Surviving Sand Island

by The 24th Pegasus

A View to Behold

Rarity woke up the following morning with a slight throbbing in her skull and a bone-dry mouth. She didn’t realize what time it was at first until she rubbed her eyes and saw the sun slicing through a few tiny holes in the walls. She was used to waking up in the open these past few days, not inside a shelter.

She sat up and looked around. Rainbow Dash was out cold, snoring loudly on her bed of fronds and moss. Her mane was messy and her feathers were all disheveled. The bottle of champagne lay in the little space between their beds, the neck and half of the body buried in the sand. Though they hadn’t had that much to drink, Rarity knew that she and Rainbow had drank it quickly enough to get intoxicated. Champagne was always more potent than normal wine, for some reason. Rarity had learned that the hard way from too many social events.

It took a great amount of effort to stand up, but she managed it. She got her hooves under her control after a few seconds, and with that, she staggered out of the hut. Kicking up sand as she shuffled across the ground, Rarity first made her way to the pot to drink some water, then to the trees to relieve herself. She didn’t know what today held, but hopefully it wasn’t going to be a lot of heavy lifting. She’d done enough of that over the past two days with Rainbow, and there wasn’t a whole lot left on the beach when they were out yesterday. Plus they still had everything they’d dragged up out of the surf and yet to take back to their shelter. That could wait… hopefully.

Rainbow still wasn’t awake by the time Rarity got back to their camp, so she veered to the side and went to the pond again. Her stomach was still a little roiling and upset from all the alcohol she’d consumed the night prior, so she hoped a little grass would settle it. And she was right; though the fresh morning dew she so enjoyed was long gone, the grass was still fantastic. She never thought that plain grass would be such a delicacy a week ago… but it was funny how quickly things could change.

As she ate, she noticed that she had a visitor in the form of a brightly-colored bird. It looked like a macaw, with beautiful red plumage that seemingly blurred through all the colors of the rainbow before settling on blue and black for its wingtips and tail. It watched her from its perch on a low-hanging palm frond, and when Rarity waved at it, it squawked and warbled before it began excitedly bouncing up and down.

“You seem friendly, don’t you, you little thing?” Rarity asked, stepping away from the pond and slowly walking over to the tree it was perched on. She stopped when she was nearly right under it, and the bird turned its head parallel to the ground to look at her. The macaw looked so silly just sitting there that Rarity couldn’t help but giggle. “My name’s Rarity. Do you have a name?”

The macaw jumped up and down again and started chirping and clicking its beak. It strangely didn’t seem afraid of Rarity despite probably never having seen ponies before. Maybe all those spa days with Fluttershy were finally paying off.

“Hmmm… well, you certainly are a simply stunning display of color.” Rarity tapped her hoof to her chin as she thought. “Ammolite is known for being highly iridescent, primarily favoring red and green, though it can display the full rainbow; I actually considered this when making Rainbow’s gala dress, though I thought it’d be too gaudy.” Grinning, she proudly beamed at the bird. “Very well, I shall call you, ‘Ammolite’. How does that sound?”

The macaw made little muttering noises and turned around on its perch. Only a swift step backwards saved Rarity from getting bird poop in her fraying, sandy mane.

Rarity grimaced at the mess in front of her; the macaw was a big bird, after all. “Didn’t like that one, I take it?” she asked. “Too formal? Maybe Rainbow Dash would be better at naming you, you two seem like you’d get along well. Kindred spirits, if I may.”

The macaw turned around again and continued bouncing on the palm frond, making it sway under its weight. Despite all that, though, it didn’t seem inclined to fly down to her.

Well, it was to be expected, Rarity supposed. It was still a wild bird, after all, even if it did seem friendly. But maybe she could coax it down with something; maybe some fruit or nuts. Wouldn’t Rainbow be impressed if she returned to the camp with a macaw perched on her foreleg!

But that led Rarity down a different train of thought. Macaws couldn’t eat grass, and coconuts were a lot of work to get open, so they wouldn’t be able to get to them until after they’d already fallen. Sure, there were plenty of ripe coconuts in the trees, and Rarity had seen a few lying around so far (they just didn’t have the tools or desperation to open them yet), so what did they eat in the meanwhile? And if the macaws were eating it, then surely her and Rainbow could as well, right?

“Where do you go to eat, little bird?” Rarity asked it, and once more, the macaw just angled its head as she spoke. “Could you help a lady out? I’d like to eat something other than just grass. It’s all I’ve had for the past few days! Grass for breakfast, grass for lunch, grass for dinner. Sure, it’s nutritious, but it gets old after a while.” She sat down and clasped her hooves together. “Could you show me? Please?”

The bird squawked once, then disappeared into the trees with a flurry of rainbow feathers.

Rarity frowned at the abandoned, swaying palm frond. “The lesson I’m learning from this ordeal is that I wish our friends were here with us,” she muttered to herself. “And to think I imagined for a second it could actually understand me! Fah, whatever, bird! Go fly off to your secret granary and feast to your heart’s content while I simply sit here and die of an unstimulated palette! I imagined the sea or the sun would be the end of me, but not repetitive dining!”

Nothing moved around her, though she could hear the chirping and squawking of more birds through the canopy. Huffing, Rarity stood up and struck off in a random direction. “If you want to have a good meal on a deserted island, you have to find it yourself!” she muttered, pushing aside the undergrowth with an outstretched hoof.

The trees and shrubbery were so thick in the center of the island that to Rarity, it felt like it went on forever. But if she stopped and listened, she could make out the sound of the surf perpetually crashing against the beach. It was interesting how her ears had simply tuned it out since she’d arrived, and now it took a conscious effort to hear it again. But at least it meant she always knew where the nearest shore was, and if she could find the shore, she could find her shelter.

The island rose up the further south she went, something that she and Rainbow hadn’t noticed earlier, since they rarely strayed far from the north and east shores. Dirt and rock began to replace sand and shells, and thicker, heavier trees started to rise out of the island. And on top of that, the calls of the birds seemed different and more diverse than they were closer to the beach. Rarity quickened her pace, hopeful that she’d find something up ahead.

And find something she did. The trees rapidly thinned out as the ground became rockier, and soon Rarity could feel the wind blowing across her face and through her mane as she ascended. But after a few minutes of climbing, she found herself on top of a wide, flat rock overlooking the island. It wasn’t tall enough to see the northern beach through the trees rising up right next to it, but it was certainly tall enough to rise above all but the most rugged trees clinging to the hill.

Giggling, she stood on her hind legs and held her forelegs out. “I feel like a queen!” she shouted to the wind, letting it carry her voice across the island. She dropped back to all fours and looked around her. She spotted the green tops of trees on three other islands sitting on the edge of the horizon, two to the west and one to the south. She didn’t know exactly how far away they were, but they were well out of swimming distance; Rainbow could easily fly to them once her wing was mended, though. They might be worth exploring later. The north and eastern seas were just an infinite expanse of deep blue water, and to the south, she could clearly see a trail leading down to a pristine white beach centered on a natural lagoon. The waters there were so calm and shallow that they looked like brilliant emeralds before they faded back into the deep blue of the sea beyond the rocky ends of the lagoon. The whole thing looked like a horseshoe from where she stood. It would’ve been a beautiful place to set up a shelter, had she and Rainbow known about it. Put up a few cabanas in the sand and she could easily imagine that lagoon as the focus of an island getaway vacation.

Then she saw the trees, and her eyes widened. She didn’t waste any time trotting down the side of the hill. Licking her lips, she broke into a canter. “Oh, sweet Celestia, come to mama!”

Comments

[RoboRed]

birb

[Neece]

Something tells me Rainbow is going to live what Rarity brings her this morning.

[Snowdrifter]

Whatever Rarity found, it must be fabulous!

[Gerbold]

I do hope that they will stay on that Island a few Years at least.
The homecomming will be all the sweeter when they are both rugged hardy Island Ponies

[zaponator]

It's nanners, isn't it?