Surviving Sand Island

by The 24th Pegasus

Setting Old Feuds Aside

As the meeting broke, the two pirates went their separate way. While the survivors hung around the water, they retreated to the shadow of the eastern ridge and found minimal shade underneath the rocky overhang. After all, with the sun so high overhead and beginning to trend to the west, there wasn’t much shade anywhere around the lagoon at the moment.

“So,” Roger said, surprising Flag as they sat in the sand and watched the urchins scuttle around the sunken rocks, “is this it, then?”

Flag blinked and looked at his brother. “What do you mean?”

“Is all this shit over?” the pirate turned to Flag and raised an eyebrow. “Are we done fighting? What’s the fucking deal?”

“What do you mean, ‘what’s the fucking deal’?” Flag asked him. He gestured to where the survivors happily splashed about in the water, grown mares and stallions playing like foals. “Look at them. They’re happy to have lived. They’re happy that all this shit is over and they got through it. Do you think they really want to start a fight now?”

The younger pirate frowned at them. “It doesn’t have to be now. It can be whenever. You know?”

Sighing, Flag put a foreleg around Roger’s shoulders and pulled him closer. “Look, brother, just listen to me for once,” he said, making him meet his gaze. “I know you’re fucking paranoid about all this shit. But you know what I realized that I think you really need to think about?”

He pointed to Rainbow Dash, who flew loops and flips about the lagoon, daring Champagne and Stargazer to keep up with her. “These ponies aren’t like us. They aren’t pirates. We’ve been doing such horrible shit for so long that we forgot what normal ponies are like.”

Roger narrowed his eyes at them. “There’s no such thing as normal out here. Not anymore. Everypony had to get tough to survive this shit.”

“You can toughen up without becoming a whoreson like us,” Flag said. “Rainbow Dash did that. She fought with a demigod all night and won. And yet she’s the one insisting that we don’t cut out any pegasus hearts just to go home. Even yours.”

While Roger watched her with a frown on his face, Flag shook his head. “Go ahead; call her weak or soft, and then think about how wrong you are. A weak or soft pony couldn’t have done what she did. In fact, I think she’s the toughest one of us here. Because she’s not going to do the easiest thing, and that’s overpower you and I to get your heart so they can go home. She’s willing to stay here forever so she doesn’t have to kill anypony. Not even me or you.

“And let’s face it; we’re the ones who really don’t deserve to live. But she’s giving us another chance, now.” He gave Jolly a brotherly shake and then let go, instead leaning against the rocks at his back. “A pony like that isn’t gonna renege on a promise to keep us all alive and all safe.”

Jolly gritted his teeth as he thought. Flag knew he was arguing inwardly with himself, his pirate side fighting with what was left of the pony he once was. “I just… For as long as we’ve been on our own, since we joined Squall’s crew… ponies have always been trying to end us,” he finally said. “The Navy and privateers, bounty hunters… fuck, we couldn’t even feel safe in port. Other pirates will cut you down over a fucking bar fight. The only ponies you could trust were the ones in your crew. Squall and her crew were our family. They were the only ones we could feel safe around.”

He lazily gestured to the ponies in the lagoon. “They’re outsiders. They don’t understand. And I’ve always trusted outsiders about as far as I can shoot them, because we’re not friendship-loving good citizens. We’re lawless pirates. And so they want to do away with us whenever they get the chance.”

“Not these ones,” Flag said. “They’re not the law. Sure, two of them may have been Elements of Harmony, but that doesn’t mean anything out here. Right now, they’re just a big siren and a pegasus with parrot feathers in her wings. And Squall’s crew is dead. We’re the only survivors from it. As far as I’m concerned, they’re our crew, now.” He smiled ever so faintly. “Give them a chance, and they’ll be our family. Everything we’ve done before won’t matter anymore. We’ll just be Black Flag and Jolly Roger, two more survivors of the lost Concordia.”

“It just doesn’t seem possible,” Roger muttered. “Our lives have always been ‘take what you can and leave nothing behind,’ because if you don’t, some bastard’s gonna sneak up behind you and stab you in the back.”

Flag thought for a moment, and his eyes fell on a black-coated stallion resting on the beach next to a gray mare. “Look,” he said, gesturing in their direction. “Once upon a time, we took Coals from his ship and made him a part of our crew. The fucker thought he was going to die for the longest time, but he got over it. When he realized we weren’t actually going to kill him, he got along fine. How many times did you share a drink with him?”

Roger sighed and let his eyes fall to the sand. “More times than I can remember, to be honest.”

Flag nodded in agreement. “He became one of our crew. He was one of our family. Now he has his own crew, and we’re the odd ones out, the ones who worry that they’re going to kill us—for no reason.”

He noticed that they’d caught Coals’ eye, so he waved a lazy hoof at him. After a surprised second, Coals cautiously waved one back. “Give it time,” he said. “We can be a part of their crew, too. Rainbow’s crew. We can have a family again, and then we’ll all be in this together.”

“Together…” Roger repeated the word as if it was alien to him. But Flag knew he’d planted the seed in his brother’s mind. It was time he stopped fretting about ways of defending himself from the survivors and sought instead to make friends with them. If Rainbow Dash was right and they would be stuck here for a long time, then they needed to make friends and learn to get along. Otherwise it would be a very long rest of their lives, if the worst came to pass.

He noticed movement in front of him, and he turned his attention away from the beach and his own thoughts to the mare hovering in front of him. “Uh… hey,” Champagne said, trying to keep a smile on her off-white face. “I was going to go back to the camp and get some food and drink for everypony… do you two want any?”

“Well, that’s very kind of you,” Flag said, carelessly lolling his head back and grunting as he settled into a more comfortable position. “I’ll take some water and some fruit myself, if you don’t mind.”

Champagne blinked in surprise, obviously expecting a much harsher answer from the pirate. “Oh… okay,” she said. The corners of her mouth twitched, and then she turned her focus to Roger. “And, uh… anything for you?”

Jolly Roger was silent for a moment. Flag worried that he’d have to answer for his idiot brother, but that worry went away when he cleared his throat. “Uh… yeah, sure. Just get me whatever. I’ll happily eat it.”

The Prench mare nodded and fluttered back a few feet. “Okay, wonderful,” she said, and this time when she smiled, it seemed a little more genuine and comfortable than before, if not by much. “I’ll be right back, then.”

And she flew off to the heart of the island. Flag watched her go until she disappeared over the trees, and then he closed his eyes again and let the sun soak into his coat. Even Roger seemed a little more relaxed, if still brooding in thought. It was a start, right? Maybe with a little more time they could shed the stigma of being pirates once and for all.

After all, they had all the time in the world.

Comments

[Eroraf86]

This. I like this. This is much better than I could have hoped for. Not only does Roger get some serious character growth, but this chapter also seems to further indicate that the story isn't anywhere close to over. And that is a very good thing indeed.

[Aurora Dimmet]

9049840

-checks the next chapter-

-gigglesnorts sadly-