the water rushed in around her legs and rose to more sensitive areas. She didn’t know how Rainbow Dash was floundering through the water, nearly up to her shoulders, without being bothered by the temperature. But then again, maybe it was just another pegasus thing.

She started coming across bits of wood after a minute of searching, and she began collecting them with her teeth. The taste of salt made her thirstier, and she really started hoping that her or Rainbow would find a pot to boil water in. Having a reserve of purified water would be wonderful on this island, and if they couldn’t find a pot, then maybe they’d have to make a rain still. Hopefully Rainbow knew how to make one of those; it was frightening just how much her friend knew about wilderness survival just from time spent in the Wonderbolts. Without Rainbow, she would’ve been completely lost and hopeless. It wouldn’t have been long before she succumbed to something or other without Rainbow. Without anypony to talk to, madness seemed like the thing that would’ve taken her out first.

The two friends worked in the water for hours, despite how thirsty or how hungry they got. But eventually, as the sun reached midday and the tide started retreating, the two sat down in the shade next to their piles of scavenged material. It was mostly wood and cloth, but wood and cloth would do wonders for building their shelter. Rarity had even found a large cleaver, held aloft in the surf by its big wooden handle. It wasn’t an axe, but it’d suit their needs for cutting wood and cloth just fine. At least until they could make more disposable and specialized stone tools. They just needed to find good stone first.

They wandered back to the interior of the island, took several deep gulps of water, and devoured a large portion of grass. The whole time, Rarity eyed the palm trees around them, looking for coconuts or bananas or other fruit to knock loose and feed the two of them in the future. The island was too sandy to grow a lot of grass, and her and Rainbow were doing a number on what little there was just from one meal. She really hoped that they wouldn’t have to resort to eating palm fronds to survive; the fronds were too dry and crunchy, and weren’t very nutritious in the first place.

Once they finished lunch, they started back toward the north, walking along the surf to see if anything had landed on the eastern side of the island. Occasionally, Rainbow would find a scrap of wood and drag it back onto the beach to be picked up later, and Rarity would use those pauses to scan the skies. They were still cloudy and gray, but she could see the first hint of blue to the south. Hopefully it wouldn’t be too long before the sun came back and the airships would start flying again.

Which led her down a different train of thought. “The Concordia would’ve arrived in the Confederacy by now,” she thought aloud.

Rainbow nodded. “Yeah, but it’s at the bottom of the ocean. So much for that.”

“No, but don’t you see?” Rarity asked. “Surely they knew that a storm was crossing the ocean around the time of our flight, and if our ship didn’t make it to port, then they should’ve assumed that something is wrong.” Her heart fluttered for a moment. “They should be trying to figure out what happened, and once they don’t hear anything from the Concordia’s radios, they’ll know that the ship is definitely missing. It’s only a matter of time from that point onwards until rescue ships start scouring the seas, especially once Twilight and the princesses hear about our absence.”

“Heh, maybe the egghead herself will get on a ship looking for us. That’d be pretty awesome, right?”

“Yes, I do imagine that our dear friends would be looking for us,” Rarity said. “I just hope that they do find us if such is the case.”

“Twilight’ll never let us down,” Rainbow insisted. “I’m sure of it. She’ll find us, one way or another.”

“Yes,” Rarity hummed, “One way or another. How long do you think it’ll take?”

“With Twilight?” Rainbow Dash chuckled and grinned. “Maybe two weeks. Gotta let the storms clear first. But she’ll be here in a jiffy, I can guarantee you that!”

Though Rarity didn’t know how much faith to put into Rainbow’s promise, it was at least a flicker of hope to keep going in the meanwhile. And keep going, she would.

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