Surviving Sand Island

by The 24th Pegasus

Back to the Old Haunting Grounds

Rainbow Dash’s mind wandered as she flew, like it often did. When there wasn’t a point to flying other than to travel, her mind used the time to reflect, almost like she was meditating. It made the boring parts of flying—not that there were many—pass by much quicker. Especially when she couldn’t do any loops or stunts to keep herself entertained.

But even meditation would fail her, and she’d try to find some way to keep herself occupied while she traveled the distance between the two islands. While she would normally take care of that by flying faster, Champagne and Stargazer were not as good or fast of fliers as her. If she did that, she’d leave them behind, and that wouldn’t be considerate—even if they all knew where they were going.

So she occupied herself by trying to find the weak thermals that rose over the ocean. While they weren’t as strong or energetic as the ones that the land and the islands generated, there were occasional differences in the surface temperature of the water, mostly from how deep or shallow the seafloor was. Only a true expert flyer could find them, and Rainbow prided herself on being exactly that. Champagne and Stargazer certainly didn’t complain; riding a thermal was always a great time to rest your wings, and in a long flight like this, it would certainly make a big difference by the time they finally landed.

“Hey, Rainbow,” Stargazer said, rousing Rainbow’s attention from her own thoughts. “Do you see those?”

“See what?” Rainbow asked, frowning and looking around. Sure, she could see the archipelago growing larger in front of her, but nothing had changed about that. It looked almost exactly the same as the last time she flew to it, save for the now missing chunk of the Concordia sitting on a rocky spire.

“To the north,” Champagne said. “I think I can see something, but I’m not sure what.”

Rainbow turned her head in that direction and squinted, trying to cast a sideways look out over the sea lest the wind blow her mane in her eyes. It took her some searching across the great expanse of blue and green, but she finally spotted what Stargazer had pointed out… she thought. They were too far away for her to be exactly sure what they were, but she had a good feeling what the dark and short lines in the water represented.

“Those are canoes,” she said, her heart momentarily fluttering.

“Canoes?” Stargazer asked. “You mean like the minotaurs around here used to use?”

Rainbow blinked. “You encountered the minotaurs?”

“Briefly,” he said. “Thankfully, as luck would have it, I was trying to avoid some of Squall’s pirates, and the arrival of the minotaurs gave them something else to fight. They shot two dead and chased the rest off, and the minotaurs didn’t come back to the archipelago again. I can’t say I’d blame them; when they only have sticks and slings, gunpowder must seem like evil magic to them.”

Rainbow pursed her lips in thought. “When me and Rarity went to their island, I burned down their granaries and their canoes. It slowed them down so they couldn’t retaliate against us after we raided the sun temple on it. I thought it would have taken them longer to rebuild their canoe fleet and be patrolling the waters around their island.”

“You did that?” Champagne asked, obviously surprised. “You starved them?”

“They ate ponies,” Rainbow flatly stated. “If they want to make a meal out of us, then I think a little starvation’s their just desserts. Besides, I didn’t destroy all their food. They were probably fine, just… really hungry.”

“And quite possibly desperate,” Stargazer said. “Desperation is a powerful motivator, and they probably used that to rebuild their canoe fleet faster than you thought they would.”

“I guess.” Rainbow shuddered and continued to watch the canoes to the north. They mostly hung around that mountain rising out of the sea, the home island of the minotaurs, but she wondered for how long that would be. They were probably hungry for revenge, and if they decided to sail east in force, she doubted they’d be able to hold them off.

Then again, they had not one, but two sirens. Spears and slings couldn’t hurt them and their armored bodies. If it came down to it, Melody and Rarity could protect their island endlessly. It would only take a frightening show of force from the two sirens to send the minotaurs running, she figured. They wouldn’t even have to defend themselves!

Still, it wasn’t exactly something she could think about or worry over now. If the minotaurs weren’t sailing to her home island, then they weren’t a threat for the time being. Sure, they could start siling there at any time, but the canoes were spread haphazardly around the island instead of assembling in a battle formation or something of the like. That probably meant they were fishing, and if they were fishing, then they weren’t getting ready for war. Not today, at least.

“We’ll have to tell everypony else about this when we get back,” Rainbow said. “It can wait for now.”

“Are you sure?” Stargazer asked. “I don’t want them to get jumped by minotaurs while they’re in that shrine beneath our island.”

While Rainbow had to agree with that sentiment, she also had to make a judgment call for the good of the mission. And that call said that there likely wasn’t any danger to her friends left behind. She briefly considered sending either Champagne or Stargazer back to warn them, but decided against it. They were only three pegasi, and if she sent one back, she couldn’t realistically expect them to return and join her on the archipelago. In the end, having a team of three on the archipelago instead of two would be better for everypony involved. She couldn’t afford to waste resources because of fear and worry.

“I’m sure,” she said, beating her wings a few times and beginning to climb to the next thermal. “We can’t worry about everything out here. We just need to worry about our job and let everypony else handle theirs. They’ll be fine; those canoes aren’t going anywhere.” Shaking her head, she set her sights on the archipelago, swiftly drawing nearer with every beat of her wings. “In the meanwhile, we have our own work cut out for us. Once we check out how the tomb’s doing, I imagine we’re gonna be busy until sundown.”

Comments

[cosmofur]

There's a danger on Zombie Island that I don't think any of the characters has mentioned and might sneak up on . Some of the original Pirates had zombified before the tumb open this means there is a method in which zombification can occur without the Moon the full Moon Rising

[Eroraf86]

I give it a week at most before the minotaurs attack. Maybe they'll eat Roger and save us the trouble.

[PonyDragon]

8925838